Close Encounter with a Submarine
10 September 2007
9 September
The low had passed by now. The wind had veered to NE 10-18 knots. At 2pm I left the jetty here and sailed south. Yes, I must admit having a hard fight with myself before closing my web browser down and getting underway.
A decent sail, wind on the beam, but lots of swell since last night. The wind was just about to weak to keep the sails filled on this course. Thus a lot of flapping and the the boat was rolling quite violently on and off. I passed Landsort's lighthouse and turned west. My target was Rings�, and those of you with good memory knows that I spent a night there on my way north too, in mid June.
Happiness is not a permanent condition however, and shortly after passing ?-ja, the island that hosts Landsort' lighthouse, the wind died completely. After a while I had to give up and fire up the iron genny. Almost three hours later, in complete darkness I slowly motored into the sheltered 'lagoon' between Rings� and it's neighbor islands. All went well, and I was quite fast to hit the bunk.
The weirdest thing of my whole trip, happened just before Landsort. First one of the navy's ships came quite close to me while heading the opposite way. Considering the nearby navy base, it was not such a big surprise. A while later, a navy airplane crossed my path on low altitude. I reckon this made me make the mistake of my life. Straight in my course line, I saw a strange subject. At first a took it for a small powerboat at a distance. The wake didn't seem right though. When it came closer I suddenly realized it was a submarine! The tower above the surface, the swell breaking over it's hull and causing all that odd looking spray and wake.
It was a bit creepy that it did seem to slow down, and just laid there right ahead of
me. I wasn't more than 40-50 meters away from it when the cold reality hit me. It was not a sub,it was a shoal with one of those rounded rock constructions on top of it. Jesus! ...and here I was steering right at it.
A quick glance at the chart revealed the embarrasing truth, and quickly I steered away from this potential little boat-killer. (Above this text you can see a picture of it, doesn�t look to bad for a submarine does it?) By the way, a couple of years ago we met a sub,in exactly this position,with the tower above surface, just outside the harbour of Kalmar, a bit creepy it is...
10 September
This is not a day for the history books. A Southerly 16-27 knots predicted, in conjunction with- yes, another low passing by - veering to East and decreasing during he night. OK, that means I will sail tomorrow, and stay in the bunk reading most of today. Oh, yes,almost forgot to mention that I did some deadly important maintenance work on the boat too. A lightbulb in the aft lantern needed to be changed. Over and out ;-D