Ol39Capt

I guess I Won't be seeing much of the ship....

Good Idea...I need all the maps I can get.....but I know I'll still get lost on the ship...

I like sailing most any time the weather is good and storms are somewhere else.... And to this day I still can't say what it was we saw...it could have been a fish....I have seen things on the back deck of a boat that I have never seen on National Geo.....

Morning Loco's.....

Maybe we need a thread just for cruise and sea stories???

Morning TroubleMakers.....228 days.....1:31AM.....

Sorry it took so long to get back...I had to finish cooking lunch for tomorrow, and get everything cleaned up and put away. Thank you for bearing with me. And so.... As we tried to move around the deck we noticed that even our boots sounded like....muffeled. At that point every hair on my arms and on the back of my neck stood out so straight that it began to hurt, and the others were feeling the same thing. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly that we didn't even get a chance to be scared. All of a sudden the boat seemed to ride up on a wave...but there were no waves...the sea was like a black glass mirror. Other than the stars and our own anchor light and the light coming from inside the wheel house and cabin, we couldn't see any other ships or boats anywhere on the full circle of the horizon. Another wave or swell lifted the boat again. This time we all moved to the rails ( sides ), to see if maybe it was a large whale moving around us...but saw nothing. What seemed like just moments turned out to be almost 30 minutes and still it was dead calm. As we watched the water, one of the other guys kind of whispered to come over to where he was. We were now all standing at the back of the boat staring down at the water, watching lights... I have seen many different types of marine life that light up the water as they move through it and have driven high speed boats at night and seen the phosphoresent glow of the water in my wake, I seen submarines surface at night with lights on and rising from hundreds of feet below...but I never have seen anything like this. As we watched, the light did turn out to be little or large fish moving around below us, and then they all seemed to fade and move away, leaving the water black againg. We all kind of did a sigh of relief and gave that stupid little laugh, you know, like I wasn't scared....in the next second another swell lifted us again, but this time it got our attention....as we looked back down at the water we saw light, not fish light, but light from something really deep. The light seemed to be round and as we moved around the deck to see how large it was, we realized that it not only was wider than our boat but it was longer too. We were having a hard time getting a good picture of what we were looking at so the Capt. said lets turn out some if not all our lights and just use flashlites go move around with and not to do too much of that. He egan to turn out the lights starting with all of the interior ones and finaly the anchor light. The anchor light is the hightest light on a boat, usually at the top of the mast or on smaller boats, on the stern. Our anchor light would throw out a dim 50 ft circle of light around the boat, kind of light a night light in your bathroom... With the anchor light out you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, even if you were touching your nose, we're talking only star light. Then it started to get real bright. Remember that all the lights are OFF. We can now see each other and are able to walk around without flashlights. The water all around the boat took on a glow that even today I can't put into words, but I could show you combinations of colors and you would get the idea. Again we started to move aroud to get an idea of how large this light is, but trying to get the feet to move was another thing. The calmness that we were feeling a few minutes ago along with the stupid giggles was gone. Every nerve, every hair, every mussel was on edge. My heart was pounding harder and harder and I was trying to slow it down, I thought that my ear drums were going to explode. All of a sudden the light started to come closer to the surface and all we could do was freeze where we were, too scared to even think...then it just stopped, kind of floating; for lack of a better word; and it started to get brighter again...but then it just ......went.....took off......jetted.....zoomed......It headed due west. It went so fast that the only way we could tell direction was to watch it's light...and we watched it to the horizon. As it left everything went to black again, there was NO swell or wave, there was NO noise, the water was still like glass, no wind. The Capt went and turned on the anchor light and just the map light in the wheelhouse. For over an hour no one said a word. The only thing I knew was that me, along with 5 other grown men needed to change our pants. The boat was The Lady Jane, out of Tarpon Springs, Fl. 86 ft by 23 ft at the beam. She drew 8 1/2 ft of water. Set as a deep water fisher and trawler. Crew of 6. Capt. was 59 years old at the time, mate and wenchman 4 years younger, 2 other deck hands in there 40's, and me deck hand and cook. We shipped out for a 6 week run, this was the last large commerical fishing vessel I was on. I owned my own smaller boats after that...I have seen many things in the sea. I believe the Capt and mate have passed on, I don't know what happened to the other two men; I only ran into them a couple more times and they weren't working boats anymore...we didn't talk about that night....me...I guess I getting ready to go back to the sea, this time it's going to be a really big boat...

I'll shall return......

Many years ago, out on one of the fishing boats, ( I use to be a commerical fisherman ), we had been fishing steadily for two days, running from drop-off to another on the charts. We decided to take a break on the third day and just relax, eat, drink a few beers, and get a good nights sleep. ( We use to fish around the clock) After dinner, and after the sun had been down for a while, we all just kind of kicked back watching the stars flashing across the sky and listening to the dolphins and whales. We were around 400 miles west of Flordia in the Gulf, around 10 - 10:30 at night when it went totally quiet. No waves, no dolphins, no nothing.... The wind calmed to not even a whisper. Weall looked at each other knowing something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what. It seemed that it got even darker than it was, even the water seemed dark.... none of us could say a word, but we all knew what each of was thinking. Slowly we got to our feet and began looking all around the water and sky...no clouds...no lightening....no sound....

From this TroubleMaker...Gereat job...love the site...And it's been FUN...

Sure....got a few in the ol' seabag....but I got to go for now...be back later.....

Afternoon TroubleMakers....

Greeting to all Loco's....and the Crazies that read us...

Since I haven't been on a "cruiseship", but I have been out to sea many times...deos that count???

587.........I'm Ready....

Chuck please add 2 hats to my order too...Pirate name in the back....COOL...

HOO-RAY....More TroubleMakers....Welcome T & T...

Morning TroubleMakers....232....YAHOOOOO!!!!!

I know what you mean...I really excited...2010 seems so far away....

Morning all....how about "TroubleMakers Tour" over the top and "2008" just under the chin????

Mexico Hawaii Alaska Tahati Moon.....

When ? Where ? lol I thought he was only going to bartend when we have the party in HIS room....

Now I got to deal with Trainees.....

I'm in on this one too...Deb will really enjoy the view...

I want a plank spank..... NO PROBLEM Smoo....we can work things out...