HMAS Ballarat and HMAS Maitland have been involved in some pretty closely co-ordinated pattern sailing since the early hours of this morning near Christmas Island.

This is HMAS Ballarat - an Anzac Class Frigate

This is HMAS Maitland an Armidale Class Patrol Boat

And this was their track early on this morning.

Since then PhilB has been zeroing in on their activity here

this was about 20 minutes ago from Phil

Seems the AIS plot has reset itself from 1130EST and now is only providing historical tracks from then - both ships are still concentrating on a small area with a base line search of 300 - 120degrees approximately. Their CPA (closest point of approach)  is still 2nm. Wind is still 15kts but there would be plenty of white caps making any search difficult using the mark one eyeball - radar would at that range be useless because of "clutter" from the seas. Going fishing in about an hour but will keep you posted for a while longer.