The coolest thing you ever saw on a dive?

[Black_3000psi]

lets leave out the underwater mating stuff. so that said whats the coolest thing you ever seen under water from the sea life?

the first that comes mind is an eel and a small octopus in a deadly struggle. what made it so cool was when we first saw it we werent sure what it was but an octopus had an eel by the head in its mouth. but when the octopus saw us coming it morphed to match the eels coloring perfactly you could hardly tell where the eel stopped and the octopus begain. now that i thought was cool.

 

[spoolin01]

Octopuses are just the coolest critters. I was off one of the hotels in south Maui two years ago in shallow water looking out along a line of lava mini-pinnacles. A small turtle was high-centered on the shoulder of one them, flailing as the water sloshed him around. After a few moments he got free, pushed himself away and swam the few yards over to the teenage-sized turtle waiting patiently for him. As the small one came up, the other raised one forefin high and bap!, smacked the youngster on the back of the neck, as if to say, 'quit screwin' around, lets go!', then they swam off together out to sea. I wouldn't have figured turtles to be so impatient.

 

[Sloth]

Not so much the coolest thing but the coolest encounter was with a monk seal.
Me and my dive buddy where coming out of a cavern near port lock at the same time a seal was coming in. We all practically ran into each other. The seal slammed on breaks and stared at us with a look of "what the hell are you two doing in here". We continued out while he continued in with all parties giving a respectable bit of distance and a weary eye. The seals reaction and seemingly embarrassed looks made it so memorable.

 

[Black_3000psi]

yep seals are very courious creatures. saw one in a cave over by koko creator was still a teen im guessing cause he wasnt very big but he had his back to the wall standing like a human looking from me to my dive buddy as if to say yo wat up it was an awsome moment .
the turtles thing is really cool cause i have never really seen them interact like that or any other way for that matter. that had to be the icing on any dive.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I love octopus and the way they used discarded items. I noticed some jets coming from the sand and decided to check out the cause. I used my hand to fan away the sand and found this octopus curled up inside a large jar. I took a couple quick shots then carefully pushed the sand back in place and left him as I found him.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Monk seals are a real treat. I found one off Koko Crater sleeping in a cave the other day. My buddy and I backed out and hung around, hoping the seal would want to exit the cave for a photo shoot. There we saw him go to the top of the cave and grab a breath of air from our exhaust bubbles. Instead, a whitetip we had spotted before swam by us and into the cave. This disturbed the seal, which also disturbed the shark, and both parties proceeded to swim circles on opposite sides of the cave. At this point, we were running low on air, so we headed for our exit. En route my buddy grabbed my fin and pointed. Lo and behold there was a FAT 8' Galapagos shark cruising right over us.

That was a cool dive, but honestly I'd say the coolest critter I've seen was a cookie cutter shark off the Big Island on one of their black water dives.

 

[Lopaka]

Few years ago in Kona off Hammerhead Point, were doing a last stop at about 15-20 ft. Kind of a drift dive, deep bottom at that point.

About to surface when someone started frantically pointing out to open water. A huge manta was slowly cruising in, and then proceeds to circle us no more than 10-20 feet away. Hard to estimate size, but this guy was humongous, all black and white like you don't really see well at night.

Did a few orbits to check us out, and then slowly cruises back out to sea. Awesome moment. (and no camera of course)

 

[Black_3000psi]

man that is nice. i ll pray for a dive like that one day. one of the things i love about the octopus is . for me i only see them when they make a sudden move then stop now your lookin around trying to pic him out of the bottom.

 

[DiveWestOahu]

for me it's a tie between 3 humpbacks (cow,calf & escort) swimming below us as we did our deco, or again while doing deco a young tiger circled us for about 30 minutes wondering if he/she should take a bite (then came the question on all our minds, better to get bitten or bent?)

 

[Belmont]

Lest year in Negril, Jamaica, we kept hearing these squeals coming from nowhere.
All of a sudden we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins who came to investigate our presence.
What made this encounter memorable was the fact that there were three
females in the group with very young pups. They were no more
than two feet long and following their mothers very closely.
It went so fast, it's fantastic how these creatures master their environment.
By comparison we looked like anvils with fins.