All of a sudden at about 10pm last night, Clare saw a bright white-orange light appear off the port beam of QUASAR IV. It did not appear slowly from a distance, it just appeared instantly. This is always worrying with thoughts of '...did I fall asleep on watch...' going through the mind. Our vessel tracker equipment called AIS did not show up anything, but the radar clearly showed the object 3.5 Nm away and heading...away from us. It had been much closer, but not visible. Within 5 minutes, it suddenly disappeared as fast as it appeared. Strange. Just before 1am this morning, a similar light appeared but much closer much to my concern as I was now on watch. I immediately went below and checked on the radar, but this time there was no sign of an object. I shot back on deck and the light had gone, with no sign of anything in sight. A strong coffee was the order of the day, or rather night, and thoughts of why we were being stalked by a submarine started to run through my mind, a submarine being the only possible vessel that could have provided the entertainment for the night. Either that, or the Martians are playing games with our minds....Anyway, good sailing today, with a constant Force 4 from behind us and sailing along with genoa only making good progress. The dreaded leak that re-appeared is finally plugged and proved to be a leaking ball-valve on an above-water line through-hull fitting in the bottom of the cockpit locker. Above the water line that is when the boat is not heeled over to starboard when it becomes submerged and under pressure! Now that that is fixed, it is much easier sleeping than it had been, especially for me! Astronavigation has proved a bit tricky on this route as we have seen no sun or stars for 3 days now at the right times of day, so the GPS continues to tell us where it thinks we are. It seems about right I think...Now, for tonight's dinner, spaghetti bolognese, without the mince. Time to get creative I think....