Weirdest things you've seen on the water.

[bnork]

My wife and I were sailing the "Thorny Path" from Florida to the BVI's in 1988 on our Valiant 40. Trying to make Easting along the north shore of the Dominican Republic, the typical strategy was to raise anchor at sunset, and sail/motor all night Eastward hugging the shore to take advantage of the nightly calming effect of the catabatic (sp?) offshore winds which would calm the typical 20-25 knot daily Easterly which blew during the day. A night or two East of Puerto Plata at about midnight (motoring), we observed an oval shaped bright greenish/white light in the water close to our boat near the surface. It appeared to be roughly the length of our boat. We were passing through an indentation (bay?) along the coast. This underwater light proceeded to move away from our boat and zoom around the bay at lightning speed, sometimes returning to our boat, but pretty random in direction. We never heard any sound or water disturbance associated with the "light". We thought we were hallucinating. This phenomenon continued for maybe a half hour until left the bay. The only explanation that we could think of was perhaps some kind of bio luminescence.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by bobnlesley

Many years ago we hid out from a Mediterranean blow in 'Mar Menor' a big (6Mx4M?) lagoon on the east coast of Spain; it was about May time and the place was just wonderful. Late summer a few years later we were back in the area and with another blow forecast - actually not likely to be that bad, but we'd great memories of our previous visit - we went into Mar Menor again. This time it was full, as in wall to wall, with jelly fish; all sizes from golf-ball to soccer ball and squished full, our best speed was perhaps 3 knots as we pushed them aside.

But for ultimate weirdness, reminded by the earlier post about a 'splitting' meteor was a couple of months after that second visit to the Mar Menor. we were sailing from Rabat to the Canary Islands and 'enjoyed' spectacular meteor showers every night - it was early October and I believe an annual occurance? On the second night out at around 02:00 there was a fast moving, red-tinged, glowing 'shadow' which appeared from behind the headsail, close on the bow, a blast of hot wind, strong enough to collapse the headsail and a huge splash alongside the cockpit, how close I couldn't honestly judge, but it was close enough to throw sebveral buckets worth of water into the cockpit and that which hit me stung - it was boiling hot! - leaving red marks for a couple of days after. The whole thing was over in a split second, but even ten years later, the only explanation I've found is that one of those meteors just missed our boat; I didn't relate the event to Lesley until we reached Lanzarote - no point in having both of us scared!

Interesting! A long while back in some thread I asked if anyone had seen a meteor actually hit the water, but I didn't mean THAT close!

[dannc]

Originally Posted by bobnlesley

... On the second night out at around 02:00 there was a fast moving, red-tinged, glowing 'shadow' which appeared from behind the headsail, close on the bow, a blast of hot wind, strong enough to collapse the headsail and a huge splash alongside the cockpit, how close I couldn't honestly judge, but it was close enough to throw sebveral buckets worth of water into the cockpit and that which hit me stung - it was boiling hot! - leaving red marks for a couple of days after. The whole thing was over in a split second, but even ten years later, the only explanation I've found is that one of those meteors just missed our boat; I didn't relate the event to Lesley until we reached Lanzarote - no point in having both of us scared!

Originally Posted by hpeer

^ That is a neat story.

Yes, yes it was!

But....

At some point, Bob is going to develop some sort of Super Powers as he morphs into a Super Hero!

I think he will be.....

Meteor Man!

Later,
Dan

[jordanbigel]

Originally Posted by Sailorman Ed

About 30 years ago, we were in Long Island Sound coming back from Block Island when off to the side of us, the water started bulging up, a large area, quite smooth. It was a sub returning to the sub base in CT.

I swear this happened to me and my family in the 70s. Also in LI Sound, outside of Saybrook, CT. In heavy fog, the captain (my father) saw the conning tower of a surfacing sub and aimed for it thinking it was a bouy. By the time it had fully surfaced there were sailors on deck with boathooks pushing us off.

[silkie]

Meteor Man.... Cape, or not?
I suggest a waterproof cape, to keep the hot water off.

[MicHughV]

thought I would add this one...

Coming back from the Abaco's one year, I was somewhere just south of Walkers Cay, it was just getting dark, and we saw this rather large bird circling the boat...

turned out the bird was a very big owl....and we wondered what the hell was an owl doing out there...but he came in and landed on the lazarette hatch....obviously very exhausted...but keeping a watchful eye on us...

It was there for some time, but some time during the night it took off again...presumably headed for Florida.....

[Nikolina]

This

[4eyes]

While snorkeling in the Thousand Islands (North?) of Java.
I surfaced on the way back to the boat, about 20 meters off the stern dive platform. The last three meters up, it felt like I was swimming through gravy.
I continued to swim through the "gravy" while experiencing the sensation of skinny-dipping in fiberglass dust.

You guessed it, jelly fish. Millions of jelly fish about the size, of the center of this o.
Thank goodness the freshwater rinse on the swim platform helped a lot, and a dose of Benadryl helped later.

[Cheechako]

-The Manta rays coming out of the water and flipping 360 was pretty weird the first time I saw it.
-A Killer Whale on autopilot missed my boat by about 2 ft going the opposite direction as me. The first thing I saw was his big fin streaming alongside, almost touching the boat.
-Water spouts in the Gulfstream.
-Light/phosphorescence activity in the water sailing in the Sea of Cortez at night. Man, I had no idea how many big fish are following along around the boat. (huge balls of shrimp we sailed through also)
-How fast the moon moves across the sky at night. You can actually see it move with binoc's.
-Snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez in a big ball of sardines. It's disorienting, you can't tell which way is up!
- In an underwater cavern in Tonga, you sit there after swimming underwater to get in and when the sea rises in the cavern, fog forms before your eyes. As the sea retracts, it magically disappears in an instant.
-Standing in the surf in the Galapagos, the female sea lions or pups will try to come near you, the 500 pound bulls will intercept them keeping them away. It's pretty intimidating.

[BugzyCan]

On one sailing trip heading to Gibraltar, we started out in a light breeze that suddenly vanished. Fired up the motor, but it had a problem with the oil filter, that would occasionally blow off, shooting oil all over the place, and of course when that happened, the motor had to be turned off, and of course it was just getting dark. The owner of the boat didn't want to mess with it at night, so we were stuck.

The sea went to black glass, and we realized we were in the middle of the shipping lanes with no way to maneuver, so we took turns watching for freighters holding a flare gun in case they didn't see us.
On my watch I could see the phosphorescence of various fish swim under the boat, with the stars going from one horizon to the other, reflecting off the surface, and the milky way looking incredible. I saw something big approaching, that turned out to be a big shark, glowing as it passed under the boat, it went under us 2 or 3 times, then moved on, but was super cool to see.
Didn't see a single freighter that night.

[krissteyn]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

Sailing north west of Madagascar heading for Seychelles, we saw a line on the surface of the water from horizon to horizon which had totally different water conditions - glassy smooth on the far side, quite strong wind ripples on our side. We were nervous enough to take down the sails and motor across the line. When we did, nothing. Never explained it.

On the same trip, sailing along with 10kn of wind, lightly rippled sea, the water surface suddenly became very turbulent, rough and noisy. Boat speed on the instruments remained unchanged, on the GPS we lost most of our headway. Seemingly it was an upwelling, an underwater current being thrust to the surface by an undersea mountain or other seabed irregularity. Explainable but still worrisome until you figure it out.

Once, middle of the night between San Diego and Nuku Hiva, the sea came alive with flashing coloured light below the surface. So compelling that I woke the crew to come and have a look. It went on for an hour or more. It wasn’t until some years later we discovered (from a Nat Geo program on the telly) that it was giant squid, probably 50 or 60 metres below the surface who flash light at each other as a means of communication. Spectacular to watch, never seen again.

Lastly, the contentious “green flash” that many believe is a figment of one’s imagination but seen simultaneously by all three people on board. I’ll always argue that it is a real phenomenon, not the result of too much rum. I spent every clear evening videoing the horizon at sunset but never saw it again.

I’ve seen the disturbed sea as far as I could see approach and pass with “nothing” , in the Gulf Stream off N Carolina...
Frightening , memorable , but in this case harmless...

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by krissteyn

I’ve seen the disturbed sea as far as I could see approach and pass with “nothing” , in the Gulf Stream off N Carolina...
Frightening , memorable , but in this case harmless...

It’s funny. This is something I see all the time. A completely glass like surface, then on the other side churning water. With a distinct line dividing the two. Never gave it a second thought. Ha ha. I have always just assume that it is a place where two bodies of water are meeting inside the larger ocean.

[4runner]

About 25 years ago while sailing in the Atlantic, off the south shore on Long Island, NY. We came upon what appeared to be a giant tuna head. It looked like it’s entire mid-section and tail had been bitten off by a very large shark.

Circled around for a closer look, to discover it was a mola mola, aka ocean sunfish. It was sunning itself, floating on its side and unamused by our presence.

First time I had ever seen or heard of one.

[Lazy Jack 32]

Back in the days of paper charts and compasses, crossing the Chesapeake Bay overnight from the mouth of the Potomac River to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, we three fools got a good spook from an unlighted freighter sitting silently in the middle of the bay--apparently a target for Navy bombing crews.

[Time2Tri]

Jamaica Race 1976 - Tartan 46 - South of the Windward Passage in big waves surfing the swells on a bright full moon. One one particularly large wave we start the surf and on both side of us as far as we could see were hundreds of dolphins surfing the same wave. Their backs glistening in the moonlight. They disappeared at the bottom of the trough and we never saw them again. It was an ethereal moment..burned into my memory forever.