Before you start thinking Dan has gone off the deep end like Jack Nickelson in The Shining, I should explain…
Last night, Dan had the “dog watch” from midnight to 4 a.m. He noticed a pretty significant light slightly above the horizon that seemed to change colors from white to red, much like the tricolor light we and many other sailboats have on the top of the mast. This boat didn’t have AIS or show up on radar, but that is definitely not unheard of. Sailboats are often made of fiberglass and radar doesn’t always ping off of fiberglass. Sailing toward this sailboat, it definitely had constant bearing on our bow, so Dan was concerned about a possible collision waiting to happen in the near future. Dan decided to call the sailboat on VHF radio, but alas, no one responded. He then thought to grab my Droid, which has the sky app on it. Lo and behold, he holds the omniscient electronic device to the sky, and what does he learn? Yup, that sailboat is Jupiter—the RED planet. Hee, hee, hee. Funny thing is I made the same mistake the other night when it was foggy, but instead of trying to contact life on another planet, I just waited to see if it appeared to get closer. Jupiter is incredibly bright out here, brighter than most ship lights we see…except for the one Ari and I saw last night. I have never seen a ship with so many lights. I kid you not—I think they had a floodlight on every surface of the ship. I could actually see the glow of this ship before he came on my horizon. I felt like I was sailing to Ocean Las Vegas—and shockingly, I don’t even think it was a cruise ship.