The Java Sea continues to keep us on our toes. Yesterday we passed dozens of FADs, but unlike the small house-style structures we'd seen earlier, these were little more than floating platforms sitting awash. Most had nothing protruding above the surface at all. A handful carried tiny flags, but they were so small they were not visible until you could already see the platform itself, making them useless as a warning.
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| There is a raft under here! |
With so many of them scattered across the water, I spent most of the night on edge. There's zero margin for error when you're trying to spot an object in the dark thats awash, so I backed the engine RPM off slightly to reduce our speed.
We managed to get the mainsail up yesterday for a few hours of sailing, which made a change after so much motoring. Unfortunately the wind gradually shifted. As we followed it around, our VMG steadily dropped and our course started taking us towards a field of oil and gas platforms. Gybing would have put us so far off our intended track that there was little to gain, so the sail came down and the engine went back to work.
The night itself was fairly routine by Java Sea standards. The usual procession of fishing boats, tug and barge combinations, and commercial shipping kept us busy, but nothing particularly exciting developed. Around here, a quiet night simply means there was nothing trying especially hard to hit you. The choke points where all the shipping meets make me feel there is less chance of hitting a raft as surely they will already have been smashed by the shipping.