Today while sailing from Guadeloupe to Antigua, Fay noticed a "cruise ship" behind us, and two sail boats passing to port headed to Guadeloupe. Upon closer examination I thought perhaps the ship behind us was a military vessel. We watched for awhile and could only see it's bow bearing down on us from astern; and with no AIS target. Finally at about 2.5 miles I called on the radio to see how they would pass and they immediately responded as "Warship Foxtrot 831" and said they would pass to port.
But as they pulled abeam on our port side, they slowed and matched our speed for about 10-15 minutes. While alongside we thought it was interesting that they were not flying any flag, other than a French courtesy flag, and we could read the name "Van Amstel" up near the bridge. Finally they came on the radio and interrogated us regarding our registration and trip plans. Satisfied with the answers they wished us a good passage and turned away. We assumed they were the US Navy doing drug interdiction and found us interesting (but why?).
We Googled F831 Van Amstel and it turns it was a Dutch navy frigate. We still think they were doing drug interdiction, but who knows why they found us interesting.
In any case we're now in Antigua and will dock tomorrow at the Cat Club. Next week Antigua Rigging will replace our Furuno autopilot with a Raymarine autopilot which we hope will be a huge improvement.
