Indonesian crusing quiz

[davidpm]

You are off the coast of Indonesia sailing at night with appropriate lights.
You notice a shabby wooden vessel under power with no lights at high throttle is heading directly at you. At the last moment it veers off.

Why was the Indonesian skipper doing that?

This will be a tough one to guess
If you know hold off a while so folks have a chance to guess.

It is not a pirate.

[MedSailor]

Tidak Tahu!

....and I lived there!

MedSailor

[davidpm]

Originally Posted by MedSailor

Tidak Tahu!

....and I lived there!

MedSailor

I had to look that up. Now I know how to say I don't know in another language.

[tdw]

Damn damn damn ... I remember seeing this some time back somewhere or other but can my poor fuzzy mind remember the details ? 'fraid not.

[RobGallagher]

They think you are a factory/mother ship and they are a small shrimp or fishing boat. Just a guess from spending time in the gulf of Siam.

[Bene505]

They know you aren't near shallow water/rocks/land, so they use you as a navigation aid?

Regards,
Brad

[MedSailor]

Well if it was my boat they might be pirates, but they would turn away when they got close because they'd see THIS:





I L-O-V-E that movie.

MedSailor

[davidpm]

Thanks for playing guys.
Some good guesses.
Apparently the fisherman are very superstitious and believe that bad spirits on their boat can ruin a whole night of fishing.
And of course everyone knows bad spirits can only go in a straight line.
So they aim at your boat and veer off at the last moment so the bad spirits are dislodged from their boat to your boat.

Seems like a rather unneighborly thing to do, to dump your bad spirits on so poor guy just passing by but I suppose it is better than shooting at them.

I found this little tidbit in the book The Next Port by Heyward Coleman
Another little tidbit was that he carried two gas masks aboard the boat.
Not sure I can puzzle out why.
Maybe he just meant filters for sanding or painting but he said gas mask.
Probably got them surplus cheap, he liked to collect boat junk, and figured he would use them for filters.

[MedSailor]

Spirits huh? Let me guess, he was sailing near Bali? The Javanese aren't much for spirits....

Interesting though. Thanks for the tidbit.

MedSailor