Yesterdays unpleasant weather was abating this morning, and now the sea state is much less lumpy with a wind moderate in bright sun.  However, the GRIB files downloaded yesterday suggest rougher conditions again in the early hours of tomorrow.    

Current position   42:18.84N 44:02.77W     

 

Had an odd experience the night before last.  The motion of the boat changed and woke me up.  The wind had changed a bit.  After a bit of fiddling with the sails, we seemed to be going better.  We had been in fairly strong mist for some hours, although it must have been sea level only because the brightest stars were just visible through it.  It was a lovely peaceful moment. I looked around and at one point the mist seemed just a bit brighter than everywhere else.  Popping down to the instruments there were no incoming radar signals, as one might expect from a large vessel.  There was also nothing on AIS.  The spot of lighter mist seemed to have become slightly lighter - the sort of illumination that might come from a large vessel.  

 

I took a bearing on it, and again after 5 minutes.  The bearing did not change suggesting that we were on a collision course.  The patch of light was definately getting very slowly brighter. 

 

I got out the horn and sounded the signal for a ailing vessel, two to three times, but there was no change in the bearing of the light.  I was about to go 'downstairs' to talk on the VHF when the mist swirled and the patch of brightness suddenly looked much brighter and curiously rounded:  It was the moon.