March 15, 2007 - Maldives to Oman, Day 4
by George & Merima

Hi Everyone!

We really can't ask for much better sailing conditions, as the winds have been pretty steady between 10 and 15 knots on the beam for the last day, and the engine has been quiet. We had our best day's run for the passage so far at 181 nautical miles.

We came from the back roads into the busy shipping lanes starting yesterday morning. Merima called me on deck as she thought she had spotted a small island. I would have thought so too, excepting there were no charted islands for about 500 miles in any direction. Looking through the spynoculars, we could see that it was a fully loaded container ship. The only difference was that this one was easily more than twice the size of any other we'd seen before. It was eight miles off, so all we could see were the stacks of containers above deck level. I did a quick guesstimate and figured that that ship could have been carrying 5000 containers on board. From the bridge, which was about two-thirds of the way aft, the containers were stacked so that they gently sloped down to the bow. This was obviously so they could have some visibility forward, but resulted in it looking like the slope of a small volcanic island.

We continued to see ships and possibly a fishing boat or two into the evening. Kurt reckons the fishing boats are wasting their time out here, as there are no fish.

Otherwise, it was a very pleasant and relaxing day at sea. Merima whipped up a batch of red beans and rice for dinner and afterwards we all had some good belly laughs listening to Kevin Bloody Wilson.

We expect to reach the half way point before happy hour today.

Cheers, George, Merima, Kurt and Tim