Kartoffelacker for us but the wind for others. Unfair!

(“Kartoffelacker” translates to ” potato field” and refers to the field after harvesting the potatoes. It’s a synonym for the ground being fully bumpy. Thus, German speaking sailors use this term for a very bumpy sea after some clouds passed through.)

They there must have been not too far away some nice cloud introduced wind but we did not get really a part of it.

Tonight at 2200 we saw again on the AIS screen 3 Chinese fishing boats. They belong to the same group as we saw yesterday. The interesting thing today is that they were 3, and 2 of them showed the country ID in their MMSI with “911” , which does not exist in the official list.

Later on, at about 0100 another group of 3 ships. The name pattern is the same as before. It looks like one is the”mother ship” and the two other do support work. In both cases the mother ship disappeared as soon as we came closer. Why?
One of the smaller ships came pretty close to us. Distance about 100 m. Some of the crew were standing at the bow area and looking. 1 or 2 of the onlookers waved their hand; we replied. From the boat’s movement I got the impression they were trawling.

With boats at sea I’m in general very carefully. When crossing over from Panama to the Gambiers we also met 2 times “strange” boats.

Somewhat after 0200 the wind increased and peaked even with 30 KN and we made some NM. The sky is still hanging full of clouds but it looks currently, 0930, as if the rain discontinues. Weather radar still shows something it’s hanging around between 4 and 12 NM in up-wind direction. Wind is around 14 KN. Wind waves reached around 2 m and a short uncomfortable swell of about also 2 m rolls on from easterly directions. Waves are slamming at MaRe’s hulls making uncomfortable sound. I feel like suffering won’t MaRe whenever she get slammed. We are still on the “Kartoffelacker”!

It was not the most pleasant night, but we have now less then 300 NM to go.

Let’s see what will come up. I’ll now make a thermos full of tea to be prepared for more wind to come.