Jobs

Mariners shared their wildest stories from their time out at sea.

Fierce Gale

"Not so much what I saw but what I experienced. I was once underway in the Gulf of Alaska during a November gale. Waves were up to 35 feet with some rollers hitting 45. An uncommon occurrence on the diesel electric ship I was on was a cyclo-converter tripping. When this happened the ship would temporarily completely lose power and propulsion until some electricians could reset everything. This happened during that gale. I simply can’t explain how strange it is for the boat you’re on to all of a sudden go so quiet, that you can clearly hear waves slapping the ship and metal bending and flexing. Knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea. Knowing that if the ship lost its bearing and went beam to there was a real possibility of capsizing. It’s easy to forget when you’re at sea that the only thing keeping you alive is a bunch of steel welded together. At that moment I was fully aware and it humbled me. Thankfully we trained frequently for this and had everything fired back up relatively quickly."

"Another time I recall was when the ship took a rogue wave. They are absolutely real and I believe they account for a massive number of shipwrecks. It was late at night and I was on the bridge. We were passing through a storm and we’re taking the waves off the bow with no visibility. As the ship moves there’s normally a pretty standard pattern. You ride up a wave for a bit and then you fall down the wave for a bit. Well we started riding up a wave and got to the point where we should have been starting or ride down…but we just kept climbing and climbing. And then it happened. We started our ride down the back of this massive wave. All of us braced ourselves and tried to find something to hold on to but we all fell to the deck any way. Anything that wasn’t secured for sea fell down all around us. Manuals, tables, computers, printers, you name it. Our captain who was sleeping called up to the bridge asking if we hit something. It woke the entire crew up. Rogue waves are real, and they’re terrifying. I can’t imagine being in a smaller boat or taking one of them broadside."

– red_pimp69

Series Of Bizarre Events

"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."

"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'kin 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"

– BBQQA

Lone Yacht

"Some 20 years ago..."

"On the MV Explorer (since sunk) down near the Antarctic circle, sailing around the 'bergs and occasionally making landfall..."

"We rounded into a small bay area, and there, amongst the ice and coast was an unmarked sailing yacht. Which is odd as generally yachts have some identifying markings on them."

"To add to it, they didn't respond to any radio contact, and whilst I wasn't privy to the conversation (and it was a long time ago), some crew went across via Zodiac and were refused boarding."

"So basically a yacht, not a particularly large one, that was unmarked was hanging around in the inhospitable waters of the Antarctic and didn't want any help or contact."

"Proper weird."

– ThanklessTask

These Redditors have fearlessly plunged into darkness.

Dark Dive

"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."

– Comrade_Fuzzybottoms

A Dark Calm

"Not even nearly as extreme as your story but it evoked a memory, I did a scuba diving open water course and then did the advanced course which included a night dive in a freshwater lake."

"I was only 5m underwater, pitch black darkness with two other guys, we were on a platform and we could either face the dam wall or the open water, and I turned to the open water while the other guys were behind me, I turned off my light (we did have little lights on our backs)"

"Just the deepest, calmest dark I’ve ever felt and seen. Not a single source of light anywhere, just immense darkness. Still remember that feeling and it was like 15 years ago"

– circleinsidecircle

Things get more interesting.

Water Glow

"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 piss in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes."

– Tub-a-guts

"Ominous Red Snow Angel"

"Always love the bio-luminescence flickering around the hull at night. They're almost like a cushion of little stars guiding you safely along. On those really dark, moonless nights, I'd almost beg for them to arrive."

"I sailed 70ft yacht around the world a few years back. Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, Good Hope, Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, two equatorial crossings; the full deal. Plenty of terrifying moments, boring moments, funny moments and beautiful moments."

"A creepy moment that is burned into my memory involved a near catastrophe halfway between NZ and Cape Horn. We ended up hitting really bad weather and absolutely huge seas - 50ft swells with massive troughs in between. We were running with the swells for days as they grew, skidding down them like a bloated surfboard, always worrying that the next wave would break behind us and roll us over."

"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather - the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, you run red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck."

"At about two in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a seconds warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel - and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea."

"Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds - almost like a submarine surfacing - and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."

– Le_Rat_Mort

Coming Up For Air

"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."

– MyMomsSecondSon

When I worked on cruise ships, I was always captivated by the green flash on the horizon.

The optical phenomenon occurs just as the sun goes down or before sunrise, with the tip of the sun barely visible.

It emits a flash of green light that I found absolutely thrilling to witness every time.

It's not necessarily creepy, but still a wonder for sure.