Mirror ITCZ, Ship Sighted
31 March 2019 | 808nm to Hiva 'Oa at 246* Magnetic
Sam
After turning off the engine at about 5*S 120*W, we had about a day of smooth sailing before another squally night while crossing the mirror ITCZ. While we've been getting weather reports on the morning radio net from SV Let It Be out of Banderas Bay, as well as weather faxes and GOES satellite images, the ITCZ moves around much faster than we do, so avoidance isn't really an option. But being prepared is another story, so when we saw an endless wall of clouds approaching on the evening of the 28th (Happy Birthday Mom!), we put two reefs in the main, furled in a bit of the genoa, and prepared for a night of (mostly) hand steering. Unlike the northern ITCZ, the wind didn't die every time the clouds passed us and we made good way over the course of the night, mostly getting just wind and not too much rain.
About two hours before sunrise I saw a bright light on the horizon, and after a few minutes could tell it wasn't just another rising star. The radio nets have been giving me plenty of practice calling other ships lately, so I put out a few securite calls to see if they'd respond. Nothing. The light was yellowish, and only once did I see faint red from the port running light. It seemed they were headed towards us, roughly at least. Probably 12 miles away, I kept an eye on them and started tracking with radar, but there was too much rain around us to get a consistent return. Without having a compass integrated into our radar, we can only track the boat's relative bearing to us, but that changes often in squally conditions when it's not possible to steer perfectly straight. Thirty or forty minutes passed, and the ship was still off our port bow just slightly farther forward than previously, now 6nm away. More securite calls, and no answer. We turned on all of our deck lights and held our course a bit longer, hoping it would cross our bow before forcing us to make an evasive tack or jibe. Now I could see that it's entire deck was lit up with lights, very bright, and still no running lights. Not wanting to stare at this ship's bow any longer, we turned left, into the wind, and sailed on a close reach with the ship just a few degrees off our starboard bow. Our speed was 5-6 knots, the ship's probably 15, and while this wasn't a huge change in our course, it was enough to keep the ship on our starboard, slowly moving from our bow to beam.
It was nice to see daylight that morning, with that avoidance behind us, and the SE trade winds ahead. Now we're in clear skies with starry nights, new constellations, and a bright milky way, seas calm enough to bring the laptop up to the cockpit at the end of my night watch. So here's to another blog post and another ~800nm of smooth sailing!