Moments at sea......

Two spring to mind.

The first was coming back up through the Channel Islands after a Dinard race on a rather nice X Yacht. Warm night, stars, no moon and the strongest phosphorescence I've ever seen. I even remember the 7kts wind, close reach, perfect. The boat had prop windows at the foot of the steps, and the whole saloon was lit by keel wake.

Second in 2016 beating across Lyme Bay (coming up in this thread quite a lot) in about 15kts, awb, grey day, green sea. Many years back when the kids were little I'd read David Glenn's article in YW about a charter he'd done with his young adult kids, and wondered if I'd ever get on well enough with mine to do similar. (I wouldn't have with my father). And so there I was, actually doing it. A good day.

Edit. The strange bit was that we were refuelling in Falmouth and who should be on the fuel pontoon? Yup Mr Glenn himself, told him how it had all worked out.
 
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Anchoring and letting the boat dry out on a sand bank somewhere in a deserted Wadden Sea. We had chartered a traditional, flat-bottomed barge, so perfect for the experience. Feeling the boat settle down, then seeing the water disappear and the waterline being followed by a multitude of wading birds was pure magic. We then went for a long walk across the sands with the only signs of human presence in the far distance. A couple of hours later it all reverses and you hear the lapping of the water against the hull and then you feel the boat coming alive again as it floats off.
 
RupertW said:
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.
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That is an incredible story and a wonderful depiction of the vastness of the scale.
 
Almost five decades ago I was a marine engineer apprentice. My first trip at sea was from London to the east coast of the US, in January and over the top of Scotland. Needless to say it was rough, very rough. We sailed down the eastern seaboard of the US and it was by then warm and calm. I have a happy memory of working on deck in the sunshine, the coast of Florida about five miles distant, as I busied myself replacing bolts on pipeline flanges.

On our return across the Atlantic to Europe (now March) it was very rough again. One night, I was woken by the ship's alarm bells ringing in the early hours of the morning. My cabin looked out onto the catwalk between the aft and mid-ship superstructures. Looking through the porthole I could see a number of the crew struggling around one of the lifeboat davits on the mid-ship superstructure. It looked like they were launching the boat. I decided that there was little I could do and so I went back to sleep - not really expecting to wake up again.

Well I did wake up again and next morning I discovered that they were not attempting to launch the lifeboat, but trying to cut it loose as the storm had broken the davit chains.
 
westhinder said:
Anchoring and letting the boat dry out on a sand bank somewhere in a deserted Wadden Sea. We had chartered a traditional, flat-bottomed barge, so perfect for the experience. Feeling the boat settle down, then seeing the water disappear and the waterline being followed by a multitude of wading birds was pure magic. We then went for a long walk across the sands with the only signs of human presence in the far distance. A couple of hours later it all reverses and you hear the lapping of the water against the hull and then you feel the boat coming alive again as it floats off.
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Did that in a coaster,bai de Somme ,whilst the skipper slept the crew scamper about on the sands!
 
The most spectacular memory was our first approach to Scilly Isles via Old Grimsby Sound. We had come in past the entrance on a reasonable day with showers threatened and had just lined up to clear a large promontory and cable length away before the anchorage when the heavens opened and we completely lost sight of the large lump. Of the end of our electronic chart and rocks to our port so just hove too. And then it stopped and damped we proceeded with joy past the lump and into the bay.

Another memory; another year coming out of New Grimsby sound at 0300, creeping along past anchored boats and outlying rocks we turned to run up the coast to head for the mainland. And all electronics failed. Navigator distressed and said how should she steer. I pointed out that we had established a heading prior to failure even if only just clear of outlying rocks and would eventually see Seven Stones Light. I mentioned that old navigators used the stars so we looked up at Orion bright in a pitch black sky and agreed to keep it just forward of our port shoulders as looking down at compass inconvenient while maintaining crabpot watch.

Wondrous. As so she steered contentedly while I got my head stuck in locker and bilge voids chasing down the failure.
 
I was visiting an old sailing chum who had moved to Hong Kong from the UK. He'd been regaling me on the phone with tales that you didn't need layers of pullovers and oilies there - it was all shorts and T-shirts,: even if it did rain it was so hot you were dry in no time.

On arrival, it was indeed hot, and I kept getting caught out because it was overcast, and the house, the car, the office and the restaurant were all chilly from a/c., so it felt just like home. That is until you opened the door and were hit by a blast of heat and humidity.

When I arrived he had very recently bought something v. similar to (IIRC) an Endurance 44 (another Peter Ibold design, I forget the name). Off we went from the yacht club with a reef or two in on a hot, unusually (for my stay) sunny day, in the shorts and T-shirt I had been told were de rigeur.

We had a very pleasant sail in the (for me) unaccustomed warmth, and admired the spaciousness and unclutteredness of his new boat. I was on the wheel for quite a while, and then my friend took over. We had been getting slower and slower as the wind gradually faded away, and we pondered putting more sail up, but we weren't trying to get anywhere in particular, and couldn't be bothered in the enervating heat.

It had clouded over a bit and then started raining. I made a great play of dashing inside and of laughing at him and his girlfriend stuck outside in the rain, and went further down into the boat and laid down for a rest.

A few minutes later I was suddenly woken by the rain absolutely thundering down on the cabin and decks, the boat heeled over almost on its beam ends, and my friend screaming for me to get on deck.

The rain was so heavy it was impossible to see beyond the end of the boat, and impossible to look at all into the wind. Our eyes stung from the rain as we fought the flogging sails. By the time we had them down we'd lost track of how far, and indeed in what direction, was the rocky island that had been just in front of us, and clearly visible, only a few minutes before. Fortunately, the violent squall quickly cleared, and we saw several high-speed rescue boats heading out past us, presumably to some boats in the far distance that had apparently capsized. We turned to head back to the yacht club under motor.

We were soaked to the skin, and shivering violently from the wet, the wind and the shock. I scoured the boat for some blankets or more clothing, but my friend had yet to move his belongings on to his new boat. All I found were some ancient kapok life-jackets left by the previous owners, but they were better than nothing.

So much for shorts and T-shirt sailing!
 
duncan99210 said:
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.
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Had the same experience last season mid channel on deck night watch heard a splashing and they were all around us, truly magical.
 
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