Refrigerators Anyone?

On passage to Newcastle we received a call over the VHF. Every sailor's nightmare. A passing ship had dropped six containers overboard and a bunch of refrigerators. Two containers were reported to be floating one metre above the water and the other four were unaccounted for. The position of the two floaters was right on our track. Fortunately we didn't see any of the containers but then again, the likelihood of seeing something floating just above the waterline in a three metre swell are just about zero. We later heard that that a container washed up on a beach south of Newcastle but the whereabouts of the other five remains a mystery. I was sitting back in the cockpit minding my own business when a refrigerator drifted pass - we had missed it by less than a metre. For the next few miles I saw other floating white panels that I assume we're the remnants of other fridges that either broke up when the hit the water or someone else had hit them and broken them up.

Today, on passage to Port Stephens we are on refrigerator watch again because there are fresh warnings that they are floating, again, directly on our track. No mention of any containers.