I was in Europe two summers ago taking a much needed break after my Dad passed away from cancer. He knew my dream was always to travel internationally so he left me some cash to get moving. Intent on travelling on the cheap, I stayed with a friend in England for two weeks rent free, then hopped into a buddy's van that was doing a European tour (band: Bass Drum of Death). I sold merchandise, slept on the floor, and roadied. Back on topic, I was looking for a cheap way to get home and discovered Crewseekers, which is basically a craiglist specifically for sailing jobs. I found a few jobs, all interesting, but settled on a 41ft catamaran delivery from La Rochelle, France to Boston. The trip started with four sailors, 1 owner and 2 pro sailors and me, who'd never slept on a boat before, but we finished with only two. All in all the trip took two 2 1/2 months due to various repairs and uh.... distractions.
Anyway the weirdest things we saw were wildlife related. After hundreds of dolphin sightings, puffins, seals, albatross, flying fish, chill sea turtles, and shark fins slicing through the surface of a glass topped ocean, the only thing we were missing was a whale.
With just three days left in the trip the Captain and I were the only ones manning the vessel for the final leg. We were sleeping in rotating 3 hour shifts, both completely knackered. I remember staring into the distance half asleep around 10am, just rolling with the waves when a 40 foot whale breaches the water about 30 yards dead ahead of the catamaran crashes, rolls, and just stares at me. I jerked the helm so hard to starboard that I rolled my captain out of his bed. If we hit the whale we would have sunk right there. Luckily I hadn't quite dozed off at the helm. Captain is yelling at me all pissed off when he comes up and sees this whale following the boat. The whale followed us for about 15 minutes just like a dolphin would. All of this is rad in retrospect, but it new pants o'clock at the time.
The next day I saw a 6 foot shark off the stern shooting straight out of the water vertically like you'd see a great white hit a seal. It did that about 3 times before I asked my captain what the hell it was doing. His theory was that it was trying to escape a bigger shark.
Sorry so long winded, that was a good summer and I get all whimsical when I think about it.