What have you seen when on the water

[derekgillard]

Looking at a previous post about dolphins the question asked was what wild
life has been seen when sailing, it gave me an idea, what have you good people seen or witnessed when out on the water serious or not.

Mine is.
Having a pint one day outside the pub along side the Thames the tide was falling and slowly out of the mud there it was a HEAD! complete with hair and teeth bit by bit the tide fell and more was exposed children were worried and the landlord was losing sales so the police were called, along came the local beat man who called for assistance from the river police some 5 min later their launch arrived and as it swung around the wash moved the head off the posti t was stuck to. It was of course a dummy from M&S with a note attached saying fooled you.
It looked so real even the ploice were taken in.

 

[numenius]

Body parts....

Similarly, on my mooring one sunny day - as the tide fell, a sickly white rotting flesh hand could be seen down in the mud just off the bow.
Eventually, when the level fell far enough, I had to investigate - got the dinghy and rowed around with the boat hook and began to fish about to see if the hand was acutally still attached to someone . To find ............. an inside out discarded fishermans rubber glove. Oh, how we laughed...

http://members.lycos.co.uk/boaty1965/index.htm

 

[billmacfarlane]

I went for an evening stroll in Fecamp along the pathway on the wooden breakwater on the west side of the harbour . I looked down and saw the weirdest fish I've ever seen in my life gnawing at one of the wooden piles . It was massive , I reckon at least 4' long , probably longer , and had a very long snout and a series of half circles on it's back. It looked like something from the Stone Age. I watched it for about 10 minutes before it swum away. I looked up my reference book when I got home and the nearest fish I could find that looked like it was a sturgeon. Anyone any idea if you get sturgeons in the English Channel ?

 

[Aja]

Of course you get surgeons - and dentists and doctors - though vets seem to limit themselves to golf courses. Oh STURGEONS....?!

 

[Guest]

A corpse! nm

.

 

[Guest]

I have seen a penguin in the solent. I suspect it had liberated itself from a nearby zoo.

 

[vyv_cox]

We were sailing inside the Rade de Brest, an almost completely landlocked stretch of water, when a submarine surfaced less than 100 metres (not an exaggeration) from us.

 

[Guest]

Re: Body parts....

Rubber gloves afloat often seem to be displaying two fingers on the surface. They are a common sight in or near ports in the Westcountry. Are they trying to tell us something?

 

[sailbadthesinner]

Only very lost ones
There was a Sturgen caught in North West maybe 12 plus years ago, my memory could be wrong as i was quite young. Apparently by some ancient law you have to offer it to the queen first as it is a royal fish. It is along similar lines to Swans.

If it F***s Flys or Floats, Rent it.

 

[Dreamers]

On Saturday evening at about 18:00 a rather large seal surfaced next to our boat just off the (Royal) Harwich YC on the River Orwell. He swam down river for a while, ducked under the water and surfaced with his (rather large) fish supper. Cheered the kids up no end. Apparently seals are not common that far up the river.

 

[dickh]

Many years ago when the kids were small, was sailing at Blakeney, when Matthew spotted a 'dead body' - turned out to be a seal - he was very dissapointed!

 

[Guest]

Sailing off the north end of Mull in >100 meters, I spotted just ahead and slightly up wind of our beat a seagull clearly standing on a drying rock and feeding where there should have been no rock.

It was too close and we just slipped past with the helm hard over when the smell identified it's true form as the corpse of a minke whale... the source of the seagull meal.