In the Indian Ocean and Java Sea there have been hundreds of fishing boats, rafts, rubbish, tankers and oil platforms to dodge.

There have also been a couple of tugs at night with white lights indicating that they are towing, no other navigation lights, and they are towing huge oil platforms up to half a mile behind them which are completely unlit. Quite a scary site when the huge platform emerges out of the darkness !

You can see the strings of lights on the fishing boat above which are illuminated at night to attract the fish.

The fleets of boats appear as very bright white lights that are dotted around the whole horizon and have no other navigation lights so it is impossible to judge their direction.

Some of the smaller boats come very close in order to get rid of any bad spirits from their vessels by throwing them on to us as they pass !