Destroyer

This is the transcript of an ACTUAL radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in January, 1998.

**** Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 30-1-98****

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is the lighthouse. Your call.

Note: true or untrue ? decide yourself

True or untrue, decide yourself

The story of the self-important aircraft carrier captain getting his well-earned comeuppance at the hands of a plain-speaking lighthouse has been making the rounds on the Internet since early 1996.

Most writeups purport to be transcripts of a 1995 conversation between a ship and a lighthouse as documented by Chief of Naval Operations. It ain't true. Not only does the Navy deny it, the anecdote shows up in a 1992 collection of jokes and tall tales.

Worse, it appears in Stephen Covey's 1989 The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, and he got it from a 1987 issue of Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute. It's likely far older than that, because another reader mentioned he saw it passed around as a photocopied joke in the late 1960s while serving aboard either the USS Dixie or USS Truxtun.

That certainly agrees with the opinion of Navy sources (as quoted in the news article later on this page); they place the story as thirty or forty years old. Slightly different versions name different ships as the one which unwillingly gained a lesson in the unimportance of self importance. Having debunked this tale a few times themselves, the Navy has a web page about this legend, one that answers what three of the commonly cited ships were doing at the time this supposedly occurred.

The Navy's take on this crazy bit of faxlore is contained in the following 1996 newspaper article: Stop me if you've heard this one.

Two radio operators, one of them aboard a U.S. Navy ship, had the following exchange:

Radio 1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.

Radio 2: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees.

Radio 1: This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.

Radio 2: No, I say again, divert YOUR course.

Radio 1: This is an aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy. We are a large warship. Divert your course now!

Radio 2: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

The source of that story, which the Navy swears is untrue, is not known. It's a joke that has been floating around for at least 10 years, and maybe 30 to 40 years. Some think it originated in a humor column in Reader's Digest. Nobody knows for sure. But for the past four months the story of the ship and the lighthouse has been passed along, as gospel, by comedy talk-show hosts, lazy newspaper columnists and clueless cyberspace jockies until it has taken on an air of the apocryphal. It clings to Navy lore like that old captain from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And, like Coleridge's haunted captain, the Navy is having a real tough time getting this albatross off its neck.

This week the story was repeated by The New York Times News Service, quoting a Canadian newspaper. Last week it was read to a global radio audience on Michael Feldman's popular Whad'ya Know? program on Public Radio International. Earlier, the same network's Car Talk program aired the tale.

In the story's current form, the ship is identified as the carrier Enterprise. In the past it involved a battleship.

A version that arrived via e-mail in Norfolk this week from the U.S. Air Force Academy identified it as the "aircraft carrier Missouri." There is no such carrier. The Missouri is a retired battleship. Various versions carry little embellishments.

An amateur-radio buff communicating via the Internet said it happened in Puget Sound. A columnist in the Montreal Gazette said it happened last fall off the coast of Newfoundland. A columnist in North Carolina quoted a local man as saying it happened off the Carolinas. "It's a totally bogus story, but over the last four months we've gotten at least 12, maybe 18 calls from different media sources trying to confirm that," said Cmdr.

Kevin Wensing, an Atlantic Fleet spokesman in Norfolk. "Unfortunately, some of them don't check it out. They just repeat it. "The first time I heard of it was - oh, let's see, how long - about 10 years ago or so, I think. "That story's so old," Wensing said, "it probably started out back in the galleon days, or back when there was a big lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt."

Dutifully, when all those reports about the carrier Enterprise began to surface, the Navy had to follow procedures and check it out. "Yes, we talked to the Enterprise," Wensing said. "It was like, "We've heard this story and we're pretty sure that it's without basis. . . . And their reaction was, 'What? You can't be serious.'

For the record, Adm. Mike Boorda, the chief of naval operations, released no such transcript on Oct. 10. Or any other time, said Cmdr. John Carman, a spokesman for the admiral. "It's a joke," Carman said, chuckling in disbelief. "And not only that, I've been told it's a real old joke. Like 30 to 40 years ago, that old."

Of the many flaws in the recent version, the most glaring is that there is no longer a radio crew - or any crew, for that matter - on any lighthouse on the U.S. coastline.

The last one was automated 10 years ago, said Lt. j.g. Ed Westfall, the lighthouse program manager for the U.S. Coast Guard's Fifth District, based in Portsmouth. Westfall said he, too, had heard the story for years, but he had a different understanding of its origin. "I always thought," he said, "it was just something one of us Coasties had made up to poke fun at the Navy."

Barbara "what, the Village People didn't do a good enough job?" Mikkelson

(Thanks Jaap Bakker for this supplement)

A Sailor's Parrot

This fella has a dock mate going out of town for Thanksgiving and accepts the job of watching his parrot over the holiday. Problem is, this parrot swears like a sailor, and this guy's a quiet, conservative type and before long the bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy.

It's now the day before Thanksgiving, and he's having guests over!

The guy snaps and grabs the bird, shakes him and yells, "QUIT IT!!!"

This, of course, just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets mad and says, "OK for you!" and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet.

This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran sailor blush!

At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very quiet. At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door.

The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you old chap. I will do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on."

The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot.

"So, by the way," the parrot says, looking nervously back towards the freezer, "what did the turkey do?"

Surfer or skater

Two men are fishing at a lake that is also used by windsurfers. Of course the surfers disturb the fish, and this annoys the fishermen.

After some time, when another surfer passes them, one of the fishermen picks up a stone and throws it at the surfer. He hits the surfer's head, and the surfer falls from the board and sinks immediately.

When he doesn't appear again, the two decide to rescue him. So they row to the place where the surfer drowned and one of them strips and jumps into the water. When he comes up again, he brings a lifeless body with him, and they heave it into the boat. Since the body doesn't show any signs of life, one of the fishermen start to give him the 'kiss of life'.

After the first puff of air he gasps, "Man, this guy's really got bad breath!"

The other one takes a closer look and asks very quietly,
"Are you sure the one you hit wore skates?"

Shipwrecked

There was this male engineer, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for the first time. It was wonderful, the experience of his life. He was being waited on hand an foot. But, it did not last. A Hurricane came up unexpectedly. The ship went down almost instantly.

The man found himself, he knew not how, swept up on the shore of an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing. The man looked around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it. So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea mightily for a ship to come to his rescue.

One day, as he was lying on the beech stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. In it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, or at least seen in 4 months. She was tall, tanned, and her blond hair flowing in the sea breeze gave her an almost ethereal quality. She spotted him also as he was waving and yelling and screaming to get her attention. She rowed her boat towards him.

In disbelief, he asked, "Where did you come from? How did you get here"?

She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed on this island when my cruise ship sank"

"Amazing," he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there? Where, did you get the rowboat? You must have been really lucky to have rowboat wash-up with you?"

"It is only me,"she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing else did."

"Well then," said the man, "how did you get the rowboat?"

"I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island," replied the woman. "The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove the bottom from Palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree".

"But, but," asked the man, "what about tools and hardware, how did you do that?"

"Oh, no problem," replied the woman, "on the south side of the island there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that If I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But, enough of that," she said. "Where do you live?"

At last the man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on the beach.

"Well, let's row over to my place," she said. So they both got into the rowboat and left for her side of island.

The woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to her place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked up a stone walk and around a Palm tree, there stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.

"It's not much," she said, "but I call it home. Sit down please, would you like to have a drink?"

"No," said the man, "one more coconut juice and I will puke."

"It won't be coconut juice," the woman replied, "I have a still, how about a Pina Colada?" Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk.

After a while, and they had exchanged their stories, the woman asked, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?"

"No," the man replied, "I was clean shaven all of my life, and even on the cruise ship".

"Well if you would like to shave, there is a man's razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom." So, the man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bath room. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle, two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. The man shaved, showered and went back down stairs.

"You look great," said the woman, "I think I will go up and slip into something more comfortable." So she did.

And, the man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, the woman returned wearing fig leafs strategically positioned and smelling faintly of gardenia.

"Tell me," she asked, "we have both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely, is there anything that you really miss? Something that all men and woman need. Something that it would be really nice to have right now."

"Yes there is," the man replied, as he moved closer to the woman while fixing a winsome gaze upon her. "Tell me ... Do you happen to have an Internet connection?"

Gordon Died

Gordon died. So Susan went to the local paper to put a notice in the obituaries. The gentleman at the counter, after offering his condolences, asked Susan what she would like to say about Gordon.

Susan replied, "You just put, 'Gordon died.'"

The gentleman, somewhat perplexed, said, "That's it? Just 'Gordon died?'

Surely, there must be something more you'd like to say about Gordon. If it's money you're concerned about, the first five words are free. We really should say something more."

So Susan pondered for a few minutes and finally said, "O.K., then. You put 'Gordon died. Sailboat for sale.'

Arthritis

A sailor ashore after 9 month at sea.

The sailor, who smelled like a distillery flopped on a subway seat next to a priest. The sailor's tie was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes, the sailor turned to the priest and asked,

"Say, Father, what causes arthritis?"

"Mister, it's caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol and a contempt for your fellow man."

"Well, I'll be damned," the sailor muttered, returning to his paper.

The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the seaman and apologized. "I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?"

"I don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the pope does."

The Admiral

A Navy Admiral (*which Navy will go unspecified) was being court-martialed for an incident where he was found to be chasing a young lady through the hallways of the hotel in which they were both staying.

Neither of them were wearing anything. One of the charges was that of "being out of uniform."

The Admiral's lawyer argued that the officer was not out of uniform, as the regulations read: "A Naval officer must be at all times be appropriately attired for the activity in which he is engaged."

The Admiral was acquitted.

What to do if you are desperate to go sailing

Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your mate whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack".

Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while soaping up.

Every time there's a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you're nauseated.

Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to "High".

Don't watch TV except movies in the middle of the night. Also, have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

Leave the lawnmower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level.

Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

Once a week blow compressed air up through your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot across and onto your neighbour's house. Laugh at him when he curses you.

Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread, if anything. (Optional: Canned ravioli or cold soup).

Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator.

Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can, then run out into your yard and break out the garden hose.

Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together.

Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or 6 hours before drinking.

Invite at least 85 people you don't really like to come and visit for a couple of months.

Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills on your front and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through one of them.

Lockwire the lug nuts on your car.

When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is baking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off the top.

Every so often, throw your cat into the swimming pool, shout "Man overboard, ship recovery!", run into the kitchen and sweep all the pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor, then yell at your mate for not having the place "stowed for sea".

Put on the headphones from your stereo (don't plug them in). Go and stand in front of your stove. Say (to nobody in particular) "Stove manned and ready". Stand there for 3 or 4 hours. Say (once again to nobody in particular) "Stove secured". Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.

Stowaway

A young woman was very depressed and decided to end it all by throwing herself into the ocean.

Just as she was about to do so though, a young handsome sailor ran down to the shore and talked her out of it.

"Look, you are young. There is so much you could do with you life." said the sailor. "In fact, my ship is sailing for Europe in the morning. I'll smuggle you on board and make sure you have plenty of food. If you'll just help me pass the lonely evening hours, I will get you over to Europe where you can start a new life."

That sounded great to the young women and took up living secretly in a room on board ship. Every evening the sailor would bring her some food and the two would spend the night together.

After about a week of this though, the ship's captain discovered the woman hiding in the sailor's cabin. "What are you doing in here?" asked the captain. "Well, I have a deal with one of your sailors. He is smuggling me over to Europe, and he's screwing me."

"I'll say!" replied the captain. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."

Jumper Cables

A guy brings his boat up to a restaurant dock to eat lunch. The dock hand says "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't let you dine here today. This establishment has a neck tie policy, and you are not wearing one.

The guy says "Of course I don't have a tie on, I'm on a boat!" "Well, go down below and put one on" "I don't HAVE one!" The dock hand, not wanting to turn away a customer, says "Well, why don't you just find something that approximates a tie. That should be O.K."

After some time, the boater comes out with a pair of jumper cables. "This is all I could find"

Sighing, the deck hand says "OK, I'll let you in with those, but just don't start anything"

The Mechanic

A gynecologist was getting sick of his job and decided that he needed a career change. He'd always enjoyed tinkering with engines so thought he'd become a marine diesel mechanic.

So he went along to marine mechanics school and the final test was to strip the diesel engine completely and reassemble it - obviously back into perfect working order. So our gynecologist friend did the test and anxiously awaited the result.

The day he received the results he got quite a surprise, he got 150%! He quickly phoned the instructor and queried the mark.

The instructor said, "No no that's right. First I gave you 50% for stripping down the engine-a very thorough job. Next I gave you 50% for reassembling it - a fantastic job really. Then I gave you a 50% bonus for doing it all through the exhaust port."

The Blonde

There were three people stranded on an island, a brunette, a redhead, and a blonde. The brunette looked over the water to the mainland and estimated about 20 miles to shore. So she announced, "I'm going to try to swim to shore." She swam out five miles, and got really tired. She swam out ten miles from the island, and she was too tired to go on, so she drowned.

The second one, the redhead, said to herself, "I wonder if she made it. I guess it's better to try to get to the mainland than stay here and starve." So she attempts to swim out. The redhead had a lot more endurance than the brunette, as she swam out 10 miles before she even got tired. After 15 miles, she was too tired to go on, so she drowned.

The blonde thought to herself, "I wonder if they made it! I think I'd better try to make it, too." So she swam out 5 miles, ten miles, 15 miles, NINETEEN miles from the island. The shore was just in sight, but she said, "I'm too tired to go on!" So she swam back.

Politicians

A charter sailing vessel with load of politicians was half way to the Bahamas when a freak storm hit the boat. Several of the passengers were thrown overboard and drowned. After retrieval of the bodies and with the knowledge that they may not be rescued for some time, if ever, the deceased were buried at sea.

Three days later, the local Coast Guard found the damaged craft. Upon boarding, the Coast Guard Captain asked, "Is everyone okay?" The Captain of the damaged vessel explained that he had a few passengers fall over board.

The Coast Guard Captain asked, "Are they all dead?"

The Sailing boat captain replied, "Well, some of them said they weren't, but you know how those politicians lie."

Politics

A novice sailor was lost. Maneuvering his sailboat close to another sailor's boat he shouted, " Excuse me sir, I promised my wife that I would be home on time and I'm afraid I don't know where I am. Can you help me?"

The other sailor replied, "Sure, You are on a lake. You're in a sailboat with a 5 HP gas outboard motor. You are between 35 and 36 degrees north latitude and between 80 and 81 degrees west longitude in about 18 feet of water."

"You must be a republican," said the novice.

"I am and proud of it," said the other sailor. "How did you know?"

"Well,"answered the novice, "everything you've told me may be technically correct, but certainly not responsive to the intent of my question and my current need. I have no idea what to make of what you just said and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me at all and now I'm going to be late getting home!"

The other sailor responded. "You must be a democrat."

"I am and proud of it,"replied the novice, "but how did you know that?"

"Well," said the other sailor, "you don't know where you are or how to get where you want to go. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you were lost and in danger of being late getting home before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

The old Irish fisherman

An elderly fisherman lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favourite cheese scones wafting up the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled ownstairs.

With laboured breath, he leaned against the doorframe, gazing into the kitchen.

Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were dozens of his favourite cheese scones.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted Irish wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His parched lips parted, he could almost taste the cheese scone before it was in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life.

The aged and withered hand trembled on its way to the nearest scone at the edge of the table, when his hand was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife . . . . . . . . .

"F*ck Off!! ",she said, "They're for the funeral"

Indubitable My Good Watson

Sherlock Holmes and Matthew Watson were on a sailing trip. They had gone night sailing and were lying on the deck looking up at the sky. Holmes said, "Watson, look up. What do you see? "Well, I see thousands of stars." "And what does that mean to you?" "Well, I guess it means we will have another nice day tomorrow. What does it mean to you, Holmes?" "Well, to me, it means someone has stolen our bimini top!"

Your time is not my time

A boat painter was awarded the job of painting a small sail boat and when he was asked by the owner, how long it would take him to finish the job, he replied, "Two weeks". Three weeks went by and the owner, a little concerned of the delay, confronted the painter. "Hey Paul", said the owner, "You told me that it would take you two weeks to paint my boat and it's been three weeks....What's up with that?" The painter put his paintbrush down, looked the owner square in the eye and said, "That was two NAUTICAL weeks, like a nautical mile, they're a little longer"

Beer drinking etiquette

A recreational boater, a tugboat crewman, and an old salt sailor went into a bar and each ordered a beer.

Each found a fly in their beer. (It must have been the special of the day).

The recreational boater looked in his beer and said, "hey bartender I have a fly in my beer. Give me another beer."

The tugboat crewman looked in his beer, found the fly, reached in an picked it out and continued drinking.

The old salt sailor looked in his beer, saw the fly, grabbed it by the wings, shook it over the glass and yelled, "Spit it out, Spit it out!"

Newbie: “Do yachts like this sink very often?”

Skipper: “No, usually it’s only once.”

What happened ?

While sailing on a tall ship a gust of wind blew a women's hat into the water. A body hurled over the rail of the sailboat and saved the hat. Coming back on board, the man who had dove into the water was cheered by the other passengers. The captain asked the man, "What can we do for you?" The man said, "You can tell me who pushed me?!"

The oldest captain

A reporter was interviewing a Sailboat Captain who was celebrating his 86th birthday. He was the oldest captain on the lake. At the end of the interview the reporter said, " I would love to come back and see you again when you reach 90. The captain said, " Don't see why not. You look healthy enough to make it !"

Old beyond his years

From the dock the woman watched as the salty old sailing captain skillfully docked his boat. She was impressed that such an old man would still be sailing at his age. She decided to wait until the sailing captain disembarked.

As he did, she asked him," Captain, what is your secret to leading such a long and productive life?"

"Well," he said. "I would have to say it's because I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, drink a case of whisky every week, eat a lot of fatty foods and I never exercise."

"Wow, that's amazing," the woman said. "exactly how old are you?"

He answered, "Thirty-one"

What’s your position, sailor?

A novice yachtsman got into trouble in heavy swell had to call the Coast Guard for help.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” he yelled. “This is yacht Corporate Junket, Corporate Junket, Corporate Junket, over.”

“Corporate Junket, this is Solent Coastguard,” came the reply. “Can you give me your position sir, over.”

“Solent Coastguard this is yacht Corporate Junket. I’m a director in a financial planning company, over.”

Daddy who?

Sailing from Island to Island in the Bahamas was a dream come true for the Walker family. At one of the many stops five year old Paula asked her mother, " What was the name of the last Island we visited?"

Her mother, busy with stowing a sail away said, " I'm not sure dear, is it important?"

" Maybe" , said Paula, " I'm thinking it might be.

" Why do you think so?" , asked her Mother.

" Because that's where Daddy got left behind!"

That's It!#*@!%#

The husband of a sailing couple walked into the galley and poured himself a cup of coffee.

As he sipped it , he looked out the porthole and said, " It looks like rain."

Upset the wife yelled at her husband, " For the last time, it's coffee!"

Painting

John decided scrape and paint the hull of his 21' foot wooden cruiser. Not sure of how much paint to buy and knowing that Paul, a close friend who had the same size boat had recently painted his, he gave him a call.

"Paul," he said, "How many gallons of paint did you buy for your boat?"

"Six," said Paul.

John went out and bought six gallons of paint but when the job was done he had two gallons left over!

Calling Paul again, "Paul," he said, "I bought six gallons of paint for my boat , but I've got two gallons left over."

"Yes," said Paul, "So did I."

The Perfect Holy Storm

The buyer of the sailboat thought the seller was kidding when he told him he was buying a holy boat. His instruction to the buyer was,

" if you yell PRAISE THE LORD the wind will fill your sails! The louder you yell the greater the wind. To stop the wind yell THE DEVIL IS DEAD."

During his first trip out and feeling a little silly he, in a modest tone uttered, "Praise the Lord".

Poof, the sails billowed and moved the boat through the water at a nice clip. Was it a coincidence? A little louder he yelled "PRAISE THE LORD", and the boat lurched forward doing 30 knots! Now excited and drunk with his newfound power he yelled, "PRAISE THE LORD" three times in a row!

Suddenly the new sailor realized what he had done! Winds of hurricane proportion started beating his boat! How to make it stop? He could not remember the words! With his sails now in tatters and in fear of losing his boat the sailor suddenly remembered, " THE DEVIL IS DEAD", he roared! There was suddenly calm.

Shaken beyond belief the sailor fell on his back and looking to heavens and in the loudest voice he could muster roared with relief, "PRAISE THE LOOOORRRD!!!"

Using the head

A guest, on a private sailboat on a compass heading to the Bahamas, had to hit the head. Excusing himself he left the main cabin.

Shortly after, a sudden squall hit the sailboat. A giant freak wave rolled over the vessel and, with a stress breach in the hull, the boat began taking on water!

Just short of sinkinUsing the headg and with his guests and crew in the life boat, the captain realized someone was missing. Working his way towards the aft cabins and fighting the onslaught of water rushing in, he broke open the door to the head.

There stood the missing guest. Shaken and confused he looked at the captain and said, "I don't understand, all I did was pull the handle!"

Doc, Can You Float Me a Loan?

A woman was having a medical problem - her husband was snoring very loudly and every night ! So she called the doctor one morning, and asked him if there was anything he could do to relieve her "suffering."

"Well, there is one operation I can perform that will cure your husband" said the doctor, "but it is really rather expensive. It will cost you $10,000 down, and payments of $1000 for 36 months, plus payments for extras of course.

"My goodness!" the woman exclaimed, "that sounds like I'm buying a yacht!"

"Humm," the doctor murmured, "too obvious, huh?"

Happy Birthday

Since their boss was an avid yachtsman, everyone in the office chipped in to buy him a sextant for a birthday present.

Henderson volunteered to make the purchase, and when he learned the marine supply store was out of stock, he phoned the local sporting goods store. When he burst out laughing and hung up, a co-worker asked what was so funny.

"They transferred my call," Henderson explained, "and when I asked the woman who answered if they had a sextant, she said they had all kind of tents and what I did in them was my business."

Snapped

"I finally snapped," the man said. "Last night while I was going over the bills, I discovered how much money my wife squanders and I hit the roof."

"What did you do?" asked his friend. "I stormed into the bedroom and gave her a lecture on economy and thrift."

"Did it help?"

";I'll say. Tomorrow we're selling the sailboat and my golf clubs."

Testing a fishy theory

Two sailors are talking:

Sailor A: “I hear fish is good brain food.”

Sailor B: “Yeah, I eat it all the time.”

Sailor A: “Well, there goes another theory!”

Survivors

The three survivors of the shipwreck were being driven mad by hunger.

The Irishman, an expert navigator, told the others that if they could row the lifeboat for three more days they could make landfall.

The Pole, the ship's doctor, said that they could not possibly last that long, that there was only one solution to the problem and that one of them would have to sacrifice themselves for the good of the others.

The captain, an Englishman, said that he quite understood and that he would volunteer as he should have gone down with the ship anyway.

After saying an emotional farewell to his crewmen, the captain jumped overboard and sank without trace.

Love making

A young wife, her boorish husband and a young good-looking sailor were shipwrecked on an island.

One morning, the sailor climbed a tall coconut tree and yelled, "Stop making love down there!"

"What's the matter with you?" the husband said when the sailor climbed down. '"We weren't making love."

"Sorry," said the sailor, "From up there it looked like you were."

Every morning thereafter, the sailor scaled the same tree and yelled the same thing. Finally the husband decided to climb the tree and see for himself.

With great difficulty, he made his way to the top.

The husband says to himself, "By golly he's right! It DOES look like they're making love down there!"

Missing message

Bill sent an email to his wife saying that he would be coming home from his five day sailing trip one day early. Arriving home he found his wife with another man. Upset he left and got a room in a hotel to plan his next step. His thoughts were interrupted by a call from his mother-in-law.

"Bill" she said, "I checked with my daughter and as I expected there is a perfectly good explanation for this whole episode."

"OK" said Bill, "what is it?"

The mother-in -law said, " She never got your email!"

“What do you call a sail with only two corners?”

“I haven’t got a clew!”

Horny sailor

A sailor arrives at port after having been at sea for six long months. Being extremely horny, the first thing he does upon setting foot on terra firma is to head straight to the nearest brothel. He goes right up to the madam and says, 'How much?'

The madam replies that her girls charge two hundred dollars and that she has only one immediately available. The sailor feels that this seems a bit pricey, but in his desperate condition he has no choice. He agrees to the terms and is shown upstairs to a room to await the arrival of the woman.

When the hooker gets to the room, she opens the door only to find the sailor furiously jerking off. 'Wait a minute!' cries the hooker. 'What are you doing?'

The sailor looks up at her and answers, Hey, for two hundred bucks you don't think I'm going to let you have the easy one, do you?'

Nautical Theory

"What would you do if a sudden storm sprang up on the starboard?"

"Throw out an anchor, sir," the student replied.

"What would you do if another storm sprang up aft?"

"Throw out another anchor, sir."

"And if another terrific storm sprang up forward, what would you do then?" asked the captain.

"Throw out another anchor, sir."

"Hold on," said the captain. "Where are you getting all those anchors from?"

"From the same place you're getting your storms, sir."

The pirate

An able-bodied seaman meets a pirate in a bar, and they take turns recounting their adventures at sea. Noting the pirate's peg-leg, hook, and eye patch The seaman asks "So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?"

The pirate replies "We was caught in a monster storm off the cape and a giant wave swept me overboard. Just as they were pullin' me out a school of sharks appeared and one of 'em bit me leg off".

"Blimey!" said the seaman. "What about the hook"?

"Ahhhh...", mused the pirate, "We were boardin' a trader ship, pistols blastin' and swords swingin' this way and that. In the fracas me hand got chopped off."

"Blimey!" remarked the seaman. "And how came ye by the eye patch?"

"A seagull droppin' fell into me eye", answered the pirate.

"You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked incredulously.

"Well..." said the pirate; " it was me first day with the hook."

Fishing

A game warden stopped a sailor with two buckets of fish . He asked the sailor, "Do you have a license to catch those fish?"

The sailor replied, "No, sir - Don't need one. These are my pet fish."

"Pet fish?!" the warden asked.

"Yes, sir. Every night I take these here fish down to the harbour and let them swim around for a while. I whistle and they jump back into their buckets, and I take them home."

"That's crazy! Fish can't do that!" said the warden.

The sailor looked at the game warden for a moment, and then said, "It's not crazy, I'll show you."

"O.K." said the warden, " Do it!"

The man quickly poured the fish into the harbour and stood and waited. After several minutes, the game warden turned to the sailor and said "Well?"

"Well, what?" the sailor responded.

"Well, when are you going to call them back?" the game warden asked.

"Call who back?" the sailor asked.

"The FISH!" yelled the warden.

"What fish?" the sailor asked.

The priest and the sailor

A sailor and a priest were playing golf. The sailor took his first shot missed and said, "F*ck, I missed."

Surprised, the priest replied, "Don't use that kind of language or god will punish you."

The sailor took aim and hit his shot second shot. Again he missed and under his breath the said, "I f*ck'n missed again."

The priest overheard and replied, "My son, please don't use that language or god will punish you."

The sailor took his third shot and once again he couldn't help mutter, "Oh f*ck?"

The priest said, "That's it! God will certainly punish you."

Suddenly a bolt of lightning came down and killed the priest.

In the distance a deep voice said, "F*CK, I Missed".

The sleepy sailor

By the time the sailor pulled into a little town, every hotel room was taken.

"You've got to have a room somewhere," he pleaded. "Or just a bed, I don't care where."

"Well, I do have a double room with one occupant - an Air Force guy," admitted the manager, "and he might be glad to split the cost. But to tell you the truth, he snores so loudly that people in adjoining rooms have complained in the past. I'm not sure it'd be worth it to you."

"No problem," the tired Navy man assured him. "I'll take it."

The next morning the sailor came down to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "How'd you sleep?" asked the manager.

"Never better."

The manager was impressed. "No problem with the other guy snoring?"

"Nope, I shut him up in no time" said the Navy guy.

"How'd you manage that?" asked the manager.

"He was already in bed, snoring away, when I came in the room," the sailor explained. "I went over, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said, 'Goodnight, Beautiful,' and he sat up all night watching me."