The day was hot and winds were light; the seas was almost glassy. Philip was off watch. Carina rolled back and forth in the ocean swell and Leslie was steering with her fingertips. Into this sultry day came the sound of a helicopter. "%$#@* purse seiners," she muttered to no one. (Purse seiners use helicopters to locate schools of fish and we knew there were boats in the area.)
First the sound came from the east and then from the west but she could never see anything and seriously considered that she might be hearing things; delusional from the afternoon heat and sleep deprivation. Then the sound got louder and over the western horizon came a helicopter zipping straight at Carina at what seemed to be a gazillion MPH. "Holy-moly, there's a helicopter heading right at us!", she called down the companionway.
It was a big orange 'copter with inflatable pontoons and a callsign RP-#### on its tail. Just before it got to Carina, it backed to the north and went around her stern at just above eye level about a boat-length away, flew up our port side and around her bow so close Les thought for sure they'd slice our forestay in two. They backed off a little and came up our starboard side and two men looked into our cockpit. One held an SLR camera and was apparently shooting our photo. The other, in goggles and ear muffs, held the controls as they hovered frighteningly close. Leslie gave them a big wave and a smile and a thumbs up sign, they smiled back and returned the gesture and were gone in the blink of an eye. The whole scene took place in a couple of terrifying minutes.
At 8/7/2016 and 5:45 UTC (GMT) our position was: 00°07.55'S / 144°24.31'E.
We were traveling 214T degrees true at 2.7 knots.
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