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This evening at just after 2100 I was standing on the Quarterdeck enjoying a romping good sail at over 8 knots with the fair breeze coming over our stern and the stars shining brightly through the breaks in the clouds when a call came across the VHF asking for a vessel at our position. The caller identified himself as "Warship 64". Our mate on watch, Paul, responded quickly- asking Ella to take over the helm so that he could respond on the VHF as we sped on through the darkness towards a ship that had just turned on it's nav lights.
The radio conversation was brief. We made the switch to a working radio channel, then the warship confirmed our position, speed, heading, and range. They had us moving at about 9 knots. We already knew that we were making good time and now everyone within VHF range, who had all probably followed the conversation to channel 72, were also treated to hearing that we were enjoying the fair wind spiriting us along to Lanzarote at over 8 knots. They had us at a range of 10,000 yards. Paul reported our description to the warship, slowly and clearly emphasizing that we are a sailing school vessel. After we confirmed our identity, they were apparently satisfied. They continued on a course parallel and opposite to ours with their nav lights on. Soon after passing us they turned off all exterior lights and tried to blend into the moonless night.
We could still see them, though. It was pretty much immediately after the radio conversation ended that the joking began on the quarterdeck. First it
was- "Yeah, thanks for confirming our position. We've been navigating using stars and dead reckoning for the last few days." We considered calling them back and asking for an escort if they weren't busy, or setting up an UNREP (underway replenishment) operation to get ice cream. It also seemed humorous that they seemed to be trying to be stealthy on the one hand by extinguishing their nav lights and running dark, but they had just called us on the VHF, broadcast their identity and position, and we could still see them on the horizon and on radar. Stealthy? Not stealthy enough to escape the vigilant eyes of our night watch. And on it went.
So, the radio exchange, which was all of about 1 minute, resulted in an entire watch worth of entertainment. It really was a pleasant change from the "Monkey Radio" broadcast that we had been listening to for the previous few evenings. "Monkey Radio" was some guy filling up channel 16, a hailing and distress radio frequency which we are required to monitor, with recorded monkey sounds, calls to the "banana boat", sounds of cats meowing, and so on. He came on just as the sun went down and kept broadcasting his nonsense for hours. Listening to any few minutes of it was really quite funny, but it all became a little stale after an hour or more. It also made the channel useless for its' intended use.
It seems that there is always something interesting every night under way. I am still fascinated by how everything is so different from the daytime. We rely heavily on the information we gather by sight about what is going on around us, and when that is taken away, or severely limited, it amplifies our other senses. So too for the imagination: I doubt that the warship encounter would have been nearly so engaging had it happened in the daylight. We wouldn't have been wondering about the mysterious vessel before they called us, and we could have clearly seen where they were going before they got close and after they passed us. The little bits of mystery when trying to figure out what is actually going on around us at night while at sea are something that I really enjoy about passagemaking.
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