Yesterday a special new addition sailed into Second Life: a to-scale replica of HMS Beagle, the famous ship on which Charles Darwin travelled round the world.

As well as the replica of the Beagle, the Elucian Islands is also the home of the new interactive game, Notes From The Voyage, and to welcome both to Second Life, we had a launch party last night.

We were joined by special guest Dr Karen James, Darwin co-ordinator at the Natural History Museum, London and Science Director of The Beagle Project. Karen (henceforth to be known as K2 Snowpaw) cut the ribbon of HMS Beagle, served up the virtual champagne and talked to visitors about the ship before giving a fascinating talk all about her work on the (real) Beagle Project.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening and it was great to see so many people turn out to join us. There are many excellent photos of the proceedings and some video to come. If you came and took any pics I’d love to see them. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry – you can still visit the Beagle and play the game now. Watch out – the llamas bite.

PS: Sappy and against my instincts, but as I’m no longer a repressed Brit: many, many thanks are due to everyone who pulled this whole project together. My Nature colleague SecondLou Skytower masterminded everything and manfully resisted the temptation to smash virtual champagne bottles when things inevitably went wrong; MadPea Productions created the game and did a fantastic job and along with Equinox Braveheart and his building team went above and beyond the call of duty to make it a success. More thanks undoubtedly to come tomorrow when Lou tells me the dozens of people I forgot! Sorry…