Journal Entry – May 12, 2005 Pacific Puddle Jump Day 8 – Atlantis Discovered

Author: Scott

There is a conspiracy out here in the middle of the ocean. Whenever I am off watch some little event causes me to get back up. On Wednesday night I had just settled down and the sea woke up right on schedule. Scott tries to sleep and the wind and seas begin to toil.. It is amazing to me just how many sounds you hear on a boat when it is jostled around by the waves. We must have a million items on the boat (minus one can of Span) and they each have their own sound. You wouldn’t believe how much noise a water bottle rolling around in the sink can make. Well, I have never been one to let noise or movement alone keep me awake and I fitfully forced myself to sleep, just then Pam came down to tell me that there was a contact on the radar only three miles away. We both jumped into our anti collision mode with Pam on radar and me on the helm. We radioed the vessel and of course they were not answering. We changed course to make sure that we were abeam of each other, and though it was not a close call it s very unnerving to have a big monster ship come within a mile of your position in this great expanse of space. When the excitement of the ship passing was over we both realized that our engine was making a funny squeaking noise. Nothing is spookier than a new noise on the boat. There may be a million different noises aboard, but you do learn the meaning of each one, and this was no water bottle rolling around. So, no sleep for me, I went into diesel repair mode. It turns out that our V belt had come a little loose and it was the culprit for the squeak, and when I looked at the amp meter I realized the same belt was also not running the alternator and we were barely generating any power. It was a quick adjustment and finally I got to go back to sleep. Pam gave me a little extra time off watch, but I was dragging a little all of the next day.

Thursday (Day 8) seemed to fly by. We had great radio reception on the Amigo Net and got the low down on the other vessels at sea. Breakfast was a Zone Bar.

For the fish report, we trolled for a second day and had no success by lunchtime, so I changed lures to the pink and blue guy with the bugged out eyes. No luck for the rest of the day. Fish two, Tournesol 0.

For lunch we had Spam Sandwich leftovers and we both tried to nap due to our rambunctious prior night.

A mysterious thing happened during our nighttime watch schedule. I was just falling asleep on my first sleep period when Pam woke me because she had a strange sighting of in the distance. The target showed on radar as though it was a vessel, probably a freighter, but when we looked above deck it was all lit up like a cruise ship. What made it even more unique was that it did not seem to be moving in any direction. We determined that we were on a safe course and that we would approach the object with it 3.5 miles to our starboard beam. When we attempted radio communication with the target, we got no response. As we approach it, the intensity of its many lights grew, and it eventually looked like a very well lit building, as bright as a baseball stadium. We were not close enough for us to gather more visual information due to our limited sight. We do not show any data for this object on our charts and it is too large to be an atlas weather mooring buoy. We decided then and there that it was either a space ship hiding out in the middle of the Pacific, or part of the lost city of Atlantis. You decide.