Now I want to clarify something that was commented on by Mfumbesi in another thread. When we visited Africa we were too large to be anywhere near the harbor at Mombasa when we anchored. Had to hook a sea mount peak with our anchor by trolling for it. That's when you cruise around with your anchor down hoping to snag it. This was five miles offshore.

A monster cyclone was out to sea and no danger directly, but set up these amazing swells. We launched fifty foot motor whale boats to ferry guys back and forth to the beach. (Land, the harbor) These swells were so large that you would often find yourself completely surrounded by water and looking sunward would often see large pelagic fish highlighted like in some giant wall of blue glass.

Sometimes these fish would startle and pick a bad direction to jump and end up in the boat. Often with hilarious results. Its very Monty Python-esque to be looking down a line of bored sailors leaning against the low cabin and see one get flattened by a four pound flyingfish right in the mug.

With almost two years at sea I know of five diffent guys this has happened to, one guy twice. But he was a Bosun's mate and spent a lot of time on watch looking at water a lot closer to the surface than the flightdeck. On one of the above mentioned sponsons. Davenport was his name.

But anyway on one of the excursions to shore to party at a giant chess game* a short finned mako about 8 feet long jumped into the front of the boat. That's one of the bitey kind.

This had a bad effect on the trim characteristics of the motor whale boat. Went a little nose high it did. Several stalwarts with boathooks working in concert finally returned it to the sea, sort of gnarled up but vigorously alive.

The other two I didn't see personally the invading fish were said to be large members of the oceanic whitetip tribe. Another creature you don't want in close proximity while you are trying not to be sea sick.

So what I'm saying is they weren't great whites, like Mfumbesi supposed in the other thread, but I didn't answer. The water was way too warm.




*This hotel bar in Mombasa had a tiered floor with a giant chess board at the bottom. You would make a move then run up the stairs to look down at the whole board. The pawns were over three feet tall. People in the tiers would yell drunken kibitz's. I drank a lot of the brown liquor of Bora Bora that night.

Though fortunately I didn't get so drunk as to purchase and eat a meat pie from a push cart vendor near where the lepers hang out and beg. I didn't go but a couple of guys I know did, just to say to the folks at home they saw lepers. (Could I make something like that up?)

I had already seen some of the other wonders in the poor section and I gave generously. Fortunately I had a drago man who saved me. (A local hired to save you from stupid stuff like that. I had never been in a place that bone desperate before. The guy who ran the bar recommended hiring them, and which ones.)

The man who ate the meat pie had a case of the huck and squirts so bad that he was prostrated. But medical was full and had no spare beds so he had to be in his own rack while we sat with him in shifts for five days. The medics would come around to change his iv bag and measure stuff like pulse and temp.

We had to steal a new mattress for him every day from some other group's berthing like the bosun's mates or a snipe berthing and throw the old one overboard. (Supply was out of mattresses. Yeah I know, waaah. The other guys should have maintained a fire watch like they were supposed to. We sure as hell did AND kept a man at each entrance to the berthing on a stool. We did this in each of our berthings. There were thieves out there.)

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah