Episode 42 - A Pirate Encounter Sailing to Africa!

We are free... Sailing the beautiful Mediterranean Sea! After weeks of work and turmoil we finally drop our lines, lose sight of land and sail our way across to Melilla, in Morocco. About a third of the way across as night fell, we become aware of a very fast moving boat, which is following us! It kept approaching and backing off, finally after passing beyond the shipping channel and away from any radio contact we were approached at speed. The unmarked vessel with a huge search light circled in front of us came around the back and was approaching us from behind... We were getting more and more concerned, especially with our children on board, so as they crossed in front of us, about a quarter of a mile off we took the tough decision to go completely stealth. We turned off all lights, including all our nav lights, and turned our AIS off so we wasn't trackable. It was a tense few hours and the vessel shone its light around in our rough direction, but thankfully didn't find us! It's amazing how big the sea is and how hard it is to find another vessel in complete darkness... thank god for the cloudy moonless sky! After quite a while they gave up and went off and as we approached another large ship, which we could also radio if necessary, we put our nav lights back on and as the daylight broke we put our AIS transponder back on too. We are safe and well, just possibly a little nervous to make the return journey! Join us next episode as we explore the beautiful and unique Melilla. Massive Thank You to our lovely Patrons who are helping to make all this possible! If you enjoy our episodes please consider supporting us, we love to share our adventures with you, and it really does help make all this possible! Jump aboard at http://www.patreon.com/sailingpicklefamily. You can also find us at Facebook and Instagram. http://www.facebook.com/sailingpicklefamily http://www.facebook.com/chris.sailingpickle.79 http://www.facebook.com/beaupickle http://www.instagram.com/sailingpickle http://www.instagram.com/chrissailingpickle http://www.instagram.com/beaupickle http://www.tiktok.com/nickypiccalilli http://www.tiktok.com/beaupickle Some music by www.bensound.com