75
SVN Solovelanet Global
however suited him well, got into his sleeping bag
to sleep, perhaps to prepare his energy and rearran-
ge his ideas.
We took turns standing near the open part of the raft
to watch over for passing ships or whatever. Sud-
denly we decided to raise our floating anchors, to
get closer to the ships' course more south of our
position, even if the raft at that point became very
unstable. During the night, while I was trying to doze
off, tired and cold, Francesco Longanesi, our naviga
-
tor, who was on guard, came towards me to ask for a
cigarette. He had never smoked in his life and I knew
something was going on. In fact, it seemed to him
that he had seen a light. The news obviously made
me nervous, so I looked out and saw the same thing.
It almost looked like a star. Our excitement woke the
others. Under the light, the red and green of a ship's
navigation lights suddenly appeared. Jerome made
us launch the flare only when the ship was about 300
metres away from us. We could not waste flares and
risk not being seen.
Above: an killer whale attacking the
stern of a small boat
