Hi, It’s Wednesday morning , 7 am Mauritius time We have 650 odd miles to go,should arrive on 14th, hope customs work on Sunday, or we are stuck on board until Monday! Arti and John are having their beauty sleep, and so I am doing the report. Seas are calmer, we sailed most of yesterday, wind died and we motored through the night. At 3 am Arti was on watch, and heard a conversation in a strange language (not French), detecting two radar shadows ahead and became concerned about pirates. We are, in theory, in range if they use a mother ship, as they have done in the past. It is unusual for large ships not to have AIS on (Automatic ship identification), so she went “silent”. Our AIS was put off, as were our lights and she called me. The radar detected a ship on our path, so we changed course and silently motor-sailed past. At 6 miles we saw their lights, they were a large vessel, showing lights. They wouldn’t be able to see us on radar, as we are fiberglass, and it was too dark to see us at that range, with no lights. They are probably innocent, but we aren’t taking any chances. They are now 25 miles behind us, so we are safe, but will wait before putting AIS on as we can still pick up their VHF transmissions (AIS works on VHF). I don’t think they are pirates as they didn’t say “ARRGH, ME HEARTIES” and Arti says “nor did anyone mention the name Jack Sparrow. Bit scarry Pa.” !
Today we will need to motor about 60 miles then should be able to sail. The temp is cool now, sea was 27 degrees celcius, now 22. John has promised us crumbed Mahi Mahi for dinner. Last night we had an Irish breakfast as dinner—Mashed potato with shallots, onion and bacon in it and whole egg cooked in a hole in it. It was very tasty!
Love to all,
Dimitri & Arti
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