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In the log of April 22, 2005, Pete answered the question
Are you still enjoying it out there?
Tonight I’m enjoying it,not so last night.
The same watch last night was a horror.We had lots of rain squalls, wind 5-35 kts from every direction short steep lumpy seas.The self steering couldn’t handle this so I hand steered standing in the rain.This watch starts with the moon going down and ends at dawn.In heavy cloud conditions it’s pitch black.
Late in the watch I noticed the hint of a light to the left of our bow,you could only see it occasionally through the gloom.Thought it was a ship so switched on the radio ch.16.The light was steady on the bow but seemed to be moving left to right,then the light disappeared.
Two things,it could in a rain squall or it could be something more sinister,a boat switching it’s lights off to avoid detection.I didn’t want to consider the second option,so altered course a little to the left and waited.Nothing on the radio and nothing sighted.After what seemed a bloody long time I had enough,I tacked the boat to port and moved 100 deg. further left.
A little later it started to get light I looked astern and there emerging from the low cloud and gloom was this huge ship about a mile away. It was one of those modern box shaped slab sided grey megamonsters. The bit I enjoyed was watching him move quickly away from us. Was he aware of us I don’t know but at that distance we would definitely be a blip on his radar.
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The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added: