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35 ‘Horror Stories’ From People Who Have Seen Things In The Ocean They Wish They Could Forget
Interview
There are few things more fascinating than large bodies of water; few that are scarier, too. The pitch black of the seemingly infinite depths holds many secrets, glimpses of which only few are lucky to witness. Be it a unique creation of nature or a man-made treasure lost hundreds of years ago, they tend to be equally captivating as they are creepy.
Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently discussed all sorts of things that are seen while roaming large waters. They shared their stories after redditor u/tylo144 addressed those working at sea and asked them what was the creepiest thing they’ve ever witnessed out there. The answers covered everything from bizarre to tragic stories, from items to all sorts of creatures, so scroll down to find them on the list below and see what secrets the water holds. There you will also find more details provided by the OP, which they shared during a recent interview with Bored Panda.
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#1
I was in the US Navy for about 10 years, and have 10s of thousands of miles at sea in an aircraft carrier. Countless nights on the flight deck in the middle of the night and middle of the ocean...
Creepiest: A HUGE patch of the ocean glowing. Like nuclear waste in the Simpsons glowing. I've seen bioluminescent algae of a few kinds and this was nothing like it. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
Weirdest thing: hundreds of mile out to sea from land and there was a MASSIVE fire on the water. It was like the top of a gas refinery, but on the water with nothing under it but water. Flame going a few stories into the air.
Saddest: a fellow sailor trying to jump overboard. He apparently got a 'Dear John' email and pictures from his cheating wife and decided to end it. We were on the smoke deck, he bummed a cigarette, then asked the time, we said 2300... he replied "sounds like a good time to die" and in one motion tried to launch over the chest high wall (with an opening to the water below). Luckily we were faster than him. We grabbed his legs and wrestled him down and laid on him and basically hog tied him till the MAs (Navy cops) got there. Broke my heart because he was a good dude. I never saw him again. He got transferred off the ship shortly after. Not sure what happened to him but I hope he's doing better.
Funniest: 2 flying fish collide mid-air. I was smoking when we were in the Persian Gulf and saw the fish fly from a pretty far distance towards each other. I remember thinking 'there's no f****n way they're going to hit' them SPLAT SPLASH! I was in tears laughing but no one saw it. Everyone just thought I was a weirdo, but I got to see a miracle of nature lol
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#2
Contract Mariner. I disappear into the blue area for 6-8 months a year. Creepy? Not much honestly. The sound of moaning steel due to slack tanks when you’re rolling really hard can be a bit unnerving. St. Elmo’s Fire is pretty neat. Fata Morgana aka “The flying Dutchman” is pretty cool to see in real life. After awhile the only thing out there that really spooks you is a problem you have that directly influences your survival.
All the spooky s**t I’ve ever been a part of have been no b******t emergencies. Fire in the engine control room? Im the first responder down there to see if it’s an actual emergency or a f****d up Consilium sensor? Wall of toxic smoke from burning electronics and the high voltage room? Oh f**k.
Have an emergency weather sortie because we are dragging anchor and rolling 30 degrees with 50ft UKC and we’re getting pushed toward the island? f**k me 10 shots ain’t enough we are about to run aground in a 55,000 ton 800ft ship. Pucker factor. Oops now we get the hook up to get the f**k out of there we immediately lose steering and propulsion? Good s**t.
I’ve seen brand new million dollar sport fishers capsized and bobbing around like a cork 1000 miles from land.
I’ve seen tiny little song birds skipping along the surface just barely clinging to life but they’re flying as hard as they can to find land. Some of the saddest s**t I’ve ever seen are those little birds skipping off the water as they fly further out to sea hoping to all f**k they come across some land.
I dunno. I’m on the Yuengling at a port bar and I’m rambling. To answer your question TLDR style;
The creepiest thing about being out there are the bottomless depths of sadness, loneliness and heartache. You will go places in your mind that words will never be able to do any justice in trying to describe.
#3
I'm not a sailor at all. But I did a few boat trips with a friend who moved boats around for a living. He was usually carrying boats from the French Riviera (Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes) to Corsica.
My very first trip with him, we left from Monaco on our way to (I think?) Calvi. We left in the evening, and the trip started very well, with dolphins following us around...nice moment.
Around 2am, in the middle of a pitch black night, very far from any coast, we saw a tiny light in the distance, pretty much on our way. And as we got closer, we saw it was a tiny fishing boat. The kind that usually doesn't go very far from the coast...except we were more than 100km from the coast.
We slowed down as we got close to it, and yelled to check if someone was on it. No answer. So we decided to get close to it. And soon it became obvious it was empty. There were just a few bottles of water, some snacks, some fishing gear, even some dead fish in a bucket, and an old Nokia phone (still on!). But nobody on.
My friend called on the radio, explaining the situation. Italian coastguards told us to wait around till they arrived. We did, and when they arrived they told us they would investigate the situation. They took our ID, wrote down our explanation of the situation, and let us leave to finish our trip.
The whole thing was creepy to me, as it seemed obvious the owner had fallen from his boat, couldn't get back in, and drowned. I had this in mind for weeks, thinking we could maybe have rescued the guy if we had passed there slightly earlier.
After a while, this story faded in my mind, and I went on with my life. Till someday my friend called me to explain that he got a call from an Italian guy, who thanked him because he could get his boat back thanks to us. He was the owner of the tiny boat, who explained he was out fishing not too far from the shore, when he had a big chest pain. He made an emergency call and was soon rescued, but his boat was left to drift. Till we found it.
Learning that the guy was still alive, erased the creepy side of this story from my head, and I was happy about it.
“I have thalassophobia—a fear of deep water,” the OP told Bored Panda in a recent interview, “So, I’m definitely not capable of going out to sea and refuse to go on boats, even if it’s just a Maui booze cruise.”
It’s safe to assume that the OP is far from the only one who feels shivers go down their spine at the thought of deep waters alone. However, according to Medical News Today, there is no exact estimate of how many people live with thalassophobia. When it comes to phobias in general, roughly 7-9% of Americans are reportedly affected by them in any given year.
#4
Probably a giant squid...well in excess of 10m as a conservative estimate.
Clinging to the bow and hull of our emergency escape vessle which was hanging a few metres out of the water, and a few metres below where I was stood. In the depths of night while i nipped out for a sneaky smoke, and I happened to look down at the rescue boat and could see the shadow didn't look right in the moonlight.
Stupidly i used my phone torch (big no no when its darken ship) and scared the c**p out of myself. The vessle it was wrapped around is about 15m long, and its tentacles were wrapped up over the gunnels 2/3 of the way down the sides.
Within seconds it had detached and fell back into the ocean.
I can still picture its eyeball, the size of a football, staring right at me before it dropped into the ocean. It still gives me chills now.
Sooploosh MacSchnibble 1 year ago
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how Giant Squid are real and how cool it is to live on the same planet as them? This guy is very lucky as he saw one, alive, and near the surface. That is extraordinarily rare
Rebel Peewee 1 year ago
I was thinking it's bc you might be really shocked or disturbed by what you see?
Load More Replies...
Bored something 1 year ago (edited)
Well he was probably pissed you screwed up his part of the mission.
Dr Robert Neville 1 year ago
I didn't think gint squid could support themselves out of water due to being designed for high pressure environments.
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
My Dad was an Alaska fisherman for several years. He told a story of "something" coming up from the depths. Much bigger than the fishing boat he was on. The sea was churning and they were FREAKED OUT. Turned and hauled a** out of there. Dad said he was pretty sure it was a giant squid (like 60 feet) . He got chilled every time he talked about it.
MaximumKarmaSaint 1 year ago (edited)
I have yet to hear a story about a colossal squid interaction on this list...or anywhere...maybe because there's no escaping? (Edit: YES I KNOW THEY ARE VERY DEEP SEA CREATURES BUT PEOPLE CAN BE ON SUBMARINES)
Bell-icose 1 year ago
Okay, stupid question but are gunnels and gunwales the same thing? (I’m Canadian if that matters)
#5
I used to be an oilfield diver in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd say about 80% of the dives I logged were at night. Mostly 500 ft and under DSV's.
It's very eerie feeling sitting on the downline doing in water decompression in the middle of night. I'd always ask topside to turn off my headlight.
Like a worm on a hook. Just bobbing in the darkness.
Medical News Today pointed out that thalassophobia can evoke a “fight, flight, or freeze” response. Activated when the body is preparing for danger, it typically leads to sweating, elevated heart rate and faster breathing.
For some people, it might even evoke a panic attack, resulting in hyperventilation, trembling or shaking, lightheadedness, or nausea, among other things.
#6
The bioluminescent animals (or whatever they are) in the water is pretty amazing. Our toilet would fill up with seawater and if you took a p**s in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes
#7
In 20 years the weirdest s**t I’ve seen is other people that work out here….
There’s about 40% of the sailors like what they do and are good at it. Another 40% that are good at it, but would do something better if the money was right. But there’s another 20%…. If they lived ashore for more than 6 months a year they’d end up dead or incarcerated. There’s no more “west” for them to go to so they went offshore and became our problem.
#8
i have a friend who works on ships. he said the single scariest thing he had ever seen was looking out a window and seeing a wave that he said looked like it was 100 meters high pass right by their boat and suddenly disappear. he knew about rogue waves but he said seeing one that big, and that close, and watching it suddenly just vanish was so creepy and shocking that he was literally stunned for a minute.
“I had a nightmare the night prior, after reading Whale Fall, a great book about being eaten alive by a whale. I woke up and kept thinking about what else is out there and figured I’d ask the internet,” the OP told Bored Panda, referring to why they decided to ask fellow redditors about the things one sees at sea.
They admitted to being quite taken aback by the netizens’ response. “I was shocked at how popular the post was and definitely surprised [about the answers],” they said, emphasizing the range that the stories covered—from the supernatural to storms, animal interactions, and beyond.
“I think the most surprising and common theme, though, was that the creepiest thing at sea were fellow sailors or crew mates and the terrible things people are capable of especially when isolated. That was surprising.”
#9
Creepiest thing I’ve seen has definitely been seeing myself and other crewmates lose our minds.
On one particularly awful voyage, everything that could go wrong went wrong and we found ourselves without food, water, and sleep for a very unhealthy amount of time. It started off with auditory hallucinations. Ships are noisy, and when you’re going crazy, you begin to think those noises are talking to you. I heard children laughing, a choir singing, and creepiest of all, a particular splash sounded like it was calling my name from the sea. Combine that with visual hallucinations and then things get really terrifying. I was convinced we were in the desert at one point with sand all around us and mountains in the distance. Another crew member freaked out and told us we were about to run into an apartment building. The creepiest thing I saw was an all-black flying pig with red eyes on the bow. I think the scariest though was when someone was convinced we lost part of our crew overboard. It turned into a massive, delirious argument over where everyone was even though we were all accounted for. That trip was brutal, and the captain put us all in a terrible situation due to sheer incompetence.
Other than that, there was this one time I saw three gigantic ships in the distance with no lights and they did not show up on AIS. Suddenly they were gone. It was extremely creepy.
Jared Robinson 1 year ago
Does nobody think to bring or make some kind of a condenser on a boat? you can't drink ocean water but you can evaporate it and then condense it back down to get drinking water. How do you run out of water on the ocean.
#10
A few things come to mind, but i have to say, "Deadheads." In my younger days, I was captain of a dragger out of Kodiak AK. She was a 130' Gidddings marine trawler. I will never forget my first week in the wheelhouse with the owner who was retiring and showing me the operation before I took over. After a night busting ice off the rails in freezing rain and 2 meter seas, he went to bunk and left me to wheel watch. It was clearing up with a medium haze and flat calm waters. Most of the crew was sleeping or hanging out in the galley, so I was alone and the only eyes forward.
I'm drinking some nasty folgers and sucking down a Marlboro red when I see what looked like an old pier piling, straight ahead. I kept looking at that spot, and, nope, nothing there. A few seconds later I swear I saw that thing again but only closer. Nope, gone again. I thought, s**t I've been up waaay too long and I'm f*****g hallucinating. Then out of nowhere this tree trunk shoots directly up into the sky, this thing had to be 60' tall and was about 30'off the bow, dead center. I damn near s**t myself. I pushed to port and rubbed the "tree" with the right side of the bow. We were at a good 14knot clip which is fast as hell for an almost fully loaded trawler. Then it shot town and disappeared about midship.
I later learned that these are pretty uncommon in the Aleutians, where we were fishing. They're called "deadheads" and only 2 of the guys on the boat had seen them before. They float vertically, and Bob straight up and down. These things were known to destroy older wood boats and kill crews. I'm just glad I wasn't dragging the net, and it would have cost us in the ballpark of 100k.
I've seen what most people would consider worse, but the fear that a huge bobbing tree in the middle of Alaskan waters come out of f*****g nowhere tops my list.
#11
Right. Long time lurker, first time poster here.. I’m no longer at sea but used to as a younger chap with romantic ideas spend months on end on cargo ships. Mostly tankers, crude oil VLCC and refined product tankers but with a little time in oil and gas and towing, I came ashore in 2017 with a Master unlimited ticket, sailing as chief officer. My last ship was a self discharging bulk carrier. Anyway I digress.. it wasn’t so much about what I saw which was creepy I saw plenty of interesting things I wouldn’t have seen anywhere else. However, I was second mate on a tanker distributing refined oil products around the coast of New Zealand. A yacht had sailed from a port on the east coast, bound for another port just down the coast abit but it had disappeared. Solo sailor on board - aside from his dog. None the less, the search proved fruitless and it was suspended. However, for weeks afterwards at about 0130 in the morning the rescue coordination center would broadcast a plea at the end of the weather and navigation warning broadcast asking for the yacht to make contact if it could hear the message and was able to do so. I’d sit in the dark, chain smoking and working on my 7th cup of coffee looking out into the black imagining the guy who’s had a stroke or heart attack on board with the same broad cast playing out on his radio while his dog ate his face to keep from starving.. or imagining him having fallen over the side imagining what it’d be like watching your yacht sailing indifferently off into the distance with your dog in the cockpit pacing and agitated unable to do anything about it. Knowing you were f****d and had a matter of hours - if that left to live before the cold got you or exhaustion. Or, imagining the dog starving and dying on a yacht by itself weeks later listening to the same broadcast in the dark. The places your mind goes in the dark by yourself… They found the yacht in the end. The dog was still alive.
#13
A man swimming alone in the Java sea. He had been floating for a couple of days and although several boats had passed him he didn't dare hail a ship not from Indonesia because he feared being taken as a slave or something it's possible he was a little mad but he did seem happy to have us turn up.
#14
A dead human body. It was the tropics and it wasn't in good shape. We turned it over to the authorities at nearest land. There were enough teeth left to identify it by dental records. Here's hoping the man's family got closure. The body was double bagged and stored in the walk-in freezer until our next port visit. There was quite a bit of cleaning and decontamination involved, but that's the gist of it.
Menacing Duck 1 year ago (edited)
Hopefully that man's identity is discovered. Would hate for his family to never have any closure.(Edit: I accidentally read it as "there weren't enough teeth left to identify"💀)
#15
I worked on the sailboat one summer in the Bahamas and something that you see a lot when you’re in the ocean is kayaks and life jackets floating around and you always radio them in but they always just fell off a yacht or something and it’s never a big deal.
Once we found a kayak floating and it had a fishing rod in the rod holder which basically meant someone was using it
EDIT: didn't see how viral this went overnight - some people were asking questions, the coast guard doesn't really even look into this stuff unless there is a confounding report so we never received an update (not that I would have expected one unless there was a full scale search), we went up close to it and it had the removable seat cushion still in which further convinced us that someone had been using it, there was nothing else to see, the line was in the water, but we never really revisited it, we tried not talk about it because the kids on the boat got creeped out after the adults kinda freaked out and didn't control their emotions.
#16
Not exactly in the water but body parts in a sea chest. (The sea chest is a hole in the hull which is used for water intake)
#17
A cleanly bit in half great white shark.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
I don't want to meet the creature that considers sharks prey.
#18
I didn’t witness what happened. I witnessed the guy it happened to. Early 2000s and a man I know who looks like a biker who should be a pro wrestler is working as a union underwater welder. He’s working a contract on the St. Louis bridge across the Mississippi River. He would usually stop by after work and eat some food or have a beer, as I was on his way home. We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve never even remotely seen him scared or afraid. One day he shows up in the middle of the day, hours before he would normally be off work. And he looks terrified. I thought maybe he got robbed or held at gun point or something along those lines. He tells me he’s under the water welding like every other day and he starts to get bad feeling. He says you can’t hardly see anything down there on a good at day and that day was worse than normal. He stops working and he’s trying to see what ever it is he can see that’s giving him the feeling. He said he got a feeling in his stomach like it’s already too late and he turn his head and looks behind him and he can see something sparkly and shiny a foot or so away. He reaches out to try to touch it and realizes it his own reflection because he can see his hand reaching towards him. Said it took second to realize it but he looking into an eyeball as big as he is. Dark black and reflecting him in it. He bolts for the surface and gets out the water, quits on the spot, and comes and stops at my house and tells me this story. I’ve know him for years. He’s not the type that makes things up or even really has a sense of humor. He’s easily 6’4”. I believe he went through exactly what he said he did that day and that story and the way he looked have sat with me since. I assume he came across some granddaddy of a catfish down there but I don’t know. A six foot eyeball??
#19
It's not my whole career, but I've been out at sea. Ironically, it's not the bodies of refugees in the water so much as boots, backpacks, etc. that have washed up on shore that stick with me.
Roan The Demon Kitty 1 year ago
I can understand that. A body is awful enough, but it's the belongings that tell you who a person actually was, that gives them more life than just the body you may find. So can be equally upsetting.
#20
Former Navy. The Indian Ocean is absolutely infested with sharks. You see nothing but dorsal fins extending all the way into the horizon.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
The Indian ocean is absolutely infested with sharks? Isn't that their habitat? You know, where they're SUPPOSED to be?
#21
20 years in the Navy. Back in 2014 we were getting ready to do a live fire exercise. I hailed a small boat that was near the area we were going to conduct the live firing and asked them to increase their speed by 4 knots to safely leave the area. They responded to me that they could not increase their speed because they have 30k lbs of seasbass on their boat. Well all of the sudden all of their lights went off and they wouldn’t respond to me. Then I see an amber light. I look through my binoculars and couldn’t figure out what it was. Then the light got brighter and we can see that the boat was on fire. We saw their life raft in the water and started sailing towards them. As we got closer, it was like a scenes out of a movie when this boat exploded. Not just any explosion, it was HUGE! We rescued the “fishermen” and found out later that the boat was a floating meth lab. Of course this was off the coast of Florida… 😂
#22
I was drinking in an airport bar and met a woman who worked as a commercial fisherman, on her way to SE Asia for R&R with her family. Real salt-of-the-earth lady. She regaled me with stories about her work, all the good stuff about working in her world, all the reasons she kept doing it for decades.
I asked her what the scariest thing she saw out on the open ocean was and, without any hesitation, she said "Oh, an underwater UFO. I saw one rise up out of the ocean next to my boat and fly off into the sky." The matter-of-fact-ness of her answer bothers me to this day.
Nice Beast Ludo 1 year ago
I believe it. The ocean is way more massive than land. It's impossible to imagine. That would be the best place for UFOs to hunker down
#23
Was on a two week cruise on a huge ship and one morning there was a tonne of commotion coming from one side of he ship. It looked like a woman had fallen off the ship and was in the water below, face down in a summer dress - her hair sprawling around her as she lay face down and completely motionless in the water bobbing up and down as she was carried by the gentle waves of the ocean. You think you're tough until you see some s**t like that. People were crying, taking their curious kids elsewhere, others were frantically trying to find staff to go rescue her. As it turns out a woman had left her sun dress and wig out to dry on her balcony the night before and the wind that morning had blown it into the water. An announcement was made and everyone was so relieved and there was a lot of laughter. It was surreal to see everyone going from such worried, sad expressions (some were outright bawling their eyes out) to completely in hysterics laughing and hugging one another. I think we were all reminded of how precious life was that day, and it really was a HUGE relief. It was terrible in the moments where we thought it was an actual person. What made it believable is that you're up so high on this ship it's hard to see details down below because of the distance along with the waves and water obscuring finer details. My friends and I, who were on the cruise together, drank and laughed a lot that night. It was a very sobering event.
#24
I was in a glass bottom boat in the 1970’s off the coast of Oahu. We were going out to see a pod of whales. The boat Captain was a grizzled old Hawaiian sun baked to the color of Mahogany. It was an older boat, retrofit with a glass bottom and bench seating. He was narrating over a PA as we left the dock.
We motored out for about 30 minutes and the view out of the bottom of the boat was disappointing, just long streams of bubbles obscuring the view. Finally he stopped the boat, and the view was simply amazing. The Captain pointed out a pod of whales about 1/4 of a mile away. They were cavorting about, diving and jumping. The Captain was explaining their behaviours, but keeping his distance. It was pretty cool.
All the whales suddenly dived and disappeared, emerging moments later, right next to our boat. They were swimming all around us, diving and jumping and splashing us with water, children were laughing, everyone thought it was part of the show. They were right there, almost so close that you could touch them. The Captain told us how lucky we were, to see them up close.
Suddenly, the mood changed when they started bumping up against the hull of the small boat. People were sliding all over the place, some fell onto the floor, children were crying. Most telling, the Captain had stopped narrating and had a look of abject terror on his face. I remember thinking what it must take to make this guy scared, and as he looked terrified we should probably be too.
Suddenly, as quickly as they appeared, the whales disappeared. They were just gone. People picked themselves up and sat back down, mothers consoled children, we started back to the dock. The Captain got back on the PA and tried to downplay the seriousness of the what just happened, but there was a definite quiver in his voice as we headed back to shore.
*Confused Screaming* 1 year ago
I know that must have been terrifying, but since you survived it also sounds kinda awesome.
#25
I was underway from the Port of Houston to Cartagena, Columbia. The vessel cuts all lights off on the outside of the boat, so it's pretty dark outside. I would always go and sit out on the deck and listen to my headphones, and look at the stars. Well one night, somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean sea, I noticed a swarm of lightning bugs cross the boat. Totally blew my mind to see light out or nowhere. At least I think it was lightning bugs.
On the same trip heading back to Houston from Columbia, I witnessed a satellite crashing. At least, that's what I think it was. It steadily strobed and lit up the night sky and water for about 15 min till I couldn't see it anymore.
And on a different trip, I was in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. No moon, no clouds, no light pollution, the amount of stars that I saw made me cry. Never thought starlight alone could cast a shadow. Definitely mesmerizing I still remember it like it was yesterday.
#26
USN Sailor. I have seen a lot of remarkable things, but the creepiest was a great white shark that swam (more like drifted) inbetween the two ships during an underway replinishment off the coast of Australia. I could make an educated guess on how big it was, but just let me tell you it was way, WAYYYY bigger than the biggest sharks I've seen on the Shark Week shows. Much longer and twice as massive as the "biggest shark ever seen" on the youtube videos I've seen. It didn't move a single inch... it just floated, mouth open, inbetween as everyone on the bridgewing exclaimed "Holy f*****g S**T!" It's teeth were as big as a man's head. And it had massive scars down its' back and tail from a ships propeller. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes.
#27
I am a recreational sailor who travels for weeks at a time at sea. I once saw a flame on the water not ten yards from me. Just freaking burning at midnight.
#28
Former comercial fisherman. One morning we had a Russian Submarine surface about a quarter mile off the stern with it's periscope fully raised. We had a marine biologist from the state as an observer, and I'll never forget him saying "is that a god damn submarine". We were drinking coffee early in the morning when this happened, and the captain kinda just pretended it wasn't there. Didn't call it in on the radio or anything. In fact we assumed it was an American sub as we were near a US navy base. Coast Guard showed up and started trying to hail the sub via the radio, which the captain had left on an emergency channel to listen in. I'll never forget our faces as we hear "Russian submarine victor leonov please respond".
#29
Nothing too extensive like some of the stories here, but I worked as a tuna fisherman for a tiny bit, where I’d spend 3-4 weeks out at a time, taking around 3 days of 24 hour travel to get where we (me and one other person - the captain who was a 5th generation fisherman) were fishing.
So many stories of insane things that I could be here all night - but one was near the end of the season, and we pushed out farther than we should have (over 100 nautical miles) where we had NO business being as a 37 foot trawler. And then we’re caught in a bad storm.
I had barely enough time to, very carefully, board up all of the windows before the boat started “scooping” when coming down one of the 12ft waves, the first third of the boat dives underwater before popping back up, only to travel up another wave and do it again…and again…as waves got larger and things got worse.
Basically, the captain and I stayed the cabin, bracing ourselves with each wave, staring at the radar in hopes we could stay in the position of taking the waves head-on and avoid being capsized. After a few minutes, and the fear that this 5th generation fisherman was exuding, I just accepted that I was going to die there - and the experience of that acceptance, and the event itself, had a profound effect on my perception and the way I’ve lived life afterward.
We eventually made it out, and didn’t say a lot to each other afterward. Lots of stories from that time, but this was the “creepiest”, I’d say!
Hugh Cookson 1 year ago
If you're on a boat where you need to 'board up the windows' you never, ever, go more than a mile offshore !!! Even then think hard about it !!
#30
I was on a 32ft speedboat and got caught by nightfall in between islands. No night lights on the boat, navigating using gps and depth finder. Captain knew the way like the back of his hand since he’d sailed those waters since he was a kid but for me it was my first time in the middle of the ocean at night. Pitch black but for the stars. As above so below, it seemed as if the boat was floating in the blackest void of the universe. Years later I saw the movie Life of Pi and the scene where Pi is in his lifeboat floating in the dark among the stars no above no below : it was exactly like that. I still have dreams about that night. . The engulfing dark and the silence that was not silent. Surreal.
We made it safely to port. Captain fitted the nightlights on that boat the day after.
#31
It was 1998, I was only 11, was out for a quick boat ride with some family. Swiss Air Flight 111 had recently crashed a bay or two away. We saw a suitcase floating from afar, my dad quickly turned the boat back to shore.
#32
Floes of ice passing by, covered in blood - then i remember that polar bears exist
Legitimately though, calm water and flat light. You can’t see where the sea and sky split, it’s really dangerous for helicopters and generally unsettling
#33
I was in the USN back in the late 80s and early 90s. Cruising through the Indian Ocean in 100% blackness then waking up the next afternoon and looking over the rails and seeing 100s of sharks swimming alongside of us constantly. Every now and then we would get a "man overboard" alert. They never recovered even one of them at night. They were usually s*icides.
#34
A toilet. I mean a literal regular household toilet floating hundreds of miles from land…and why was it floating? I’ll never know.
#35
Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends.
What do you think ?
Annik Perrot 1 year ago
Did some scuba diving in the tropics. The most stunning thing I ever saw was a group of Manta rays, dancing around us. The scariest one was a flock ( sorry, non native speaker, must be a better term, like murmuration or parliament ;-)) of barracudas. There must have been more than a hundred of them, long as an arm, a third of that a mouth with really sharp teeth, and all moving together. They followed us for a while, then moved away. I found them way more scary than the hammerhead shark we had met before.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 year ago
In English, groups of fish are usually just referred to as “schools” regardless of species, so it would be referred to as a “school of barracudas.” Though I honestly like your suggestions more - a parliament of barracuda!
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the sixthgirl 1 year ago
Me too, as long as I'm hearing them second-hand. No sea adventures for me, please.
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Star Anäis 1 year ago
I love the ocean but I'm not a good or strong swimmer so I stay as close as I can to the boat while I'm in the water. One time this current swept me away from the boat and was several meters away. I started going back and on the way I felt being hit on my side by something so big the water got dark around me and I thought I was being attacked or being drowned. I felt being upside down and going under and I thought it was the end when I heard shouts and opened my eyes and saw I was near the foot of the ladder on the boat and grabbed on while the waves slammed at me. Then I saw them. The tail side of a huge whale shark followed closely by a baby whale shark. I was so shocked and dazed and so scared. I had no idea how huge they were and their mouths were, I'm only 5'0 and could have easily got sucked in. I was just crying, I was so weak and swallowed a lot of water. It was the scariest, most surreal experience I've had in the ocean.
Rae Rory 1 year ago
Not in the ocean, but I was kayaking in a salt marsh when something bumped the back of my kayak. I thought it was a gator (scary enough) but then a dorsal fin runs along the edge and this stupid shark damn near flips me. (I remember it being huge, but it probably wasn't any bigger than my kayak.) It swam away and I paddled back to the launch site as fast as I could.
Steve Hall 1 year ago
I prefer viewing the ocean from my desktop and I will never get on a boat of any size.
Major Harris 1 year ago
former u.s. navy, 86-95, 30 nov 1988 on board the u.s.s. nimitz, gulf of oman. two sailors were working on an A7 corsair fighter bomber. accidentally fired it's machine gun into the A6 intruder that the designated alert refueling tanker. we lost 7 planes and two men. i will NEVER forget the smell and the sight of jet fuel burning on the flightdeck at 0230 in the morning.
Der Kommissar 1 year ago
We took my friend's dad's 57 foot sailboat out into international waters off California. Shrouded in the fog , we saw a large grey ship, with Cyrillic markings on the side. Immediately made a fast u-turn back to Marina Del Rey.
Annik Perrot 1 year ago
Did some scuba diving in the tropics. The most stunning thing I ever saw was a group of Manta rays, dancing around us. The scariest one was a flock ( sorry, non native speaker, must be a better term, like murmuration or parliament ;-)) of barracudas. There must have been more than a hundred of them, long as an arm, a third of that a mouth with really sharp teeth, and all moving together. They followed us for a while, then moved away. I found them way more scary than the hammerhead shark we had met before.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 year ago
In English, groups of fish are usually just referred to as “schools” regardless of species, so it would be referred to as a “school of barracudas.” Though I honestly like your suggestions more - a parliament of barracuda!
Load More Replies... the sixthgirl 1 year ago
Me too, as long as I'm hearing them second-hand. No sea adventures for me, please.
Load More Replies... Star Anäis 1 year ago
I love the ocean but I'm not a good or strong swimmer so I stay as close as I can to the boat while I'm in the water. One time this current swept me away from the boat and was several meters away. I started going back and on the way I felt being hit on my side by something so big the water got dark around me and I thought I was being attacked or being drowned. I felt being upside down and going under and I thought it was the end when I heard shouts and opened my eyes and saw I was near the foot of the ladder on the boat and grabbed on while the waves slammed at me. Then I saw them. The tail side of a huge whale shark followed closely by a baby whale shark. I was so shocked and dazed and so scared. I had no idea how huge they were and their mouths were, I'm only 5'0 and could have easily got sucked in. I was just crying, I was so weak and swallowed a lot of water. It was the scariest, most surreal experience I've had in the ocean.
Rae Rory 1 year ago
Not in the ocean, but I was kayaking in a salt marsh when something bumped the back of my kayak. I thought it was a gator (scary enough) but then a dorsal fin runs along the edge and this stupid shark damn near flips me. (I remember it being huge, but it probably wasn't any bigger than my kayak.) It swam away and I paddled back to the launch site as fast as I could.
Steve Hall 1 year ago
I prefer viewing the ocean from my desktop and I will never get on a boat of any size.
Major Harris 1 year ago
former u.s. navy, 86-95, 30 nov 1988 on board the u.s.s. nimitz, gulf of oman. two sailors were working on an A7 corsair fighter bomber. accidentally fired it's machine gun into the A6 intruder that the designated alert refueling tanker. we lost 7 planes and two men. i will NEVER forget the smell and the sight of jet fuel burning on the flightdeck at 0230 in the morning.
Der Kommissar 1 year ago
We took my friend's dad's 57 foot sailboat out into international waters off California. Shrouded in the fog , we saw a large grey ship, with Cyrillic markings on the side. Immediately made a fast u-turn back to Marina Del Rey.
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