If you want to be seen by ships, get an AIS. Every ship I saw and all I didn't see but hailed on the VHF knew I was out there on my recent TransPac. It was also comforting to know that the ships were out there, what they were, their heading, speed and destination. Wouldn't be so confident in areas with a lot of pleasure boats as AIS gets more popular as the screens are going to get way cluttered.

I was surprized at how slow a lot of the ships were sailing. The tankers were usually down around 10knots while the container ships were usually less than 20knots. I was expecting all the shipping to be speeding along at over 20knots which wasn't the case. Heard later the big guys are sailing slower because of fuel costs. Still, any speed over 10 knots can give you a very quick closure rate on opposing headings.