In the shadow of the tanker, the water sits a deep and lustrous blue. It is quiet out here, 20 minutes from the shore; just the sound of the gulls and the soft, steady lap of the waves. Before us the great black belly of the hull, furled by ribbons of orange rust.
Three hundred and 33 metres long, 58 metres wide, with a draught of 22 metres and a deadweight of nearly 300,000 tonnes, the Darab is an Iranian ship, though she is registered in Valletta, Malta. She carries crude oil, and a crew of 36.
On her side, in white, and several feet tall, stand the letters NITC, the initials of the National Iranian Tanker Company. Squint a little, and it is still possible to see the Arabic script and the word Iran that in recent times have been covered over with thick black paint.
The Darab is one of nine oil tankers currently lying idle in Lyme Bay, off the coast of Devon. Two weeks ago, there were 10 tankers from all over the world, one of which had been here for eight weeks. It is the largest number of oil tankers off this point of the British coastline since the 1980s.
The reason for their presence has prompted much speculation. Officially they are "awaiting orders", though the general consensus is that they are biding their time, waiting for oil prices to rise. There are currently some 60 tankers around the world idling like these, each laden with up to 250,000 tonnes of crude oil. The oil is bought and sold several times over while still at sea, and eventually these tankers will head to refineries. But for now they lie here, sleeping giants on the horizon.
Lyme Bay is an ideal place to anchor, offering a sheltered stretch of the English Channel between Torbay and Portland, where the air is warmed by the Gulf Stream. It is a World Heritage Site, part of the Jurassic Coast, and it was on this coastline that some of the first dinosaur remains were found.
It was here, too, that an ill-fated practice-run for the D-Day invasion took place in 1944, in which more than 700 American troops were killed. Now a popular diving destination, wrecks from the D-Day rehearsal still rest amid the Devon cup corals and pink sea fans.
Brixham, the nearest harbour to the tankers, made its name in trawling, smuggling, and ochre and limestone mining, but today the principal industries are fishing, farming and tourism.
The idling tankers have meant a boom for the local economy. The crews take advantage of this quiet time to attend to various chores: doctors, dentists and hairdressers are sailed out to the tankers, hotels brace themselves for sailors taking shore leave, engineers are flown in to attend to ship maintenance.
Today the pilot boat of the Torbay and Brixham Shipping Agency has been summoned to collect an engineer, a Mr Smith from Falmouth, who has been aboard the Darab to repair a faulty emergency warning system.
And so out we have sailed, away from Brixham harbour, where the water lies still and flat, and the Golden Hind Museum Ship plays host to tourists, and where on the quay men in boiler suits and yellow wellies are packing whelks in orange plastic nets.
Further and further, past the clutter of little fishing boats, past the lighthouse, and the last outcrop of land, until we are out where the water is cold and deep, and the tankers lie huge and low, like basking sharks.
There is the crackle of radio exchange and then a ladder descends and Mr Smith hops on to the pilot boat, full of tales of technical glitches, the onboard splendour of the Darab, and the fear of pirates currently occupying the thoughts of many sailors.
We circle the Darab quite slowly, and take in its broad white bridge and its lifeboats, a fishing line that runs from the deck, a plume of black smoke that rises from its funnel, and then the hefty, rusting chain that anchors her here, to the silty seabed, off this quiet corner of Britain.
