"I Sold Everything I Own to Sail the Seas. This was the BIGGEST Mistake of My Life." by Minute-Company1233 | CLANCYPASTA

[00:00:00] I worked for 25 years in the same dead-end job at an insurance agency before I finally had enough. Dreams of a big career were long gone, as were the ones of starting a family. After a night of trying to drink my sorrows away, I woke up on the cold floor feeling like crap with a headache that made it seem like my head was going to explode.

[00:00:25] It was then and there that I realized there were only two options left for me. End it all, or start over. I chose the latter.

[00:00:37] I love the ocean. The way it smells, the sunlight sparkles on its surface, the taste, the feeling when you enter it.

[00:00:46] When I had my big dreams, I always imagined me ending up sailing in my free time, probably taking the wife and kids along, teaching them all there was to learn about steering a boat.

[00:00:58] Even if the family part didn't work out, it wasn't too late to make the other part come true.

[00:01:05] The next Monday, I handed in and submitted my notice of termination.

[00:01:10] My boss was furious, but I told him to go to hell and burn there.

[00:01:15] I sold off my house and every item I owned. The money from the sails, I gave to charity.

[00:01:22] With nothing but a bag full of clothes, I made my way to the harbor.

[00:01:27] There was no use in trying with the big ships. They probably only took experienced sailors, so the smaller fishing vessels were what I needed.

[00:01:37] At the end of the pier, there lay a dirty-looking run-down trawler. Five men were standing in front of it, smoking a cigarette, talking loudly and laughing a lot.

[00:01:47] I shrugged my shoulders. At least they seemed to have fun.

[00:01:52] When I walked towards them, they stopped talking and started giving me the stare.

[00:01:57] You know the kind. The, what do you want, landlubber, stare.

[00:02:03] I need work, was all I said. The biggest one, gruff old sea bear type of guy, looked me up and down before flicking off his cigarette.

[00:02:12] We're not hiring, he said, with a voice just as rusty as he looked to be.

[00:02:18] I didn't move.

[00:02:20] I didn't say I need money. Food and bed are enough. There's always stuff to do.

[00:02:26] They seemed impressed with my answer, but the sea bear wasn't easily convinced.

[00:02:32] Ever been on a boat before?

[00:02:35] Slowly, I shook my head.

[00:02:37] Before you could send me away, I interjected,

[00:02:39] But I'm a fast learner. Show me how it's done and I will be a fine addition to your crew.

[00:02:45] And, if it doesn't work out, you can just throw me overboard.

[00:02:49] Life on land didn't do me any good, so the sea is my last chance.

[00:02:56] It seemed like an hour had passed before he answered.

[00:03:01] Alright then, you can start by carrying our supplies on board. Afterwards, clean the deck. We'll see if you're any good.

[00:03:09] Words that were music to my ears.

[00:03:13] The first weeks were hard. Getting adjusted to the life on the sea was something else. You even had to relearn how to walk.

[00:03:22] Just knowing that you weren't able to just go and leave at any time was stressing, as well as being yelled at for working too slow or sloppy.

[00:03:31] But after the initiation period, things started to look up. I was getting better at everything, and the crew noticed. They started to open up to me.

[00:03:40] It surprised me that three of them had a story similar to mine to tell.

[00:03:45] No purpose in life? Feeling like you just wasted time? A want for adventure.

[00:03:51] The only two who were born and bred semen were Jeffrey, the captain, and David, his first mate.

[00:03:58] They rode the waves since they were like 10 or 11 years old, and had a lot of interesting stories to tell.

[00:04:04] But you always had to take them with a grain of salt.

[00:04:08] The saying, Sailor's Yarn, came to mind more than once.

[00:04:12] I once called David out on this, when he told an extraordinary, hard to believe story about some weird sea creature which bordered on a fairy tale.

[00:04:22] He didn't take kindly to that.

[00:04:25] Looking like a murderer, he talked to me with a stern, yet soft and quiet voice, like death whispering into my ear.

[00:04:34] You've been traveling the sea for about a month.

[00:04:38] You have no idea what lurks beneath its surface.

[00:04:42] Don't try to lecture me on what is and what isn't real.

[00:04:49] I apologized, and he let it go, but it left me feeling uneasy.

[00:04:55] I would have understood if he was simply hurt that I didn't believe his story,

[00:04:59] but he reacted like he actually believed it himself, like I was the ignorant idiot.

[00:05:07] Time went by without anything of note to happen.

[00:05:11] I learned the craft and started to get along with everyone well enough, as close and as reclusive people as us can get.

[00:05:18] It was three months after I first left port when Jeff decided to drive out a little further than usual

[00:05:25] to reach richer fishing grounds in the Northeast Pacific.

[00:05:29] Everything was in order until the storm hit us.

[00:05:34] As I mentioned before, I was never the adventurous type, so I hadn't encountered many dangerous situations up to that point.

[00:05:42] But I could hardly imagine something scarier than a heavy storm on the high seas.

[00:05:47] The scariest thing is, there isn't much you can do.

[00:05:51] When you first spot the dark clouds on the horizon, you can try to evade it.

[00:05:56] But in some cases, the storm travels faster than your boat.

[00:06:00] Seeing the storm front approach you gives you a feeling of incoming doom, like the armies of hell approaching you.

[00:06:08] You see the lightning strike, and hear the roars of thunder as your fear starts to get worse.

[00:06:14] When it finally hits you, it's like a smack in the face.

[00:06:18] Without great means of protecting yourself, you're immediately drenched and become cold to the bone.

[00:06:24] The heat waves come crashing towards you like walls of terror.

[00:06:30] You try to keep the boat afloat, but it feels like throwing rocks at giants, and it's not the David vs. Goliath kind of fight.

[00:06:38] But then, I saw something that scared me even more than the storm itself.

[00:06:45] I was securing a cargo box that had gotten loose when a lightning strike illuminated the sky.

[00:06:52] Behind the wave that approached us, I saw it.

[00:06:56] A shadowy outline of… something.

[00:06:59] I can't really compare it to anything.

[00:07:01] It was vaguely humanoid, but unimaginably huge, like a titan from Greek mythology come to life.

[00:07:09] I was in a state of pure shock, but come the next lightning, the thing was gone.

[00:07:16] Like it had been swallowed by the ocean.

[00:07:19] I looked around for my fellow crew, but none of them seemed to have noticed.

[00:07:24] They all were holding on for something to not get washed off the boat.

[00:07:30] I convinced myself that the stress of the situation had me imagine things that weren't there, but I couldn't shake that feeling of unease.

[00:07:41] It took some time for the storm to settle down.

[00:07:44] Afterwards, we checked everything for damage, but it seemed like we had gotten lucky.

[00:07:50] Nothing had been severely broken.

[00:07:52] But, according to Jeff, we were way off course.

[00:07:57] It would take us at least another week to reach our destination, and you wouldn't hear our pleas to return to port before we had something to sell.

[00:08:06] So, business was back to normal.

[00:08:10] In a quiet moment, I took David, who was reading a book aside, to tell him what I saw during the storm.

[00:08:17] He didn't laugh at me as I had expected, but put on a concerned look.

[00:08:22] After thinking for a while, he told me,

[00:08:26] Better not say anything to the others.

[00:08:29] Let's just both pretend you didn't see anything.

[00:08:32] No use in worrying them even more for nothing.

[00:08:37] The next days were calm.

[00:08:39] We were back on course, and the mood started to lighten up again.

[00:08:43] We were somewhere south of Honolulu, and would reach it within the next two days, when it was my turn for night watch.

[00:08:50] Watch, perhaps, isn't the right word.

[00:08:53] Because even with a spotlight, there's not much to see.

[00:08:56] I let the light dance off the surface of the sea, while desperately trying to stay awake.

[00:09:02] When my eyelids started to feel heavy, and I was about to fall asleep, it was a strange sound that grew louder with each passing second.

[00:09:11] It was like a rumbling, but I couldn't identify what it was.

[00:09:15] I turned the spotlight for another sweep of the perimeter, and something hit the boat, rocking it hard, almost flipping it.

[00:09:24] I nearly fell off board, but managed to hold on to the railing.

[00:09:28] When we were stable again, I searched for the source of the crash.

[00:09:33] The beam of light hit something.

[00:09:36] It looked like a small island, but its structure was unusual, almost perfectly smooth.

[00:09:43] It looked to be of a greenish color, with hints of dark grey in it.

[00:09:48] After a while, I realized that beneath the island was a bright glow.

[00:09:55] The longer I watched it, the more convinced I was it was looking back.

[00:10:00] It resembled an eyeball, but it was huge.

[00:10:04] I was shaken to the core.

[00:10:07] A few seconds later, it was gone, as well as what I took to be an island.

[00:10:14] It couldn't have been more than a minute since the impact, when my fellow crew members rushed aboard and asked me what happened.

[00:10:23] Remembering David's words, I told them a whale hits the side of the ship in passing.

[00:10:30] They must have interpreted my pale, complexion and terrified stare for the result of stress and lack of sleep,

[00:10:37] because they decided to end my watch early and send me to bed.

[00:10:42] David didn't say anything, but gave me a look as if he knew I was lying.

[00:10:47] Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.

[00:10:52] Hoping we would reach our destination soon, I swore to never set foot on a boat or any other kind of aquatic vessel again.

[00:11:01] It took another two days, but finally we saw land on the horizon.

[00:11:06] We were overjoyed.

[00:11:08] Even more so when Jeff decided to take a day off on land before we would continue to the fishing grounds.

[00:11:15] We were already discussing what to do first once we got off the boat, when the scenery changed in an unusual way.

[00:11:24] It seemed as if the ocean was bending upwards from around a certain point.

[00:11:30] It was still early in the day and kind of misty.

[00:11:36] So at first we thought it was just an optical illusion.

[00:11:38] But the bend grew higher and higher when suddenly the tip burst.

[00:11:45] And for a split second we saw what I know now I saw twice earlier in its full form.

[00:11:53] Some kind of gigantic, horrific creature which defied any description.

[00:11:58] It looked like it was born straight out of a nightmare.

[00:12:02] Outlandish and weird.

[00:12:04] I wouldn't even know how to start to describe it.

[00:12:06] It cast a shadow over us, almost completely blocking out the sun.

[00:12:11] It let out a scream that made our blood freeze in our veins.

[00:12:17] As it emerged, it produced a huge tsunami that moved in every direction, blocking it from view.

[00:12:25] We couldn't do anything.

[00:12:28] Too shocked by what we had witnessed and were caught in the monster wave.

[00:12:32] It took us with it for many miles before crashing above us, breaking our boat apart.

[00:12:41] I regained consciousness some time later.

[00:12:45] I didn't know if it was days or even weeks.

[00:12:49] Apparently, I was lucky enough to land on a large piece of our boat that didn't sink,

[00:12:54] which was cast in the direction of the west coast of the USA.

[00:12:59] I was found by a rescue helicopter of the Coast Guard.

[00:13:03] They provided first aid and took me to a hospital.

[00:13:08] It turned out that remnants of the tsunami caused by the creature had hit the land.

[00:13:13] They were out looking for survivors of lost ships when they found me.

[00:13:17] They were asking me all kinds of questions about what happened to me.

[00:13:23] I answered them as best as I could, but didn't mention the creature once.

[00:13:29] I felt like there was no need to.

[00:13:32] They would find out themselves soon enough.

[00:13:36] They would get on and out of the second aid if it were followed up and the last day.