r/AskReddit • u/JaggedRabbit • 13h ago
What is the most terrifying facts about the ocean?
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u/filthy_lucre 13h ago
Point Nemo is the nickname for the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessability, the point at which you're furthest from land in any direction. It lies in the South Pacific and it's well outside of any shipping lanes. Your closest neighbors are the astronauts on the International Space Station when they pass overhead
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u/somewhat_random 10h ago
In terms of the ISS, it is only about 400km (250 miles) up so for almost any solitary island in the mid ocean, the ISS would be closer than the nearest land.
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u/GermanPayroll 9h ago
And soon it’ll be even closer because they’re crashing the ISS into point Nemo in 2031
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u/IapetusApoapis342 11h ago
It's also where a good chunk of unmanned spacecraft are disposed of due to how remote it is
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u/A7xWicked 6h ago
So what I'm hearing is that I'd have a better chance of getting hit by a spacecraft than getting found by a boat if i got lost there somehow
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u/Head-Bureaucrat 9h ago
It's also the location of R'lyeh!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
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u/brownlawn 13h ago
Rogue waves can exceed 100 feet in height and form suddenly in open water without warning. This sheer volume of water carries enough physical force to break giant cargo ships in half.
Oceanographers still cannot accurately predict exactly when or where these events will occur.
Enjoy your cruise.
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u/NirgalFromMars 12h ago edited 9h ago
Adding to this: Rogue holes exists as well, where the waters sinks as deep as it rises in rogue waves.
They have been proven to exists in water tanks, and there are stories of sailors encountering them.
But while we have stories of ships surviving rogue waves, we don't have any stories of ships encountering a rogue hole and not sinking.
Edit: in trying to recall where I read that last part (no evidence of ships surviving encounters with rogue holes) and I haven't been able to find it. Take it with a grain of salt, I might be have just imagined it from the rest I read.
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u/skwerrel 12h ago
Yeah I'd imagine you'd be right fucked if your boat was suddenly 100 feet below the water line, and surrounded on all sides by said 100 feet of water. Not many ways that can work out other than you, your boat, and everything on it becoming grist for Poseidon's mill.
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u/khaotickk 11h ago
"Yep, that's me. Bet you're wondering how I ended up here."
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u/doctor_7 8h ago
Completely fucked in every way, especially assuming eventually it would close. Assuming it would be sudden, you're getting slammed by the forced of that water coming in and then basically teleported 100' beneath the surface of the ocean.
If it fills super slowly and peacefully, maybe your boat stays afloat? But I've never heard of that and so I don't think it would happen.
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u/TheTrub 11h ago
Similar things can happen with methane clathrates, which are methane crystals that deposit on the ocean floor. If they warm past their crystallization temp the crystals convert to gas and boil up to the surface, lowering the water density and sinking anything floating on top.
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u/MenopauseMedicine 7h ago
Plus the clathrate gun hypothesis is pretty terrifying although I guess on a slower timeline
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u/doyouevenIift 11h ago
And flooding our atmosphere with an extremely potent greenhouse gas 🫠
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u/NovarisLight 11h ago
Rogue Hole is right next to Silly Billy's.
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u/coyotenspider 10h ago
I puked on the roof of the Silly Goose next door. It’s between Hal’s Hardwood Hotel and The Kissing Clams Seafood Buffet. The drinks are strong, and they dance all night.
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u/1320Fastback 12h ago
I remember when they first set up scientific devices to measure Rouge Waves they figured they wouldn't be able to record one for 50 years and then like 3 days later they got hit by one.
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u/Nerezza_Floof_Seeker 10h ago
Yeah scientists didnt believe they existed for a long time. The first actual measurement (Draupner wave) was taken by a natural gas extraction platform built to withstand a 1 in 10000 year wave of 20 meters. Within about a year of installation, they got hit with a 25.6 meter wave, which was twice as tall as the waves around it. But yeah, theres still alot we dont know about them (heres a representation of another rogue wave that was recorded by the way)
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u/Theincendiarydvice 9h ago
I was like damn that's a big wave, wait that must be it. Holy fuck I'm glad I don't go on boats.
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u/FroggiJoy87 10h ago
Oh, those are scary, but what really terrifies me are the inverse - rogue holes. Same thing, but ya go down, down, down... 😱
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u/piconese 12h ago edited 10h ago
It’s true, a wave can hit an oil tanker and the front end can fall off
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u/indfw365 10h ago
And I thought quicksand was the only thing I’d have to worry about as an adult.
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u/Intentionallyabadger 8h ago
I wonder if any cargo ship has been broken in half by a rogue wave.. like there would be news reports and stuff right?
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u/geekgirl114 3h ago
The three sisters rogue wave phenomenon on lake superior possibly suck the ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald
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u/Stock_Garage_672 3h ago
It's almost what happened to the MS Munchen in 1978. It was hit by a rogue wave which caused serious structural damage, flooded its engine room, some of its holds and almost capsized it. It sank aometime the next day. Exact details aren't available because there were no survivors.
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u/poortomato 13h ago
You can get swept away no matter how strong a swimmer you are.
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u/the-denver-nugs 7h ago
yeah I almost got swept away once. and another time my dad took me out on a boat like 3 miles away (the boat flooded). both times it was ohhhh holy fuck. this is very dangerous. you can survive on both things but it's extremely dangerous. the boat had air in the trunk and was advertised as unsinkable so we bailed it out. when i was swiped out to see I just swam laterally and my dad chased me so we winded up like a mile down the ocean or so. he was a junior Olympic swimmer and i did very well too.
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u/J_Kingsley 7h ago
You could be 10x better than Michael Phelps the water will always be stronger than you
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u/RoarOfTheWorlds 7h ago
You’re not wrong in an absolute sense, but 10x better than Michael Phelps would basically make you a literal shark and they can certainly hold their own against almost any current.
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u/Jack_In_Black89 7h ago
Correct. The average human swims 2 feet per second. The average shark swims 50 feet per second. I doubt the current is a problem for them.
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u/J_Kingsley 7h ago
And I had already changed my comment from 20x Michael Phelps
He would prob still die in an ocean storm.
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u/NeonFraction 9h ago
At a certain depth, sunlight can no longer reach at all.
It’s not just wet: it’s vast, empty, and pitch black. There are things down there that will be born in the dark, live in the dark, and die in the dark. The sun shines above, but it is not for them. Things lurk in the dark that we don’t even have names for.
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u/TheTrub 8h ago
You forgot to mention they eat in the dark, too.
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u/Newsmemer 5h ago
The average depth of the ocean is 3,688 meters, and sunlight does not travel past 1,000 meters (it barely travels past 200 meters), so a vast majority of the ocean is pitch black.
Although a lot of marine life does exist in the top 200 meters of the ocean, we don't actually know what percent of that life exists below that, and we may never know.
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u/bitchfacevulture 8h ago
This is reminiscent of the opening scene to The Fellowship of the Ring for me
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u/TheWestRemembers 6h ago
You think darkness is your ally? I was born in it. Molded by it.
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u/JaggedRabbit 13h ago edited 7h ago
In 2023 my ex gf and I were just finishing riding some waves at Myrtle beach, not even 5 mins later a lifeguard comes sprinting behind us into the water. We had no idea what was going on. Then they ordered everyone out the water as more and more lifeguards showed up. People all in the hotels nearby started coming out onto their balconies. There is someone missing in the water. We were literally maybe 10 feet away from the person that went missing. The lifeguards did their sweep in a straight line for every section of the beach that we could see with our own eyes. Helicopters, ambulances, tons of first responders came. This went on for hours. Hundreds of people just standing and watching in awe and silence. They never found the person. We were literally feet and mins away from being in that same current. The person was 20 years old I believe. RIP 🙏
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u/drager_76 9h ago
This is your reminder that if you're ever caught in a rip current do not swim against it swim parallel to the shore until you're out of it and then head for the beach.
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u/slowerlearner1212 2h ago
Still probably terrifying to see yourself getting further and further from shore even doing the parallel move.
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u/Vejuto 10h ago
Crazy because I was there last summer and the same thing happened
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u/JaggedRabbit 8h ago
That’s wild, I don’t really remember what the flags were growing up but the last like 5 times I’ve went there was always a red flag like every time we went on the beach for dangerous currents
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u/Intentionallyabadger 8h ago
Similar situation happened to me.
Was at a “beach resort” town and was walking to enjoy a day at the beach..
When we reached, a guy in military fatigues stopped us and said no one could go into the water.. we thought it was a shark or something because the sea was super calm.
We asked around and apparently someone got swept away an hour ago and they were trying to find him. Everyone we spoke to said they didn’t feel that the current was strong.
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u/quanoey 12h ago
The ocean is always active, day or night, rain or shine. Always moving always churning and it always fucking moves.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 9h ago
And it has for hundreds of millions of years and will for hundreds of millions of years more
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u/westisbestmicah 8h ago
“Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers"- Moby Dick
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u/sucknduck4quack 8h ago
Until one day when it will all be gone. Boiled away forever as the sun slowly expands
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u/Mor_Hjordis 6h ago
And if that's not terrifying enough, of all the sea felt flat it would be way more terrifying
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u/HamuelCabbage 12h ago
Sort of about the ocean, but the distance between the peak of Mount Everest (about 29,00 feet or 8.8k meters)and the lowest point of the Mariana trench (11k meters or about 7 miles) is about 12 miles.
All life that we know of on this planet lives on a 12 mile vertical band.
Many people commute more than 12 miles to work, one way, every day. Kind of put things into perspective for me.
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u/Admirable-Repair4094 13h ago
That it's not your friend and can never be
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u/phantomagna 12h ago
The ocean is just doing her thing, she means us no harm but sometimes we get in her way.
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u/perfect_for_maiming 12h ago
This is a good retort. I'm pretty sure ive accidently squashed bugs while just going about my day. Doesn't mean I hate them or I'm their enemy, I was just doing my thing and they were beneath my notice at the time.
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u/Foreign_Fruit6620 13h ago
The ocean can be your friend, but it can also be your enemy.
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u/thomasutra 9h ago
The way of water has no beginning and no end
The sea is around you and in you
The sea is your home before your birth and after your death
Our hearts beat in the womb of the world
Our breath burns in the shadows of the deep
The sea gives and the sea takes
Water connects all things
Life to death
Darkness to light
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u/ComfortableEnergy684 13h ago
IT IS LITERALLY FILLED WITH THE POOP OF TRILLIONS OF CREATURES.
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u/Slow_Increase_6308 12h ago edited 1h ago
Weak.
Thats like saying the air we breath is filled with trillions of farts.
Still not scary if you get the scale.
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u/LoveHurtsDaMost 11h ago
Astronauts return to earth and normally comment how everything smells like poop in our atmosphere for days until they readjust again. What if, our fecal air environment is not good for us over time like anything surrounded by feces/excrement lol
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u/Allthemuffinswow 8h ago
Don't forget everything that has ever died in it. Fish, sea creatures, dinosaurs, birds, people from the Titanic, etc 😕
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u/eltedioso 12h ago
And fish piss in it!
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u/Freddie-Peterson 13h ago
That the most terrifying comment here probably doesn't come close to the terrifying stuff we don't know about.
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u/ellie_roseee 13h ago
The weird creatures that live deep in the ocean
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u/Cerberus44444 13h ago
We thought the kraken was a work of fiction for the longest time till we found evidence of giant squid. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up finding something even bigger and scarier.
I'm just waiting for us to end up finding some truly Eldridge looking bullshittery down there.
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u/Lady_Airbus 9h ago
And just when the giant squid wasn’t big enough, we had to stumble upon the colossal squid. Terrifying.
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u/Burrito_Pls 7h ago
Recently watched a YouTube video about how we have thought giant squid were rare because we rarely ever saw them even with deep sea submersibles. This didn’t jive with how many would have to exist for sperm whales to feed on them regularly. Turns out the lights were just extremely bright to them and they wanted nothing to do with it. They tried blue light I believe and started to find them much easier. There might be a ton of those giant aliens down there after all.
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u/IapetusApoapis342 11h ago
And if you think those are weird you should see whatever the fuck was alive 500 or so million years ago
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u/mattwallace24 11h ago
Just how strong ocean waves and currents can be. I learned to swim at just a few years old and lived most of my life around the water. Swam competitively as a kid and could and would spend entire days in the water playing and exploring. Never once was concerned about my abilities in the water.
Took a vacation to Hawaii. The surf was huge so I decided to swim out to the surf line and just tread water around the surfers waiting their turn. That was ok although the waves were really big. When I decided to head back to shore, the waves were coming in so frequently that I'd have to dive down to the bottom to get under them and as soon as I came up for air, the next wave was right there and I'd have to dive down again. This happened over and over. I was probably less than 20 feet from the shore, but I clearly remember thinking this was it for me. I could even see my family on the beach not even 50 feet away from me which was surreal. I finally did make it back to shore but I was so exhausted it took me a while to get back to my towel.
These waves were probably 12-15 feet high and its crazy to think there are 100 foot waves out there.
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u/BigGrayBeast 10h ago
When you enter the ocean your enter the food chain.
And you're not at the top.
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u/wdrub 13h ago
There can be something as big as a bus next to you and you dont know it. Ps it thinks you’re food
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u/Mor_Hjordis 5h ago
I know it's there. That's why the sea is also there. And I'm on the beach, not even putting my little to in the water.
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u/TeamFoulmouth 13h ago
Seen a partially eaten tentacle float by our boat at 2am and the piece was about 10' long...by the looks of it and a decent guess, it was about 1/3 of its original length.
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u/helgestrichen 12h ago
I like this, 2am makes it even more creepy
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u/TeamFoulmouth 12h ago
Its when all the weird comes to the surface out there. We were about 80 miles offshore in the Gulf, deep dropping for swordfish.
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u/plz_send_cute_cats 7h ago
oooooh this is cool. do you have more stories from your time at sea?
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u/TeamFoulmouth 6h ago
Night-time is my favorite time to fish. Usually just 1 or 2 others on deck. If we're staying out over night, its pretty calm. Just watching the strange sea life that spends its days in the deepest depths rise to the surface at night to feed is pretty interesting. The Hull of the boat has lights, so the immediate area surrounding the boat gets illuminated, allowing you to see all the strange critters. All the stuff ya see on the David Attenborough specials are now there, right in front of you!...I love it!
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u/Competitive-Cry-6231 8h ago
My longtime, dear friend had just retired from being a school teacher for 30+ years and was enjoying his life post retirement after enduring a sad divorce and trying to make the best of life.
One day, at the height of summer two years ago, he decided to go to a popular beach on Long Island to frolic in the waves like anyone else at the beach.
Just then, a commonly sized wave came in and knocked in down, head over heels, causing a severe snap in his back that instantly paralyzed him for the rest of his life.
He know has to get around in one of those hi tech wheelchair, uses a breathing tube to control it, and became a fraction of the man he was just days later — all after merely playing on the shore of a beach.
The ocean will forever scare the ever living shit out of me.
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u/Ar1nthian_ 12h ago
My marine science degree maybe makes me biased, but I find most of the answers here metal af or super fascinating rather than scary lol
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u/RamblinWreckGT 11h ago
Same. What I'd consider scary is how much it's warming. People just see "oh, two degrees? Big deal" and don't realize how vast the amount of energy needed to do that is.
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u/PenDude608 9h ago
Every time you swim in the ocean (any ocean, sea, etc…) you are swimming with corpses in said water from around the world.
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u/Pleasant-Chef6055 8h ago edited 8h ago
Human beings are dredging the bottom of the ocean for fish ( scraping it bare ) and considering deep water mining.
Human beings are not only the most vicious apex predators mother earth has ever pooped out. We are simultaneously the stupidest predator the Earth is ever seen. Locus at least have the good sense to go to sleep for seven years after completely raping the surface.
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u/thiiiiiiisguy 13h ago
Humans have traveled 252,760 miles deep into space, but only 35,876 feet into the ocean.
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u/BumblebeeWorried7751 13h ago
All the water in the world, and not a drop to drink
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u/foxsimile 8h ago
Having binged just about every underwater/oceanic/cave-diving incident that has ever been over the last four years (Scary Interesting is an excellent YouTube channel), this is the most correct answer.
The tales of marooned or shipwrecked men and women succumbing to thirst and dehydration are harrowing.
One incident, I recall, several survivors in a raft had been stranded at sea for days without food or water. One became so delirious that he walked (specifically walked, not dove) into the shark infested waters, and was summarily torn apart.
The Atlantic’s a scary place.
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u/doktor_wankenstein 8h ago
Reading about the Byford Dolphin accident and the more recent OceanGate Titan implosion were quite enough, thank you.
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u/foxsimile 8h ago
Pretty good way to go when you think about it. You wouldn’t even know you’re dead.
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u/effort3 10h ago
Doldrums. A location with no waves, current or wind will get you stranded if your boat don't have an engine... or paddle.
You can swim but NOPE!
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u/MarieTC 9h ago
It doesn’t care about you.
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u/jazzyl2025 7h ago
It can change, maybe if I do a 90s style movie makeover, removed my glasses, style my hair differently, the ocean will care.
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u/PrimeVector19 13h ago
Less than 30% of the global seafloor has been mapped. Only 5% of the ocean has been explored. 91% of ocean species have yet to be classified. The Challenger Deep would easily submerge Mount Everest under thousands of feet of water.
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u/MozeeToby 10h ago
The ocean is big. You're probably like "well obviously" but the ocean is far far bigger than you imagine. Your primate brain looks at the surface of the ocean and say "yup, that sure is big" but the reality is that the ocean is also incredibly deep.
There were 131 years between the discovery of the first giant squid carcass and humans seeing a living one in the wild. Based on the contents of sperm whale stomachs we estimate there are tens of millions of them alive at any given time. And it's not like they are hiding, it's just that their massive volume of activity doesn't overlap with the massive range that humans are active in.
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u/chopin1887 13h ago
The Mariana’s trench has an underwater waterfall straight down.
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u/Conscious_Dealer5975 11h ago
i just googled it, are you sure??
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u/foxsimile 8h ago
They’re probably thinking of the Denmark Strait cataract, between Greenland and Iceland. It’s the largest waterfall on Earth, and drops 11_500 feet (3_500 meters). It’s entirely underwater.
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u/Pkingduckk 7h ago
Just wow. From wikipedia:
The Denmark Strait overflow (Danish: Grønlandspumpen; Norwegian: Grønlandspumpa, meaning "the Greenland pump") is an undersea overflow located in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. The overflow transports around 3.2 million m3(110 million ft3) of water per second, greatly eclipsing the discharge) of the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean and the flow rate of the former Guaíra Falls.[1][2] The descending column of water is approximately 200 m (660 ft) wide and 200 m (660 ft) thick and descends over a length of around 1,000 km (620 mi).
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u/hiddenkobolds 6h ago
See for yourself.
Take your pick: the depth, or the weird shit you find down there.
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u/DonDee74 12h ago
That there are so many stronger and faster ocean predators that can rip me apart in seconds if I don't have human technology protecting me.
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u/Kevin686766 13h ago
If aliens ever came to earth they would make first contact with the octopus.
Even Poisedian could not save you from our octopus-alien overlords.
I have been hoarding the ink from bic pens and decorative ceramic shells for when, not if this happens.
All hail the Octi-King. Long live the tentacle.
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u/Shutupharu 9h ago
I would join this cult.
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u/Kevin686766 9h ago
You ok with shaving off all your hair and taping garden hoses to your body like extra arms to be a idol of our mollusk masters?
It seems like a bit of work but there are squid orgies every other Thursday. And free shrimp.
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u/Traditional_Step9502 11h ago
The things you can’t see below you with big teeth.
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u/throwawaytoday9q 13h ago
If you took all the water in the ocean and placed it on land, all the fish would die.
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u/rectovaginalfistula 8h ago
That the Atlantic current that keeps Europe from becoming like northern Canada is breaking down about a hundred years sooner than predicted.
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u/thatredditdude206 8h ago edited 8h ago
That’s it’s still largely undiscovered. Humans only have knowledge of less than 10 percent of our oceans. There is still a solid 90 percent of the ocean that hasn’t been discovered yet.
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u/The1Ylrebmik 5h ago
How truly F'd you are if you are stuck out there in the middle of nowhere on a raft. Ever driven across America? Hours and hours and hours of nothing. Now imagine that times 10 with really nothing, no buildings or mountains or roads to break anything up. You're one lucky sob if they actually find you
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u/Candelpins1897 13h ago
Non human intelligence most likely lives down there. The Abyss movie nailed it.
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u/Dman1791 13h ago
How is that at all likely? Unless you're including stuff like octopi and cetaceans, which would make it "known" rather than "most likely"
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u/Ok-Confidence977 13h ago
Every drop of it is absolutely filthy. There are like a million bacteria and 10 million viruses in every milliliter.
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u/MountainPlanet 12h ago
You probably don’t want to know that there are ~30 trillion bacteria in your body. And my body. And everyone’s body.
When you were born, you got covered in your mother’s vaginal bacteria (~100 million/ml) and fecal bacteria.
Your mother’s womb had more bacteria per ml than the ocean. And about 74% of the bacteria in your body came from the maternal strains.
It’s Earth. There’s hella bacteria everywhere, and they keep us alive and they are the biological engine of the planet. It’s a package deal.
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u/BasedAustralhungary 12h ago
People poo there, and not talking about oceanic life... I mean people. Humans as you and me. When I was a kid I was taking a bath in the beach and a turd went directly to me, gladly I got to run from it very fast but the experience is there.
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u/ChewbaccaPJs 11h ago
I'd like to think the Jaws theme music was playing as it approached you.
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u/Metalhed69 10h ago
There are thousands of corpses in the ocean, but everyone swims in it. Put one in a pool and everyone freaks out. Everybody has an acceptable corpse-to-water ratio.
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u/SowellMate 13h ago
If you take a small sailboat and try to cross the Atlantic Ocean, it will take a few weeks. If you try to do the same thing with the Pacific Ocean, it will take longer.
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u/Warcraze440 13h ago
If you stick your finger in the Atlantic it becomes wet. If you stick your finger in the pacific you won’t believe what happens
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u/StudioComplete3871 8h ago
The undertow. I lost a good friend to one, such a terrible way to lose your life.
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u/Mindless-Leg-3365 7h ago
that 80% of the ocean is uncharted, unmapped, unexplored despite knowing it's literal depths, plus the denizens of the deep are so bizarre - like the telescope fish or oarfish.
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u/neriadrift 5h ago
The Great Pacific garbage patch isn’t what people think, it’s mostly microplastics across nearly the entire North Pacific Ocean. We traveled by sailboat from Hawaii to the PNW last summer and could see plastics big and small constantly for nearly three weeks straight.
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u/radardog2 13h ago
There's unidentified objects that traverse down there and it's not from humans.
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u/Jazzlike-Student-792 13h ago
Contrary to what people say the ocean is not wet. Wet is a state non-liquids get when exposed to liquids. Your hand can get wet. A rock can get wet. But water and milk can never get wet.
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u/ClankingRobotCheeks 11h ago
All marine life lives, dies, shits and fornicates in the same water you swim in.
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u/Judge_Bredd3 11h ago
The ocean is actually our largest carbon sink. If you ignore the fact that the CO2 absorbed by the ocean is acidifying it, this is a good thing. About 30% of man-made CO2 is absorbed by the ocean. However, it also absorbs a ton of heat. Hot water absorbs less CO2 and at a certain point, starts releasing it again. So, we're approaching a tipping point where climate change is going to drastically pick up its pace when the ocean is too hot to absorb all our emissions.
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u/Fluid_Leather2242 13h ago
We know more about space than the ocean
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u/HertogJanVanBrabant 13h ago
I don't agree. Okay, huge parts of the oceans are unexplored. True. But space is so much bigger. There's billions of oceans out there we don't even know about, yet.
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u/Areif 13h ago
Nah. That’s old school bullshit. Our universe, ever expanding, and the uncharted space we are part of have an infinite amount of configurable eventualities. That just simply doesn’t make any sense whatsoever f you stop to think about it at all.
Our “galaxy” on the other hand might weigh differently since we can assume elemental composition.
It wouldn’t make sense in any conceivable way to know more about space than the ocean.
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u/ZimaGotchi 13h ago
That is super not true lol. We've literally been to the bottom of the ocean. We know practically nothing about the edge of the universe - and that's only including space itself, not even all the things in space (likely including hundreds of millions of planets with their own oceans)
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u/Tando10 12h ago
The moon. More about the moon than the ocean.
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u/HasaDiga_Eebowai 11h ago
Ya space has other planets with oceans we know even less about than our own
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u/GoodVibrations77 12h ago
The pressure differential in space is equivalent to that experienced at a depth of just 10 meters underwater.
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u/Cheri-john 8h ago
How deep it is and how we only know abt 30% of what lives in there! Most oceans haven’t even began to know what’s in there. That’s frightening. They are THAT big.
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u/Kazuma_Megu 8h ago
We now know about the giant squid, but the COLOSSAL squid is still well within plausibility and if real it's so fucking huge that yes, it could sink ships and was the actual Kraken.
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u/FlyingDreamWhale67 8h ago
There are "death zones" that form in certain spots. These spots will kill any sea life foolish enough to wander in- mostly due to sharp differences in temperature and/or toxicity between the death zone and the surrounding water.
It's not uncommon to find one of these zones littered with fish/crustacean skeletons.
Somewhat related, these can be found near underwater lakes sometimes.
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u/FederalQuestion5214 7h ago
Former King Crab fisherman here (Kodiak). Most of the time we were working in 16 to 20 ft seas. Much higher than that and we’d shut down. Occasionally a rogue wave would come over the bow, either while we were fishing or motoring between strings of gear. By comparison to the 20 footers, the rogues were easily 70 or 80 feet. This was in a 76 ft boat. Seriously puckering experience.
I got picked up by a rogue wave and was nearly thrown overboard. I remember the captain yelling over the deck PA, “green water boys! Hold on!!!” I was completely floating when I got picked up at the forward starboard corner of the deck. My ass hit the rail at the aft port corner of the deck, like 50 feet away. Luckily I was somehow miraculously thrown down onto the deck inside the rail instead of up and over. This was in February at about 3am, and I was wearing dark green Helly Hansens. If I’d gone over it probably would have been a death sentence, both because of the cold water, but also because they never would have been able to see me in my green foul weather gear.
I promptly switched to orange foul weather gear the next time we were in port.
After I left that boat they retrofitted it to something like 90 feet. It went down in the Aleutians during a storm with 70 mph winds when they lost power and started taking on water. Fortunately all hands were saved by heroic rescue efforts from the USCG.