What is something that really surprised you about sailing/boating/cruising?

[JPA Cate]

What surprised me, in a super way, was to be out exploring by dinghy, and a pod of spinner dolphins came to play with us. One of them, came out of the water, really fast, from astern, and neatly "flew" over us and the dinghy to land well ahead. He [or she] computed the rates of travel and knew s/he could do it. Wow!

A

[Messing About]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

What surprised me, in a super way, was to be out exploring by dinghy, and a pod of spinner dolphins came to play with us. One of them, came out of the water, really fast, from astern, and neatly "flew" over us and the dinghy to land well ahead. He [or she] computed the rates of travel and knew s/he could do it. Wow!

A

Awesome experience, Ann.
I’m enjoying this thread, everyone.

What I love most about being on the water, particularly off-shore, is the lack of connectivity with the outside world. Lacking TV and data allows one to connect with the world nearby. One of my fav experiences was fishing alone, only the sound of the water against the hull, when a strange new sound interrupted, in almost perfect cadence.

I look up to see a very large flock of brown pelicans, in the form of a perfect V, flapping their wings in perfect unison. I looked at the sole lead pelican and wondered for a moment, what made him/her the leader?

[Rumrace]

It’s true the young folks are more caught up on the latest gadget which is handy to teach us. Connecting for us is sand on our feet not band width.
They get it though I just point it out to them. During Covid lockdown we boarder on a park so we took remote nature walks down the Humber river. We spotted an American Mink with 4 kits moving them. We met a Swan couple with 4 kids. Was like nature was very happy we got locked up.
When we finally got our boat out we immediately packed and heading for the Bush.
No dolphin in the Great Lakes but coming back from deep sea fishing in Mexico Puerto Vallarta we witness a dophin pachanga. Apparently dolphins come from thousands of miles to trade of kids and feast on an abundance of fish the deep bay puts out. Seemed to be a dolphin every square meter.
We did some night dives to see visiting giant rats there.
If you ever get a chance to wander up Georgian Bay you’ll love it. You can see how glaciers shaped every shoreline. The fishing is insane. Everywhere there are 2 pound bass and whitefish with eat me signs.
Spring wells on dozens of islands to freshen the tanks. If you scuba dive we know where 1400 of the 5500 wrecks are. Some are astounding. From a hard working boat the Sligo in Toronto’s harbour edge to the Surge and Hamilton off Niagara on the Lake. Due to attack Lundies lane the next day during a famous battle of 1812. They both sank from damage by a fast British clipper and a storm that night. We saw the Hamilton’s stunning figurehead saw where we believe the marines patched the hull with tar and a sail. Sail long rotted but trace of tar around a definite cannon hit. 8 minutes on the Hamilton and we left for 3 hours to decompress. If you follow the boats history there were 3 in the flotilla. They’d made a mistake in attacking Fort Henry. Cannon shot hit Henry’s slopes walls went sailing over. Expansion of the parking lot discovers cannon balls from these two boat sunk at 300’ at the other end of the lake. One US boat limped home from the attack on Henry missed out on the battle in Niagara only to be sunk two weeks later on a raid.
Although there are some amazing wreck dives in salt water like Truk Lagoon , Scapa Flo, Bikini Atoll the Great Lakes has the most pristine preserved shipwrecks it’s astounding.
Between Niagara Falls and Lake Ontario use to be this awful waste land. New Yorkers and Ontarians had enough and both sides of the boarder attacked the problem. Both countries created a sanctuary. Cut human traffic right out. Found the polluters and capped future damage.
2 decades later a drone flight through the area is amazing.
Toronto Island is capturing night time energy losses in air tanks to run dynamos on shore the next day. Toronto has two Autonomous boats hunting plastic.
Amazing what’s going on from the waters perspective and what has happened.

[ChrisJHC]

I’m continually surprised by people who have sailed for years but are unable to steer a course!

[Jamme]

How the thrill of casting lines and slipping out of the dock — possibly on a Friday night after having finished work — and being able to spend a magic weekend aboard, never gets old.

[Tupaia]

The social interaction with people in remote places is unlike any other, not like being there on holiday or even working there, bringing your home with you and welcoming people aboard is usually reciprocated by being invited into their homes. Experiencing other cultures at such close quarters is truly mind expanding.

[Tetepare]

What surprised me is the solitude available very close to busy places. Just last weekend we were only 2km from a popular state park beach. But with no road or trail access from the park to our little cove it was dead quiet. Nobody there. You’d have never known we were a 10 minute motor from five hundred automobiles.

[Andy744]

I was really surprised a few months after buying my brand new Lagoon 450S - nobody told me the combination of urine and salt water = rock and I would be spending an afternoon cracking flexible pipes on the marina walk way. (How to make friends). These were the pipes I could get off. Some pipes were put in first and then built over. Also the formidable number of leeks from flexible pipes. But truly Cruisers look after cruisers - a retired Plummer now a sailor saw me and came over and helped me, absolutely refused to stop when I said I just can let you do this!

[goboatingnow]

For me it still amazes me now much stuff breaks. Something every day.

[Mike Stim]

I'm surprised at boats I see in marinas that are not using a proper cleat hitch.

[Sam Woodbridge]

I’m surprised how grossed out I get when I start to get internet and or cellphone service after being without it for a week or two or more.

I’m amazed at how the wind travels through mountains I sail around (southeast alaska). Last week I was in 35 mph plus winds, worried and nervous I entered into Port Bazan a cove along side Dall Island. Once inside the cove there was only around 5 mph of wind. I was inside the cove about 1.5 miles. And there was a true “wow” factor I felt.

Dah, I’m just now wrapping up four straight weeks out on the sailboat. I really don’t like how I feel about entering back into civilization. Oh well, maybe one day I won’t have too!

Thank you for the thread, gave me some smiles reading the posts. I got two more hours before I’m in a marina.

Sam

[GreenWave]

Originally Posted by mojoman2

My biggest surprise is how much we value internet connectivity and the amount of time spent trying to maintain it. I have routers and antennas and cellular hotspots. Trying to get connectivity in a new location can be a real time consumer. I have a wifi booster, but finding an open network can be challenging and they are frequently quite slow. If you stay in US waters, you can get a cellular plan that allows you to hot spot your computer almost anywhere. This can be expensive if you use a lot of data (ex. video streaming). When traveling overseas, it gets a lot more complicated. As you need to have an unlocked phone and buy SIM cards in each country. Sometimes you can get plans that bundle multiple countries (ex. EU). You need to become your own network administrator and spend a lot more time than you expect working through all these details.

Or one could just unplug and enjoy the scenery. Seems that is what we would have done 40 years ago before all of this internet and cellular stuff :-)

[Eder]

My biggest surprise was finding out how capable & courageous my wife is.

[Shrew]

How quickly things can go south, and how calm you can be when it does. Then once you're 'out of the woods', how much it shakes your nerves after-the-fact.

[desertsailor]

I was on my way to earning my private pilot's license when I stumbled onto sailing shortly after retirement. Fell in love with the freedom and exhilaration of being on the water. First exposure was an into to sailing class on one of Oregon's Lakes. When I started sailing on the open ocean the sense of freedom and exhilaration just waved over me, and I never looked back at any other type of endeavor. Gave up on flying planes.