Thursday, February 19, 2009

Signs of life

The radar detector has been busy beeping today, but frequent scans of the horizon revealed nothing with a radar. Finally late this afternoon I spotted a container ship. The first boat since leaving Male' over a week ago. A little later the VHF burst into life, one ship calling another to negotiate who would give way. Confirmation that I'd reached the shipping lanes. It gave me the chance to experiment with the radar to make it sound an alarm if another boat is heading too close. I've rarely use this feature as I'm normally worried about the power drain on the batteries, and besides I don't want to discourage my crew from keeping a vigilant look-out. However without crew I might as well make use of all the technical back-up I can, and the combination of the solar panel and wind generator, especially as I'm beating into the wind, are providing surplus power.

I'm slowly making my way through the monster tuna. Hopefully with a midnight feast tonight and second breakfast tomorrow I might be able to put the line out again and hope for mahi-mahi.

I'm currently holding my own and keeping about 50 miles ahead of the convoy, there are still a couple of days to go before we converge, so plenty of time to slow down.

Position @ 12:15 (GMT+5), 19/02/2009: N11deg 27' E061deg41'
Distance to Gulf of Aden: 289
Engine Hours: 0
Daily run: 143

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