Big Water Guys

[moparlvr4406]

seeing the ghost ship thread makes me wonder...
what is the most unusual thing you have seen floating in open water ??
fresh water lakes lead me to a sheltered life I guess :huh:

 

[fwebster]

Four years after any significant storms in the Gulf, I was bringing a 55 Viking Convertible back to Destin FL from West Palm Beach FL for a friend. It is a 185 mile run across the middle of the Gulf of Mexico from Clearwater to our fuel stop in Panama City. Right smack in the middle, about 100 miles from land in any direction, we came across 3 telephone poles, with wires attached, a small house, mostly roof but some walls were still attached, a palm tree, a very large red bell bouy, and 2 containers the looked like they may have fallen off a coastal freighter. Most of this junk was within about a 3 mile area, so I figure that there were some currents involved to keep the debris so tightly packed. One thing is for sure.......the skys were clear, the sun out, the temps about 75 degrees, very little wind, the seas were 2-3's and the big diesels had been rumbling along and the boat had been on autopilot for 4 hours, so all of us on the bridge who remained awake were sort lulled into a comfortable state of complacency...........but, after we saw the house, the telephone poles, the containers and the bouy, we realized that we would be in a real pickle had we hit any of it. Nobody nodded off again until we tied up that night.

 

[Billfletcher]

As far as big water, and things floating, i was on an oil tanker in the 80's as a cadet, coming back from Guatemala through the Gulf De Tehuantepc, which is off southern Mex. The winds howl through this area, and the seas can get huge. Seeing a small fishing boat out there bouncing like a cork was an amazing site. I dont get seasick normally, but i remember being sick as a dog. Defining moment when i realized large ocean going vessels on a full time basis were not for me.

 

[Pyrojodge]

Hey I'm a "BIG" guy and I like water!

I'm not sure if Erie counts but I have found all kinds of stuff. Buckets,rafts, telephone poles.

Not sure when (Crs disorder). A large floating pontoon at a local fuel dock broke free and headed out into the lake. The thing is like 50 yards long.

 

[moparlvr4406]

I would consider the great lakes big water
12,000 acres is big to me
fuel drop tanks and picnic tables are the norm here

 

[Lazy Daze]

As far as "size" goes, this is probably about a full 180* from what Frank saw. About 16 years ago, my Uncle bought an old, 29' Pearson (that's a sailboat, 'fer most of 'yall) from the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was sort of like a Boat Angel thing. He called and asked me to help him take it up to our cabins in Friendship, Maine. Of course, he barely got the request out of his mouth and I was already packing. We cut through the Cape Cod canal since at an 8knot cruising speed, it didn't really make sense to go all the way around. After the canal, we skipped NNE and tried to make as straight of a line as you can (under sail since the motor crapped out not long after the Long Island Sound) for Muscongus Bay.

Well, we were about 30 miles due East of Boston... Sun was shining... winds were (unfortunately) calm... moving along at about 4 or 5 knots... we were eating lunch. And then, right off our starboard hull was a little bird sitting on a 1' section of 2x4 that was just floating in the water. He (she?) floated by us within about 3 feet. He looked up at us, we looked at him. We sailed away and he floated away. Now, I guess you had to be there - and maybe baking in the afternoon sun, miles from anywhere, had something to do it, but we just thought it was one of the strangest things we had ever seen. Miles from anywhere, this little birdie was just "hitchin' a ride" on a piece of wood. But, maybe that was the point - why fly when you can float for free?

 

[Southpaw II]

I met a guy down on the Gulf Coast (Orange Beach, AL) that hit a school bus about 12 miles offshore of Bay St. Louis, MS, about 2 months after Katrina in 2005. He was running a 24' center console fishing for red snapper and slid just on top of it.

Don

 

[Sum Escape]

+1 on the picnic table comment. We were cruising north on autopilot last summer near dusk about 5 miles offshore of Manistee. And like Frank stated earlier in the thread, a little lulled into complacency. Looked ahead (by the grace of God) at just the right moment and dead ahead only yards away was a big wooden picnic table loating 4 legs up. It is surprising how long it seems to take to hit AP standby, power down and turn! Very close call that too would have been a very serious issue. We have also seen large logs that come down the rivers in the spring and seem to languish out in the lake for months (years?). One cannot be too attentive out there.

 

[moparlvr4406]

this may come up with some interesting items.....
a school bus....wonder if the stop sign was out... lol

I am waiting for the alaskan contingency to chime in
I have heard the Bering Sea is like a junkyard

 

[fwebster]

This isn't really strange floating stuff, but it is something I had not expected to see...........on the trip I mentioned earlier, we were about 45 miles west of CLearwater when a USCG business jet came by from behind at about 100 ft off the water and scared the crap out of us. He slowed and did a 360 then headed on west. I called the Clearwater station on the VHF to let them know who we were, that we were ok, and where we were headed. They thanked us and said to move to 22A and standby. Next the pilot of the jet called, thanked us for identifying ourselves, asked for POB, destination and course and said they would check on us later in the morning on the way back. I later learned they do regular coast watches by plane since we are in a "drug zone". Sure enough, the jet came back directly over us in 3 hours headed east, we called him and thanked him for checking and got a wing shake in return. 4 hours later, the jet came back headed west again, but they must have changed pilots because this one just blew our outriggers loose and headed into the sun set.

 

[MartellFlorida]

Although i'm a gulf boater and certainly have seen some odd things offshore, the strangest thing I ever saw was in Lake Erie. We were on a friends 38 Sundancer headed to put-in-bay from Cleveland on a very hazy / rainy august morning. Visability was about 1/2 a mile and the seas were slick calm. We were just east of the Lorain point and out of view from land when I saw a large tall object dead ahead. Anyone that has ever made this run knows you can see the perry monument on the island from a good distance, but I was certian we weren't close enough. I throttled down and came off plane and as we got closer, you could see the outline of a ship. It was a replica of a classic american tall ship with cannons and all. It was very erie as it seemed to be adrift and not under power. It turns out the ship was on tour of the great lakes and on its way to Detroit or Toledo. This was summer of 2005 but I can only imagine what a site that must have been back in the day.

 

[HUMPH]

Not too big a body of water but saw a bird on something as well.....unfortunately it was a body. Probably someone that had jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge. Over 1,400 people are known to have suceeded in suicide jumps off of this bridge in the 75 years it has been open. The average has been in the 30's the last few years and they catch many attempts and escort them off of the structure.

 

[Woody]

I haven't seen anything unusual yet. Just wood, whole trees w/stump, logs. I keep a pretty good watch I think but the stuff that floats at the surface instead of on it is tuff. I have learned to watch for tall birds, if it wasn't for them I'm pretty sure I would have hit a piece or two.

 

[Woody]

Although i'm a gulf boater and certainly have seen some odd things offshore, the strangest thing I ever saw was in Lake Erie. We were on a friends 38 Sundancer headed to put-in-bay from Cleveland on a very hazy / rainy august morning. Visability was about 1/2 a mile and the seas were slick calm. We were just east of the Lorain point and out of view from land when I saw a large tall object dead ahead. Anyone that has ever made this run knows you can see the perry monument on the island from a good distance, but I was certian we weren't close enough. I throttled down and came off plane and as we got closer, you could see the outline of a ship. It was a replica of a classic american tall ship with cannons and all. It was very erie as it seemed to be adrift and not under power. It turns out the ship was on tour of the great lakes and on its way to Detroit or Toledo. This was summer of 2005 but I can only imagine what a site that must have been back in the day.

I see one with a green hull every summer, I think it gives great lakes tours or something like that.

 

[Gofirstclass]

I'm normally a river boater and don't see much other than stumps and the occasional tree. Several years ago we took our boat to the San Juans and there we had a couple of "close encounters."

The first was when we were headed into Bellingham and had just turned the corner of Lummi Island and set a NNE course. We were on plane about 8 miles from Bellingham, the weather was clear, no winds, no clouds. I picked up several radar targets headed out from Bellingham at high speed, headed right toward me. I held my course as they continued headed directly at me.

When they got about 1/2 mile away I could see they were law enforcement boats, about 6-7 of them, and they were running abreast of each other on a reciprocal of my course. I held course to see what they would do and about 200 yards from me they split apart with some going to my port, the others to my stbd. They passed within about 50' of me, on plane and running at about 30kts. The closest boat on my port side was a DEA boat and right after it passed us it jumped my wake and turned in behind me. I told GW we were about to get stopped but I held course and speed until I saw what they were going to do. The DEA boat followed me for about 1/4 mile then turned a 180 to rejoin his buds. I figured they were just testing me to see if I'd run or something.

The other thing was the last morning out and we were headed back to Anacortes. Heavy overcast, heavy fog, no wind, but very slow going because of the fog. I was just idling along when I saw a large beam, about 10" x 10" x 10' long floating ahead of me. Then there were two of them, then hundreds of them, all just drifting along. I went into neutral and we bumped into the first couple. It was an eerie feeling as they bumped their way along the sides of the hull. I'd go in and out of gear to maintain steerage and after about 1/4 mile or so we were out of them. I called the USCG on the radio to let them know of them and they said they had fallen off a ship in the Straits of Juan DeFuca. They didn't feel it was important enough to broadcast a NOTAM. Kinda made me wonder how dangerous something had to be to get a NOTAM broadcast done.

 

[SCORPIO]

Last summer we had some friends out for a July 4th cruise and saw what we thought were dolphins breaking the surface at the mouth of Delaware Bay. Turned out to be a huge log about 2+ feet in diameter and about 50 feet long just at the surface. If I hadn't seen waves laping over it, I would never have noticed it. I put out a Securite on 16 but got no acknowledgement from the CG. That night hundreds of small boats ran thru there to go see fireworks off of Rehoboth Beach. I never heard if anyone hit it but it would certainly have been a bad night if anybody would have.

 

[alnav]

I did a career in the Navy driving ships and saw lots of things at sea but perhaps the most interesting for this forum was the behavior of small boaters in the Phillipines. The Navy had a shore bombardment range near the base at Subic Bay and ships had to stay qualified in the skill by going through exercises at a range, usually for a couple of days at a time. This involved proceeding at low speed on a steady course near the shore, taking calls for fire and scoring for accuracy. The Filipinos would line up their 2-man bancas in an orderly fashion behind the ship and wait for an ejected powder casing to fall in the water. We put up nets to try and prevent the brass from going over the side but the spent casings would frequently bounce funny and fall in. The first boat in line would speed up and try to pick up the powder but if they couldn't reach it out of the boat one of the guys would jump out, clutch the (very hot) powder casing in one arm and push himself away from the side of the ship with his free hand until he was clear. If we were firing for effect, the guns might be going off over their heads at the same time. The boat would then take its place at the end of the line and wait its turn for the next chance.

 

[uraldyx]

Although i'm a gulf boater and certainly have seen some odd things offshore, the strangest thing I ever saw was in Lake Erie. We were on a friends 38 Sundancer headed to put-in-bay from Cleveland on a very hazy / rainy august morning. Visability was about 1/2 a mile and the seas were slick calm. We were just east of the Lorain point and out of view from land when I saw a large tall object dead ahead. Anyone that has ever made this run knows you can see the perry monument on the island from a good distance, but I was certian we weren't close enough. I throttled down and came off plane and as we got closer, you could see the outline of a ship. It was a replica of a classic american tall ship with cannons and all. It was very erie as it seemed to be adrift and not under power. It turns out the ship was on tour of the great lakes and on its way to Detroit or Toledo. This was summer of 2005 but I can only imagine what a site that must have been back in the day.

Did it look like this:

This was in the north bay on Kelleys Island last summer.

 

[Pyrojodge]

Did it look like this:

This was in the north bay on Kelleys Island last summer.

It is kinda neat to see the wooden ships in Erie. Kinda makes you stop and go Whoaa... there is a weird nastalgia about it.

 

[sbw1]

A few years ago a commercial tug lost his load of several thousand logs that were being delivered to Wisconsin. This happened off the port of Frankfort, Michigan. That summer we dodged logs all over Lake Michigan. People were hauling them into port and dropping them off. It was not uncommon to see logs stacked by harbor master offices on the northern portion of the lake.