Weirdest things you've seen on the water.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by pbmaise

Now that reminds me of Hawaii. I was sitting on the beach watching a tourist. She attracted my attention as she appeared to be doing her yoga sun salutations. Big broad arm raises overhead...
... Well so I thought. Someone on the beach concluded she was not doing yoga and started shouting someone is drowning out there.
... If by now you concluded she wasn't doing yoga and was trying to attract attention you are right...

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning
➥ https://www.army.mil/article/109852/..._like_drowning

Can You Tell When a Person is Drowning?
➥ https://www.soundingsonline.com/voic...-like-drowning

[MVDarlin]

About 100 miles south of Turtle Bay, south Baja MX on the Pacific side and 50 miles offshore at 2 am I saw a group of white "torpedoes" racing toward the center of my vessels at 90*. I sounded the boat horn 5 times to warn the sleeping crew of collision! The shapes ran harmlessly under the boat. Assume they were dolphin.

[Andrew Adam]

Sailing my then Cole 23 foot north along NSW coastline saw two whales forward heading towards me, no time to manoeuvre with one each side of my bow. I watched the bigger one watch me as she glided by my port side just under the surface. Being eye to eye with an animal bigger than my little boat was both a little scary and one of the most special moments at the same time

[Scorpius]

Reading all these posts about whale encounters confirms my theory: Whales are intelligent, inquisitive, social, playful animals. Now that we are several whale generations removed from commercial whaling they have nothing to fear from little boats and, as many, many people on here have pointed out, they love to come over, say hi, and maybe have a little fun!

[Carolyn Phillip]

Was sailing the Molokai channel at night enroute to Maui, on watch, seasick. From cockpit, I poked my head out between the starboard lifeline and deck to regurgitate, and looking down into the sea saw two hugh circular orbs of bioluminous-like yellowish lights, approximately a yard apart. What shocked me s to rapidly pull my head back in was that while staying equidistantly 3 ft apart, they remained in the same location beside the boat. We were on an old Choy Lee offshore 40 2-master with everything up, surfing along at at least 5 or 6 Knots, and whatever it was, it stayed with us for 5 or 10 min. I later guessed it may have been a giant squid.
A couple of years later while on watch in the cockpit of a Valiant 40 tearing along with sails up running downwind with the seas noisily roaring by, on a pitch black night halfway to the Marquesas from Cabo San Lucas. I was suddenly overcome by an overpoweringly strong stench of warm fishy breath from right beside me. Afraid of something big and hungry sensing my presence, I scrunched down to the center and forward in the cockpit, and not wanting to startle the deeply sleeping alternate watch below, I remained rigidly fixed and terrified for about 1/2 hour with it apparently snugged up alongside the port side. I thought perhaps it was lonely or curious, and when I started the engine and put it into gear to discourage it, the smell disappeared. Whale perhaps...