strange Phenomenon that we've seen at sea

[sailingdog]

E--

Think that was in response to GeorgeDog's post #17, where he asked if there were any other submariners out here...

Originally Posted by eherlihy

I was puzzled by the above post, so I Googled it;

Here is what I found;


I would still like to know the circumstances, but at least I know what the post refers to.

[Boasun]

Saw one submarine off the coast of New Foundland Canada.
It wasn't Canadain or USN. from the shape of the sail I would say it was USSR.
Also saw a ship going southbound in that area also. It was the Soviet Missile Tracking Ship. All of it's tracking antennas were in the Tea Cup position.
Both these times were in the mid eighties... I was on a Cable Layer at that time.

[jaschrumpf]

A rogue wave in the Patapsco River outside of Baltimore.

My nephew and I were coming out of Rock Creek in the afternoon. We were a ways past the White Rocks, and looking behind us we observed what was easily a four-foot swell approaching us from the SE -- directly from the south shore of the river. There were no boats over that way at all, and nothing big had passed through the channel either, so we wrote off it being a wake or a reflection of a wake.

The average wave height at the time was less than one foot, so this qualified as a "rogue." It was a little nerve-wracking watching it come up on us, as it was quite a bit higher than our transom, and it was rather steep-to. The stern rose to it and we pitched a bit as it passed under us. We watched it for a while and then about a quarter-mile away it just collapsed and disappeared.

Very strange.

[jrd22]

My wife and I saw a large freighter in the Strait of Juan de Fuca turn upside down. We saw the house disappear and then nothing but red bottom paint could be seen for a couple of minutes. As we were trying to figure out what you do when something like this happens (we were on the beach, no VHF), the house reappeared and it continued on it's way. It was a mirage, but had us shook up for awhile.

We've had several groups of Orcas swim right under our boat, they cut it awfully close (they look like they are barely under the surface) and I always involuntarily brace myself for one of them hitting the keel. Hasn't happened...yet.

We had a deer swim right by our anchored boat one evening just before sunset. At first I thought it was a tree branch (antlers), but they don't usually leave a wake.

I saw a huge deadhead log ahead while motoring one rainy day, I turned to pass it and when we were within about 50' it frantically dove. Elephant seal, only one I've ever seen.

We had between 2-300 porpoises circle our boat (no other boats around) for about an hour with too many to count jumping and spinning all around us. Then they all took off like a shot as fast as they could swim in a perfectly straight line away from us and kept going until we couldn't see them anymore with the binocs. This was up near Desolation Sound.

[SVPrairieRose]

When I lived in Tofino one winter, hundreds of thousands of Valella Valella jellies washed ashore on our beaches. Couldn't take a step without hitting one.

[AdamLein]

November 2009 in the Strait of Georgia, near Tsawassen, we were chased at about 4 knots by a large, dark brown Steller sea lion. He would poke his head up in our wake, sometimes two boat lengths away, and watch us. You could see his black eyes, whiskers, ears. When we got far enough away, he would sort of roll over on his back like a fighter jet and dive. Each time we'd be sure he was no longer interested in us, and he'd resurface in our wake, even closer than before.

October 2010, same spot, same (I like to believe) sea lion, same chase.

[jackdale]

John - you reminded of the deer I saw in the middle of Johnstone Strait last June.

[IslanderGuy]

Sailing down the Washington coast to the Columbia river at night it was overcast and very, very dark. With a light wind on the stern and the drifter pulling us along at about 3 - 4 knots, it was nice and quite too. My wife was on watch and sitting in the cockpit when she heard "chirping" beside the boat. Looking over the side she could not actually see the dolphins (or porpoise or whatever they where from that general genre) but when they swam up and down past the boat you could see the torpedo shaped outlines from the phosphorescence in the water, then you would see then come up and see a splash of phosphorescence on the surface and then hear them chirp and then see their shapes as they dove again, but we could not actually see them at all, even when they where poking their heads up just feet away and chattering at us.

Another time we where staying a Joemma Beach State Park in the Puget Sound at the dock when the phosphorescence where really active. We went up onto the pier at night and threw rocks off into the water. I was expecting a neat phosphorescent splash, but instead was treated to a sight of probably 50 fish in a 100 foot circle around the rock doing a spiral dive and leaving a bright cork screw trail as they went. It was so amazing we kept having to go get more rocks and wait for the fish to come back and then do it again.

[dnf777]

Just saw a sun column. Not a simple sun beam, but a well-defined orange cylindrical tube of sunlight extending from the horizon (minutes before the sun broke the horizon) up to the black sky well overhead.

Has to do with the sunlight hitting the atmosphere tangentially, and ice crystals in the upper atmosphere collating the rays into a "tube".

I hear its not that rare, if you know what to look for. This one was unusually vivid.

Cool Thread--thanks!

[dnf777]

Originally Posted by jaschrumpf

A rogue wave in the Patapsco River outside of Baltimore.

My nephew and I were coming out of Rock Creek in the afternoon. We were a ways past the White Rocks, and looking behind us we observed what was easily a four-foot swell approaching us from the SE -- directly from the south shore of the river. There were no boats over that way at all, and nothing big had passed through the channel either, so we wrote off it being a wake or a reflection of a wake.

The average wave height at the time was less than one foot, so this qualified as a "rogue." It was a little nerve-wracking watching it come up on us, as it was quite a bit higher than our transom, and it was rather steep-to. The stern rose to it and we pitched a bit as it passed under us. We watched it for a while and then about a quarter-mile away it just collapsed and disappeared.

Very strange.

Any chance it was a mini-tsunami from all the recent quakes around?