Here I Go Back to Sea Again
People who alive on dry out land have plenty of strange experiences, but when you move onto the sea, things tin get even weirder. The sea creatures can be odd, and the houseboat and marina neighbors can exist odder notwithstanding.
If you haven't lived on the bounding main yourself, you might exist surprised to learn that bizarre escapades are fairly common. Or is it that living on the water makes people love to spin yarns? You lot be the judge when people who have lived on the ocean share tales of their weirdest encounters.
A Lose-Lose Situation
This guy lost money to a bunch of SEALs at a poker game one nighttime while we were in the Persian Gulf. One of the SEALs tells him, "Don't worry almost information technology, dude. You can get the money back tomorrow night." The guy in my partition idea, "Yeah, we're miles from the port. He'due south not going anywhere."
That night, the SEAL team went over the side of the ship for their ops and never came back. Dude was angry.
What A Ship Looks Like Post-Pirates
Doing a Navy deployment in the Gulf of Aden, nosotros get a call because a merchant's vessel had seen a large-ish (100+ foot long) fishing vessel that appeared to exist adrift.
Nosotros movement closer. The vessel isn't responding to whatever hails or transmitting any AIS signature.
Boarding team strap on body armor and weapons to go check information technology out. We board the ship. Bullet holes everywhere with metric tons of dried claret. Looked similar some horror testify. Handprints and everything.
All of the electronics had been stripped from the transport, likewise every bit any log books.
We take a bunch of pictures and have our medical guys take samples of all the blood to send off to intel world.
Never did get word on what the story with that ship was, as we had no need to know and it's hard getting info out of the intel black hole without a need-to-know.
Snorkeling Next To A 40-Human foot Drop
I was in the Navy and was on a disengagement to Okinawa for a calendar week. A friend and I went snorkeling at a beach close to Kadena Air force base. It was amazingly beautiful with all of the coral and wild fauna in the water. Then we decided to do it at dark. I think swishing around my dive lite like it was a lightsaber; I was trying to see anything and everything. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary but snorkeling near a twoscore driblet-off in the darkness with only a dive light and a pocket-size bract was sort of terrifying.
Watching A Tempest Approach At 100 Knots With Nowhere To Get
I used to work on line-fishing boats in the Bering Sea equally a fisheries biologist. I would be out on boats anywhere from two days to two months. The longest trip I e'er had on a boat was 72 days from the time we left port until the time we came back to port.
The creepiest thing I ever saw was basically a hurricane that had formed over several days and was headed right for u.s.a.. We were out where information technology was relatively calm and in those atmospheric condition, you lot can't see any land around you and you simply expect at the horizon and realize you are over 200 miles from land and are actually on your own. We could encounter the storm on radar about 75 miles away and watching the way that information technology was moving, seeing the winds and rain from the far abroad was eery. Equally information technology approached, y'all could see more than and more than details nearly how the wind and rain were moving and see the waves increasing in size and strength. We kept line-fishing though because we were also far from anywhere to hide in an inlet or anything, so nosotros rode out the storm at sea. Seas got to nearly 30′ with 100-knot winds, probably the scariest affair I've been through at sea.
The Sunfish Was Like, 'Not My Circus'
I was sea kayaking off Nova Scotia and the seas had gotten a big swell of over i meter. You would lose sight of other kayaks as they bobbed into the wave trough. There was no place to land for a campground for the night, so nosotros were forced to paddle until we got to a cove that we had marked on the map.
So we advisedly made our way along the coast. Information technology was white knuckle, and no one wants to do a rescue if someone capsized. I didn't beverage whatever h2o for two to three hours, I was so focused.
At one point, I looked over and there was this huge sunfish floating side by side to me. The h2o was warm because of a recent tropical storm and this animal was just sitting there in these crude seas.
At that place was no time to examine information technology or tell my friends because of the conditions, so I moved on. Nosotros had a dodgy landing in a tough camp and got stuck in that location for ii nights, cut our trip brusque.
The Stalker Had Whiskers And Flippers
When I was xiii or so, I lived on a floating "business firm" for a few months. It was a plastic matter my stepdad made to live on and made a place for me to sleep when nosotros (my mom and I) moved onto it. Everything was exposed, industrial plastic sheeting was put up for walls, but nothing was fully closed in.
1 night, I woke up. What sounded like slightly wet footsteps were walking around the docks around me. I was horrified. I lived nowhere near people. You had to get to this identify by boat and we were meters off of the nearest shores. I wish I could say I was brave and attacked the intruder. Instead, I lay in that location silently, blankets pulled over my face up, hoping information technology would leave.
I woke up and told my parents the next morning what I heard. My stepdad started laughing, "Yes, that'south merely the body of water king of beasts that hangs around here sometimes. Don't worry about information technology."
Dodging Minefields, Literally
US Navy, Indian Ocean in the late 80s. The USS Sammy Roberts had recently hitting a mine there. We're cruising in (roughly) the same area, and all of a sudden, a lookout sees a mine. The ship shuts engines downwards. At present we're globe-trotting, and the transport is eerily quiet without the noise of the engines (gas turbine plant), and we know there are mines out in that location, and we're DRIFTING! The brass is trying to figure out how to become us out of the minefield, and nosotros're all sweating bullets waiting to see if we're going to blow upwards. Everyone anywhere most the hull effectually the waterline is chop-chop getting the heck Abroad from the hull, which was difficult for some of us because we went to General Quarters, and our stations were correct by the hull in some cases. (Mine being one of them.)
I don't know how long we drifted until they decided to try to dorsum out, merely information technology seemed hours until it was announced nosotros were clear.
Information technology was the virtually surreal experience of my life, waiting countless minute subsequently countless minute to run across if the next minute was going to blow the gunkhole upwards.
A Foggy Thought Of What Was So Eerie
On deck in a container ship somewhere in between Alaska and Russian federation, with fog surrounding the ship and the water being creepily still.
Information technology'due south a completely natural occurrence but freaky sitting on this massive ship in almost complete silence with only the depression hum of the engine below deck and barely existence able to see a few feet in front of the transport. The water beingness still was freaky as well; it's just not something I see a lot in the open ocean.
Information technology Would Have To Be An Extra Large Ping Pong Brawl
I was in a pocket-size boat off the coast of British Columbia —the water was perfectly flat, no audio, and eerie luminescent greyness mist surrounded the gunkhole in all directions. My companion accurately described information technology equally like beingness within a ping pong ball.
The Calorie-free Came Out Of The Bounding main
While standing a sentinel lookout man at night on a patrol somewhere in the middle of the Bering Body of water, I saw a light appear on the horizon. The calorie-free rose until I could tell through the binoculars that information technology was pretty clearly a circle of light—a glowing orb of some sort. Information technology rose quickly and hung in the air for a short menses of time, but long enough for me to report the sighting and for folks on the bridge to puzzle over it. Then a few minutes later, it dropped quickly and was gone for good.
So, ii things we knew: 1) It was over the water. The nearest land in that direction was then far that the thing would have had to accept been the size of Connecticut if it had shot upwardly from state. ii) The U.s.a. government didn't take a clue what it was (or had no interest in telling us).
It was weird. I practise not believe it was extraterrestrial or the result of anything supernatural. But it was weird.
A Scene Straight Out Of The Shining
I was deployed on the Truman in 2013-fourteen for nine months, Persian Gulf. I saw a lot of what others have seen: the glowing algae, dolphins, oil rigs in the distance. Honestly though, beingness out in that location on the glass-like water at nighttime or during the twenty-four hour period never bothered me. It was too beautiful.
I got creeped out INSIDE the ship. I was walking lone at nighttime, and all of the passageways were lit with carmine (they had doors that accessed the outside) and it was empty at the time and for a moment I just idea to myself, "What the HECK am I doing here?!"
Newbie Sailors Nearly Killed Everybody
We got broadsided past fifty-knot winds in the center of the ocean and fifty-fifty with the chief reefed it cached the runway. I was barking orders to the new coiffure on trimming or letting out sails to lessen the impact of the wind gusts which were pushing 70 knots. Them being inexperienced lead to them occasionally doing the contrary of what I wanted.
This all came to a head when they tightened up on the sails that I ordered to be let out and we got hitting past the hardest gust at that indicate. The wheel was literally ripped from my hands and the ship listed and then far over I was certain that nosotros were capsizing. All gear on the port side of the ship shifted starboard and people fell. The but thing that kept some on board was their harness. Information technology was a terrifying and helpless feeling knowing that I was 2nd in control, at the captain and responsible for the rubber of the coiffure yet completely at the mercy of an unrelenting squall and a merciless body of water.
Thankfully, the ship righted itself and put its bow direct into the wind.
An All White Fish Tin can Symbolize And so Many Things
I was working out at ocean and I saw this albino fish. It was amazing. I felt like one of those old fishermen who say they've seen mermaids and stuff. I turned to my boss and said, "Hey, look at that albino fish!" And he said, "That's non an albino fish, that's a ill fish. It's pond upside down. That'southward its white belly yous tin can see." …Dreams shattered instantly.
After The Autopilot And Before The Wedding
I was on wheel spotter alone at effectually ii a.thou. when up ahead there was a form change, about 45 degrees to my starboard. I started getting a really funny feeling near the course change and we had been having nav equipment issues the entire trip, so I woke up the helm and told him about my feeling. He said, "Wake me back upward if things hitting the fan." So most fifteen minutes later on, I make my first course correction, nigh 5 degrees. The ship starts spinning and autopilot goes out. The radar cuts out. Both compasses are spinning in opposite direction, and I am heading toward a rock. I wake the captain upward and he rapidly gets things nether control, as I was still pretty new to the ship. We spent the residue of the night manus steering, using the stars, and novel tech as our guide. No clue what could have acquired all of that ruckus. 3 years later, I marry a human from Alaska and nosotros move out to his country… on the same point where I spun out three years prior.
Rubber From The Floating Skyscraper? If You Say So
I remember taking the ferry beyond the Mississippi in Lousiana during a crazy fog. This was also at the aforementioned time a rather large body of water liner had somehow squeezed its manner upriver.
Information technology was a really eerie sight to see what was basically a water-borne skyscraper suddenly loom into view, towering over you around 30 or so yards away. I knew nosotros were safe merely it notwithstanding felt similar we were going to be crushed at any 2d.
Mayhap It Sang 'Baby Shark' One Too Many Times
I caught a ride on a fishing vessel from Greenland as a teenager and traveled with them for almost six weeks. We woke upwardly ane morn to a shark impaled on the deck railing. No caption of how it got there or why. Just pushed it back overboard like it hadn't attempted to ninja the ship during the night while we all slept in our beds. The railing wasn't even all that sharp.
But Was It Wearing A Sock?
Well, one really creepy thing that happened was we caught a human foot while dredging for scallops. It fifty-fifty came with the kick even so on.
Note To Self: Keep Doors Closed During Hurricanes
In the open ocean, I saw some foreign fish and pods of dolphins hundreds large. I also fabricated the error of opening a weather condition deck door during a storm in the Indian Bounding main. I'k lucky not to take been washed away as the waves were crashing over usa.
Peg Leg Alarm Clock
Back in the mean solar day on a fishing boat I worked on, the skipper used to wake me up past poking me with his dirty prosthetic leg.
When The Body of water's Night, I Don't See Some Stuff On Purpose
3 of u.s. were sailing from San Francisco to San Diego on a 38′ ketch. LaVonne wakes me at midnight for my watch. We're sitting in the stern chatting for a chip and I happen to look straight downward the line of the bowsprit and… WTH? I call up I might be seeing something expressionless ahead blacker than the already blackness night sky. We're not in a aircraft lane, 25 miles from land, and it is blacker than blackness sky because there are no stars in information technology. And any information technology is, it has right angles to it! Somehow we're on collision course with the one floating matter in all that open up water!
I plough tiller slightly and we run into a sixty-pes cabin cruiser tossing from side to side in a slight sea 200 anxiety to starboard. Information technology's admittedly blacked out. No running lights (e'er on at sea), no interior lights, no sign of life.
My kickoff thought is somebody might exist downwardly, heart set on, whatever… but better wake the skipper and enquire him. Woke him, he got upwardly, looked at it for about 3 or four minutes. And I started getting the vibe. Something was wrong here.
He said, "No, let's get out of here," and went dorsum to bed. Told me the next 24-hour interval he made it for a possible illegal offloading.
You Tin't Outswim Lightening
I went diving in the Keys 1 nighttime and a lightning tempest struck up while I was under. It was beautiful, only for obvious reasons we had to get out of the water ASAP. One of my favorite memories though.
Unintentional House Boat
In Port-au-Prince after the convulsion, I saw an entire house float past the ship. Completely undamaged and intact. It was strange to know that a family unit could withal be inside.
This Is Only A Drill, Right?
Currently in the Navy. I've been deployed most 12 months total in the past two years. Creepiest thing in terms of actual fright was when we were doing a practice Full general Quarters drill (battle stations) and a Russian Jet flew over the states almost prompting an actual General Quarters.
The Ever-Enlarging Oil Rig
My start time going to an oil rig was crazy. Of course, it was at dark during a storm but they apparently won't turn back to shore so it keeps going and the rig just keeps getting bigger and bigger. They look exactly similar when you lot're heading into a small town from the top of a mountain overpass.
Acting The Fool In A Cruise Ship Emergency
I was on a cruise ship vii years agone. Information technology was an older ship (15 years old or so) and we went through a actually rough storm, people threw up everywhere, general hysteria. And then the power went out, more hysteria. Captain has a quick coming together with the senior officers and information technology's decided it's best to accept everyone at muster stations till we get help. Nosotros were basically adrift at this signal. So he announces that information technology's not a drill and everyone should get their life jackets and gather. Nosotros are supposed to assist anyone who needs medical attending first and of a sudden there's this whole agglomeration of people faking medical emergencies. Fake fainting to fake center attacks. I am a very at-home person and even calmer in an emergency but we ran out of wheelchairs, heck we ran out of crew. I am paging for any medical professionals to help out, normal people are getting upset because at that place are not plenty people to answer their questions, anarchy bordering on pandemonium, and suddenly the power comes back on. Every idiot who had fainted or was having chest pains is of a sudden fine and continuing in line for the cafe. We simply had one real medical emergency and nearly 30 fakers.
Goose egg Competes With Nature's Fireworks
It was the 4th of July, 1993 and nosotros were in transit from Hawaii to San Diego aboard the USS Cape Cod (AD-43), a repair tender. We were beingness allowed exterior the peel of the ship to watch our destroyer escort shoot off some rounds and flares for our very own fireworks display. After the show, many of us remained outside just considering nosotros could and the (mostly) full moon came out from behind some clouds and lit upwards the heaven in a gorgeous pastel rainbow.
I'm not a religious person, but I've never felt closer to believing in something greater than myself… Information technology was that beautiful, and awe-inspiring.
Bedazzled By A British Ship
I was a inferior officer on board the Saratoga, and nosotros were doing joint exercises with a British transport, the HMS Newcastle. I was selected to berth onboard the Newcastle for a few days as a kind of cultural exchange. I had a wonderful time! British ships allowed alcohol in the wardroom while underway. British officers were allowed to wear shorts. That transport had a few oriental civilians onboard, working as tailors, shoemakers, etc., similar to what you would encounter in The Sand Pebbles. And continuing deck sentinel on a destroyer in the Indian Bounding main is definitely more pleasant than continuing deck watch on an aircraft carrier. On the flying bridge you're just a few dozen feet in a higher place the water… the air is thick with flying fish whirring around you, the ship's turbine engine allows you to cut and maneuver through the waves similar you're riding a bike, and at dark the heaven above is adorned with foreign (to me, a northern hemisphere boy) southern stars.
The Mystery Of The Man Overboard
So my dad was a sailor in the early 1970s. He said he was on a ship where an assistant engineer went overboard and lost his life. Now, at that place was some suggestion that the engineer might have jumped himself equally a fashion of taking his ain life—he was known to be going through a bad divorce at the time and had seemed depressed… but there are 2 little details that kind of seemed out of place:
First, when they found him, his body was floating, which information technology shouldn't take been if he had drowned. Second, the seaman who'd heard the engineer go overboard had also heard the engineer scream before he heard the splash.
So was it him taking his own life? Or was the engineer pushed or attacked somehow—and then thrown in the water to make it look like an blow?
He Yet Had Bad Breath, Besides
I caught a man later on he'd drank all of our listerine once, on a lay barge (a piping laying barge) in the Gulf of United mexican states.
Lay barges are where you'll encounter the lowest of the low.
What's Weird Is Y'all Stop Noticing What's Weird
I spent two years living aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea, sometimes spending three months without touching port and but offloading to other larger boats. If there was something peculiar or paranormal, nobody would have known it happened. Everything is constantly swaying and rumbling, and everyone on board is too busy working sixteen-hour shifts to notice.
Way Too Close For Condolement
Have you e'er been out to sea nether canvas? It'southward a surreal experience. A lot of times the transport barely makes any noise moving through the water.
I had but gotten off of watch and it was nearly 0400. I'd been out to body of water for a few months and was feeling downward. I had been fighting with my married woman, and my daughter barely knew who I was. I was sitting on the deck enjoying the environment, and I had that call of the void feel.
I could just bound over the side right now. No one would see me, no one would hear me, just a quiet lonely stop at sea. My wife wouldn't have to worry about money anymore, my life insurance is quite proficient. My daughter wouldn't be wondering when her dad would and wouldn't exist home. It would just be and so much simpler.
Don't get me wrong, I'one thousand non usually this morbid person. I've struggled with depression before, and will again, only at that moment in time, the draw to give up myself to the silent depths was eminently powerful.
I felt fine 15 minutes later, and feel fine now, but I still shiver when I retrieve about that night, alone on a ship, moving silently through the Atlantic.
The Bounding main Tin can Make The The Toughest Guys Pitiful
I'm ex-Navy. I was cruising at dark in the Indian Ocean in big-ish seas (stars were out but the water was rough considering of a distant storm) and no moon. I was on the stern having a cigarette (this was the 90s). A guy jumps the side by making a solid run to aft and jumping off the fantail into the dark. We called man overboard and I saw the guy's head bobbing in the waves for a few minutes but we lost him in the dark during the turn. In his jump, he cleared the screws. We could've saved him if we could run into him. They deployed motor whaleboats and stayed in the surface area for a while looking for him.
One Deck, Two Types Of Weather
I got the rare opportunity to become to the Great Bulwark Reef in Australia once. And on our way back, the ocean is just Then vast, I could see where it was raining across the horizon and where it wasn't. Scary and amazing all at once.
This Does Not Experience Similar A Life Raft
I was a Construction Mechanic for the Seabees in San Diego. Nosotros were working on a transport-to-shore materials transport exercise with the merchant marines and we'd synthetic a small raft out of four modular pontoon sections which we'd tied to the transport. I was maintaining some floodlights on the raft i night when a tempest came up out of nowhere and started throwing the raft about. Eventually, every bit information technology got dark, nosotros decided to cut loose from the ship before the storm punched our raft through the hull of the transport.
I was on that raft with about x other people, and all night long the seas tossed us around. Eventually, nosotros drifted then far from the ship we couldn't see its lights anymore. We thought nosotros were gonna invert.
Nobody actually talked much, and I made it my job to stay focused on keeping the floodlight-institute running. I felt like if we lose the lights we'll be doomed, and it's my duty to make sure nosotros have light, fifty-fifty though the lite didn't extend much further than the edges of the raft. Simply a raft with a noisy light establish, and blackness as far equally the eyes can see, and a lot of u.s.a. getting tossed around and thrown overboard (ii people got tossed overboard and scooped up right away). That night was scary… Felt like information technology would never stop. The side by side morn they plant usa about v miles from the ship.
The Case Of The Disappearing Dhow
Ex-Navy, was on a CG. On deployment, we were driving around one night and noticed a dhow (sailboat) off in the distance that we wanted to investigate. Someone on the bridge has some fancy NVGs and is looking at the dhow… and it looks as if they are throwing stuff over the side with someone watching us back.
Nosotros got about 50 yards away when the dhow just vanished. And so odd.
A Bet With Actually Bad Odds
Nosotros had a guy in my division who jumped off the stern in broad daylight. They establish him and recovered him. He told the MAAs that he did information technology on a $20 bet. They said to him something forth the lines of, "If you lost your life, how would you collect?" They put him on picket in the brig. He was somewhen processed out.
A Heck Of A Heckler
We institute a dhow that was floating around, seemingly unmanned, not responding to attempts to communicate with them. We send the VBBS team over and there was only one guy on the dhow (commonly they have a few more than than that) and he is just inebriated out of his listen and annoyed that we woke him from his stupor. He spent the side by side two weeks following u.s. around and screaming at us on bridge-to-bridge.
Too Vast For Search And Rescue
I recollect continuing on the deck of the ship I was working on at the time and watching rescue helicopters buzzing effectually and dropping flares to try and find survivors of a helicopter crash. 1 of the nigh surreal evenings of my life. It really brought home to me how vast the body of water is and how small people are past comparison.
The Barracuda Too Enjoyed Night Pond
In Puerto Rico, we decided to become for a dark swim only me and my brothers. Totally unarmed and I'm like xi and my older brothers are 18 and xix. We were just swimming and nosotros lost track of how far out nosotros got. We realized we were about eighty anxiety abroad from shore. We went to plough around and and then out of nowhere we saw some barracuda between u.s.a. and the shore. Nosotros had to tread h2o back so slowly to shore it was terrible. Never gone night swimming since.
If A Tree Falls In The Ocean . . .
We were on our trusty little mine-hunter out in the heart of the Arafura Sea (on the top end of Australia). No ships equally far equally the radar could see.
I was below decks doing something boring. Suddenly the drone of the engine is punctuated by a big bump from near the bow, followed by more bumps traveling towards the stern. I told i of my mates, "I think we just hit something." The reply was, "Don't be silly." was the reply. Understandable really, u.s. being in the middle of frigging nowhere.
Turns out we hit a tree.
Let's replay that, slowly: in the heart of a really large sea, with no contacts on the radar, aught in visual range (we had just traveled 2 days totally alone) nosotros actually hit a bloody tree just floating there!
To make matters more interesting: the affair managed to bend our prop shaft. With days out from whatever coastal facilities, our Master Engineer had to figure out how to straighten the bugger out again using simply onboard equipment while keeping the boat traveling. Which he did.
Silent But Likely Violent
At that place's zero more unsettling than seeing something in the water next to you that's been silent and probably there for a while. Fifty-fifty if information technology's not dangerous it's still freaky equally heck that y'all could have been side by side to it unknowingly for so long.
Dolphin Tag Involves Wild Special Effects
Ex-Navy. While I was on the USS Pyro AE-24 (permit's just get that out of the way), standing fantail lookout man late 1 dark forth the California coast, I was admiring the faint luminescent algae in our wake when I saw something glowing vivid greenish moving direct toward me through the water VERY FAST! I actually reported it equally a possible torpedo, all my brain could dredge up when a glowing bright greenish oblong shape came racing at my transport. Roving patrol got sent to come across if I was inebriated as the ship hadn't diddled up and I was now reporting two such glowing submerged bogies repeatedly launching themselves at the back of the ship. Roving patrol confirmed my sobriety and what I was seeing. Soon every hand that was awake was on the fantail admiring the sight. Though we never got proof, we were pretty sure it was 2 dolphins playing tag with the ship. Information technology actually looked that they were swimming betwixt the screws and the hull, which would explain their high speed of approach, which agitated the luminescent algae to a bright vivid dark-green around them.
Man Goes Overboard After His Hat
Nosotros were in port and this guy came dorsum inebriated and lost his hat over the side. I judge this was unacceptable so he pigeon in later it. They fished him out and it was a mess for that idiot.
When Diving With Sharks, Schedule The Swim For Noon
Dark dives with lots of sharks are terrifying. We dive wrecks that during the day were covered with lazy sand tigers and shy bulls. Same guys are way, way more active at night!
The Kind Of Sub That's Non A Sandwich
I was a Combat Systems Operator in the Regal Australian Navy, and we were off the coast of Australia somewhere heading to do exercises with the Americans. It was night, and I was having a cigarette on the quarter deck and looking out over the body of water.
It was relatively at-home—peradventure Bounding main State two—and there was a one-half moon that was painting the bounding main silver. No land within sight in any direction. Very peaceful.
Anyhow, I'm just standing around and looking at the bounding main when suddenly—and silently—a Collins Form submarine emerges from the depths just off the port side aft quarter from the aforementioned patch of ocean that I had been staring at.
Source: https://www.smarter.com/lifestyle/weird-sea-world-people-who-have-lived-on-the-ocean-share-their-strangest-encounters?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740011%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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