Moments at sea......

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Wansworth

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One of the moments that has stayed in my memory was crossing Lyme Bay in an old coaster in a sw gale with a full moon,I stepped out of the bridge and was confronted by a natural light show of the full moon picking up the breaking seas in our wake,spectacular!
 
I remember coming off watch in the engine room of one of Jebsen's bulk carriers in mid-Atlantic and going up to the bridge for a smoke and a chat.

The Old Man was keeping the watch and drew my attention to the Milky Way, which was more visible than I have ever seen it since. A wonderful sight.

"They that go down to the sea in ships,
That do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord,
And his wonders in the deep. "

etc
 
On a trans atlantic trip, somewhere off Cape Verdes, the sea gets nice and warm. It was therefore my duty, on ladies shower day, to draw up as much water as it took by bucket to rinse off the two naked soapy ladies in my crew.

The burden of command.
 
In a 24 footer we were stuck in Cherbourg for 8 days of our 18 day holiday with South Westerly Force 9s and 10s rolling in. Being less experienced then we set out the first afternoon the wind went down to 5-6 for an overnight sail to Dartmouth. By the time we were North of the Casquets were were climbing up the biggest waves I have ever seen before or since. The Force 5 waves were like little ridges up a huge mountainous slope and most of the time we could just see along what looked like miles of twisty valley with a steep hill ahead and behind as we trudged splashing up the ridges. Spectacular and our inexperience and youth made us barely scared.

Then we’d reach the top of the vast frothy landscape and see whole ships buried in the troughs and to give an indication of the wave size there was one odd looking ship with only its bridge visible to us when it was it was in a trough and we were at a peak. It was further away than we first thought and far bigger. The small lifeboats across its deck were in fact destroyers and the long things on each side were a pair of frigates. That gave us a sense of scale and suddenly the size of the waves seemed more alarming.
 
Crossing the Bristol Channel on a somewhat windy night. Cold, wet and not enjoying myself. Suddenly joined by a pod of dolphins playing in the waves round the boat. Couldn’t see the dolphins, just their wakes and outlines in the phosphorescence and hearing them breathing. Truly magical moment and suddenly all the misery disappears as you watch their simple joy in life and their element.
 
Three days south west of Gran Canaria, hanging onto the pulpit to change headsails when at least 200 dolphins appeared, jumping through the rollers for miles around.
 
First Mate and I were crossing Lyme Bay after leaving Portland Harbour one evening, headed for Plymouth. We took the inside passage close to the Bill under engine, following the smoother water round until we headed Northish to clear the clearly seen rough water of the Race.

After turning to clear the race we had the wind on the nose, the old Yanmar thumping away and the boat - an Island Packet 350 - shouldering its way through steep seas. The last of the up channel flood with the wind over the tide.

First mate was sleeping below as it got dark. I was perched on one of the seats in the corners of the pushpit, holding on to a backstay. This gave a good view ahead, along the Starboard side of the boat.

After an hour or so, the motion got easier and I noticed the ensign starting to flap around my ears where before it was streaming aft. Within minutes the wind boxed the compass, the sky cleared of clouds and the wind settled to 15 KNTS from the SSW, right on the beam. And the tide was now going our way.

For the rest of the trip we sailed down the beam of the almost full moon, perfect course, perfect sail trim, perfect motion.

It was, in short, magical.

Never experienced such a perfect sail before or since.

But we hope to!
 
Couple of days west of Galapagos Islands, watching a seam on the Genoa pull apart as if in slow motion.

Taking it down and spending 2 days stitching the seam by hand (me), blistesr on fingers, and blood on sail.

Putting it back up and ten minutes later in not much wind, seeing the sail virtually disintigrate apart from my very strong seam.....

Nearly 4 weeks later arriving in Nuku Hiva in rain so heavy that I had to turn from near the entrance back out to sea for a couple of hours until visibility returned.

Drinking a vast ammount of Heiniken in tins with the crew when we finally got ashore!

Good job I like sailing.
 
Sailing past the Northern part of the Sound O f Iona when a pod of bottle nose dolphins decided to swim with the boat , the dogs were going mad for it running up and down deck woofing at the dolphins so the dolphins duly obliged and started spiralling out of the water on the starboard side to splash the dogs , and then watching my daughters face light up as I ve never seen it before as the Dolphins stayed for about half an hour giving us a show of acrobatics
 
Coming up to the anchorage at Balboa prior to going through the Panama canal the ship was closely followed by a pod of dolphins. As we came to a stop they all gathered at the bow and waited for the anchor to drop. Then they all dived and followed the anchor down to the sea bed. Back to the surface and they started leaping around in apparent glee at the great game they had just played.
 
I have had experiences similar to almost all of those recounted above (though, sadly, none like CapnSensible's post #3 :( ).

One of my most memorable sailing experiences wasn't strictly at sea at all. I was off for the weekend sailing my little 16'3" centre-boarder (my first 'proper' boat) from it's drying mooring among the reed beds near The Retreat at the top of the River Exe.

I done this trip quite a few times, but this was the first time at night. I'd driven down from Bristol after work, rowed out to the mooring in the dark, and dragged the dinghy for the last few yards as the water in the creek hadn't yet reached my boat.

I climbed aboard, made myself a cup of tea, and a few inches of water having now arrived, set off. The night was mild and the wind very light. I managed to get myself out of the little creek and into the main stream without going aground (which was not always the case!). The trip through the jumble of moorings off Topsham, normally about as tame as it comes, took on a whole new light (or lack thereof!) as I peered ahead trying to make out the floating obstacles in my way. I could hear people enjoying Topsham's polite nightlife.

As the moorings thinned out, I searched the dark ahead with a torch for the lateral buoys marking the winding narrow channel further downstream. The momentary gleam as I eventually picked up the reflective tape on one of the first them felt like some sort of revelation, and the dying away of the sounds of Topsham and the motorway bridge behind, lifted my spirits quite inexplicably.

Relieved of navigational stress, and that of work and life more generally, I pottered on very slowly, apparently the only boat underway on the whole of the river, and soon came to The Turf, a surprisingly remote (by land) riverside pub where the Exeter Canal meets the Exe. It has (or had then) a small pontoon for visiting craft's dinghies. My boat being no bigger than some of them, and this not being the height of the season, I was able to tie up directly to it. I then went inside and had a very pleasant meal and a couple of pints before resuming my journey, all of a few hundred yards further to a borrowed mooring, where I spent a very pleasant night in advance of heading out to sea the next day.

The whole trip was probably no more than a couple of miles, but somehow felt like a great little achievement, and the combination of that with being alone on the river in the peace and quiet of the night, leavened by the warmth of the pub and the meal, was something that will stick in my memory for ever.
 
capnsensible said:
On a trans atlantic trip, somewhere off Cape Verdes, the sea gets nice and warm. It was therefore my duty, on ladies shower day, to draw up as much water as it took by bucket to rinse off the two naked soapy ladies in my crew.

The burden of command.
Click to expand...
It sounds like you have one wife too many.
 
12 Sept 2016 I was returning from Ipswich to the Medway. There was no wind and I had to motor for hours. As I approached the Thames main shipping channel, the wind finally filled in from the south. Great, I could finally start sailing on a close reach at about 4½ knots. Not super fast but a lot quieter than motoring. With a south westerly wind means the Medway is always a beat, so there was a chance I could hold one tack all the way up the Medway. That alone would be a rare occurance, but what happened was even more unusual. The tide was still flooding into the Medway and once inside Garrison Point at Sheerness the wind started to ease. As I sailed along Grain Reach the speed slowly dropped to 3 knots, and the water became glassy smooth. By the time I was passing the old Kingsnorth Powerstation jetty, the speed had dropped to just under 2 knots and the bow wave was a gentle ripple on the smooth water. The only sounds were the birds on the muddy shore line, distant motorcycles, kids shouting and the occasional aircraft overhead. By the time I passed through Darnet and Folly forts, the speed dropped below a knot. In the eight miles from Garrison Point I had not only remained on the same tack on a glassy river sailing on a zephyr, but not seeing another boat on the river. It can only be described as a magical sail up the Medway. I do have a series of videos that I must stitch together and make it for all to see. Maybe the current coronavirus lock down will give me some time to learn to use some new software.
 
Sometime in the early nineties some friends and I were in Goa for winter living in huts on the beach around the corner from Anjuna. After a month of debauchery we got bored. Someone suggested we should go to Om Beach in Karnataka which was quite a long way south. After the crazy dangerous bus ride from Bombay I wasn't keen on more bus rides so made enquires about hiring a boat. We met a local fixer who arranged for a fisherman to take us and so one morning eight of us, and the fixer, set sail from Baga beach. We had no map or any supplies and the beach we arrived at was probably not Om beach but it may have been. During the passage we ate squid and marsala (and rice if you wanted it). This was caught and prepared by the fisherman. This was our only diet and it was amazing! Fresh squid for every meal and not even Geordie complained.

One evening as the light was fading we came upon a village jutting from the land with piers and jetties. The fisherman wanted to stay there for the night. Everything was black and dirty and it did not feel like the place to be. I said lets keep going. A little further on I saw some lean-to like structures on the bach that looked like they were for storage. I said lets sleep there. So we anchored and were ferried ashore. And we all went to sleep in the empty lean-to. A few hours later we were woken up by a group of people.. We had fallen asleep in their lodgings! This family were so surprised to see us and we were so embarrassed at being uninvited guests! The wonderful family insisted we stay and so we did. They are probably still talking about the time they came back to their house and found all these white people sleeping in it!
 
Some years ago I was taking a French 'Antigua' catamaran from Liverpool to La Coruna and, having passed outside Ireland, were trundling happily south under spinnaker in the latitude of Brest. I was watchkeeping in the saloon, reading quietly, when a loud 'Whoosh!' outside startled me into the cockpit 'at the rush'....

Then there was another 'Whoosh!' and a great grey back slowly surged past the coaming - maybe all of 20 feet away - and a huge Sei whale passed by, then submerged. Then another 'Whoosh', and another.....

There was a whole family, or pod, of the things.... and we were right in the middle of them.

Dancing with excitement, I banged on the coachroof to waken the other guy, who shuffled up in dressing gown and slippers to my call of 'Whale! Whale!'
He took one look at this thrilling display, muttered 'Huh!' - and shuffled off back to bed.......
 
Aged 3, I took my parents 2 seater canoe out on Loch Tummel with my friend (who was also 3) .... without my parents knowledge. All I remember was a powerboat going past and creating a huge wake, telling my friend in the back to turn into the waves ... when we got back ashore I got a real roasting.

Aged 5 my dad bought home an optimist, and he let me loose on Loch Tummel, at the Foss sailing club, I bounced the thing off every moored boat in the little bay - but what a feeling to be captain of my own "ship".

At around 10, I was on a weeks sailing course with my mum, she was doing her YM - just us on a 22ft Kingfisher - no GPS, just paper charts. As part of the course there was a night sail, round the south of Arran in the Clyde, then going up the Mull to Carradale - we were in the company of another boat with the instructor on board - a huge Moody.

I was in full oilies with lifejacket, very tired and fell asleep on the cabin floor. I woke up a bit later to a moonlit seascape and went on deck. Mum was on the helm and I went forward to sit on the bow - for half an hour I watched fish streaming away from the bow wave in a fantastic phosphorescent firework display. The entire week was magical.

A few years later, this time on a Vega, another night sail from Tobermory to Coll, sitting in the cockpit, aged about 14, steering the course my dad had set. Wind was moderate, sea was moderate, small clouds skudding across the moonlit sky - alone in the cockpit watching shooting stars - I was totally hooked.

I've been trying unsuccessfully to drown myself ever since and have many, many, more similar experiences.
 
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One August evening I was sailing eastwards outside the southern tip of Norway when I got a favorable wind forecast for the night and decided to cross over towards Skagen on Jutland, some 120 miles away. It was a warm night with thick cloud cover and I had a moderate breeze on my quarter. A few hours later, approaching midnight and pitch dark, I became aware that I was sailing through a patch of the strongest bioluminescence I have ever experienced. The splashes from the bow waves were like fireworks and the wake of the boat looked like a 15 meter long, glowing snake. Occasionally I could see fast streaks of light under the surface, most likely mackerel. Unforgettable.
 
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