Moving satisfactorily NE towards the barn door. No predictions.
Lurking dangers - passed a white buoy about 10 metres to stbd. Looked as if it was supporting something so looked further and yep - 200 metes away, another one, with a flagpole. Cods and wallops - how deep is this stuff? Did we run over it? Has it escaped from somewhere else or is there a fishing boat around? Half an hour later, big white fishing boat hoons up over the horizon to the SW and towards the gear. At least one answer...
Then, during a very black night, I decided a smock was the way to go too keep warm, took a quick squizz around the horizon and nothing in sight, went down found smock and brought it to the cockpit where I sat to leeward and struggled into it (easier down below, standing rather than sitting)stuck my head out of the top and there off the stbd bow, about a mile away, a vessel's lights crossing from right to left - so we are the give way vessel. Very quick sort of sheets, Kevvo etc and we're heading east and behind him but a close shave - no idea whether he was trawling, long lining or what, but the odd thing was that I could see a red light all the way to the horizon, so might have been part of a fishing signal. Impossible to work out what the lights mean on some of these boats.
Then, next watch, lights on the horizon, port quarter. Constant bearing, 2 white, one green so we stand on. Watch him closely and about 2 miles away, a definite turn to starboard and he's headed behind us. Was a very big ship, bulk carrier of some sort, heading roughly east. My AIS black box has not worked since leaving Newcastle with it's hundreds of ships, so I don't know any more
Can someone please tell me how Scott is going on Everest?
