Your Most Innocuous, Yet Memorable Dive

[CuzzA]

My first ocean dive...

I went out with my aquarium live rock aquaculture buddy to his lease site a week or so after getting certified. Nice summer day, calm seas. I hadn't really thought much about if we'd be diving together with just the two of us on the boat. When we arrived to the site, which is only 25 fsw in the Gulf of Mexico, we clipped into a permanent mooring he has rigged to some concrete pilings. He said, "Alright you dive and then I'll dive." I thought to myself, "Well there goes all of the buddy diving that had just been hammered in my OW course...." Ok, "You don't want to buddy dive?", I asked. "Ah, you'll be fine", he said. I thought, "Well I can free dive 25 ft..."

So a little anxious, I rolled off the side of the boat and got to the bottom where I found 1 ft. viz. I sat there for a few moments in the sand thinking to myself, "Well, now what should I do?" I proceeded to swim to look for the millions of pounds of live rock and then a lizard fish swims right up to me, it stops facing right at me and rests on the sand about a foot from my face. They're definitely one of the uglier fish out there. They're also at the top of the dislike list since they have a tendency to foul trolling lines as they slam bait as big as themselves.

Anyway, I sat there for about five minutes having a starring contest with a lizard fish when finally I looked around and decided there wasn't much to see or do down here with the 1 ft. viz and while I appreciated the interest this fish took in me I got that uncomfortable feeling of what else could be taking an interest in me that I cannot see.

After surfacing and back on the boat my buddy says, "Takes a lot of balls to roll into the ocean solo like that for your first dive." As he back rolls in. Meanwhile on the surface I was thinking that was probably pretty dumb. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed as I watched him fill 16 nets with a few thousand pounds of live rock as the floats were cruising along the surface. I thought to myself, "Jeez, that's pretty damn impressive to do work like that in zero viz." And so that's where I started doing a lot of my practice dives. Zero viz ocean diving. Fun stuff.

*Probably best others don't do what I did. Dive with a buddy.

Random internet pic of a lizard fish for reference.

 

[Dish]

Back in November I did a double dip on U-352. First dive there was a few sand tigers starting to show up, but conditions were nice for that site 65' viz and a very light current. During our surface interval, owner of Olympus did a solo dive and when he came back up he informed us there were now a ton of sand tigers on the wreck. He said that was the most he had probably ever seen on the sub and that it's very rare to have even more than a couple down there. When we got down there for our second dive, I counted more than 30 of them. Sand tigers + sub made for a good day.

Very cool. I dove that in 1979 with George Purifoy and his folks. Any Conger Eels? They were all over that boat when I dove it back then.

 

[DiverDownD3]

Very cool. I dove that in 1979 with George Purifoy and his folks. Any Conger Eels? They were all over that boat when I dove it back then.

I haven't seen any. A few moray eels here and there. Don't mean they aren't there.

I never knew George, but Bobby is a great guy for dive industry and our small little world of eastern NC

 

[Diving Dubai]

Mine.

It was the 3rd dive of the day on a trip in the Musandam at the end of Jan. Because of the weather the preferred site wasn't an option so we dropped on a throwaway site call Deep Purple. It's a shallow site shelving slowly away so generally the max depth is 10-15m It's sandy with a few coral blocks. There have been sighings of white and black tips but they're rare.

Anyway my wife an I dropped in, the water was green with plankton and her LP inflator had detached. Being the good husband I fixed that, then we set off on our scooters (to cover ground and relieve the boredom)

Within a minute we stopped as the prop of my wife's scooter detached. Well we scooped that up, decided that it was going to be one of those dives and might as well bin it. get back to the boat for a shower and G&T before everyone else came back. As we reached for the DSMB out of the gloom came a Whale shark

It was my first ever (I'd even gone to the Maldives to see them without success), my wife's first in the Musandam (despite having dived there for 3 years previously. Jan is not supposed to be the season for them.

In the video below you'll see my wife tearing off in front before I catch her up - she's quick that girl



As an aside for the last 2 years we see whale sharks (mostly juveniles) most months so there doesn't seem to be a season after all

They know they aggregate around the oilfields in Qatar (The Whale shark team came for a survey in 2012 - if you're interested the 30 min documentary is here)
They also suspect there is a nursery somewhere close but as yet it's still a mystery

 

[maj2]

View attachment 389942 I wanted to dive the wreck of the Gargantua, near the Cabot Head Lighthouse on the Bruce Peninsula, Georgian Bay. The Gargantua sits in eight feet of water in the Wingfield Basin, a shallow anchorage now for pleasure craft. The pin shows the wreck, which while sitting on the bottom, also sticks up above the waterline. Small shrubs have taken root on the remains of the wooden steamer, which sank in 1952 after being towed into the harbour.

My snorkel expedition to the Gargantua was not nearly as memorable. We went with pretty much the same plan as you had. We saw no bear, and did not get the excitement of the beavers. We snorkeled across the basin, saw pretty much nothing along the way and arrived at the wreck to find it pretty much high and dry (it was a very low water year). My wife was not impressed that I had dragged her there. We got a better view of the wreck from the Cabot Head Lighthouse, not far from where we started our snorkel swim. A beaver "attack" would have made it a far more interesting swim!

Otherwise, I suppose that my most memorable "innocuous" dive was a clean-up dive in a shallow bay in an island in the Detroit River that is popular with local boaters. It was in early April, in conjunction with Earth Day. The dive(s) went well with all kinds of garbage recovered including cocktail glasses, gas grills and lots more that had all been lost overboard over the years. Never exceeded about 12ft in depth for the entire day.

The boat that was returning us to the mainland hit a rock on the way out with the first load of divers. It made it to shore and everyone successfully got off the boat before it sank at dockside with a big gash in the hull. Gunning it at full speed apparently kept much water from entering the hull for the short trip to the dock, and once stopped, water flooded the hull. The rest of us were stranded on the island for a few hours waiting for other boats to be able to pick us up.

Being early April, there were no leaves on the trees yet, and no structures of any sort on the isalnd, so shade was hard to come by. I got a pretty bad sunburn during the wait. Nonetheless, I got back to the mainland eventually that afternoon (along with my gear), and the bay was cleared of at least a couple of hundred pounds of garbage for the next season. It was innocuous diving, but a very memorable day.

 

[Vicko]

One time we had to empty 2 32% 15L stages so a customer could assemble his sidemount gear (he demanded air, and we only have alu stages).
I went in solo with air doubles and 2 stages from the beach, max depth 32 meters, average depth 12 meters, dive time 170 minutes.
The dive was nothing special, not much fish, a few octopuses out and about, I found an outboard motor (old British Seagull ) and a dozen old anchors, only used one of the stages. Boss was not impressed with my way of emptying cylinders. Never felt so tired after a dive like then (wonder why), had tens of better dives at the same beach, will never forget this one.

 

[TMHeimer]

Am enjoying the stories. Can't think of any one dive in my 11 years that was truly "innocuous". I've had the usual amount of interesting ones and the usual few that were uncomfortable re cramps, currents, surf/surge and lousy viz. But nothing really stands out. Don't know what that means.

 

[scubadada]

Descended down on Black Condo in Boynton Beach for a routine drift dive, two Hammerheads swim leisurely by going the opposite direction. The rest of the dive was just the usual fantastic.

 

[emoreira]

Without any doubt the two dives that are stick to my memory were those when I first dove with my kids.

 

[kelemvor]

Mine was definitely the USS Mohawk reef in the Gulf of Mexico. Not only was it a great wreck, but it was covered with massive Goliath Groupers / Jewfish. I'll never forget them. For whatever reason they were more awe inspiring than any of the sharks or anything else that I've seen.

It was a long dive day, but well worth it. 2 hour drive to the dock. 2 hour boat ride to the site. 3 hours for 2 dives and a SI at the site, then 2 hour boat ride back and 2 hour drive home.