In the entrance of pool harbour is the wreck of a ship called the HMS hood. It's a popular dive site, easy to get to, quite shallow, and with a reasonable covering of sea life.
Because the wreck is across the mouth of the harbour, the buoy marking it is offset slightly, and at the bottom of the rope, there is another rope that heads off to the wreck.
Thing is, noone had explained this to my dive buddy and I. We expected that at the bottom of the rope was a wreck, not another rope.
So we descended down to the sea bed and found an absence of wreck. We have a bit of an exchange in sign language, involving a lot of shrugging of shoulders, before we picked a direction, and swam off. We found the base of the harbour wall, and spent a pleasant hour pootling along it, investigating the sea life, conversing with lobsters and enjoying the scenery, was a lovely dive. Alas all must good things must come to and end, and as our gas started to run low, we headed slowly to the surface to await collection by the boat.
Erm, the boat, where is it?
The problem with not hitting the wreck, and thus not coming back up again from the wreck, was we weren't where the boat had expected us to appear. No, we were a few hundred yards down the harbour wall round the corner. Ah well, it's a calmish day, we're both in dry suits, we're afloat. I'm sure they'll come looking eventually.
Twenty minutes or so later, as we climbed back on to the dive boat, as the last pair to do so. The captain turns to us "How the bloody hell did you manage to miss 10000 tons of battleship you daft bugger"...
Turns out the vis on the wreck was appalling and everyone else had had a boring dive. We had had a lovely dive... Lost? maybe...
----
A few years later I decided while cycling from Baker street tube station to Victoria train station, that it would be a good idea to cycle all the way to Canterbury. I had a map in my pocket, and I knew that I could follow National Cycle Route 1 all the way, it would be simple!
I started to head out of London on a road that was 1 lane each way, but sign posted M20 Dover, which was the right sort of direction.
1 lane each way became 2 lanes each way.
2 lanes each way became 3 lanes each way
3 lanes each way became 3 lanes each way with blue flashing lights.
As I chatted to the police officer on the hard shoulder of the M20, I pulled out the map I had and asked him to show me where I was. The M20 wasn't on the map. Neither was the M25 or the M2. The following day when I was trying to work out what had happened, I realised the map was printed in 1974... It was largely useless.
---
On Tuesday nights a friend and I head out into the woods for a walk, and to practice night navigation. This week, while wandering along a track in the woods towards our next way point, we managed to deviate slightly in the dark from where we had intended. After a hundred yards or so we started to think . o O ("This isn't right"). After another 100 yards we were sure of it. Out comes the compass, and with a bit of orienteering, we realise where we actually were. Rather than backtrack to our intended route, we set a new course through the woods to come out just down the road from our intended route. All good.
---
Have I been lost? Dunno. Maybe I just had a different adventure to the one I intended on having...
Julia