THE THING
Scot Free III
Frank & Anne
Fri 24 Feb 2017 07:30
Wind: F2-3 SE. Swell~1m. Forecast: Wind to increase F4-5 and backing E through Friday.
About 600 miles to go. A few years ago that would have seemed like a major voyage. Now, it's just the last part of a journey, the bit that seems to take forever.
Apart from trying to catch the weed, before it builds up too much, and clearing it from the servo rudder (with a cunning new boathook technique) the only notable event of the day was a ship coming within a mile of our position. Except, that is, for..... THE THING.
Something; has been following us for the best part of a day. It appears only as a number on our depth sounder display. Usually 20 metres sometimes 40 but occasionally 12, 10, 7..... Directly beneath the boat. It is keeping up a remarkably constant pace with us. The depth here is 4,000 metres, so it could be anything. It never surfaces (or does so very discreetly) so that probably rules out dolphin or whale. A shoal of fish? Unusual for them to follow a boat for so long. We first noticed it when we had the electo-hydraulic auto-pilot running, during one of our weeding sessions. It makes a soft, whale-like, mournful, moaning noise, but even when this was switched off and we were back on the silent Windpilot, IT was still following us.
The only thing we can think of is a large deep-sea shark. I think I'll keep my toes out of the water later today when having my shower at the back of the boat....