19:32.40N 64:48.24E
Bryan writes...
Quite a few flying fish have ‘soared too high’ and ended up ‘sleeping with the fishes’ on the deck against the toe rails. One especially athletic individual bounced off our spray hood and ended up in our washing up bucket! Nik, being the environmentalist (and knowing that they are too bony to eat...) threw him back in the sea. Joff and I captured another one to observe his ‘wings’.
We left the Maldives with about thirty flies from the fly-ridden Male anchorage, who managed to stow away despite our mosquito net defences. We’re now down to the last two or three. If they last the next five hundred miles, they deserve a good home in the UAE.
We have passed the usual assortment of oil super tankers and huge container ships, and know that the number will only increase as we near Ras Al Hadd. We also passed a wooden dhow- I don’t know how those things stay upright in the Dubai Creek let alone on the high seas.
We also had a chat through our plans, in the unlikely event of a pirate attack. I do think that the chances are very slim, but after our ‘Fishing Boat Pinball’ adventures off Sri Lanka where you don’t now their intentions, it’s good to have a plan of sorts. Based on Joff and Niks shocked expressions, it was probably a good idea that I left this part of the briefing until after the half way point.
The other day we passed an american navy resupply vessel. As it passed us about a mile to our port, he disappeared completely from our radar. Someone must have accidently pressed the ‘stealth’ button. A helicopter took off from the rear pad, but didn’t buzz us as expected, but headed in the general direction of Yemen. Oddly enough, that night we saw white parachute and red flares being fired from and at a ship about nine miles off our port quarter. We assumed it was an exercise, but ones imagine can get the best of one out here; attach on coalition warship...? Pirate attack...? Sinking ship...?
