FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — Shay Love was sailing alone along Florida’s northeast coast when the large object ahead of her started looking less like an ordinary boat and much more intimidating.
It was a U.S. Navy submarine.
Love, who was making a solo trip from Miami toward Charleston, said the encounter on the St. Marys River left her rattled as Navy vessels approached and directed her away from the submarine.
“I was so terrified that I was shaking and couldn’t speak,” Love recalled in video and an interview featured in FOX 13 Tampa Bay’s report on the encounter.
The footage surfaced in Florida media this week, but the encounter itself happened June 4.
Love freely admits she made mistakes leading up to it.
Her handheld radio had been turned down, she was fighting a strong current and her boat was running low on diesel — all while she was trying to figure out exactly what was looming ahead.
Then Navy boats pulled alongside.
She thought she was approaching a big boat
Love said she initially couldn’t tell what she was seeing in the distance while traveling along the Florida side of the St. Marys River.
As she got closer, the situation became obvious.
Navy personnel directed her to leave the area, and Love turned her sailboat away and followed their instructions.
The moment was especially stressful because she said she was battling a current of roughly 10 knots and worrying that her motor could run out of fuel.
Her radio wasn’t helping.
Love later acknowledged that the volume on her handheld radio had been turned down when officials were apparently trying to reach her.
She didn’t blame the Navy for what happened.
Instead, Love characterized the encounter as her own mistake and another hard lesson from life on a boat.
That admission is an important part of the story. Despite the dramatic video and the massive difference in size between the two vessels, there is no indication Navy personnel did anything wrong.
Love followed their directions and safely cleared the submarine’s path.
There’s a reason submarines appear in these waters
Seeing a submarine around the St. Marys River isn’t as random as it might seem to someone unfamiliar with the Florida-Georgia border.
Just across the state line sits Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in southeast Georgia.
The Navy describes Kings Bay as the East Coast homeport for Ohio-class ballistic- and guided-missile submarines and the Atlantic Fleet’s only base capable of supporting the Trident II D-5 missile system.
The St. Marys River and Cumberland Sound form part of the route connecting the submarine base with the Atlantic.
Federal rules also provide for security restrictions in portions of Cumberland Sound and the St. Marys River entrance channel, with vessels required to comply with directions from authorities when applicable security zones are activated.
Officials have not publicly identified which submarine Love encountered, according to FOX’s report, and there has been no publicly announced investigation stemming from the incident.
It was only her second solo sailing trip
The submarine encounter came during what was already an ambitious trip for Love.
She was sailing north from Miami toward Charleston, making stops that included St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Cumberland Island and Savannah.
Rather than completing the trip in the four or five days it might ordinarily take, Love stretched the voyage across several months while stopping along the coast.
The June 4 leg was particularly significant: according to her interview, it was only her second time sailing alone.
Despite the scare, she kept going.
Love reached Cumberland Island the following day and eventually made it to Charleston.
And getting an up-close view of a Navy submarine apparently hasn’t scared her away from sailing.
She told FOX she wants to continue traveling by boat and hopes to make her way farther up the East Coast toward Maine next year.
Her takeaway from the experience was decidedly practical.
She plans to replace her handheld radio and make sure the backup radio is loud enough that she doesn’t miss another important call.
Or, as Love summed up the unpredictability of the experience: “boat life.”
Online reaction: The video is the hook
The encounter began getting wider attention after video of Love’s experience was picked up and circulated by Storyful and FOX stations this week.
At the time of publication, there did not appear to be a substantial public Reddit discussion or other accessible social-media thread specifically about Love’s encounter, making it premature to describe the video as viral or claim viewers were broadly outraged.
The visual itself is the stronger social hook: a solo sailor in a relatively tiny boat realizing the enormous vessel in front of her is a Navy submarine.
Love’s willingness to acknowledge her own mistakes also changes the tone from a blame story into something closer to a very unusual cautionary tale for recreational boaters.
What happens next
There is no indication Love faced charges or that the Navy opened a formal investigation after the encounter.
Instead, she came away with a story, a few lessons about keeping her radio turned up and plans to keep sailing.
And while Love was shaken in the moment, she made it clear the experience hasn’t ended her solo adventures.
The submarine may have been one of the more intimidating things she has encountered on the water, but by the following day, she was already sailing on.
