Sea Stories and Tall Tales of the Seas by Forum Members

I served aboard the USS Kamehameha, SSBN 642 (Blue) and we bounced off bottom at 1400 feet. How's that for a Sea story?
At least we didn't go down in history like the Thrasher.

 

Boilermaker?

I emmigrated with my family to Whyalla in South Australia in 1961,my dad and I worked for the Broken Hill Proprietry company,in the shipyard,he was a draughtsman and I was a boilermaker apprentice in the plate and bar shop.
At lunchtimes I would go with the apprentices and swim off the fitting out Wharf,we had trident spears made from welding rods,the trend was to spear
as many cuttlefish and squid as possible.It was common practice for some of the guys to jump off the stern of the ship,and some would dive off the propeller,which was well out of the water because the engine had not been installed in the ship at that point.On this particular day someone spotted a great white cruising close by,as soon as he shouted the warning the water cleared in a flash,it looked like an olympic swimming race.We returned to the uk a couple of years later,back to the grey green seas and lousy weather.
I have rued leaving Australia from that day to this,but the memories will be with me forever.

 

Sounds like you may have retired, but those boilermaker skills are in high demand here these days.

 

Yah, one year in the Northern Aegean enroute to the Black Sea I had a " false grounding" . Boat felt like it bounced off a rock. No rocks around as we well off soundings.... no floating debris , so collision was ruled out.... dove on the hull to inspect...nothing... Turned out that it was an earthquake. 7 something on the scale and quite close to our position

 

I'm grateful you are here to tell the account of that incident. Please tell us more about it if it isn't classified. I did a (crudely-done) woodcarving of the USS Thresher as a 7th grade art project.

 

Boilermaker?

You guessed right,I have retired,I'm 66 now.I have a 1960's speedboat that I am trying to bring back to its former glory,and although the hull is f'glass,my boilermaking skills are very handy.
I lived in Adelaide for a while,we used to get to the outer harbour to fish in an old Austin 7,the steering rods weren't much thicker than wire,at least twice every trip we would cross train lines in the road,and the steering would lock in the full lock position,most times we would go round in circles,but on the odd occasion the car ended up on its side,and with it being an open top,we would end up scattered across the road.Happy days.
Had my first go at "Skinny Dipping"at Semaphore beach,nice experience for a new "Pom"

 

Speaking of crocs and gators and such... I was in South Florida around 1990, and went fishing along Alligator Alley. I had an Uncle Josh's lure on the end of my line that was made of lead, and shaped kind of like a short, flattened fish with an open mouth painted red, a propeller on the tail, and teble hooks hanging down. I could use it like a lead jig and let it fall; I could work it at or near the bottom. Or I could toss it and do a steady retrieve, in which case it stayed near the top. With the open mouth as a scoop in it, I could also 'pop' it to make a splash. Bass and bluegill loved it....

Anyway, I was getting ready to toss it into a likely looking bit of water when I noticed a sort of medium-sized alligator just floating in the middle like a log, with his eyes closed. On a whim I gave a mighty cast to see if I could splash my lure close enough to startle him -- and it landed right behind his eyes.

He didn't even twitch, so after a minute or two I started reeling him in, very slowly and cautiously. It seemed like a half hour that I spent gently pulling him in, although I'm sure it wasn't more than a few minutes. I was so wrappped up in what I was doing, and concentrating so hard on being slow and careful, that I had him within about twenty feet before the voices in my head started screaming at me suddenly: "IDIOT!! What are you going to do with him when he gets here??

I froze. About that time the gater opened his eyes, and suddenly just sort of exploded. All I saw was teeth and legs and a thrashing tail, with water flying everywhere. Then he was under the water and gone.

I even got to keep my lure.

 

I was night fishing on the old US 41 bridge remnant which had been converted into a fishing pier in Palmetto, Florida when a fellow sent a long cast toward the new bridge to the east. There was a whir as the line spun out, followed by a thump which was immediately followed by a grunt and a splash. I was out of blood worms so went down to the bait shop a little while later to find a dripping wet guy with a big "goose-egg" bump over his right eyebrow. He was in a boat in the darkness under the bridge.

 

One dark night I anchored a dinghy just upstream of a drawbridge over the Intracoastal near Pompano Beach (actually a bascule bridge, if you want to get nerdy), and paid out line to put myself directly under it. Just as I was dropping a baited jighead over the side, the bridge tender opened a window and showered me with McDonald's wrappers and related trash -- I found stale french fries in the bottom of my boat next morning, along with ketchup packets, paper napkins and the like.

 

Given what I know about certain bridge tenders you're lucky you weren't hit with something a little harder. It could be fun to dive beneath their shacks and marvel at the bottle collections one might find.

 

Bridgetender stories ought to have their own thread, along with boat ramp stories. Be honest, who here hasn't tried to convince some ditz that the only way the bridgetender will open the bridge is if she goes up to the bow and flashes him. This is something of a standard initiation prank in Ft Lauderdale.
Any bridge tenders on the forum? I bet they have a few stories to tell too.

 

Good old days

I moved to Melbourne with my parents and brothers from Whyalla in south australia in the 60's I was 17.I had aussie mates that had taken me "Roo" shooting,we used lee enfield 303's for the roo's and .22's for rabbits.We had a 1939 Chevy with the boot area convererted to a platform that held a 12 volt battery and spotlight,with room enough for two,one shooting,one on the spotlight.Roo's wont jump a fence,so we would chase them along the fence until they got tired,then do the biz.
When I got to Melbourne I strapped my skinning knife to a broom handle and went snorkeling under a pier in Port Phillip bay,[sandringham I think]
with the thought of sharks well in my thoughts,a bright spark thought it funny to jump in right next to me off the pier,with the sudden explosion next to me I thought it was a shark,I made a stab at it with my spear,I'm glad to say I missed,I came to the surface face to face with the guy only inches apart with the blade held vertically in front of his face,he went white.
I bet he looked before he leaped next time.

 

Torpedo Alley.

Sometime in the 50’s I went fishing with my uncle Pete off the Beach at Bangor in Puget Sound.
We were in one of Pete’s old wooden boats that leaked.
I was pretty young then, probably 12 or 14.

We did not have a motor. I was rowing against the tide, While Pete sat in the stern, managed the Rods, watched my course for me and bailed. We were trolling cut plug Herring for Salmon.

We'd row up the bay from one of the big red buoys, to the other and then drift back with the tide.

While I was rowing Pete would have to bail. However on the drift back, we’d just let er’ fill up.

That boat leaked better than any other thing it could do. It would pick up several inches each time we’d mooch down the bay.

We had a good time fishing together. Pete would tell me all about the politics of Europe and WWII while I was his captive in that boat. He was a Czechoslovakian immigrant.
He’d escaped with his Mother and two brothers just before the Germans took his country.

The US ARMY drafted him and he was used as an interpreter by the allied Bomb and Booby trap disposal unit’s following the German retreat. The retreating Germans booby trapped lots of things as they ran for home.

We trolled for Salmon while moving the boat. Then we’d fish on the bottom when the tide was at low Slack. Pete studied fishing and knew almost by instinct what to do and the right time to do it. I'm certain he could catch fish in a Mud puddle.

This particular time, I was rowing, the day was windy, the Sound had a big chop going and with some white caps it looked kinda bad but the fishing was good so we stayed at it.

Water splashing in the boat and the boat leaking made us wet and chilly. But when you’re catching fish some of those little things you just don’t notice.

While rowing back up the bay, open water on the Stbd side, with the beach about two hundred yards off the Port side.

Pete was in the stern, watching my course, fishing and lecturing on politics when he looked up to see something.

"What’s that Richard?" he says. His tone of voice was excited and Fearful.

He got really excited as I was looking around to see what he was looking at.

"Richard, look at that!" "What is that!" he was almost screeching that time.

By now Pete was standing up in the back of the boat. A dangerous thing to do in a round bottom Dory that was being rough-housed by the waves and jerked around with a young kid on the oars.

Finally I saw the direction he was pointing and looked around to my right.

I couldn’t see any details but it looked like a whale or something coming right at us. It was throwing a wake up behind it and bow spray off to both sides.

It was headed right for us and coming on at a furious pace too.
I began to row frantically. Pete was yelling for me to "Row Richard!" but I already had the Idea and was rowing for all I was worth.
I got the boat turned just as the doggone big thing came right by us.

Huge! Three feet around, made of metal and whined very loud as it went by us and over to the beach. It was longer than our boat.

It was a Torpedo.

We were fishing between two big red buoys near the Bangor Washington Sub base and these two buoys were target range markers for the Torpedo test range.

I imagine some Sailor out there looking at us through the Periscope, saying all kinds of nasty things about them Obnoxious Pukers and them old boats.

We got the message though....

 

Wow Thudpucker!
great story!
hell, got me going! I'm still rowing ...
thanks.

 

Someday, some talented guy is going to take parts of all these "Tall Tales" and make something of them.

I dont like Sharks n' Gators though. Them Critters make a short tale of a long story.