Open Sea?

[Malarkey]

I have a certain fear when being out in the open sea. Do you feel the same? There is something in the tumbling water that has a way of getting into your bones?

 

[Rosie]

As long as I can see a hint of shore I'm fine but I don't like being all the way out in a small vessel. It makes me feel very lost and disoriented... I'm fine on a cruise liner though, then I'm just disoriented from the margaritas.

 

[Survivo]

As long as I can see a hint of shore I'm fine but I don't like being all the way out in a small vessel. It makes me feel very lost and disoriented... I'm fine on a cruise liner though, then I'm just disoriented from the margaritas.

I'm much like you plus I get sea sick very quickly. My wife laughed her but off when I got sea sick in the wave pool in a water world. Not funny if you ask me.

 

[Woods]

Well, it's not pleasant being in a storm because such large body of water in a turmoil can really upset some people. If the boat is pretty big I won't have any problems out there, I think.

 

[CozInCowtown]

Nope!!
Plan on me and Mrs. Coz retiring on a sailboat in the Carribean or Mediteranian.
DC

 

[Lamebeaver]

Nope!!
Plan on me and Mrs. Coz retiring on a sailboat in the Carribean or Mediteranian.
DC

Same here. I'm currently in the process of building the boat.

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


One of the Atlantic crossings I made on the Navy ship I was on...an LST (long, slow target)...was made during storm season. A crossing that normally took 11-days (a long time by most standards) took us 21-days...!!!

Each day I would call up the pilot house and inquire as to how far we had gone in the past 24-hours. Sometimes it was only two knots...SIDEWAYS...!! Another time it might have been 3 or 4-knots...ASTERN...!! An unbelievable storm.

No ship's work could be done, and no "real" meals were served then, as they couldn't be cooked under those conditions. Mostly just fruit and crackers, for example.

Our ship carried canvas straps that would be used to strap you into your bunks to keep you from falling out due to the twists, turns and yaws the ship took each day and night...!!

And you lnow what? I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything...!!

I've had similar experiences in small planes, but that's another story.

 

[ppine]

Pathfinder1,

Great story. The big blue water ocean is nothing to take lightly. I was on a cruise ship for the first time in Alaska in 2010. The ship was 950 feet long, but we were "outside" most of the time with the blue whales since the inland passage has a quota for cruise ships. We were rocking and rolling consistently even with winds of 20-30 knots. Being in a real storm, when the wind screams through the rigging, and no one can really eat or sleep is a whole different experience. My uncle was in the merchant marine for 26 years, and just wrote his memoirs about all those years at sea, and all of those storms.

Anyone who thinks everything would be fine on ship in a storm is kidding themselves.

 

[oldsarge]

I was in the bay of Panama on a tri-hull lake boat. The weather turned sour, it started raining, water got all choppy and we started to head in. This was late afternoon and it would be getting dark soon. Along the way the throttle cable broke and we were dead in the water. Turns out it was the linkage and not the cable. One person had to work the throttle from the rear with the outboard engine cover off while another steered. It was dark out by the time we got back to the dock. A very humbling experience being out there in the dark. Especially when you can't see land.

 

[Roy]

I think you need to be used to it. For us landlubbers there's nothing comforting about the sea. I will go out on the open water but I always feel a bit uneasy.

 

[ppine]

When I was a kid, we had boats on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. There was no air conditioning in those days, so we slept on the boat almost every weekend. My Dad had a stressful job and hated to leave on Sunday night. We went out to dinner a lot (by boat) and then went home in the dark, sometimes during squalls and thunderstorms. Dad would navigate with a compass, using lighthouses, and other night time aids to navigation. I took the wheel from the eigth grade on. My brother was on the bow with a search light looking for debris in water. It was the most exciting thing I ever did as a kid.