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While at sea, some of us have seen what could be described as strange Phenomenon at sea.
The green flash at sunset. Yes I've seen it about nine times over the years.
Requires clear air for it to happen. So looking toward a smog hazed horizon, it won't happen.
Water Spouts. In one afternoon saw six of them just east of the delta in the GOM.
Bright green flare (?). In the sea of Cortez seen one. vertically descending. Must have been a meteor.
Dolphins & Porpoises many times. Assorted species.
Sea turtles and a Sun Fish (a Moa). The Sun fish's upper fin looked like a large plank sticking out of the water, until we got close enough to view it in its glory.
Spinning shark. Once in the GOM
A Buoy floating in the middle of the atlantic Ocean. No idea what harbor it once guarded or came from.
Had a crewman report a fire on the horizon. If he had waited a few minutes he would have seen the upper limb of the moon come above the clouds. At that low altitude it appears fire red through the clouds due to smog.
A pod of Orcas feeding on the discards from the fishing vessel that I've captained in the Bering sea. Now that was something.
So the wife and I are cruising back from Block Island in the fog with about a 15 knott wind, beam reach, 1 mile visability. We Hit the "Race at a great time...head up Fishers Sound...she goes below to make lunch then wham.
All of the Chartplotter instruments start doing summmersaults, digital ST60 depth finder goes from 100 ft to 2 ft to 22 to 222 to 5 and looks like one of the wheels on an Atlantic City slot machine turning. Wind instrument digital of course is doing the same. Autopilot which has a fluxgate compuss setting its heading decides I am heading North... then East...then North but never West or Southwest which is where I was heading as the wind is still on the beam and has not switched at all.
I call my wife up from below and ask her to bring a pocketnife which has a compass in it to verify what my binnnacle compass is reading.
All of a sudden we hear this loud claxon....and out of the fog appears a sub....big sub....bigger than life.
No signal on the radar...which you couldnt read anyway as it was still doing flips on the chartplotter.
Now I knew New London/ Groton was where they come from and they must stay on the surface there until the 100 fathom line I am told, but it was still a shock to see him appear so close out of the fog. And why did all my electronic instruments go besserk. ( I understand they ubnder degaussing and that it is a large chunk of metal so it might affect a compass....but why the electronics.
He scared the crap out of us...but we did get a good picture as he pulled away and then the electronics went back to normal.
All of the Chartplotter instruments start doing summmersaults, ...
All of a sudden we hear this loud claxon....
No signal on the radar...which you couldnt read anyway as it was still doing flips on the chartplotter....
And why did all my electronic instruments go besserk. ( I understand they ubnder degaussing and that it is a large chunk of metal so it might affect a compass....but why the electronics...
My best guess guess as an electrical engineer and ex-submariner is that your instruments were picking up interference from the sub's radar. If so, improved grounding and elimination of ground loops (Google it) would reduce your susceptibility but it's probably not necessary unless you experience other problems.
Klaxons on a submarine are used to signal a dive which I'm sure was not happening here. The only likely alternative I can think of in this scenario would be the collision alarm. Perhaps you startled them more than they startled you.
Thanks for the explaination......we have had one other encouter with a sub....but it was near Annapolis, and was a pretty small one. My best sailing friend...also a memever of MYC was a commander of a LA Class Boomer and lived in Noank Conn, stationed at New Groton for 8 years. He has told me many stories about them.
I admire the men/ women who do this to protect our country.
Maybe we did startle them. As you can see by the plicture we were quite close...and she was not a small sub.
My best sailing friend...also a memever of MYC was a commander of a LA Class Boomer and lived in Noank Conn, stationed at New Groton for 8 years. He has told me many stories about them.
I admire the men/ women who do this to protect our country.
I've wondered over the years why my impression at the time was of a fast fading light. It could have been as simple as the light levels started dropping quickly when the last of the sun dropped below the horizon and we thought we had to hustle. Since there was nobody in the group with experience in polar sunsets (and I mean right at the pole) we wouldn't have known that it would be twilight for longer than the hour you get back home. We learned some other things the hard way when we first hit the ice do to lack of experience (not suitable for discussion here). While memories are sketchy at this point the one thing I remember clearly is the sudden realization that the sun was not coming back when the last bit winked out.
And I wish you'd have taken some pictures of that California Sea Lion you describe at 90*N.
/Damned biologists
//Spent 5 years on the ice studying seals
I don't have any in my pictures but I'm in contact with some of the guys over on Facebook so I'll ask if they do. One of them did post a pile of pictures of that trip and I kept wondering how come I wasn't in a single shot. Months later I was going through a shoebox and found the originals. I completely forgot I had taken the pictures and given him copies.
California Sea Lion seems like a fancy name for something that looked like an ordinary seal but I'll take your word for it. He was incredibly tame though. He walked (is that what you call it?) up the back of the boat and was perfectly happy hanging out with the crew topsides. The best part was his expression when he'd put his ear to the deck and listen.
Of course this was the cruise that we ran out of coffee two weeks after leaving port for a 70 day plus mission so it's entirely possible that all of this was a hallucination.
Great thread thanks for starting it. OK here we go:
"A Buoy floating in the middle of the atlantic Ocean. No idea what harbor it once guarded or came from".
I was skippering one of the tall ships in the 1982 tall ship races when one morning the deck watch reports that we were arriving at the marker. Hummmm .... thinks I, were in the middle of no where here. We were well off the Florida coast about the level of Cape Kennedy. Went up on deck and sure enough there was a bright red - lit - buoy with a big number 4 on it around three stories tall about 100 meters off our port side. We watched it for a while then I marked its position to report it later. Wonder if it was the same one? I'll post a few more over the next few days.
I was single handing 400nm south of Indonesia and was down below, nothing around, no sign of shipping when suddenly a loud banging all down the side of the boat. I had collided with something and it sounded large.
Raced up on deck to find a radio beacon used by the long-liners in that part of the world to mark the end of their fishing line, bouncing along the side of the boat.
Mirages in wintertime near shore can make a hilly headand seem like the Rocky Mountains and make large ships in the distance seem like little toy boats.
On New Years day I was sailing in the St. Johns River just below Green Cove springs and the bridge going across the river appeared to dip UNDER the water!
This past fall we enjoyed a nice sunset in Rendevous Bay, St John, USVI. After the sun went down a small squall rolled in. When it passed a couple minutes later a moonbow lingered for about 20-30 seconds. It was just like a rainbow, except you couldn't make out any of the colors, just a perfect white ribbon hanging over the moon.
A few days before that we passed through a squall and the mist around the boat created a rainbow that started at the bow and end at the stern. Every time we tried to touch it, it would move just a little farther away, absolutely wild!
We've seen the green flash - no mistaking it, three people saw it, looked at each other and simultaneously said "Did you see that?".
One night, 2500 nm from the nearest land I woke the crew in the middle of the night to witness the most amazing light show in the water. Lights flashing brightly in a range of different colors, impossible to guess the depth and it went on for about an hour. It was only about a year later we discovered that it was a shoal of giant squid under the boat. Apparently that's how they communicate, they change the colour and intensity of the light continuously and flash messages to each other. Spectacular to watch.
Another thing which remains unexplained was north of Madagascar, we saw a line in the water with bright water on this side and dark water on the other side. We automatically assumed it to be a mini line squall. But then we noticed fish jumping along the line, not across it. And then a few dolphin that were obviously hunting the fish. Nothing crossed the line. But the strange thing is that the line went horizon to horizon. And even more strange, it didn't seem to be moving. We held our collective breaths as we approached it and . . . nothing. No difference in the wind, no sign of current, no change in course or heading, no change in boat-speed, no change in water temperature. We just sailed across it into the "dark" water and onwards. We looked behind and it was still there, dark on our side and bright on the other side. I did extensive research into it and still have no explanation.
Finally, another weird thing to see at sea is a full-on up-welling also called an over-fall. This happens when an underwater current is pushed up to the surface by a geological feature on the seabed. The sea surface literally boils around the boat. And the effect can be miles wide. We sailed through two of these on an Indian Ocean trip in 2004. And while you're in the confused water, the boat-speed assumes the speed of the now-surface current and it takes what feels like hours to sail through it. Bad news when it's going the wrong way which it was both times we got caught by it.
It was 1982, I was aboard the Choctaw 1 - an offshore semi-submersible rig. We were about 50 miles off the coast of Angola, West Africa. While making my rounds at night, I spotted a very large looking worm, maybe 25' long, +/- 6" in diameter gently wriggling along beneath the surface - I could make out his opaque form out in the light shining down through the water. Water depth was about 500'. Maybe he came from down deep to see what all the commotion was about? Gives me the yips to this day....
While at sea, some of us have seen what could be described as strange Phenomenon at sea.
The green flash at sunset. Yes I've seen it about nine times over the years.
Requires clear air for it to happen. So looking toward a smog hazed horizon, it won't happen.
Water Spouts. In one afternoon saw six of them just east of the delta in the GOM.
Bright green flare (?). In the sea of Cortez seen one. vertically descending. Must have been a meteor.
Dolphins & Porpoises many times. Assorted species.
Sea turtles and a Sun Fish (a Moa). The Sun fish's upper fin looked like a large plank sticking out of the water, until we got close enough to view it in its glory.
Spinning shark. Once in the GOM
A Buoy floating in the middle of the atlantic Ocean. No idea what harbor it once guarded or came from.
Had a crewman report a fire on the horizon. If he had waited a few minutes he would have seen the upper limb of the moon come above the clouds. At that low altitude it appears fire red through the clouds due to smog.
A pod of Orcas feeding on the discards from the fishing vessel that I've captained in the Bering sea. Now that was something.
I found your post by an internet search. In 1980 I was on the fantail of the USS Jouett CG-29 just before dusk and I saw a very strange phenomenon. From the far horizon a couple hundred yard to perhaps a quarter mile band of small surface chop (.5 to 1 foot) which stretched from horizon to horizon over took the ship and passed on to the far horizon. We were holding station in the Indian Ocean with the 7th fleet during the Iran Hostage event, barely making way at a couple knots perhaps. Other than this band the ocean surface was perfectly flat like some duck pond. I've spent close to five decades on the salt and never seen anything like it before or since... Calm winds and following seas, Pappy...
About 5-6 years ago, well off the coast of New Jersey and heading for Maine I encountered a massive flock (maybe a mile or two in diameter) of storm petrels (aka: Mother Carries Chickens). Storm Petrels are supposedly the most prolific bird species on earth, never ever touch land unless breeding on the far remote islands of the Southern Ocean. This was a feeding frenzy at the surface of the water with about 1 bird per 2-3 sq. meters and 2-3 meters deep and with these very small sea birds only skimming/dancing on top of the water and never alighting onto the surface, just dipping their beaks and slowly 'dragging' (?) their feet along the water surface.
There had to be a half-million of them in this 'feather blanket' on/near the surface. Ive seen small flocks and occasional singles and pairs of petrels before but never this incredibly massive amount in one place. There also was a large amount of dead & floating discarded commercial fishing 'by-catch' in the area.
1992 on a vessel delivery trip from New Jersey to Puerto Rico and several miles north of the Arecibo on the north coast of PR, a pod of three humpbacks decided they wanted to check out our boat. They approached us and twenty minutes later they were still swimming next or close to us. They enjoyed our presence so much that we dropped the sails, put out a sea anchor, donned masks and snorkles and proceed to jump in the water with them, in the diaphanously-clear deep ocean water.
U know how sometimes, you cross paths with a stranger in the street and there can be a fleeting 'you're okay/I'm okay' instance of recognition and acceptance? To this day I swear that one of the humpbacks and I did this....she looked at me in the eye from maybe 30 feet away and that electric message of recognition and acceptance passed between us.
I came back on the boat with tears in my eyes....it was that amazing and heartwarming. What a blessing....
A car. Coming back,from Marion Bermuda. Nearly hit a car. Must of fell off a ship as it still had the white plastic sheathing on hood and top.
Was pushed aside by attack sub surfacing coming into rockland Maine. Boat rocked quite a bit but no damage. Later was allowed brief " tour" Wasn't allowed to see much of the boat ? Security/intelligence but still fascinating.
Sun fish, whales, green turtles etc. had a flock of finches travel hundreds of miles with us. Picked them up around 400 m from Newport landfall. They would rest on the boat. One flew inside and then we closed companionway when he decided to go out.
Had all rigging glow green, blue yellow then clear and do it again.
Have sailed between waterspouts. Fortunately small and very transient.
Had a knock down from rogue wave in block is. sound.
Had two white sharks tail us for >1h just after leaving Provincetown going through the race on way to Maine. Realized left swim ladder down. Picked it up and they left.
Running east around Race Rocks in nasty misty conditions saw red and green nav lights on reciprocal course. No white, but whatever it was the lights were high off the horizon so it must be big ,right? Just a bit concerned, I turn to starb'd .Lights seem to follow. Then turn green and red as masthead lights on a couple of sailboats motoring close together show their other side as they zig zag into tide/wind Still no whites.
Back in the 1990's I was on an 80 foot schooner. We had left the Dry Tortugas and were sailing through the Gulf of Mexico toward Cuba. Just after dinner we observed glowing objects some as large as footballs in the water we were sailing through. No one had ever seen the phenomena before. We speculated perhaps squid and I always wondered about that night. Last year I read Bernard Moitessier's book the Hard Way and he had the answer. Had had observed the same phenomena Colonies of phosflouescent algae. THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: A MYSTERY OF THE SEA FINALLY ANSWERED THANKS TO BERNARD MOITESSIER
Only took me twenty years to find the answer.
Just after dinner we observed glowing objects some as large as footballs in the water we were sailing through. No one had ever seen the phenomena before. We speculated perhaps squid and I always wondered about that night. Last year I read Bernard Moitessier's book the Hard Way and he had the answer. Had had observed the same phenomena Colonies of phosflouescent algae.
Many, many years ago, on a beautiful sunny March day, Mares Tails the only observable clouds,with the air temperature about 60 degrees, wind from the west at 15 to 25. I was on a bream reach up the GA. coast, about 4 miles out in front of St. Catherine's Island. The wind had kicked up a slight sea with waves being about 4 to 6 ft., water depth shallow 30 to 45 ft. About 12 noon, we were struck by an intensely dense and cold micro-burst that fell out of the upper stratosphere directly down upon our vessel. One second we were sailing along northward at a good clip and the next second we were becalmed, with an intense temperature drop to approx.30 degrees. being evidenced. This extremely cold and dense column of air then proceeded to radiate out in 360 degrees from the vessel , halting the west wind and flattening out all of the previously mentioned and observed sea state to the distance of about a 1/4 mile. We were all simply stunned. It was extremely surreal, as you might imagine. In about a minute the microburst was spent and the normal wind and water returned and we sailed on to Savannah. All in all quite a remarkable day, that I'll never, never forget.
On a very cold clear night Light Pillars over the land. I had never seen them before, found out its light from the city reflecting off of ice crystals in the air(very cold night).
Many years ago, during my working life, I was driving home one evening, south of Augusta Ga., when I noticed the sky above Augusta to be ablaze with red light. Assuming that some large structures in the city were on fire I called one of the local radio stations and was informed that the brilliant red hue was from the Aurorae Borealis. It was breathtakingly beautiful and to be seen this far south, an extremely rare occurrence.
In November of 1990 I crewed on a 75 foot ketch from Seattle to Los Angeles. While on watch I saw a vertical pointed object standing in the water. It sort of looked like a man wth raincoat. We were off soundings. I pointed it out to the other two watch standers. We didn't know what it was but we were sailing towards it. I was at the helm. When I made a course change it suberged straight down without a splash and without a sound. I was told later that it was probably a whale. Apparently they sometimes like to stand and look around. I have never seen something like that since.
1. A long time ago I was sailing out of Marina Del Rey, going out the north channel, when 2 pilot whales surfaced on each side of the boat, almost close enough to touch, but going in the opposite direction. Crew and I looked at each other "did you see what I saw???"
2. A singlehanded cruise to Santa Cruz Island (the one in southern California). I was becalmed, and this juvenile sea lion spent nearly 1/2 hour playing hide-n-seek with me under the boat until some wind came. I should really go find those negatives and get them digitized...
3. Went to the beach with my girlfriend to watch the sunset. I thought that the conditions might show a green flash. Was it ever! I saw a brief blue flash followed by the longest green flash I had ever seen! Wish I'd thought to video it, nobody believes that I saw a blue flash.
4. I was helping to deliver a friend's boat north up the Baja (aka "the Baja bash"). When you do it in January, it isn't a bash, as long as you have enough fuel. The highest wind speed was probably 10 knots, more often it was dead calm. We mostly stayed 5-10 miles offshore. One morning watch the ocean was so calm that you could see the clear reflection of the mountains, almost mirror clear. I kick myself for not running and getting a camera before it disappeared!
Whales can pop up unexpected sometimes and make you spill your beverage.
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