Memorable Critter Encounters

[Hawkwood]

I'm off to Vancouver Island on Canada's west coast to spend the weekend diving with Sea Lions. I did this once before on my 50th birthday along with my son and it was a tremendous experience. I am off to share this experience with some new friends.

The juveniles come off of the rocks as soon as they see the boat mooring. The darn things are just like big Golden Retrievers. They initiate the contact and maintain contact as long as you interact back.

The manta dive I did along with my wife back in November also ranks way up there.

Care to share your experiences?

Bill

 

[TSandM]

I did the dive at the sea lion rookery off Anacapa with my friend HBDiveGirl and another friend, and we all had scooters. The puppies poured off the beach when they heard the anchor go down, and we had a group of at least 30 or so that played with us for a half hour. They'd roll and spin and loop, and we would, too. Then we would stop and hover, and they would come and sit in front of us and cock their heads back and forth, as if to ask, "Well? Are you going to play some more?" The braver ones would run up and "count coup" on the end of the scooters, and then skedaddle away; one could almost hear them giggle. When we hit the trigger again, bedlam broke out, and there were seal lion puppies going every which way.

When we surfaced to the early evening sky, I threw my head back and screamed, "BEST DIVE EVER!" And still may be . . .

We have also had the good fortune to be recipients of a fly-by from a juvenile humpback whale off Lanai -- if you don't believe it's possible to jump up and down underwater, you didn't see the divemaster who spotted the critter.

And we had an up-close-and-personal encounter with a monk seal on Maui, who really seemed quite determined to interact with us, including swimming slowly up to me and then turning over and lying on his back. I wish I could speak seal, because it seemed so clear that he was friendly, but I had seen his teeth, so I kept my distance.

We do seal dives in Seattle all winter. They're a nuisance. They hunt by our dive lights, and body slam us in pursuit of baitfish. Yeah, they're cool, but I wish someone would teach them non-silting propulsion

 

[toddster541]

Oh, there have been a few over the years. Funny how you always see big critters when the camera is set up for macro shots. :confused6:
I remember one young harbor seal that played with me for a whole dive. Even stayed with me at the decompression stop. Just hung there and looked me in the eyes. (Dude. WTF are we doing here?)
And a moray eel that kept wrapping around my leg like a cat. (Warm water vacation, no wetsuit.) I couldn't get it far enough away to focus the nikonos. In fact, at one point it went up inside my BC, slithered along my back, and came out the arm hole.
And once, I was poking along in the kelp at the end of a dive, when I just about got run over by a seal. Then another one. Then another one. They bumped me on the shoulder and swam off into the distance. Fast. Just glancing back over their shoulders. aranoid: So I start climbing up the ledge where I was going to exit, and as I turned around, the kelp parted and two orcas that were following us casually sauntered past. :buggy:

Oh, and one time we were watching an octopus that we found out in the open and he got just a little ticked off at us. Probably because of the strobe lights. The octopus grabbed my buddy's camera away from him and tried to run off with it. Somewhere, I've got some good shots of him trying to wrestle it back.

edit: Found one of them. Sorry, I don't currently have any good way to scan these old kodachromes.

 

[koozemani]

No offense to all the sea lion lovers, but they bug me. Granted, my first couple of dives with them were magical, but now they act like spoiled brats that act out when don't give them enough attention. After getting nipped on my bare head a couple of dives while I was trying to get a macro shot they were officially on my poop list.

to date, my most memorable dives, in no particular order(sorry mrs. Koozemani):

- night dive off Tavernier where I had a life changing encounter with a big nurse shark. Trying to describe it makes it sound mundane, but at that moment and under those conditions, it was special.

- my wife's reaction when I proposed under water. I had a big fat fake ring that would fit over her glove. Unfortunately she didn't know it was fake and grabbed the box for dear life afraid I was going to lose the ring. I had to pry it out of her hands.

- a recent trip where I found this 1 cm nudie that was new to me. My happy dance attracted several other divers. Only one of them remotely understood my excitement.

we have a couple of big trips this year so this list might change.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

I love diving with sea lions. Going up to Hornby Island soon, and this is the season for a ton of sea lions. But my memorable critter encounter has to do with a harbour seal off Whytecliff Park in Vancouver.

There was one baby harbour seal that was extremely comfortable with divers at Whytecliff. We were harassed by it for at least 30 minutes. At first, it was extremely cool, petting it on the stomach and having it tug at our fins. Then it playfully nipped at us, including on my hand. I guess it didn't know its own strength, but it hurt a bit. Then when we continued on our dive, it kept harassing us. I would do it again in a heartbeat, though.

Another cool experience was seeing my first local sharks. They were dogfish sharks, but it was still cool seeing sharks locally at Henderson Point. Next, it'll be six gills. Hopefully at Hornby Island too.

 

[freewillie]

The Manta Ray night dive off of Kona ranks at the top for sheer exhilaration. Being that close and having that many manta rays swim just inches above my head was incredible.

Several shark encounters definitely got my heart pumping. There was a tiger shark off the coast of Kona swimming off in the distance. Close enough to tell it was a tiger shark but not close enough to get good look at the stripes. While in Turks n Caicos we were briefed that there was a pair of territorial reef sharks. They won't hurt you but may come in close to check you out. They did! Close enough to almost touch. At that point just dropped down closer to the reef and let them swim off. Took a while for heart to slow down.

One of the more memorable encounters was a huge turtle sleeping during a night dive. It must have been at least four feet across the shell. Not so memorable because turtles are fairly common sight in Maui, but I was close enough to my 14 yo daughter to hear her scream with excitement in her reg. her dive log for the night was "best dive ever with Daddy". That's pretty memorable.

 

[diverrex]

A dive off Santa Barbara Island (Channel Islands) where we had 30+ young sea lions follow us away from the boat and back for about 40 minutes. I think I laughed the whole dive. For my friends that don't dive I tell them it would like going to a park that had 30 puppies and all they want to do is run around you and play.

A dive in Dominica where a young turtle swam right up to each of the 5 us diving like he wanted to check us all out. One woman in the group stopped moving forward and turned vertical then the turtle turned vertical also about a foot away like they were talking. He swam right up to my wife's camera and bumped his beak gently into her dome. He probably stayed with us for 10 minutes before swimming off.

I just like it anytime that fish make eye contact with me, Garibaldi do it all the time.

It is these moments I dive for.

 

[koozemani]

My favorite turtle story was in the keys on a night dive. My wife spotted one sleeping in a hollow. I moved in to get some pictures for her. Suddenly she grabs my arm and starts signaling shark. I look around and see no shark, so I go back to the turtle. This repeats 3-4 times. At this point I'm getting annoyed because there's no shark and its awfully hard to get a picture of this turtle when she keeps grabbing my arm.

Back on the boat she finally explains that there was a young nurse shark curled up with the turtle. I never saw it, but sure enough it showed up in a couple of the pictures.

 

[bradells]

Diving in the Caribbean, there always seems to be a big Angel fish, or Trigger fish following alongside on the top of the reef.

One dive, a long Barracuda escorted us for half the dive, then scooted away. A few minutes later we caught up to it, while it was getting a cleaning, turned around and escorted us for another few minutes before swimming away.

This week, saw 2 Nassau Groupers, and 2 Trigger fish attack a Lion fish. Then they proceeded to fight over the big chunks after they ripped it open. Unfortunately my camera hasn't been working this trip.

One time doing our safety stop over a sandy area on a reef (80' to the bottom) a massive Eagle Ray glides below us. The Remoras trying to hang on looked more baitfish in size comparison.

As for Vancouver Is. No diving, but lots of kayaking with seals, and whales. I took out my little cousins on the harbor one day as there were dozens of young pups laying out on some driftwood. I've never seen them so quiet and bug eyed as that trip (kids and pups)

 

[Hawkwood]

...

- a recent trip where I found this 1 cm nudie that was new to me. My happy dance attracted several other divers. Only one of them remotely understood my excitement.

...

Found a "Jolly Green Giant" nudibranch off the Big Island while diving from the Kona Aggressor II last November. Didn't understand the reaction of the DM leading the dive until we got back to the boat and he explained what a big deal it was.