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“People Who Have Worked At Sea, What’s The Creepiest Thing That’s Happened?” (50 Answers)
Interview With Expert
It makes sense that quite a few people have a fear of deep, dark, open waters. Plenty of creepy crawlers lurk beneath the surface of our oceans, lakes, and seas, and the thought of that alone gives me the chills.
But if that doesn’t faze you, we prepared a whole list of unsettling things that people witnessed while working at sea. Scroll down to find them below, and be sure to share your own unexpected open water discoveries in the comments.
While you're at it, don't forget to check out a conversation with a marine biologist, education expert, and conservationist, Melissa Cristina Márquez, who kindly agreed to share some things about her profession and the mysterious open waters.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
400 metre container ship doing night rounds in the engine room gets awfully eerie. Ships creak and make a lot of weird noises and when you’re alone down there in a big cathedral of machinery you start seeing and imagining weird things. So one day I’m just finishing up and I’m about to open a door when the wheel suddenly flies around and it bursts open revealing a ghostly apparition in the passageway which lunges towards me.
Anyway the next day I’m in front of the captain explaining why I punched the 3rd engineer because he had been sleeping in the duty cabin and wandered down to raid the control room fridge wrapped in the bed duvet.
Spooky stuff.
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#2
Maybe it's just me but on still clear nights the stars are above you in the sky then they are reflected beneath you in the water and you lose the horizon and you are floating in space you can lose yourself in that place.
#3
My dad was in a small flotilla of minesweepers in WW2, off the coast of Iceland. They were in the middle of a sweep. They passed a downed and floating german aircraft, with a pilot frantically waving to them for rescue. They had to sail right past and leave him to his fate, because of the very real possibility of u-boats. Fast forward 65 years, and my dad wept on his death bed about leaving the poor guy to die in the icy Atlantic waters.
Marine biologist, science education expert, and conservationist Melissa Cristina Márquez tells Bored Panda that her curiosity about the unknown led her to the exploration of open waters.
"I’ve always been fascinated by the unknown, and the ocean is one of the last great frontiers on our planet. My interest really took hold when I realized how many questions remain unanswered about the creatures that call it home, especially sharks. That curiosity led me to become a marine biologist and science communicator focused on sharing the wonders of the open sea," she shares.
#4
My sister worked on a commercial fishing boat in the Bering Sea. The captain would often get drunk and one night she could hear the girlfriend screaming as if she was being attacked. My sister was armed and charged in and literally mutinied the captain. They called for the coast guard who took him into custody.
My sister still has PTSD from it. With no backup and close quarters, it was really a dangerous situation but I am proud of her.
#5
Step-dad built and chartered 40 foot boats to go fishing in the shallow ocean and deep sea fishing. Past the continental drop off, where you fish Mahi Mahi and king mackerel and stuff.
Group books a trip, group is remembering a deceased friend who wants his ashes spread in the deep sea.
They leave the docks. Once land disappeared, a small black cloud formed above their boat. It got bigger and bigger, darker, and louder. But it only stayed above their boat. Blue skies around, but above their boat was a very dark and pissed off cloud.
The cloud follows them, thundering, making equipment go haywire (20 years ago, for what its worth). My step dad said "we are here, throw this angry mother over.' They spread his ashes. He said "the minute they spread his ashes, the thundering stopped, and within 5 minutes, the sky was perfectly clear."
He is not one to believe in spooky stuff, but he said "I had no explanation other than that son of a b***h was pissed off about being dead.".
The Majestic Opossum 1 week ago (edited)
"10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck!" ... I mean, I'd be mad too if I was stuck in a tiny jar when I wanted to be in the ocean...
#6
The only time I was ever on a ship was actually a cargo ship and it was for a program for my business class. Basically you got to shadow several people and see a products full journey. Like I started at a farm, went to a trucking depot, then a dry goods wear house, then a cargo yard, then finally a cargo ship to China (can't get off the ship when it gets there so that was the end), then catch a ride back on another cargo ship. Trip was very informative. The creepy thing tho was it's 6am and the ship blades it's horn. We are out somewhere in the pacific and then slows down over the next 20 minutes. I made my way up to the guy that was doing the program and he's talking to the captain and the captain is clearly pretty freaked out. This is the absolute middle of no where and there's a tiny coral island with no trees or vegetation just a f**k load of birds...... and a cargo container next to a tent. The ship is hardly moving at this point and the captain calls out over a mega phone to see if anyone is there. After a minute a guy who's clean shaven but wearing clothes worn to rags island a deep deep tan wobbles out of the cargo container. Captain yells out if the guy needs help. He says something but they can't hear it. A guy volunteered to go out to him on an inflatable boat. He climbs down the rope, gets on the boat, meanwhile the guy is just sitting on a bucket. He goes all the way over within 20ft of the guy. They talk for a few minutes and he comes back. Climbs the ladder, and goes to the captain. Captain asks what the guys said.
Guy goes "he said he's good"
Guy gave no info, no plans, had no food but dried fish and some water distilling thing, is out 100s of miles from another living person, has no boat, and says "I'm good".
What she enjoys most about her profession is the fact that no two days are the same. "One day I might be in the field tagging sharks, the next I’m talking to students or writing about new discoveries, and the next I'm diving deep into shark folklore centuries old. I love that my work lets me connect people to the ocean and spark a sense of wonder and stewardship."
#7
I work on a deepwater drilling rig. We use a remote operated sub for all of our subsea work. We are commonly in 6-8,000’ of water. The things I’ve seen from the subsea video is wild. Like sea creatures I’ve never seen before in books. It’s crazy to see what lives in water that deep.
#8
I was with my grandfather fishing off the coast of Oregon. A whale surfaced under us and lifted the whole 50’ boat out of the water. A big black eye was looking right at us. Grandpa reached over and petted it. I about passed out.
#9
So it's actually pretty common. But you'll see 'ghost vessels' boats that are undamaged but have no souls on board. In the middle and I mean MIDDLE of the sea.
The reason for these tend to be pretty dull, they are normally people private boats they've had bad weather and snapped their lines and just drifted.
Still is creepy when one goes past in the middle of the night hundreds of miles from land.
Geoffrey Scott 1 week ago (edited)
In the early 80's when Fidel allowed egress from Cuba(and purged his jails too), we got the notice when we were in Key West. Major storm came through, not a named one but.. We spent the entire trip to Cuba painting x's on empty boats drifting in the Florida strait. Sure were a lot of them.
As Melissa already mentioned, the open waters are surrounded by mystery, so we were curious to know what, in her opinion, people might not realize or get wrong about our oceans and seas.
"Most people don’t realize how connected everything is out there. What happens in one part of the ocean can ripple across the globe, whether it’s a change in temperature, a shift in currents, or the migration of animals. It’s a giant, dynamic system! Beautiful, but also fragile."
#10
Down in the Caribbean, there was a 90 ft commercial fishing vessel sitting on top of a 100’ cliff where it had been tossed like a tubby toy during a hurricane. Hurricanes don’t f**k around. .
#11
You'll expect otherwise, but I've seen more people drown that I would consider reasonable. It's always the same cycle. People get overconfident and don't bother wearing protection (PPE). then one day someone slips and falls to the water, survival depends on the weather. Port reacts like a beehive. Suddenly, everyone is hyper aware of PPE, but one month later, everyone has forgotten, and no one wants to bother with the tedious process of properly fitting a life jacket... until someone falls again later and we repeat the loop.
Lowrider 56 1 week ago
When I was on an aircraft carrier nobody wore life jackets even if they were on the flight deck. What I remember most and used to think about almost everyday I was on it. They tell you if you fall overboard, you'll most likely die before being rescued. An aircraft carrier travels about a mile before it comes to a dead stop and travels about 3 miles to circle back around. You know how hard it is to spot a person in the open seas? Yea, don't fall overboard.i
#12
On a drill ship off the coast of Nigeria. One evening the entire surface of the ocean was covered with jellyfish as far as the eye could see. An hour or two later they were all gone.
"People often think of the open ocean as empty or lifeless, just vast blue nothingness. But it’s actually teeming with life, much of it invisible to the naked eye," she adds.
"From microscopic plankton to massive whales, it’s a buzzing hub of activity. Just because we can’t always see it doesn’t mean it’s not there."
#13
A drinking buddy of mine has been a commercial fisherman for years. One day I asked him what was the creepiest thing he ever pulled up in his nets. His answer: "a woman's hand, cut off at the wrist, with her wedding set still on her finger.".
#14
We had crocodiles and sharks circling our boat at the same time while we were processing the fish and throwing the guts overboard. That wasnt necessarily creepy but was definitely exhilirating. Captain said he's seen the crocs wait between the dinghy and the main boat to snap you when you hop onto the dinghy.
Tropical seas are a whole different beast. Everything in that water is dangerous in some way.
Edit: was in northern Australian coastal waters since several people asked.
#15
Having to rescue crew members in the engine room after a steam pipe burst during cleaning. Seeing your coworkers' flesh melt before your very eyes as you desperately try to get them out of there. The screams and the smell.
Lastly, before signing off, Melissa wanted to remind people that we protect what we understand. "The more we learn about the open ocean, the more we realize how vital it is. Not just for marine life but for human life too. I hope readers walk away with a bit more awe and a bit more motivation to help safeguard it."
#16
I spent a summer on a fish processing vessel about 2/3 of the way out on the Aleutian island chain in Alaska. Most of the way to Russia.
We were buying fish from a large tender, and some of the older hands on my processor boat were grumbling. I asked why and they told me a story.
Turns out the year before, there been a fire on the boat I was serving on, and this fire occurred while they were tied up to the same tender we were buying fish from right now.
When the guys on the tender saw smoke coming up from our boat, they took axes and cut the lines instead of getting our guys onto their boat.
A fire at sea is one of the worst things imaginable.
Those pricks cut our boat loose without rescuing any of the crew. A year later, my bosses were still doing business with them. If I was in charge, I would’ve told them to go screw.
Nobody on my processor, boat was hurt, but it could’ve gone the other way very easily. And the guys on the tender would’ve just watched it happen. oh, probably would’ve called into the Coast Guard, but otherwise: best of luck!
It speaks to the intense greed of the commercial fishing industry.
The Majestic Opossum 1 week ago
Wow and I thought commercial fishing couldn't get any more unethical!
#17
Out of sight of land when the water suddenly went glass-smooth as the sun was setting, and a crew member got floor psychosis and was fighting to step off the back swim deck onto the “floor” ie the surface of the ocean he was convinced was actually land. He had to be handcuffed to a bunk and forcefed valium and we turned back to drop him off to the nearest port while he screamed about how the boat wan’t real. If he had bolted even a few seconds earlier he would have likely died.
ILoveMySon 6 days ago
The first time out to sea without visible land can be eerie but this is scary.
#18
Prior Navy here, saw a few intense things during that time but this was afterwards doing a security job. Navy stuff is mostly just injuries and stuff like that.
I'll start by saying I'm not a superstitious person, not religious, don't believe aliens are here on earth or anything like that. I'm a game designer and engineering masters degree student. I believe in what can be proven through science... but maybe believe science hasn't explained everything yet. (Empirically it hasn't explained everything yet.) But I have no worldly explanation for this story.
The post was basically a firewatch; stay up all night, do rounds to make sure the ship doesn't sink or catch fire. Ship was in port for a major overhaul. They had completely ripped out the wiring and the old "all hands" P.A. system for modernization. The old one was your typical megaphone looking loud speakers mounted to bulkheads throughout the ship. The loudspeakers themselves were still attached to the walls, but the wiring was literally cut and the system itself was completely gone.
Around 3am one night I heard the all hands whistle (imagine your typical boatswain whistle) and then some mumbling like someone was trying to talk through the speakers. I was a little confused because I could clearly see the cut wires and I knew I was alone on the ship. But I chalked it up to possibly interference in the magnetic speakers picking up radio waves or something like that.
On my next rounds I discovered a shipyard worker had left a soldering iron on and it had practically melted a whole in the deck; not a fire, but a bright red spot and some smoking. I called it in and it was handled by the shipyard damage control people.
In the morning when the crew arrived I was discussing it with a member of the crew assigned to be the OOD for the day. When he asked if anything else had happened overnight I casually brought up the weird experience with the loudspeaker incident as a joke. He responded completely deadpan that it was the former XO of the ship who apparently dropped dead at the intercom station. He said they'd experienced it a few times before and it always preceded some kind of incident that could have gotten a crew member injured or endangered the ship.
I wasn't sure if he was messing with me or if this was just typical sailor superstition that I've experienced before. So I was just polite about it and acted surprised/impressed.
Fast forward a few shifts later and I get the whistle and weird crackling again. So out of pure paranoia I decide to start my next rounds early. Sure enough, the seawater coolant system in the engine room is leaking into the compartment. Not a large leak, but if left unchecked who knows what damage could have been done.
About a year later I ran into that same officer and he told me the captain had requested the old loudspeakers be left up even though they were disconnected. He said he'd left the crew shortly after those incidents so he wasn't aware of any new cases.
I've never had anything like this happen before or since, but I still think about it all the time. I keep telling myself there's a logical explanation and it's just a weird coincidence... but I can't shake the eerie feeling from it all.
#19
My dad was fishing in his wee speed boat off Vancouver island. He decided to travel out over the ocean to try his luck far away from his usual run. He was at it for a few hours when suddenly in his peripheral vision he spotted what he thought was an old man,bobbing up from behind his boat. He turned abruptly but the man was gone. He stared around the near ocean surface for a minute hoping to never see him again, when gurgling up from the depths appeared the biggest grey faced sea lion he has ever seen.
#20
I had a humpback whale surface on the side of the Race Yacht I was delivering up east coast Australia. I rub along him and it caused $100k in gelcoat damage. He blew his blowhole and I got covered in whale snot... Well stink water anyway.
#21
Response to the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami
The debris fields of people's lives washed out to sea. Roof's of houses, sheds, furniture, picture frames, over turned boats, everyday items, just adrift. Knowing that over 15000 people were washed out to sea.
Eerie.
#22
My father was in the navy in the late 70s. His carrier was traveling through the Bermuda Triangle, heading for the Mediterranean. He was on the flight deck one night when all power on the ship suddenly died. Even people’s watches stopped working, apparently. About this time he and other sailors noticed two lights in the distance, unmoving and about one hundred feet above the water. The lights were visible for several minutes before they disappeared. My father didn’t see them disappear, but others swore they saw the lights quickly descend into the water. In any case, after the lights disappeared, the power returned to the ship.
My father doesn’t believe in UFOs, stories about the Bermuda Triangle, or anything else supernatural (well, he *does* wish that Bigfoot was real lol), but to this day he has no explanation for what happened. All he knows is that in those few minutes he experienced a strange sense of “accepted dread” that he’s never felt before or since.
There was a time where I thought he was just bullsh**ting us kids (even though he isn’t that kind of guy), but when I was a teen he had a mini reunion with some of his old navy buddies and they talked about it, even getting into a debate about whether it was aliens or some sort of secret military tech being tested.
The Majestic Opossum 1 week ago
While I believe official explanation for the Bermuda triangle is "magnetic fields" I have a strong suspicion this was more than just magnets at play... 😳
#23
My cousin worked on prawn trawlers in the Gulf of Carpentaria off North Queensland for 3 years in the 80s. Really good money but hard work when they would stay at sea for weeks offloading into a mother ship.
The last season they returned to port with one less crew than they left with. The official story was he was washed overboard in a storm. Took over 10 years before my cousin admitted the bloke was an a**ehole that regularly picked fights, but made the mistake of pulling a knife on an old sailor. They tipped him overboard, captain announced that the work would be a bit harder but they would get the dead guys share in the pay.
#24
We used to have to sound the fuel tanks on the Coast Guard cutter I was on. That involved going out to the decks and inserting a tape measure into tanks. If we did it at night with a flashlight, sometimes a flying fish, which were attracted to light, would jump out and smack us in the face.
That was jarring.
Geoffrey Scott 1 week ago
Also USCG, we would find the stupid things all along the weather deck some mornings.
#25
Not necessarily at sea, but I worked on a research ship in the Arctic. We were slowly pushing our way through an ice fog, a friend and I were on deck having a smoke, just watching the ice slowly float by, when a large seal laying on the ice came into view. It was obviously dead, as the skin had fallen away from its ribs, but otherwise it was perfectly persevered. Just as the seal started to disappear in the fog, a polar bear appeared, crouched as though it was stalking the seal. It was also dead, the fur on its extended front leg had fallen away, exposing the bone, otherwise it was also perfectly persevered. Almost in unison, my friend and I look at each other and said WTF….
#26
Was on a large ferry in the middle of a cyclone, waves were washing over top of the third deck. All crew and passengers were in life jackets just in case, not that it would have done much good at point if we'd had to abandon ship.
Waves ended up breaking some windows and the lower decks got a pretty good soaking. But other than a few scrapes and bruises and brown stains we made it to port.
#27
As a 20 year old woman I had to try to ward off sexual advances from 60+ year old men who were my bosses.
#28
You have never experienced darkness until you youre out at sea. I can only explain it by saying complete BLACKNESS.
Ace 6 days ago (edited)
It _feels_ like total blackness, I grant you (yes, I do speak from experience) but there's always a little bit of reflected light from stars. For total, eerie, pitch black you really can't beat a large underground cavern with the lights switched off, bonus points for being in a small boat on a lake at the time (Speedwell Cavern, Derbyshire, definitely worth a visit if you get the chance).
#29
Out tuna fishing about 170 miles off the oregon coast one night, had shut down and was just about to go to bed, noticed an odd glowing orb the size of a football down in the water. Thought it was a bioluminescent jellyfish until it started moving, no swimming motion just slowly cruising around the boat, had a million candlepower spotlight on board so brought it out to see what it might be, but when I put the light on it it fully disappeared, turn the lights off and there it was, plain as day. A few more showed up and moved around the boat for about 20 minutes, never saw a trace of what they were in the light but but my crewman and I were seeing the same thing. They eventually left and we went to bed, my crewman was an old salty dog, sailed from Vancouver island to the South Pacific and back single handed twice, worked on many tuna boats all over the pacific, said he’d never seen anything like it.
#30
When I flew for the Coast Guard a couple of years ago in the Caribbean, we detected a small open boat on Radar. It measured no more than 3 meters in length.
We flew towards it and eventually picked it up with our optics. Zooming in we saw two or more very decomposed bodies in the boat. We looked up the faded registration after our return to base and discovered the boat was a local fishing boat registered in western Africa that had been missing for a few months. It was smack in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Eventually, a cutter was tasked to collect the boat and tow it back, but it was decided to scuttle it.
#31
Was traveling through bab al mandeb. The sun had set about an hour before when all of a sudden we picked up 4 speedboats pacing us on radar with no running lights and there was no moon so it was dark. We top out at 20 knots. They sped to us at around 35-45 and came within 6nm before leaving us be. The atmosphere on board completely changed. The old man got called to the bridge and we were getting ready to call it in when they turned away and let us be. I was aboard the maersk Carolina which is a sister ship to the maersk Alabama and on the same route which got taken a year or two later. We had no armed security on board. .
#32
Rogue waves freak me out quite a bit, never got to see them (worked in engineering) but I remember we got slapped by one beam-to at like 3am and it almost threw me out of my rack, knocked a bunch of s**t off that wasn't strapped down, almost broke our TV, and then it went right back to being pretty calm out. Everyone in my room woke up, nobody got hurt, but we all juat stared at each other like "wtf did that just happen?".
#33
My grandfather worked as a Navy cook and he flat out refused to eat shrimp, crab and any bottom feeder after working at the sea. He always said that whenever something dies, they're the first to start scavenging. It made me wonder what exactly he saw getting eaten by them that made him so viscerally sickened by the idea of eating any of their kind.
#34
US Navy Cruiser - while inspecting a compartment called "the pitsword" as part of sounding and security. It's a compartment all the way at the bottom of the ship that has water in it to measure ship speed. Only accessible through climbing a ladderwell straight down 5 stories. Anyways, I had a shipmate swear he had his leg grabbed by something as he was climbing out, and it scared the hell out of him.
I figured it was just an old sailors tale, and he was trying to scare us newbies. Nope, that compartment was haunted as f**k.
I was in the pitsword one night and bent over to look at the water level, and something grabbed my a*s so hard I almost fell into the water. I was convinced it was a shipmate hiding down there trying to play the ultimate prank, but after frantically looking under every nook and cranny in that compartment for about 10 minutes, I found nobody.
So I'm standing there realizing a h***y sailors ghost just coped a feel in the afterlife. I hated going down there after that.
#35
Not me but my husband always talks about the time he was a deck hand on a NOAA research boat when he was young and spry. One time while on station in the Antarctic Circle with a cable 1000s of feet in the water, their boat listed/rolled 42 degrees. Fortunately, no one went overboard or was injured. Makes my b******e pucker just thinking about it.
Ace 6 days ago
Sailing down th Arabian Sea from Karachi to round the south of Sri Lanka, ship was in ballast with a small cargo of Steel very low down in the holds, so it was riding quite high but with a heck of a righting moment, we were rolling regularly at 35-40 degrees both sides for a couple of days. Highest recorded roll was around 45 degrees one side and 42 the other. An empty beer keg that had been swapped out and not fastened down flew across the officers saloon at around head height, thankfully missing everybody.
#36
I worked on a dive boat that took customers out for the weekend. Someone has to pick up the lights after the night dive.
I've been alone on the sea floor 100 miles offshore in 100 ft of water with just some flashlights and a 19 cuft spare tank. It's creepy to "hear" the stuff that isn't in your light cone.
Also dozens of barracuda in a school when I dove off the sundeck (dove as in diving board type dive, not scuba). Went about 20 ft below surface surrounded by them.
We would also occasionally spearfish for lionfish under the rigs and make ceviche. I had my trap full and 2 on the spear with a nurse shark chasing me back to the boat.
I miss that job.
edit: I had a regular tank as well but no buddy, just the spare pony bottle.
Russ Kincade 6 days ago
When I was getting my SCUBA certification they said the first rule of diving is - NEVER DIVE ALONE. This guy violated that rule.
#37
Not me but my uncle worked on a cargo ship. One night, middle of the Indian Ocean, they see a small light moving in circles. No radar signal, no boat. Just a light. Every time they turned, the light followed. It vanished after 3 hours. No explanation.
10 grown men refused to go on night shift for a week.
#38
Not me but a guy I worked with. He was dive harvesting in an area where a boat had gone down recently. People were lost.
As he moved along the bottom, he saw ahead what looked like the shape of a man in oil slick rain gear.
Reluctantly, he moved ahead.
As he got closer, he saw the bib pants, boots, and jacket laid out on the ocean floor as if a man was just lying there.
Preparing himself for the worst, he came within touching distance and...
They were empty.
#39
I worked on a scallop boat and someone dredged up a half decomposed shark.
That was the day I learned that a half decomposed sharks head looks concerningly like a human torso at first glance, the snout had rotted away to resemble a pelvis, and the way the gills were exposed looked completely like a set of ribs from a distance.
It was great relieving to see that it wasn't, but on that same trip I heard some crewmates talking about the boat they knew discovering a human head and being investigated thoroughly after coming to Port.
#40
Not a worker, but when I was younger my family took a trip to the Florida gulf. A couple cousins and I went deep sea fishing about 20/30 miles off the coast. I got horrendously seasick and was bench ridden the whole time and was taking a nap. When I finally woke up a storm had started to roll in. I remember looking out at the back of the boat and seeing the sky turning an ominous dark grey and the water just turned BLACK. The waves were starting to get pretty intense and the captain was all “alright we really need to get back before this gets to a point where we can’t”. I never liked open water and that experience just made it all the worse.
#41
About 75 miles off the coast of Maine on a 55 foot sailboat. No wind at all, just fog so thick we could barely see the bow and dead silent. Suddenly there’s a disturbance in the water to the side, a giant series of bubbles and the boat lists and starts sliding into the bubbles. It lasted just a few seconds but stopped as quickly as it started.
We tried convincing ourselves it was just a whale bubble fishing. Didn’t really work.
Scott Rackley 1 week ago
Could have been methane hydrate letting go. Bubbling water doesn't float boats as well as non bubbly water.
#42
Besides the odd whale breaching, the horrible realisation that there’s no 5G or wifi the next 4 weeks crossing an ocean is mind boggling.
After a while you even start talking to your other crewmembers, creepy stuff. Nightmare material.
#43
Heavy Seas during a storm on the flight deck. when you see real waves and feel how insignificant you are in the ocean makes for a surreal experience. One wrong step and there is literally no rescue . Now imagine you need to be along the side of the ship pulling up heavy metal fences while the ship is bouncing around like a spring board up and down , side to side all at the same time. oil slicked tarmac glides like butter so you better pray you got the right boots on. Not going to lie I had to tap out momentarily and readjust my nut sack before I went out again. It was definitely a experience man. It's creepy because after one lift off you wait around for the next sortie and you can feel the ship getting thrown around crashing reverberations through the flight hangar and residual oil from prior pre-flight maintenance that you are almost always going to walk into.
Geoffrey Scott 1 week ago
Going into port (USCG) we took a 34 degree roll during morning quarters.. we were ALL on the flight deck The ship will capsize at 45 degrees.
#44
Nothing creepy happened. That’s the point. It’s the implication that something might happen.
Confused Capybara 6 days ago
It's always sunny out at sea, huh? (For context, this one is a joke post, referencing TV show It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, where one of the characters claims that the best date location is a boat "because of the implication".
#45
Another one. USS McInerney off the coast of Eduador somewhere.
Our helo was out looking for d**g boats so we are all on the flight deck getting some sun, fishing or generally not doing anything.
Suddenly the ships engines stop and everything shuts down. Good thing it was smooth as glass that day.
About 20 minutes later I notice the helo doing the "lost comms" signaling.
It wasnt just the engines that died. It was EVERYTNING!
Geoffrey Scott 6 days ago (edited)
Most expensive USCG patrol ever: Our attached(we had one on each patrol) helo blew a hyd line, hit the drink and the tanker Texaco Kansas saved the flight crew. We transferred them to our ship, THEN the fun began. Could not get the helo to lift out of the water on it's own(HH52) so SOMEONE thought it would be a good idea to hire an inland crane (harbors and stuff) to go out off the coast of Mexico to lift the helo out of the Gulf of Mexico. She made 7 knots against a 4 knot current.. it took a while. Once on station the crew informed us they were taking on tons of water. We pulled them on board and an hour later the barge broke up and sank, helo still in the water, being thrown around by the strengthening TS Jeanne. FINALLY after the now hurricane passed and the helo engine and all components were bathed in salt water for a few days, the decision was made to sink it. Cost: Whatever an HH52 cost, + the sunken barge. Only saving grace was we busted 20 tons of pot on the way home. (Edit) I failed to point out the best part of the trip aside from, I believe, one of the barge hands getting his ribs either bruised or fractured, there were no serious injuries or loss of life in all that.
#46
Does fishing count as working?
My Dad and I were fishing and thought we saw a sea turtle with its head sticking out of the water. My Dad told me to get our camera out (back in the 90’s) and I was ready to take the shot - as we got in range we realized it was a body floating belly up arms straight up in the air.
Poor guy was fishing a few days before with friends when a storm blew in capsized his boat in the Long Island sound (anchor off the back next to engine with waves hitting the front - flipped it) didn’t get his life jacket on in time. His three friends made it to shore, he did not.
We drove back to the marina (radio wasn’t working that day) and reported it. A few other boats had also reported and they were in the process of recovering the body.
#47
I was working in a pearl boat for around 18 months on the Arafura Sea a few years ago and one of my roles was “keeping watch” in the wheelhouse. Essentially you make sure the boat is following the pre set path on the navigation and if it strays you turn in manually to keep it within the course set.
My watch was 4-8am. About 7am I noticed a white cube perhaps 200m port side (hard to say with no point of reference) but it didn’t show up on the nav/radar system we had that let you plot/recognise boats. It was also not bobbing up and down with the waves, it was just sat there on the waterline in the distance.
I got a better look at it with the binoculars and it was so strange seeing this white cube just sat still there on the sea in the distance. It wasn’t really hovering above it but as the waves moved with the ocean every now and again I could see the bottom of it which is how I know it was a cube. Again it’s hard to say without a point of reference at sea but I’m guessing it was the size of a van - I’m purely going off how big things appear in the binoculars when looking at things I do know how big they are.
The person who was following my shift came to drop me a coffee and he saw it too so I know it wasn’t just me being tired.
Following this a few years later I saw when the tic-tac videos came out from the pentagon and some of the fighter pilots said they saw five shaped objects floating in the sky.
#48
The sailing vessel I captained was continuously bestruck by a great white whale, with an unusual spout, a deformed jaw, three punctures in his right fluke and several harpoons embedded in his side. We chased the great beast for three days and nights.
#49
When I was in the Navy, we were just off the coast of Italy at midnight. It was dark night, and you couldn’t see any lights from the shore at all, no stars. At some point we passed a long boat, basically an extended rowboat. It had no superstructure or anything. It had a light on. Ships captain told us that that was a guy fishing, and the light would attract fish or whatever.
So yes, whoever it was was in a completely exposed boat about 10 or 12 miles offshore in a completely dark night. And they had a light on to attract things.
Jrog 4 days ago (edited)
Yeah, they are called "Lampàre". Lampara is technically the lighting system, but typically it's used also as the name for the whole boat. It's a very old technique, likely used by the Romans with oil lamps (a similar method is discussed in "Historie Varie" by Claudius Aelianus, II century CE). It became commonplace in the late XIX century with chemical lamps and later with electrical lamps. It is still in use in the Tyrrhenian sea for some traditional fishing products (most notably, the Cetara anchovies used for the traditional "Colatura"). The "10 or 12 miles offshore" is likely embellishment though, since the fish caught with this technique lives well closer to the shore, about 2-3 miles.
#50
We sailed the suez, i was working on a cruise ship,
the crew was paid more to do "pirate watch"
we watched the sea with simple night vision stuff all night, this was say ten years ago....
the wealthy "guests" might have paid "1-3 %" more for the cruise, but they expected the entire crew to die battling pirates so they "wouldnt have to get up out of their chair"
the mindset was so sick, they wanted you to die for them but they also wanted to witness it or else they had not gotten value for money.
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Gustav Gallifrey 6 days ago
I was aboard an Australian destroyer in the Indian Ocean. Middle watch (midnight - 0400) and i had to 'go aloft' to sort something out. Once all radars and electronics were verified 'off', it's up i go. It's dawn, and when i' up there, i see that the Sun is sitting on the eastern horizon, and the Moon is sitting on the western horizon. With me on a 'direct line' between them. It occurred to me that i was possibly the only person in the world who could see that, at that time. A strong sense of 'where i am, in relation to bigger things'.
DeoManus Argentem 6 days ago
One of the coolest articles on BP in a long time - well done! I never worked "on the sea", but was briefly a lifeguard and during training we had an exercise where we had to go down to the of the elevated pier (about 10m high, maybe slightly less, and 200m long, this was about 25 years ago) and toss a training dummy off the end and jump off to "rescue" it by dragging it to shore. It was wild to look down from the pier and see how often and how close hammerhead sharks came to bathers without them having any idea.
Apatheist Account2 6 days ago
My MIL used to tell of how she was sleeping on a passenger liner to Canada, and was awoken by the sound of the engines revving up to maximum and lots of feverish activity. They were being chased by U-boats. They just about managed to outrun them (BTW this was 1942).
Gustav Gallifrey 6 days ago
I was aboard an Australian destroyer in the Indian Ocean. Middle watch (midnight - 0400) and i had to 'go aloft' to sort something out. Once all radars and electronics were verified 'off', it's up i go. It's dawn, and when i' up there, i see that the Sun is sitting on the eastern horizon, and the Moon is sitting on the western horizon. With me on a 'direct line' between them. It occurred to me that i was possibly the only person in the world who could see that, at that time. A strong sense of 'where i am, in relation to bigger things'.
DeoManus Argentem 6 days ago
One of the coolest articles on BP in a long time - well done! I never worked "on the sea", but was briefly a lifeguard and during training we had an exercise where we had to go down to the of the elevated pier (about 10m high, maybe slightly less, and 200m long, this was about 25 years ago) and toss a training dummy off the end and jump off to "rescue" it by dragging it to shore. It was wild to look down from the pier and see how often and how close hammerhead sharks came to bathers without them having any idea.
Apatheist Account2 6 days ago
My MIL used to tell of how she was sleeping on a passenger liner to Canada, and was awoken by the sound of the engines revving up to maximum and lots of feverish activity. They were being chased by U-boats. They just about managed to outrun them (BTW this was 1942).
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Indrė Lukošiūtė
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