The Ocean Kind of Freaks Me Out [Archive]

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 01:39 AM

I have no problem at all with water in general or swimming or boating or snorkeling or boogie boarding or surfing or kayaking or any of the ways I have personally interacted with the ocean.

It's the huge impersonal elements that give me the freaksies, like for instance, waves the size of buildings, 1,000-mile-deep trenches, overall depth and surface area, that sort of thing. Smaller but still freaky are the man-made giants designed to navigate the giantness, so like container ships, cruise ship propellers, anchors, even those crazy ropes that are as wide as 4 people.

It's all just too much for me, too damn big. I could never be a mariner, that's for damn sure. Okay go ahead and hoot at me, you monsters. Add it to the list of shit you taunt me about, see if I care. Just tell me I'm not alone in this.

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 01:41 AM

The size and scale are over-whelming, but I spent most of my childhood around container ships and the equipment around them. I still find space more freaky big.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 01:47 AM

Whoa. Did you play hide and seek amidst the scary hugeness? I bet you never get found on a container ship.

Demimonde

03-02-2010, 01:49 AM

Land lubber that I am, I love the sea. I dream of someday living near the ocean, but have had opportunities to visit. The vastness is beautiful to me. Like staring at the night sky in the country, staring out into a great expanse of water which appears to never end is comforting to me. It puts my tiny existence into perspective in a good way and shows just how much beauty there is in the world.

* Demimonde cues plastic bag swirling in the wind... Sometimes...

No wait, really I'm sorry if water freaks you out. But I love that element of that element. I've been in bodies of water that were 800 ft deep and while friends were eeked out about it imagining monsters below swimming up and dragging them down- I loved it. It was like flying in an aquascape, hundreds of feet above hidden mountains and life that will never know me. I wonder if my silhouette against the surface looked like a bird against blue sky to the creatures below.

Deadlokd

03-02-2010, 01:51 AM

That's funny. Count and I were watching Dead Calm the other day and we had this same conversation. A few times in the movie Nicole Kidman goes for a swim in the ocean, miles from land, like, no land visible at all. I decided that I couldn't do that. It isn't the waves, it's the depth. The not even close to 1000's of miles of depth. That's a lot of water for creatures to lurk in. And you mark my words, they are lurking.

The conversation then moved on to whether you would swim naked. Count would, I wouldn't. There are too many creatures in the ocean and I don't want some fish thinking my penis is a snack. Or some little sea mite crawling up and laying it's eggs in my urethra.

No thanks. I'll stick to my pool.

Adam

03-02-2010, 01:51 AM

:hoot:

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 01:56 AM

Whoa. Did you play hide and seek amidst the scary hugeness? I bet you never get found on a container ship.

Hide and seek, no. I caged pastries from the Soviet cooks. Fished with the Japanese sailors and got to drive a couple of cranes.

Container ships are pretty densely packed so the hugeness has tiny doors, little cabins and wee round ship windows. Where people actually live is not huge.

lisarea

03-02-2010, 01:58 AM

The ocean kind of freaks me out too. It wasn't too bad until I took the LM to see the ocean for the first time, and then my sweet little babby was in it and I got really scared. And I'm still a little mad at it.

I've been scared of space, though, since I was little. Space was like my boogeyman. I used to have nights I couldn't sleep because I was busy freaking out about infinite space, or even scarier, FINITE SPACE. Because WHAT THE FUCK WOULD THAT MEAN? LIKE IT ENDS, and THEN WHAT? Because that is bullshit, and you know it!

I think the mental illness we have is the opposite of claustrophobia.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 01:59 AM

The vastness is beautiful to me. Like staring at the night sky in the country, staring out into a great expanse of water which appears to never end is comforting to me. It puts my tiny existence into perspective in a good way and shows just how much beauty there is in the world.
I totally get that. History performs that exact function for me. All the people who came before us, the richness of all these lives and acts and remnants are a warm embrace reassuring me of how profoundly insignificant I am.

No wait, really I'm sorry if water freaks you out. But I love that element of that element. I've been in bodies of water that were 800 ft deep and while friends were eeked out about it imagining monsters below swimming up and dragging them down- I loved it. It was like flying in an aquascape, hundreds of feet above hidden mountains and life that will never know me. I wonder if my silhouette against the surface looked like a bird against blue sky to the creatures below.
Oh, water doesn't freak me out. I'll happily slosh about in the ocean without a care in the world, but yeah, the hugeness of it does. When I was a girl we used to go lake Albano (a spent volcanic crater lake) for summer picnics, and my parents told me that it was bottomless. I just couldn't accept that. I wasn't as freaked out by it, though, because the lake is quite small in diameter and you can see all its boundaries.

I didn't much enjoy infinity in math class either, now that I think of it.

Demimonde

03-02-2010, 02:00 AM

Agoraphobia?

ETA Crossposts

I can see how time could also have that function. But at least in time you can orient yourself within it. What I mean is, your place in the vastness of it all is more fixed. Whereas in space and the vastness of an ocean that is more mutable and uncertain.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:01 AM

Nope. No problem out in the open.

Adam

03-02-2010, 02:04 AM

When I was a good little Catholic boy, like 8 or 9, true story, I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a sweaty panic because HEAVEN WOULD JUST GO ON AND ON FOREVER AND WHAT IF SOMEDAY I JUST WANTED TO DIE?

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:06 AM

I've been scared of space, though, since I was little. Space was like my boogeyman. I used to have nights I couldn't sleep because I was busy freaking out about infinite space, or even scarier, FINITE SPACE. Because WHAT THE FUCK WOULD THAT MEAN? LIKE IT ENDS, and THEN WHAT? Because that is bullshit, and you know it!
Fuck. Yes. Hellfuckyes. Fuck space. Seriously. You know how some kiddies are like "I wanna be an astronaut" or some grownup kiddies are like "I wanna pay that asshole Richard Branson or some post-Soviet tin-can-with-wings corporation a million dollars to take me to the stars"? Those people are SICK.

I think the mental illness we have is the opposite of claustrophobia.
But I'm not at all freaked out by wide open spaces on earth.

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 02:07 AM

I sometimes get the "what the hell is underneath me" freak out while swimming in deep water too. Ships aren't a problem though.
I can also freak out about earthquakes and any large natural force.

A lot of people have a hard time dealing with climbing up the 250 foot ladder to the crane though I was OK with it. Sure made climbing on my roof seem like small potatoes.

Demimonde

03-02-2010, 02:11 AM

Found it! Apeirophobia (http://www.anxietymatters.com/symptoms_of_anxiety/phobias/phobias/a/apeirophobia.htm)= fear of infinity.

Yeah, I love heights and space too. I am a totaly sicko. I remember having an argument with a friend when I was twelve or so, after watching Apollo 13. She was saying she would never ever be willing to go into space. I said I would be happy to die having been to such an awesome place, it would be worth the trip.

BrotherMan

03-02-2010, 02:18 AM

ohai dere
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs41/300W/i/2009/050/f/b/platinum_by_Armaru.jpg (http://armaru.deviantart.com/art/platinum-113425134)

CLICK HIM

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 02:23 AM

The littlest octopi are the scariest. The blue ring octopus can kill 24 humans or some shit like that, Deadloked is right to be afraid of his sea!
Our part of the Pacific is pretty pacific though.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:26 AM

Yeah, the Kraken is just a misunderstood cuddler. :aww:

naturalist.atheist

03-02-2010, 02:28 AM

Demimonde

03-02-2010, 02:31 AM

Bro, I am in love with that guy. I will name him Mo Mo and love him forever.

Little Adam's story reminds me of when I was a demi-Demi. I used to lie awake in my little bed worried that I was offending God. You see, when I was laying on my tummy, I was mooning God because my hiney was pointing towards heaven. But when I rolled over He could see right through the Earth to the other side of Heaven and my butt was still pointing at him. It really worried me as a kid. It was my own little theory of hiney relativity that had me convinced we were all going to Hell.

Thinking about it though, I wonder if my being from the plains has anything to do with my lack of fear of the oceans? We have huge skies that seem to go on forever. My brother out in California would get depressed and claustrophobic going back to LA. When he comes home to visit he has to adjust back to the Big skies again.

lisarea

03-02-2010, 02:41 AM

But I'm not at all freaked out by wide open spaces on earth.

Snipers.

Just saying.

Snipers and also people looking at you.

Think about it.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:44 AM

Nope. Not a problem. I grew up in city that's had a few million people living in it for a couple of thousand years. Protip: send the snipers a nice cappuccino and get on their good side. I was pretty pissed this one time when I had neighbors in a really shitty band, though.

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 02:47 AM

I hear you, I live in Portland, land of the shitty garage band.

Once I counted 5 bands practicing on a 10 block walk in my old neighborhood.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:48 AM

See now, this is where a sniper population comes in handy.

irukandji

03-02-2010, 02:48 AM

BrotherMan

03-02-2010, 02:53 AM

I've never been out-out in the ocean. I've seen it from the beach and I've been close to it at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, but I don't think ever far enough to not see land; so I've never had to face (or not) the existential crisis of IS THERE A BOTTOM or WILL SOMETHING EAT ME. It can't be the same as looking up into the endless sky in the middle of the night though. I don't have to keep swimming to breathe when laying on my back in the back yard looking at the stars, so it has that going for it. I did, however, recently finish reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As dry (no pun) as it was at times, I can see how that style of fiction launched the imaginations of a million children; down to the depths of the oceans and into the empty black of space. I'm only mostly amazed at the size of man made things built to traverse these spaces. The incredible nature of nature (again, no pun) is a billionity times more fascinating and awe inducing. That said, I can only stare at the sky for so long before the emptiness of it looks into me.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:54 AM

it aint always the big boys one needs to be concerned about

the irukandji jellyfish..... when it envenomates, it doesnt always kill you, but the outcome can make you wish you were dead

northern australian tropical waters, in case you were wondering where not to be
The hugeness doesn't make me uncomfortable because it's threatening to my well-being, though. Ebola has the matchstick jellyfish beat on that score, and by a lot too.

Ymir's blood

03-02-2010, 03:04 AM

The Ocean Kind of Freaks Me Out
Ok, I'm sorry. Leaving now.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 03:08 AM

:ungiggle:

The Lone Ranger

03-02-2010, 03:12 AM

A few years ago, I went out with some students and some marine biologists on a small research vessel off the coast of South Carolina. While there was a hurricane about 100 miles offshore. There were some big rollers.

We were heading for the sheltered side of an island, where we could do our work, but that meant crossing a fairly big stretch of open water. It's not that I'd never before been at sea, but it's not often you get to be at sea while in proximity to a hurricane. So I wanted to get a good view.

When we left the sheltered harbour and headed out to sea, I secured myself to the railing at the bow to watch the show. Everyone else declared me to be nuts and stayed inside.

It was so worth it.

Once we got out into open water, we were subjected to enormous, long-term rollers. (That is, the waves were very tall, but with very long wavelengths. Because of that, and because the water was deep-enough that the waves weren't breaking, our vessel was in no danger.) We'd slide down into the trough between two of them and I'd be looking up at a towering wall of water in front of us that was higher than the vessel's mainmast. Then we'd slide up that wave until, at the crest, you were looking down at the sea some 30 feet below or thereabouts.

It was quite an experience, and I enjoyed it immensely. It was rather like riding a roller coaster in some respects. None of my colleagues or students wanted to share it, however; they opined that it was a quite-sufficiently-exciting experience from inside the cabin. To each their own, I suppose.

Cheers,

Michael

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 03:26 AM

:stunned: How exactly did you secure yourself to the bow? I can't help but picture Odysseus tying himself to the mast to keep from succumbing to the mermaids' song.

ceptimus

03-02-2010, 03:54 AM

BrotherMan

03-02-2010, 03:59 AM

:unnod:

Nullifidian

03-02-2010, 04:45 AM

The littlest octopi are the scariest. The blue ring octopus can kill 24 humans or some shit like that, Deadloked is right to be afraid of his sea!
Our part of the Pacific is pretty pacific though.

You aren't even worried about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/)?

You're a braver person than I am. Those things are freaky. :scaredshiver:

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 04:55 AM

Holy shit there's an octopus in that tree!1

naturalist.atheist

03-02-2010, 04:59 AM

Lying on my back in a flat open space looking up into the sky, I sometimes get the feeling that gravity isn't all that reliable, and that I might 'fall' upwards into the void. It's cool when that happens.

What I like to do is imagine that I can visually perceive the full 4pi sold angle all at once. You have to know your sky. The sensation is not falling or floating. Its hard to describe.

It's funny, when you compare yourself to things that are orders of orders of magnitude larger than yourself then the scale isn't scary at all. You become a geometric point. Makes the oceans kinda insignificant.

Kael

03-02-2010, 05:01 AM

I would love to travel in space. That would be my dream. I've never really been on the ocean, so I don't know, but it just doesn't have the same draw to me as the vastness of the stars. The only thing that freaks me out about the ocean is all the weird shit that lives really deep down.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 05:02 AM

PERVERT

Qingdai

03-02-2010, 05:03 AM

I'm more concerned about the fur bearing trout and the mountain walrus. Nothing like getting bumped off a ridge line by a walrus, I'll tell you what...

Nullifidian

03-02-2010, 05:10 AM

It's all just too much for me, too damn big. I could never be a mariner, that's for damn sure.

Now if I lived in the age of sail, I don't think I'd have any hesitation about volunteering for a berth at sea, despite the issues with hygiene, privacy, nutrition, and naval discipline. Granted, I'd have rather tagged along as a gentleman naturalist like Darwin or an oceanographer, and I'd definitely want to wait until after the invention and widespread adoption of the marine chronometer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer), but I could have served my term as an ordinary sailor quite happily.

These days I sublimate such feelings by reading all I can about the sea, going ocean kayaking (even all the way to the Channel Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Islands_of_California) once), diving, recreational sailing, and toying with the thought of specializing in marine biology.

I won't hoot! hoot! hoot! at you because I understand lots of people are freaked out by the ocean and ocean critters. Knowing about evolution as I do, I can be freaked out by creatures who don't even exist anymore, like Dunkleosteus, one of the placoderm fishes, the eurypterids (sea scorpions, about the size of a man), and ammonites with shells six feet in diameter.

Dunkleosteus skill beneath the spoiler. Bear in mind this critter measured up to 10 meters long.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Dunkleosteus_skull_QM_email.jpg

Even the ones we have today are pretty freaky. Sharks scare people, of course, but for my money I'm more worried about a 6 foot tall Humboldt squid. They're called "red devils" by Mexican fishermen because they're large, red, and aggressive as hell. Their large beaks can bite clean through a human limb. I've also seen a blue-ringed octopus while diving, to carry on the theme of freaky cephalopods. One small bite from that thing can inject enough toxin to kill an adult human in seconds.

Nevertheless, the sea also has some really amazing critters. That same vacation when I saw the blue-ringed octopus, I also saw a whale shark. It's the largest of all sharks, the largest confirmed specimen being 41.5 feet long, and totally non-threatening to humans. I can't say if this one was forty feet long, but it was near enough, and I felt such a rush being in proximity to it. Ditto for the nature cruise I went on with maddog, where we both saw a pod of blue whales. It was awesome in the literal sense of the word. And it's not just the large critters which spark my admiration, but also the smaller ones. In Blue Planet: Seas of Life, there's an episode dealing with deep sea animals and bioluminescence. Some ostracods, also called sea shrimps, are capable of shooting a bioluminescent charge that doesn't light up until it's well away from their own body. It's a sort of biological depth charge that completely confuses the predators and allows the ostracod to slip away. That, to me, is amazing to watch and stuff like this is why I constantly veer back to marine biology—that and having read John Steinbeck's The Log from the Sea of Cortez (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Log_from_the_Sea_of_Cortez) at an impressionable age.

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 05:18 AM

godfry n. glad

03-02-2010, 05:22 AM

Oceans? No, they are not an attractant to me.

All my life, I've had these people in my life who think that "going to the beach" is a way to spend recreational time. I never got it and I still don't. Huge waves crashing on to sand that sticks to all those parts of your body you wish it wouldn't...it's just 'neurotic', as far as I'm concerned.

I would much prefer to go far from the sea (or ocean) and find a nice sylvan mountain glen with a pristine snowmelt mountain stream burbling through the nearby meadow.

Nullifidian

03-02-2010, 05:23 AM

Again, it's not really critters specifically that disturb me. It's not as direct an issue as being afraid of a beastie that could fuck you up. In fact, I saw on a show once that they have scuba with whale sharks excursion in British Columbia and I totally want to do that someday.

I know. I wasn't trying to diagnose you, but just mentioning that, even with my passion for the ocean, there are still critters that scare the dickens out of me. :D

I hope you do eventually get to scuba with a whale shark, because, as I said, they're absolutely harmless to humans and so incredibly majestic. :yup: My own experience was scuba diving in the Gulf of Baja. Like seeing the blue whale pod, it was a completely unexpected benefit of the trip. :ffboogie:

LadyShea

03-02-2010, 02:11 PM

My dad has had to work on Deep Blue (http://www.ship-technology.com/projects/deep_blue/)(in port) either 2 or 3 times, and I totally wanted to go see it!

However, when I was on a cruise and we were out at sea for 2 days, I found that flat expanses of ocean are really boring. I didn't freak out, but I would have liked to have seen something interesting. Next cruise, if any, will be amongst islands or the Alaska coast or some shit.

Ensign Steve

03-02-2010, 02:23 PM

Container ships are the shit. I love loading docks almost as much as I love bridges, and I especially love it when you get both together, like at Terminal Island in Long Beach. :wriggle:

Scariness:
http://www.geekologie.com/2010/02/22/mariana-full.jpg

LadyShea

03-02-2010, 02:23 PM

it aint always the big boys one needs to be concerned about

the irukandji jellyfish..... when it envenomates, it doesnt always kill you, but the outcome can make you wish you were dead

northern australian tropical waters, in case you were wondering where not to be

http://www.duikteamgejo.nl/nieuws/opgedoken/Images/irukandji2.jpg

:shakejellyfish:

Petra once explained to me that Australia is Hades and New Zealand is paradise. I think she was right.

Almost everything in and around Oz can and will fucking kill you. Even Platypus' are venomous and straight up morphine doesn't kill the pain they cause. WTF?

slimshady2357

03-02-2010, 02:25 PM

It's one of those irrational fears that I can feel, but not enough to stop me from doing anything. So I would still swim out in the middle of the ocean and still enjoy it too.

It's sort of like how I am with small spiders*. I can pick them up, but the irrational 'ick' and 'fear' factors are there in the background, but not strong enough to stop me picking one up and letting it crawl on me.

*this is true for only small spiders, everyone in existence know spiders bigger than a quarter are crazy scary, totally creepy and certainly the devil's work :unnod:

livius drusus

03-02-2010, 02:31 PM

A former co-worker of mine brought a taratula in to the office once. A friend of his couldn't care for it anymore, so he stepped into the breach. It lived in a terrarium in the computer lab for months.

At first it gave me heart palpitations to even step inside the room and I had to actively look elsewhere. Eventually I desensitized, though, and came to appreciate what an interesting creature she was. Also, she was really, really slow. Those little fuckers are way scarier the way they scuttle around at the speed of light. THEY COULD BE IN YOUR HAIR!1

Stormlight

03-02-2010, 02:34 PM

Petra once explained to me that Australia is Hades and New Zealand is paradise. I think she was right.

Almost everything in and around Oz can and will fucking kill you.

:unnod:

Especially the Australians themselves. Damn reprobates. :swagman:

Ensign Steve

03-02-2010, 02:34 PM

The ocean I can hang with, either at the beach or way out in it. I love me some water, whether its a river, a lake, or the ocean. The vastness and deepness don't bother me at all.

Space, OTOH, is fucked up. Again I don't care about the vastness, nor the lack of air. What kills me is the lack of friction, ever since I learned in school about inertia. My nightmares as a kiddie weren't about what's at the edge of space or whether God could see my hiney. They were about being pushed into space and having no way to stop or change direction and just floating that way forever. And then they did it on Mission to Mars and Futurama and Star Trek: First Contact, and I was like, "Noooo! Don't put my worst nightmare on film!" :freakout: If and when I ever go into space, I need to be tethered to the ship at all times, and have a bunch of extra backup thrusters on my suit. That's the only way you're getting me out there! :shakefist:

Caligulette

03-02-2010, 03:36 PM

Lakes I do not like. Too snakey.

wei yau

03-02-2010, 03:42 PM

Okay, upon reading the OP, my bladder got a little weak.

I'm not afraid of the ocean or of swimming, though I'm not a strong swimmer. So, I'd never swim out into the deep, simply because I recognize my limitations.

But, the bigness of it does freak me out. I realized then when I was a young 'un and visiting Sea World. I walked right up to the tank containing the killer whale and looked into it.

HOLY SHIT, THAT'S FUCKING DEEP!

It was the weirdest sensation, it was vertigo while looking into a tank of water. Like a fear of heights combined with a fear of drowning. I got a little dizzy and had to back away right quick from the tank.

Even now, whenever I visit an aquarium, I tease myself with a little fear by going right up against the large tanks.

:shudder:

The Lone Ranger

03-02-2010, 03:47 PM

:stunned: How exactly did you secure yourself to the bow? I can't help but picture Odysseus tying himself to the mast to keep from succumbing to the mermaids' song.

Nah, I didn't go the whole Odysseus route. I ran my legs through the railing, so that there was no way I could be dislodged by any sudden ship movements, and hung on tight with my hands, just to be doubly sure.

It almost wasn't necessary though; the wave periods were so long that the ship didn't roll at all. Instead, we'd be rapidly lifted uuuuup as we rode up the crest of the wave, and then we'd rapidly drop dooooown as we slid down into the trough. Like I said, it was kind of like riding a roller coaster, and there was hardly even any spray.

I was never much of a beach person myself. When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes take us to the sandy beaches of the Carolinas, but they were just boring, as far as I was concerned. (When I was older, I found visiting and exploring the barrier islands to be far more interesting.) The rocky beaches and tidal pools of New England and the Pacific Northwest are vastly more interesting than sandy beaches.

As far as I'm concerned, if it's a choice between the mountains and the beaches, the mountains win every time.

The open ocean is just boring, as far as I'm concerned. The shallow water near shore has a far greater diversity of living things. For instance, I loved sailing on the Puget Sound and watching the lion's mane jellies, the moon jellies, the harbour seals, and so forth.

Cheers,

Michael

Kael

03-02-2010, 04:06 PM

I would definitely agree with that. Mountains are far more interesting. Some of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen in person are just half a days hike from where I sit. I can't wait 'til the snow clears so I can visit some of them again.

The Lone Ranger

03-02-2010, 04:20 PM

If we define "deserts" by their lack of life, rather than the lack of water, the open ocean is by far the world's largest desert. Away from land, the upper waters of the open ocean are almost devoid of nutrients and are, therefore, almost devoid of life.

Like deserts on land, though, the open ocean has occasional oases. Here and there, underwater currents strike underwater mountains or ridges and get deflected upward -- these are called upwellings. Where upwellings bring nutrients from the bottom to the surface, life can be phenomenally abundant, even though these "oases" may be surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of water that's almost devoid of life.

Cheers,

Michael

Ensign Steve

03-02-2010, 04:22 PM

If we define "deserts" by their lack of life, rather than the lack of water,

I don't. :nope: I love the desert and all the life therein.

wei yau

03-02-2010, 04:23 PM

BOOM DE YADDA BOOM DE YADDA

Adam

03-02-2010, 04:35 PM

Lakes I do not like. Too snakey.

They're notorious for serpents.

JoeP

03-02-2010, 05:05 PM

It's the huge impersonal elements that give me the freaksies, like for instance, waves the size of buildings, 1,000-mile-deep trenches, overall depth and surface area, that sort of thing. Smaller but still freaky are the man-made giants designed to navigate the giantness, so like container ships, cruise ship propellers, anchors, even those crazy ropes that are as wide as 4 people.

It's all just too much for me, too damn big. I could never be a mariner, that's for damn sure. Okay go ahead and hoot at me, you monsters. Add it to the list of shit you taunt me about, see if I care. Just tell me I'm not alone in this.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

HOOT
:cthulhu2:

freemonkey

03-02-2010, 05:44 PM

I love oceans, not that I've been on them at all. I love them from the shore, I love beaches. I can spend hours walking and beachcombing and studying tidepools. I love the sparseness of sandy beaches and the ruggedness of rocky beaches. I'd be willing to get on a boat and go out to sea, but I have had some experience with seasickness and suspect I would again. :puke: The idea of great depths doesn't scare me, but I imagine the disorientation of not being able to see land would.

I've been scared of space, though, since I was little. Space was like my boogeyman. I used to have nights I couldn't sleep because I was busy freaking out about infinite space, or even scarier, FINITE SPACE. Because WHAT THE FUCK WOULD THAT MEAN? LIKE IT ENDS, and THEN WHAT? Because that is bullshit, and you know it!

As a child, I did that, too. Coupled with the idea of INFINITE TIME. I was a mess.

Watser?

03-02-2010, 06:09 PM

I've only been swimming in seas that are almost completely surrounded by land except for one small entrance, like the Black Sea, Mediterranean or Red Sea or are partially like the North Sea and Bay of Biscay. Only been in the Atlantic in Portugal and I remember the waves were a lot bigger there. That was a bit scary but also fun. Never been out on the ocean. Doesn't really scare me though.

Crumb

03-02-2010, 08:52 PM

Space, OTOH, is fucked up. Again I don't care about the vastness, nor the lack of air. What kills me is the lack of friction, ever since I learned in school about inertia. My nightmares as a kiddie weren't about what's at the edge of space or whether God could see my hiney. They were about being pushed into space and having no way to stop or change direction and just floating that way forever. And then they did it on Mission to Mars and Futurama and Star Trek: First Contact, and I was like, "Noooo! Don't put my worst nightmare on film!" :freakout: If and when I ever go into space, I need to be tethered to the ship at all times, and have a bunch of extra backup thrusters on my suit. That's the only way you're getting me out there! :shakefist:
Then you do not want to read the short story "Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury. :nope:

wei yau

03-02-2010, 08:56 PM

Oh and there's some movie about a bunch of people stuck floating in the middle of the ocean. They slowly just drown, one by one.

Very freaky movie.

Ensign Steve

03-02-2010, 09:33 PM

Is that Open Water? I think I would watch that.

wei yau

03-02-2010, 09:36 PM

Yes! That's it. Open Water. Very freaky.

Chris Porter

03-02-2010, 10:09 PM

I love the oceans, and the ability to sit on a beach in Hawaii, and imagine just how few people were "in front of me" as I stared west across the Pacific. Vast and empty miles doesn't seem to scare me, and I have been out snorkeling over sea so deep, the bottom wasn't visible. (though the boat that brought me there was, so I felt anchored, in a way) The view down into empty blue did indeed conjure up imaginings of what could come get me from the deep, but it wasn't that scary to me.

The ocean is what I miss the most about living in Hawaii.

The Lone Ranger

03-02-2010, 10:15 PM

I read somewhere that Ishirō Honda, writer/director of the original Gojira got the idea as he was flying over the ocean and began to idly wonder what might be lurking down there in the depths.

Ymir's blood

03-02-2010, 10:20 PM

There are shrimp at the bottom of the Challenger Deep. :hungry:

Ensign Steve

03-03-2010, 08:41 PM

http://www.daisyowl.com/comic_images/193.gif

:ohno:

Dingfod

03-04-2010, 12:47 AM

Container ships are pretty densely packed so the hugeness has tiny doors, little cabins and wee round ship windows. Where people actually live is not huge.You can sail on one of those ships as a passenger. The accommodations aren't luxurious and the entertainment can suck, but it is one way to see the world, the food is usually good, and costs less than a cruise ship for the same distances. Or so I hear. (http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-travel-by-cargo-ship/)

Stormlight

03-08-2010, 01:58 PM

Watser?

03-08-2010, 02:52 PM

Should it scare me?

Stormlight

03-08-2010, 03:02 PM

You should spend half your life in or at least on the ocean! :fishoutofwater:

Watser?

03-08-2010, 03:06 PM

I have an older brother who did that, so I am off the hook.

..:qavast:
:monkeymusic:

Tesla

03-09-2010, 05:51 PM

Yeah the sea scares me in a similar way.

livius drusus

09-27-2010, 08:47 AM

I'm getting this book (http://www.salon.com/books/our_picks/index.html?story=/books/feature/2010/09/26/the_wave_susan_casey_interview) for the same reason that I have the first 3 Hellraiser movies on DVD.

Hey Shea, still wanna go cruising in Alaska?

The most shocking factoid in the book is that, in 1958, a bay in Alaska was hit by a 1,740-foot wave, which is the size of the World Trade Center. How is that even possible?

That was the largest wave ever recorded. It took place in Lituya Bay, a finger bay in Alaska about halfway up through Glacier Bay National Park. It's an incredibly spooky place. It turns out it's basically designed by nature to create the biggest waves on earth.

In this case, there was a big eruption on the nearby Fairweather Fault, which thrust parts of Alaska 47 feet in the air. Tons and tons of rock and ice went plunging down steep hillsides into this bay -- it was like dropping a paving stone from a ladder in a bathtub.

So here comes this 1,740-foot splash wave. Scientists were able to determine exactly how big the wave was, because the forest and mountainsides were absolutely shaved. This has been happening over and over again in this bay and hundreds of people have died there -- native people, Russian seal hunters. The ripples that came out of it were 200 and 300 feet tall. Three boats were anchored there at the time. Two of the boats had the presence of mind to go straight at it, which is really counterintuitive but is the only way you survive. You have to get over the back of the wave before it crests. If you get caught in the lip, you're just going to be dead. That's what happened to the third boat.