Monday 4th June

At sea

2 42.550 N
80 16.040 W (at Midnight)

Many happy returns of the day Laura, we hope your 14th year is a good one.

Once again the day dawned overcast, we have been surprised at the weather as we expected it to be a bit hotter and the sky much clearer as we get closer to the Equator. The good news was that we managed to sail all day without the aid of the mechanical wind. I threw the fishing line in the water – ever hopeful and was shocked when the alarm went off. Gerry was closest to the line at the time and began to reel it in as the lure drew nearer to the boat we could see a fish flapping on the hook then suddenly about 6 feet from the boat we saw a fish fin surface and dive away. The line went slack and that was our dinner gone for the day. We weren’t sure but we think that something big snatched our catch as the wire that attaches the hook to the line was cut in two – we lost my favourite pink lure to add to the misery. Not to be put off we dug out a new lure and threw the line back in, unfortunately we had missed our fish for the day, I had to find something in the freezer again! During the afternoon we were sailing along, approximately 120 miles off the nearest coastline (Colombia) in the middle of nowhere and we were discussing the fact that we had clothing on and was it necessary, after all who is going to drop by and see us? Roughly 10 minutes after this discussion Gerry asked me what "that humming noise" was, I hadn’t heard it but then all of a sudden out to our port side a small plane appeared out of the clouds, it came closer and lower to us and then we were able to identify the US Coastguard insignia on it. The plane was a Hercules C130 according to Gerry, it had a camera attached to the front of it so we waved at it and smiled for the photo opportunity. The pilot took a long sweep all the way around us – TWICE. I hope he got some good pictures we must have looked spectacular flying along under sail. Thank goodness we had clothes on! There was no radio contact, we obviously didn’t look too suspicious and after his look around he headed off in the direction of the Colombia coast. Needless to say we talked and joked about the "what ifs" – just goes to show you big brother IS watching you even when you are in the middle of nowhere apparently alone. That was the excitement over for the day. We caught no fish and after a dinner out of the freezer we began the night watches.