Weirdest things you've seen on the water.

[pbmaise]

Aboard another vessel upon departing Palau I glanced over the side into the water. The water was so clear I could clearly sea a few dark rocks on the bright sandy seabed.

I was a bit freaked out after the crew ran the vessel aground in the Philippines so started to shout...

I can see the bottom!

I knew I shouldn't be able to however there it was.

Rather there was a school of fish so large and bright the whole bottom looked like a bright sea bed. The dark rocks where gaps between fish.

[Nengaku]

Diving on my anchor with my tanks so I could check out a few things while down there. Surfaced to find two personal watercraft circling me and my boat - each with two men and the men on back pointing sub machine guns at me. Turns out they were Navy Seals guarding a US nuclear submarine that was disabled nearby. They had watched me put on my gear and slip overboard and had been tracking my bubbles very closely....🤔

[jmastal70]

Somewhere north of the Bahamas, the crew spotted a pod of dolphins forward of the bows playing as usual. We all watched as five of them came together and then, in succession, jumped one at a time, then two together, tree together, four together and finally all five in beautiful synchony: an amazing show of intelligence and grace.

[captainwd40]

Very interesting read ...... thanks to all.

At first glance I didn't think I would have anything to add ....... however .... after reading all posts I remembered about 7 years ago while anchored just off crab Island in choctawatchee Bay in Destin Florida in March we saw thousands of magenta Portuguese Man of War jellyfish pass under the boat migrating into the bay. I later learned that they do this every year in early spring.

It was a beautiful sight and some of the jelly fish were nearly 2 foot across!

Cheers!

[CaptWho]

Originally Posted by jglauds

Off Panama, en route to Galapagos and the rest of our circumnavigation, we spotted these jumping rays.

I had just purchased a small sailboat on the Gulf Coast of Florida and was out for a day sail. We ran into an event like this where there were dozens, if not hundreds of rays jumping into the air. I was new enough to salt water sailing that I just assumed that this was a normal occurrence. I was later told that it had something to do with mating rituals.

[OneKoolCat]

Years ago I was on my Dad's lobster boat on a fishing trip. We were heading to Platts Bank from Newburyport about 90 nm. I was at the helm and my dad was acting as lookout. We were moving along at about 25kts in flat seas when a humpback whale jumped completely out of the water.

I moved the boat hard to port but still came within 100 feet of the whale. After i got us back on course my dad complained that I had spilled his coffee and to be more careful.

I was glad he was on watch and not down below otherwise I don't think he would have believed me. I didn't realize that humpbacks could clear the water.

More recently we were sailing home and saw a cloud following a straight path that went almost from horizon to horizon. I don't know what pressure weirdness caused it but there was also a strange optical effect that looked like a dark line along side it. Here is the photo I shot of that. you can see the optical effect just above the horizon.

[Paul_Carroll]

Contrail from a jet. 99% probability.

[Kamen]

A commercial fishing sailboat (2017):

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Miles and miles of velella jelly fish (2014)



Both in the Pacific off the Washington coast.

[captchetco]

In 2005, approaching the Columbia River from the south. We had substantial experience in entering the river, and knew its channels, currents, jetties etc. appx midnight in October, nice weather, but cold, about 2 hours before high tide, winds light, on the nose, clear with light sea fog. Vis at least 10 miles. Well inside flasher, and appx 1/2 mile off and approaching the South jetty, from the south. Motor "sailing" under slack main.

In front of us appeared a wall, maybe 500 ft ahead, extending East to West as far as we could see. It appeared to be maybe 10' or so high, no waves were breaking on it. It did not show on radar, though bouys on the other side were clearly visible, both to radar and to eyes. We made an abrupt 120 deg turn to Port to give it plenty of clearance, and work away from it. Studied 2 electronic charts and official paper charts, and no such obstruction was shown. Yet IT WAS CLEARLY THERE to the naked eye and binoculars.

We ran off shore, with the wall still there. We were now convinced it was an optical illusion, but there it was, and we did not want to hit it. Alternately, we ran off from it until it faded, then turned back towards it and it would reappear. We ran offshore past bouy 2, and were headed for flasher, when I finally said "We know its not there; we are turning through it." and did. It at first retreated in front of our attack, and then disappeared. So we turned into the channel.

This maneuver now had us at about hightide, running as fast as we could to get past bouy 12 before tide change. We did not make it, and spent 4 hours running into the massive outflow of that huge river.

My best guess as to what we saw, was an illusion created by warmer water from the river flow, creating a surface fog in the cooler air. But it looked so much like a wall, it was difficult for us to test it. I've never seen that illusion before, after or anywhere else in over 40 years of coastal sailing from British Columbia to Columbia SA.

[dfelsent]

Originally Posted by Paul_Carroll

Contrail from a jet. 99% probability.

And the contrail’s shadow in atmospheric haze.

[Kokanee]

I was crossing the Backstairs Passage in South Australia and spotted a flock of gulls attacking the water up ahead. We cruised over to see if there was a school of blue fin tuna chasing pilchards to the surface. As we got closer we could see it was something floating on the surface that the gulls were feeding on. It was around 2 x 2 metres in size.

We pulled up alongside for a close look and without a doubt, it was a tongue. No other body parts, just a tongue. I'm guessing it once belonged to a southern right whale, but why just the tongue?

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by Kokanee

I was crossing the Backstairs Passage in South Australia and spotted a flock of gulls attacking the water up ahead. We cruised over to see if there was a school of blue fin tuna chasing pilchards to the surface. As we got closer we could see it was something floating on the surface that the gulls were feeding on. It was around 2 x 2 metres in size.

We pulled up alongside for a close look and without a doubt, it was a tongue. No other body parts, just a tongue. I'm guessing it once belonged to a southern right whale, but why just the tongue?

I guess there was no tail to tell.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

-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...

Saw an Orca, porpoising at high speed, on the Bahamas banks (between Norman's Cay & Staniel Cay).
Had no idea what it was doing there, nor where it was going (southbound).

[nznoeta]

Halfway down the Calabrian coast, three nautical miles from shore, we came across a pig, happily swimming towards Sardegna - if that was the case then he had another 230 nautical miles to go ! We were a bit worried that he mightn’t make it so we decided to herd him back to shore – two hours and a little help from a local Italian speedboat and the Guardia Costiera later, he clambered onto the rocks and took off down the beach, we didn’t stay around to see what happened next...

[alitaptap]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

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.

1993, returning to Hong Kong after the biennial San Fernando Race from Hong Kong to the Philippines, the night was dark, sky clear, a brilliant canopy of stars overhead and the sea like glass. About 150NM out from San Fernando the sea immediately surrounding the yacht started flashing, each flash was followed by another within a metre of the first, radiating out from our hull as far as the eye could see in all directions. For about two sailing miles these pulses of flashes continued and then slowly subsided. Despite the magnitude of each flash we assumed biofluorescent micro-organisms but now, more logically, it was actually squid. I have speculated for the past 28 years what we saw that night and now a more logical explanation; thank you for that.


PLUS:


In 1999, soon after sunrise, while racing from Manila Yacht Club (“MYC”) to Subic Bay (via Capones Islands) – an event that does not happen anymore since MYC lost the will to race (but that is another story) – as we passed the entrance to Subic Bay, towards the Capones Islands' rounding, I was on-the-rail with a couple of crew when the water became full, and I mean full, of brownish, cricket-ball sized jellyfish apparently attached to each other, each jellyfish like a link in a chain. So dense were the jellyfish chains that our yacht actually slowed by about a knot, so abundant the accumulation that you could not see more than a metre or two down into the otherwise crystal clear water. This phenomenon continued for about one sailing mile.


We were all amazed; we concluded the “chains” were some sort of mating activity. We have never seen the like again.


As postscript: about a week later, one of the electricity generating power stations about 50Km North of Subic Bay was forced to shut down because its cooling seawater intake pipe became clogged with jellyfish . . . perhaps the same jellyfish we had witnessed during the race.