Almost Road Kill

The sunset today was spectacular, followed by full complement of stars. I was sitting below writing some emails when I glanced up at the radar above the nav table. Usually empty, I saw a speck about eight miles straight in front of us. We couldn't see much of anything on the horizon when we looked outside the cabin. After hailing several times to an unknown vessel without avail, this half-asleep voice with a thick Russian accent crackled across the VHF. We identified ourselves as a 38-feet vessel under sail, and they responded that they were a 500-feet bulk freighter heading our direction. We pleaded jokingly for them not to squish us and they considerately obliged. We passed starboard-to-starboard several miles apart. It's a big ocean, but evidently not that big.