Arabian Sea - Day 2
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Fri 18 Feb 2011 11:00
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20:40.49N 67:54.82E
Friday 18th February
We had a glorious day sailing yesterday and
managed to conserve some fuel, a topic of great importance at the moment. 3
boats in the group, of which we are one, have to run their engines at full
speed to go as quick as the bigger boats want to go, this obviously uses a
lot of fuel. The other three aren't happy with running their engines on low revs
to go at speeds that we are more comfortable with because that uses more fuel
than if they go quicker. We're struggling to find a happy medium!
We've been lucky so far in that we've had
moonlight to show us the way throughout the night but as last night was
a full moon it'll now be on it's way down. Unless you've sailed during
the night, away from land, under a full moon, it really is difficult to
explain and understand - it's beautiful! The only problem we have is that it's
so cold! We've been wearing clothes during the day, not just bikini's and shorts
and of a night time we're fully covered up. Last night Amy wore trousers tucked
into socks so that the cold air couldn't get up her legs, a big t-shirt, two
hoodies with both hoods up and a woolly hat! I'd say it was because she has a
rotten cold but Paul and myself were wrapped up too.
During the whole course of the night we had
a lot of activity with tankers running either side of our course. When one was
to our starboard side all the lights suddenly went out and the ship disappeared.
We all quickly turned our lights off and called the Bahrain forces - our
immediate thought was that it was a mother ship. We gave them the name of the
ship, which we could see on their AIS, and they said the ship was fine. The
ship obviously thought that we were a group of pirate ships! Everyone is on
edge! We've also had others who have come past without their AIS on, this is
because the pirates do have the facilities to be able to use AIS, as well as
radar facilities, but unfortunately being spotted on radar is something no ship
can avoid.
It's a windless morning, the engine is
making a racket, Paul is calculating our fuel consumption, Amy is feeling sorry
for herself and I'm just about to make egg on toast!
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