“29:42.618N 68:05.898W”

We were preoccupied today with flying fish and later several strange “vessels” whose AIS signal were designed to induce trepidation.

Firstly flying fish are the only living creatures you see out here, no birds to be seen unless you include my lovely wife!  So you watch the silvery blue flying fish skipping the waves and wanting to applaud them when they succeed in skimming like stones from wave top to wave top for hundreds of feet.

The AIS signals appeared as slow moving targets running towards us and would pass within 0.5NM.  The vessel names were like navy identification codes and when we turned as on a collision course towards them the signal disappeared only to return when we turned away........strange!  At one time there were four of these signals that appeared to be coming towards us, we tried radioing them but with no response.  One signal stated that it was 420’ by 220’ wide. We could not see them even as we approached within a mile, although it was a big sea so it would be difficult to spot any low freeboard craft,    We concluded that they were some sort of beacons in the water and eventually we did spot a small buoy that might have been one.  What they are and what they are doing will have to wait until we get to Bermuda although we suspect them to be some sort of intelligent tracking device.