At the time of writing (early afternoon, Monday 20^th August) Indy is in the midst of his desert crossing. Over the preceding ten hours, we have received a series of locations that tracked his progress as he moved almost due south from Tunisia into eastern Algeria. Prior to today, we last heard from his tag on 15^th August, when he was still in northern Italy. We hope Indy is fully fuelled and that, when his tag starts transmitting again (due Wednesday afternoon), he will be in hospitable country on the south side of the Sahara. 

No further transmissions have been received from Iolo in Libya or Lloyd in Italy since the 9 August. Indy also remains in northern Italy and we last heard from him on the 13 August. 

Having had the opportunity to scrutinise the data from the past few days, we can confirm that Indy does indeed appear to have been over the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily and only 154km (95 miles) from the coast of Libya, early in the morning of Monday 23 July.  Locations received in the first few hours after dawn suggest that he was heading ENE and then due N – back towards Italy – at that time. We know Indy would have encountered a strong headwind if he was originally heading south at this time, so he may turned north in reaction to this when finding himself over the sea and out of sight of land at dawn, presumably having assessed his body fuel reserves as being inadequate. However, we can’t rule out the possibility he may have been returning north having previously made landfall in Libya or Tunisia. Certainly at this time of year there will be few re-fuelling opportunities in North Africa east of the Atlas Mountains.

Over the past few days we have received a confusing series of locations for Indy, which are difficult to make sense of because the large potential errors associated with them.  Having received locations on Monday 23 July suggesting that Indy was over the Mediterranean, south-east of Sicily, we then received locations for him on Wednesday 25 July that suggested he was on the west coast of Italy, northwest of Rome. It is not clear whether Indy has really flown south and then re-traced his steps but we should be able to find out later today when his tag starts transmitting again.

Having spent most of July in northern Italy, Indy is on the move. Several poor locations received this morning indicate that he is over the Mediterranean Sea, 240km (140 miles) south east of the southern tip of Sicily.