Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

This is kinda like boating but much more exposed.
I lived in Santa Cruz, California the last 2 decades and was deeply into surfing and windsurfuing.
Windsurfing there is strapped into an 8.5' board that doesn't float, and needs 20+ mph of wind to plane. the cool thing is they go 25-40 mph and can rock out in 15' or 20' of running swell. (for all you guys that confuse 2' with 6'. I'm REALLY talking about 15'-20' of swell, and wavesailing, ie surfing 12', 15' 18' waves, measured in mast lengths, ie, mast high = 14' double mast high = ... get the picture?), any way, this story is one time when I was sailing at Natural Bridges State Park, on Monterey Bay. I'm thinking it was Sept.
I was cruising along, all strapped in and having fun, when I looked down to my left and saw a 3' high dorsal fin sticking out of the water about 2 feet from me, then I look to the other side of the board and saw the tip of a tail fin sticking up about 8 -10 feet away.
I frooze solid and wouldn't fall for the life of me and dug in hard and kept on going.

I sailed right over the back of a 35' BASKING SHARK.
Now these are not man eaters,they are the second biggest fish on earth behind the whale shark. but if you skeg stabbed it in the spine at 25 mph, I bet he could flip and roll and spin and crash and crush a guy like me real easy.

They bask in the sun at the surface on warm summer days.

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

Again, not boating this was surfing.
For years, before I had kids, I used to surf at a spot north of Santa Cruz, called Davenport, the wave there was named Shark Bite Right, and aptly so.
In the early 90s, 2 surfers and 1 windsurfer were bitten there, by LARGE white sharks, in the 15' range, (actually 15' is considered a yearling in reat White terms, but these are very well documented bites w TV specials etc.

I used to live very near there and surfed and windsurfed there ALOT, often alone, back then it didn't bother me.
I still surf there and other North Coast spots but but not as comfortable as I was 15 years ago.
I used to surf alone and my personal philosophy was, " when the seals start acting like seagulls you are late for the beach"
Meaning, when seals are frantically jumping out of the water it's because they are being chased and don't want to be in the water all of a sudden, and when you see that very close, be thankful you can't see what's going on underneath you, and get the hell in.
I have seen that many times and back in the days of my comfort zone, I would see that, head in to the beach and wait 15 minutes or so till I didn't feel spooked anymore, then paddle back out.

Well this one time in the spring, April is, I was surfing there alone, and I'm looking down and a White Shadow starts rising up at me from the bottom directly below me, in one part of my mind I know it isn't how a shark should act in a hit but I caint see it and it was coming up slowly beneath me, and I'm praying to god, for real, please don't be a shark, please don't be a sharl, please don't be a shark and that was about as far as I got, it was a big white harbor seal about 7' long w black spots.

The seal would stay and play and frolick, and then split for a while, and I get back to focus on surfing. and then the white blob would start coming at me from the bottom and I'd be, please god, let it be the seal, repeat, and it was the seal, come back to play, , like 3 or 4 times that happened, I knew it was th seal, but I wasn't certain and seeing a white shape rising up at you from the bottom is freaky/scary no matter how many times it's the seal thank god, and it was freakin me out, it would lightly bite the arm of my wetsuit, but the teeth were like pointy needles and they would pierce the suit and stick my Arm and HURT, and I'd pull my forarm or wrist out of it's mouth, even though it was playing. but I didn't want to freak and upset it because it's still a wild animal, friendly for the moment but what if I made it feel threatened, or if I spun around to take off on a wave I didn't want to kick it and piss it off.
I was kinda freaked and not focusing and not surfing well so I decided to head in.

Those were the 2 spookiest things to ever happen to me. not playing with the seal, seeing the white shape comong up at me, and sailing over the sharks back

here's a few pics of me from another North Coast reef and the Lane, from about 6 years ago

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

when i was 12 yrs old we were idleing the 16'boat up to the pump to get some gas, and there were also gas pumps up 10 higher on a levee next to the bar. As we pulled up not paying much attention there was high reving of a motor up by the bar. Suddenly my dad yelled, froze, and just looked at me, then i looked up and saw gas pumps and a car flying over the top of us and landing on the transom. One guy got thrown from the boat, lucky no one was sitting in the back seats. It was like the Dukes of Hazzard car flying over us. HIMES

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

Leaving for weekend USCG duty now, I hope nothing exciting after all this chat :D

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

have a good weekend :drink:

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

As long as it doesn't rain It will be Ok :drink:

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

Loan Sharks are the deadliest kind of shark. :D

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

When I was a kid..,,,

Seeing a sunfish basking in the sun on the way to block island....

While running in Noyac bay... a rare site...having a school of dolfins encompass the boat while running at speed ( what I thought was real fast...a 17' Cruisers Inc. lapstrake wood boat with twin 40's)...way cool...

While fishing off the ruins... in long island sound...having a submarine surface from us not 300 yards away :eek:

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

of all the stories, i think the submarine surfacings would be a cool thing to see.HIMES

Re: Spookiest thing you have seen while boating
 

can you believe the other day it snowed in Santa Cruz, they had to bring in a few snow plows from Sonora.