When I was in high school and college, I worked on charter boats out of Fort Myers Beach. We ran a lot of extended overnight trips down to the Tortugas and a good ways offshore.

We were anchored up in the middle of the night snapper fishing on a wreck, and we saw a cargo ship coming in our direction from a long ways off. The Captain was catching some Z's while I watched the deck and helped the customers out. I kept watching thinking he'd change course, kept running up and checking the radar. About a mile out, I started to get worried. At half a mile, I woke up the captain. Ship kept coming, we had to hammer down and drag the anchor to get out of it's way, a bit too close for comfort and killed a pretty solid snapper bite.

Don't think they ever even knew we were there, maybe they didn't care. You'd think they'd have proximity alarms on the radar and such...or at least someone on watch.

I've also had some very close calls on my mudboat, and one mild collision with an oysterman in the back creeks of Yankeetown. He was in a Carolina Skiff that was about as big as the creek was, we both came around a turn and had nowhere to go, but thankfully we weren't going fast.