Still bobbing along – day 18

Last night we suddenly received a VHF test on the radio. Frank had never heard of this before. The next thing, we hear Kariwa, Kariwa, Kariwa on the radio. It was the captain – yes, the captain, at 2am – of the car carrier passing within a few miles of us. He asked if we had any problems because his mate had called him after receiving the same test signal on VHF. They thought it may be us sending a distress signal. After all the formalities, he and Frank had a half hour conversation about shipping. He was from Estonia and his deck officers were Russian. The rest of the crew were from India. He was en route Chile to Japan to pick up 5000 vehicles. The sea was (and still is) quite rough, 7ft on the beam. We are having to hang on while trying to move round the boat. Needless to say, I will not be cooking tonight, so, out come the frozen dinners I made before we left.

We had a bit of a moon last night, a waxing crescent moon so it comes up and goes down in almost the same place and is only visible for a couple of hours. After having total darkness recently, it seemed very bright out there.

I am still busy with my knitting, it has been slow going. Frank is trying to edit video but its hard concentrating on the screen while the boat is moving around like this.

Day 19

Conditions are still the same. I managed to have a shower and wash my hair, was a bit of a struggle but its done now. The drinks fridge in the pilot house had cans rolling around making a noise so I have restocked it. We do not have alcohol at all on passage, so when I say drinks, I mean 7up, Coke, Fresca etc. for Frank. I drink only water. I did put some beer in the fridge in the galley in preparation for arrival in Nuku Hiva.