Day 46 Passage to Trinidad Monday 14th March 2016
11.30pm
Position 10°59'N. 060°27'W
Speed 1kt. Wind 17kts
Yeah as you can see we are heaved to and just drifting out here, although it's a bit rolly well actually more than a bit.
All our good plans went haywire, as we were hoping to be well into the passage between Trinidad and Tobago by now.
But when we turned back around to head back up we were struck with very little wind and did not make good progress at all.
We have ended up sailing past Trinidad and were almost on top of Tobago, well about 8nm always.
By this time it was around 8pm and all you could see was the lights of Tobago, I have to say I was very nervous about all this as to are starboard side we could also see lights from an oil platform, and knew that there is a least 4 there.
The Captain has done all the calculations and there is no way we are going to get to the anchorage till sometime Wednesday.
With the currents and about 80 odd nautical mile to go, we have decided yet again to turn back around.
This was a bit hairy as the winds had picked up and the current pushing us towards land we had a bit of a struggle turning this old girl around.
But eventually with the sails on the other side we made it, but man the movement was shocking I was feeling very very seasick I tell you.
But now The Captain is asleep and I'm feeling a lot better, I have at least 3 tankers on the radar , I can see at least 3 oil platforms that we know we will miss and the movement has settled down a lot.
In the early hours of this morning we had a bit of excitement, I had been keeping a close watch on a heap of oil tankers going every which way and a few fishing boats and also making sure we would miss the oil platforms.
When I noticed one very large tanker getting way to close on the AIS system.
I had already had one past in front of us at about 1 1/2 nm away, which is really plenty of room but at night time it's really hard to judge distance and it looked very very close to me.
I just settled down, from this one almost giving me a heart attack, when the 2nd one shows us.
This was a British flagged vessel named British Ruby, now it was heading straight for us on a direct collision course, doing 18.7 kts.
Now we have this a lot and we watch on the AIS and wait for them to change their heading as they get closer.
Well this guy was not changing, when it reached 4 nm and was going to pass within meters of us, the Captain woke up, maybe he could here my pirate language going down.
When it reached 2nm away The Captain grabs the radio and calls him up, we asked if he was aware of us and he said yes yes, clearly he had no idea we were there, as with in minutes he had changed 22° and pasted us by about 1/2 nm, that is still way too close in our books.
And we had another today, who we watched and must of only just saw us the last minute and changed direction real quick, I don't know what is wrong with these guys do they not keep watch, are they asleep or do they just don't care at all.
Well tomorrow is another day.