We tacked...

Since leaving Hawaii we've been on the same tack for a week.  We weren't supposed to tack yet for 2 more days, but Tuesday morning about 1:00 a big honkin' container ship breached our area of solitude.
It's funny how you can be nearly 1000 miles from land, from just about *anything*, yet manage to be on a course that
takes you right near another ship like this.  Gautam and I were on watch at 1 am, and Phil was on deck with us.
He spotted the lights, and of course when that happens our first priority is to figure out where it's headed.
Between radar and AIS it showed that we would be passing very close or should I say way too close.  As with the earlier ship we encountered. We had visual and radar contact with them before we had the AIS information, thus we knew they were there but we did not yet know their name.  Since they're often oblivious to the presence of smaller boats we decided to alter course instead of calling them. That involved wrestling the spinnaker down so we could cross behind them.
All I could think of was "the nerve of them!"  To blunder into our path, and not even seem to notice us.
It was a big relief to watch their stern light shrink into the night. This was good preparation for the possibility of more to come.

-Gavin