Just curious

[Heath68]

I was watching a TV program where some people discovered something floating in the middle of the ocean. I thought it might be interesting and a bit of fun to see what was the most interesting/valuable/strange item people have found floating around?
Sadly for me it's never been anything more interesting than disguarded garbage.

[Attikos]

I discovered a body. It wasn't in the ocean, it was floating down the river past the stern of my boat, which was docked just inside the entrance of a marina.

It turned out to be that of a young man who had been drinking in town a month or so before. Apparently he tried to walk across the railroad bridge rather than the footbridge to get back to his hotel. It's thought he fell in and was too drunk to get out.

I wouldn't have recognized it as a human body but that it was shaped oddly and was moving with the waves in an articulated fashion a log would not. All in all, I think I'd rather find plastic bottles.

[four winds]

I was on a downwind run, poled out wing on wing. All day long nothing to do but walk around the boat and enjoy the day, laying up at the bow taking pictures of the dolphins playing, keep a lookout, etc.

At one point I found myself sitting in the cockpit looking over the side directly down at the water. I guess my mind was wandering about as I continued gazing down at the patterns of waves in the water.

Noticing a sort of hyarchy of waves (mini waves) as I looked at an area of only a about a square meter it occurred to me that it could be considered a "scale" model of the sea state in general, for big challenging seas if scaled up.

As I continued to stare at this small area, noticing little tiny breaking waves......a sailboat came sailing directly into my view. A tiny little three inch plastic sailboat under full sail. Like a common port to port meeting we went our separate ways.

Edit, forgot to add, that little boat was getting tossed around harshly in those "big" seas. Certainly the skipper was a hardy soul.

[CaptTom]

Maybe 30 miles offshore, out of sight of land, we saw a bright, intermittent, white light flashing on the horizon. It was daytime, and my first thought was the windshield of a power boat. But nothing showed on radar, and nothing was visible in the binoculars. The flashing continued long enough that curiosity finally got the better of me and I changed course to investigate.

It seemed to take forever to get there. The flashing never let up, but there was never any sign of a boat. For a while I thought maybe it was moving along a parallel course, ahead of us, and I wasn't ever going to catch up.

Eventually it became apparent that we were getting very close. But still absolutely nothing visible in the water. Only when we were within a few dozen yards did it start to reveal itself...

A brand-new, stainless, 6-gallon, marine water heater. Still had the plastic film protecting the sides, and the red plastic plugs protecting the fittings. It was one of those square models, and the sun had been reflecting off the sides as it floated in sort of a diamond-shape orientation on the water.

I'm pretty sure it would have been worth something, but I was on the outbound leg of a long trip and didn't really have room to lug the thing with me the whole time.

[Heath68]

Originally Posted by Attikos

I discovered a body. It wasn't in the ocean, it was floating down the river past the stern of my boat, which was docked just inside the entrance of a marina.

It turned out to be that of a young man who had been drinking in town a month or so before. Apparently he tried to walk across the railroad bridge rather than the footbridge to get back to his hotel. It's thought he fell in and was too drunk to get out.

I wouldn't have recognized it as a human body but that it was shaped oddly and was moving with the waves in an articulated fashion a log would not. All in all, I think I'd rather find plastic bottles.

No way! How did you find out what it was? did you drag it aboard?

[Attikos]

Originally Posted by Heath68

No way! How did you find out what it was? did you drag it aboard?

Oh, absolutely. That's what anyone would have done, right?

Actually, I called emergency services and kept watching it until they arrived so I could tell them where to look. I wasn't going to touch it with an extended boathook!

[SV DestinyAscen]

Mine field.