What is your best dive story?

[PhotoTJ]

The rules are simple. It has to have happened to YOU! No friends, or friends of friends. It can be heroic, silly, cool, stupid, doesn't matter, as long as it's your best, and as long as it happened to you!

Here's mine.

Back in 99, I was diving with friends over at Catalina. (Well, two of us were diving; the rest of the group was drinking on the beach at Emerald Bay.) As my partner and I came up out of the surf, I glanced out at the boats moored in the bay. Kevin flopped down, and grabbed a cold Corona from the cooler, as I began taking off my gear. Resting up for a sec, I picked up my binoculars, and scanned the boats. One called the REVO caught my eye. There was a pretty girl laying on the fantail. As I watched, another pretty girl came up on deck. Then a third. Then a large dog. But no guys.

I thought about this for a minute.

I noticed she was also drinking Corona.

I asked my buddy how we were fixed for beer and lime. He said we had an ample supply.

The boat was only about 100 yards off shore.

I re-donned my gear, grabbed a lime and two beers, my buddies began videoing me, as I disappeard beneath the surf. (The drunken commentary on the tape is a riot!)

I popped up, right off the swimstep, held up the two beers in one hand, the lime in the other, and said, "You look like you’re about empty!"

I have never, and may well never again, feel more like James Bond.

I was invited aboard, had the beer, exchanged some witty repartee, got a ride back to the beach, and had a nice dinner date that evening.

And I have the whole thing on tape. (Well, the dive part.)

C'mon, tell us your tale!

 

[Drew Sailbum]

from the race committee boat conducting a sailing race on the lake. A boat tried to pick up speed on a gusty wind day by pulling up the swing keel. The boat breeched under spinnaker and sank - with two inside the cabin.

Sheriff's dive recovery team would take at least 30 minutes to reach the site. We broke into the dive locker of the university scuba club, grabbed gear, and were on the water within 2 minutes, and on site within 5.

The most harrowing scream I ever heard was when I poked my head into the air pocket trapped in the cabin of that boat 50ft under water and realized that these two ladies were still very much alive and positively terrified.

A very fast lesson ensued - close your eyes, pinch your nose, breath through this reg, and don't hold your breath and out we went. My dive buddy grabbed the other woman, and we surfaced a few moments later.

The shortest, and most worthwhile dive of my life.

 

[drbill]

This is not my BEST dive story but it is funny and it happened today.

I did four dives at the Casino Dive Park and toted all my gear up to my house to get a shower. I was due to videotape some footage at Antonio's and needed to do so while it was still light.

Starting to pull my wetsuit zipper down only no luck! I tried off-and-on for 45 minutes with no success. My housemate was on the mainland and there was no one home in our condo. I wandered the streets looking for someone, but I live in a very low density part of town. Think of what it means to be in a wetsuit after you've been diving even if you lie about peeing in them! It was becoming urgent.

Finally I grabbed my videocamera and a sweatshirt and walked down to Avalon's fire station. Walked into the station house and said "You guys have been waiting for me to screw up for years so you could rescue me at the Park. How about getting me out of this mess."

Within a minute they had me free and clear, with much laughter. Then they saw the video camera and wished they had it all on tape.

Mild embarrassment but much amusement!

Dr. Bill

 

[PhotoTJ]

We have great drama with a happy ending, (a tip of the hat, and a medal to sailbum!), and comedy! (Dr. Bill, LMAO!)

C'mon, let's hear some more!

 

[PhotoTJ]

13,570 members, who normally won't stop talking about diving, and we get a whopping 3 best dive stories? I think we can do better!

 

[dyvermite]

Umm,
One time I was gonna be a rescue dummy. My job was getting lost at the end of the dive when everybody else went back to the boat. I lied face down on the bottom (rocks) and watched a big trigger fish picking at a rock.
After a while (felt like forever), somebody poked my shoulder with their finger, then shook my shoulder. I waited without moving, just concentrated on being "unconsious at depth."
After a while (at least 20-30 seconds) somebody shook me again. Now I'm thinking, "It ain't that hard, Chester. Just put your hand on the reg and drag me up already!"
Suddenly, I felt a more determined shake and pull on my other shoulder and saw a hand waving in front of my face. I turned to find the instructor teaching the rescue course and two very confused looking divers I had never seen before.
When I got back to the boat, they told me that they had canceled the rescue exercise because the surface was too choppy. Never did find out who those other two divers were.

 

[FredT]

Time stamp on this is early Sept 2001

-----------------John called Tues and thought he wanted to go hunt a few fish Wednesday morning if the rain let up. After checking the forecast I told the boss he probably wouldn't see me tomorrow unless the weather turned nasty. About 1900 I finally get clear of my office and head back to the MS coast. At 2300 Tues night it's still raining but the forecast and WV GOES8 photo shows a band of dry air heading our way. Note that in south LA and MS "dry" air is usually around 80% relative humidity or so, you just can't SEE it in distances of less than a mile. Humidity haze is pretty standard stuff here abouts so being able to actually see something several miles away is pretty neat.

0530 Wed morning I called up the weather buoy just east of the island (42007) and got calm winds, and seas of 0.7 ft with a longish period. Eventually got the weather radar on line and it showed one small thunderhead just over the mouth of the MS River. This is good news, as we plan to head SSE out of Biloxi. By the time we got the boat and gear loaded, ice picked up and the boat launched it was after 9:00 AM. The rain preventing boat loading the night before put us a 2.5 hours behind schedule. We finally got going about 9:30. When we passed through Dog Key Pass the water in the open gulf was actually calmer than the stuff in the Mississippi Sound. Even worse that that was we could actually SEE the top of the first rig peeking above the horizon, 18 miles away. This rig set is roughly 30 miles out, 12 to DKP, and then another 18 to the first rig. Normally they just materialize out of the haze when we get within a mile or two of the structure. No wind ripples on the Gulf most places either. We threw the throttle all the way open and headed out. We did eventually figure out where the 0.7' seas number came from. We crossed occasional wakes from workboats and tankers who had passed by a while ago (we never saw the ships) so I guess the buoy was seeing those. Otherwise it was FAC.

The first rig was a single tower with a tripod brace. It was little more than a wellhead and flowline. The big rig in that set had a workboat tied up and it looked like they were just starting to transfer cargo, so we passed on being chum and dove the little one. 5' of cool green water on top, HOT 15' vis water to about 20' then clearish 80' vis water to within 5' of the bottom, and even the bottom had over 10' of vis. No large snapper here but lots of Spadefish and smaller snapper though, along with the normal resident colony stuff of butterflies, jawfish, blennies, yellow hind, soapfish, etc.

As I was coming up I was strafed by a smallish cobia. I took him. He was about 45" long. Not big, but the limit is two, so the next one has to be huge. The next two dives were on an air force antenna (single post above water spreading to 4 angled piles below water, and a small gas production platform. The run to each of these is about 6 to 10 miles bearing S to SSE. Both rigs had all the normal small stuff and no large fish. I did pass on two more cobia about the same size as the one I took first thing. Water conditions improving with the surface green thinning out, and the hot layer thinning too.

The next rig was a gas compression platform roughly 60 miles out. This had a large 6'or 8' diameter single post with two well casings and bundle of satellite well flowline risers, and a trio of pipelines headed to the beach coming off the north side supported by two angled 48" braces. A workboat and a chopper were working the rig. About the time we decided to move on and head another 12 miles south the workboat left. After checking with the platform crew (the WB had to take a plate ashore for mods and would be back later, but we had a 3 hour window) we threw on the gear This is the first place we had seen Sows (large red snapper) over 3' long. I popped one, losing a wishbone in the process. We had a bit of a discussion with me finally providing her an attitude adjustment by cutting her throat. While stringing her and reloading with my remaining 2 bands I see a large cuberra Snapper coming up to see what all the commotion is. He was big enough to eat my snapper as a lite snack. I probably would have made him a nice meal if I hadn't been wedged between the flowlines. I estimate he was well over 18" between his eyes. He saw John about the same time John saw him and started lining up for a shot, did a fast 180° turn and disappeared. The leg John was on was one of the 48" braces. That snapper's tail height was at least half the diameter of the pile, as I saw him turn right next to the pile, although a bit farther from me than the pile. The height of his tail was half the diameter of the pile from my viewpoint. He had obviously seen divers in his smaller days. I got a small grouper that was busy paying attention to John fight another sow snapper and not watching where he was going then we heard a workboat in the area. Up to the boat and moved off while ANOTHER part was transferred to the (different) boat. The vis is better here to about 95', where the vis completely disappears. Bottom is still another 60' down, but we don't go there. While off and field dressing the first 3 snapper we discussed cuberra strategy a bit and changed bottles. Once the rig was clear again we headed back to see if we could smoke him out again. No luck with him, but we did get 3 more sows on the boat.

The first of my two of those sows provided me with my Zieg moment. It turned from a run with 3" of sharp tip protruding from one side of its skull and headed straight for my belly. Not wanting to experience disemboweling firsthand I reached out and turned her by grabbing her nose. I succeeded in turning her but she succeeded in chomping down on my right hand in the meantime. Give the alternative I took the pain while I got her turned and obtained some control of situation and then got my hand out of her mouth. LOTS of puncture wounds both sides of my hand including 3 holes through fingernails and punctures into two knuckles, this with Kevlar and urethane gloves on. Grabbing her lower jaw when she grabbed me to prevent relative motion probably saved me from some pretty nasty lacerations, but these hurt quite enough, thankyouverymuch. The best way I can think of to describe it is as Zieg has described his moray moments. If you can visualize being clamped on by a pair of vise grips with teeth you have a pretty good mental picture :-((

The last dive of the day was on a production platform another 6 miles south. I got another sow, and so did John. Boat limit on snapper in hand, and no more room in the box, meant it was time to call it a day. We cleaned up the boat, got the fish boxed and took a shower, then with clean dry clothes headed in, at 4:15PM. We got to the dock at 1830, and I had my 6 fish butchered by 2300. Jeanne finished preliminary skinning and ice packing the fillets and steaks by midnight. Sleeping was NOT a problem last night. Pictures later if they come out.

FT

 

[jdb]

It was the second dive of the day yesterday. We were to dive a 60' shrimp boat still fully intact, nets and all. Vis had been in the 60 foot range all weekend long, so we were expecting the same here. At 20' we run into a wall of muck which stayed with us until somewhere around 50', when we emerged from this I believe that we would have been back at our 60' vis however the muck above us was blocking out almost all of our light. The anchor rope disappeared into the darkness only 3 to 4 foot infront of me. There is large schools of game fish circleing around us, appearing and then disappearing back into the darkness passing within a foot or two of us. At 100fsw we hit our second thermocline droping the water temp down to 68 and all game fish disappear. At 110fsw I hit bottom, The water is clean and clear but vis is 3-5' at best and it is darn cold down here with no wetsuit. I look up to see where my buddy is at and I notice that by sight, you can not tell which way is up, atleast not easily. We proceed to the wreck swimming right through the middle of the thermocline. The boat was about 90% intact, nets,rope, and other entaglements appearing and then disappearing in the distance. Two very large angel fish are swimming through the wheel house, they are the only fish that we notice. The boat looked undistrubed since it sank several years ago. Rope still coiled up on the deck, nets neatly stowed away on the stern. I don't suppose that any of this stuff is that much out of the ordinary but coupled all together it produced an erie feeling I am not likely to forget anytime soon..

 

[Charlie99]

I'm doing a shore dive in front of Scuba Club Cozumel. Late afternoon. I figure I'll paddle around for a while, then head into town for dinner.

Lots of activity. Triggerfish guarding its egg cluster, flounders, juvenile drum fish, scorpionfish, a couple octopus, an eagle ray passing at edge of visibility.

Hmmmm. Only 15 minutes until sunset. Guess I'll stick around.

45 minutes later, I'm still leisurely hanging around. Nice non-challenging dive that I'm willing to do solo. My redundant air source is the atmosphere 20' above. 1/4 or 1/3kt current. I have a couple lights, and ocassionally have flipped on my tiny 0.4W 2AAA UK light, but it's cool to have night adapted vision and watch everything in it's natural state.

I keep playing with an octopus. Its home is inside an AL80 tank with a hole cut into it. It's eating a conch that is too big to pull into its nest. Several times it retreats as I approach, then comes out. Finally, it gets used to me and is content to come out and eat with me 3-4 ' away.

I see the lights of a pair of divers, and as they get closer I recognize them as a couple I met earlier on the boat.

With my lights still off, I stop finning and let myself drift down on them so I can show them the octopus.

Suddenly there's a massive cloud of air bubble and frantic motion.

I stop 5' away and wait. After a few seconds, they settle down, run their lights up and down me several times as I give kind of an embarrassed wave.

Later they caught up with me at the onsite restaurant. He thought I was a shark. She thought I was a dead diver.

Since then I've always turned on my light when other divers first approach me at night.

I've already describe my alltime favorite dive, at Molokini. http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=285435&highlight=350#post285435

 

[diverbrian]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...
13,570 members, who normally won't stop talking about diving, and we get a whopping 3 best dive stories? I think we can do better!

After reading the first three, I don't have anything to compare. I just figured on reading everybody else's. I have to search my dive logs as most of mine are pretty standard for the "old pros" on this board who have been there and done that.