Day 15 to 36:53N 46:30W Wind F3-4SSW 148nm

It's just after 1:00am and it's dark, at least that is to say the moon hasn't risen yet. In reality, there is light everywhere you look; our entire wake is alive with phosphorescence, tiny particles and larger glowing orbs about the size of ping pong balls - the brightest I've ever seen it. And the sky, it is quite impossibly full of stars, so full it's hard to identify the summer constellations because you can simply see too many stars.

Just after Louise handed over to me at midnight a freighter passed about a mile away, its two white lights one low at the front and the other high on the bridge showed it to be over 50metres long and its green starboard light visible just behind and well below bridge light showed it was headed past me going South East. She had also spotted the mast light of the French yacht about 6 miles to Port and running at a similar speed to us. Not on the radar yet so presumably not carrying good radar reflectors or a transponder like ours which makes us look bigger than we really are on other vessels radar screens - keep well clear, we like our space.

About half past 12 I thought I saw another ship just off the Starboard bow. Mars does this to me quite often, it looks very red as it comes up from the horizon and at about 15 degrees it becomes white, and noticeably bigger than the stars. I've seen one shooting star already tonight and Jim told me he saw a comet or a meteor yesterday with the longest tail he has ever seen.

Every few minutes I go up to the helm station, check the radar, let my eyes adjust and then check the horizon by eye and again with the binoculars. The freighter we saw earlier was doing 20knots, unusually fast - A small boats horizon is only a few miles (1.15*the square root of eye height in feet = miles to the horizon) for us about 3.6 miles. If the freighters light is at 30ft you'd see that at 7 miles and with a closing speed of 26knots you'd collide with it in 16 minutes - A good incentive to check every 5 or so at a minimum.

At 1:40 my check revealed a bright red light on the horizon directly in front of us that through the binoculars was clearly shaped like a flare. After a few minutes the light died entirely after appearing to illuminate smoke. I checked on the radio if there was a vessel in distress ahead but got no response. Again the flare shape gradually appeared very bright and slightly higher so presumably closer. I decided that I needed an extra pair of eyes and woke Jim but in fact got Justin and in due course Louise as well. I gave Jim the binoculars and asked him to keep an eye on the object while I started the motors so if necessary we could manoeuvre. Then about two minutes later the light disappeared entirely before re-emerging from behind cloud still red but now as an obvious part arc of the moon. If Jim hadn't also seen it looking like a flare I would feel even more of an idiot. I've done well over a hundred night watches and although the occasional star or planet on the horizon can briefly look like a light I have never seen anything like this and I'm not given to histrionics.

So, what do you do? If that had been a liferaft using its last flare then the only chance of saving lives would be to get a good bearing and range and get there fast - that needs two people, one to spot and the other to steer. If you waited until you were positive and the light went out you'd be too late. OK I feel a bit of a lemon but let's face it there is plenty of time to nap tomorrow and if we are ever in a raft at night and trying to signal for help I hope the person on watch does exactly what I did.

Great lunch from Louise today, freshly cooked Apple cinnamon muffins with crispy oat flakes on top, toast, fresh fruit and Tuna salad with spring onion. We have three oranges and five apples left with five days to go so we'll be on dried fruit and nuts fairly soon.

We've been in an informal race with the French this morning (whenever there is more than one sailboat going to the same place there's always a race between the skippers) so I have been regularly tweaking the sails. As the wind has risen we have been winning nicely with a speed over ground of 7-8knots aided by the now favourable current.

I have decided to send two days together while I can as emailing may become harder without the antenna.