Whats the biggest _____ you have ever seen on a dive?
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A manta ray off Cape Canaveral, huge shark off Wabasso FL...it had to be 25ft. Looked like school bus to me & a 2000# Tuna at Tuna Alley near Bimini. I gaged 2000# because someone locally caught a 1000 pounder and my tuna was twice that size. Of course I was out of film we he past within 5 ft of me
I came face to face (arms length) with a 10 foot Tiger shark in Mexico a little over 2 years ago.
I was diving off of Isla Mujeres at the cave of the sleeping shark.
There is a freshwater spring that runs along the bottom of the ocean floor at about 60 feet.
There is a rock formation that creates an opening and freshwater bubbles up. The local sharks go into the crevice and the freshwater cleans the parasites off the gills.
It puts them into a sleeping like trance.
It was my first dive after getting open water certified and I was concentrating on not hitting the bottom. When I got my bouyancy right I looked up and saw the black eyes staring straight at me.
After the pucker factor eased up the DM (who was above me) signaled and we all left the area immediately.
I spoke to the DM the next day, he told me he took a group out to a nearby reef that night and saw a Tiger chasing other sharks looking possibly looking for a meal.
It was the most awsome thing I have ever seen.
I was diving off of Isla Mujeres at the cave of the sleeping shark.
There is a freshwater spring that runs along the bottom of the ocean floor at about 60 feet.
There is a rock formation that creates an opening and freshwater bubbles up. The local sharks go into the crevice and the freshwater cleans the parasites off the gills.
It puts them into a sleeping like trance.
It was my first dive after getting open water certified and I was concentrating on not hitting the bottom. When I got my bouyancy right I looked up and saw the black eyes staring straight at me.
After the pucker factor eased up the DM (who was above me) signaled and we all left the area immediately.
I spoke to the DM the next day, he told me he took a group out to a nearby reef that night and saw a Tiger chasing other sharks looking possibly looking for a meal.
It was the most awsome thing I have ever seen.
ThatsSomeBadHatHarry
Guest
Did anyone get pics of their encounters?
On all the encounters either no camera or film!
Phenol
Contributor
This is cheating, because it wasn't underwater:
My wife and I were on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, in January a few years ago: a very large (at least 1.5 m long) green turtle exited the surf and climbed the beach right past us. It dug its nest in the underbrush, laid its eggs, and returned to the sea 1/2h later. A staff naturalist later told us that based on its size and shell, it must have been about 80-100 years old.
Awesome.
My wife and I were on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, in January a few years ago: a very large (at least 1.5 m long) green turtle exited the surf and climbed the beach right past us. It dug its nest in the underbrush, laid its eggs, and returned to the sea 1/2h later. A staff naturalist later told us that based on its size and shell, it must have been about 80-100 years old.
Awesome.
My son and I were diving on the Palm Island Ferry. There were at least 20 jewfish ranging from 100#-800#. My son describes the largest ones as "as big as my Dad's van". Maybe they weren't quite that big, but they were the biggest I've seen.
This was his second OW dive. When we got to the surface, he said "I didn't know fish got that big".
This was his second OW dive. When we got to the surface, he said "I didn't know fish got that big".
Biggest animal ever saw was a dolphin where it just swam right across me and made me lose count when I was doing my underwater nav for my advance open water. Had to repeat it about 2 times because the 2nd time it came back and started swimming with me and lost count again.
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I had a few folks over last night and we got to talking about the Tuna Cruise, Id quite forgotten the adventures of getting to the ship, which I was reminded of
so heres that story
Most of the time underwater science is rather dull. Hours are spent collecting data. Data that is not particularly interesting in and of itself. Data that only has import when conjoined with similar data collected at other times and possibly similar locations. The stars of underwater science in the media like Sylvia Earle or Bob Ballard reach out to you from the pages of a glossy book or beckon from a tightly edited video production, crisp and seductive images that always intersect at a meaningful conclusion on the last page or in the last minute. But real life is not like that, at least not very often. Its repetitious hour after hour, cold, uncomfortable, often strenuous and occasionally dangerous. But every once in a while something special happens that more than makes up for all thats come before, something really special. And this was one of those times.
It had been a very eventful trip for me so far. Id had a close escape from one of those classic binds, a research cruise that I had be on, leaving the dock with the morning tide the same day that I was scheduled to deliver a paper at the annual American Academy of Underwater Sciences meetings. But my boss wanted both things done and so Id come up with a creative solution. The ship was leaving Woods Hole and then transiting the Cape Cod Canal on its way to the Gulf of Maine. If I could move my talk to the first slot in the morning, there was a good chance that I could be back in time to meet the ship at the north end of the canal just after sundown. And if I were late, Plan B was to call a casualty evacuation drill with a chopper a bud flew out of Otis AFB and use that cover for my ride out.
On Friday I stowed the last of my gear on the ship and I caught an oh-dark-thirty in the morning flight out of Boston down to Florida. A quick cab ride to the meeting and I was in front of my colleagues presenting a paper Id coauthored with Rich Pyle of the University of Hawaii which was an evaluation of his methods for using mixed gas open circuit scuba at depths of four to five hundred feet. Twenty minutes of talking, ten minutes of questions, I shoved my little certificate of appreciation into my case and scooted as out to waiting cab that took me back to the airport. I ran for a plane back to Boston and on the plane I switched my Sunday-go-to-meeting suit for a pair of 501s, a black U. C. Berkeley sweatshirt and my topsiders.
My work study student was waiting for me curbside at OHare. I threw my leather flight bag and black Halliburton case, the one covered with dive stickers, on the back seat, jumped in front and off we sped; south toward the Cape. Down Highway 3 to 6a, over the bridge at Sagamore and left onto Tupper Road, left again to Town Neck Road and once more on to Coast Guard Road. There, at the north end of the canal is a small U.S. Coast Guard station. We pulled in past the whitewashed rocks and I got out, retrieving my briefcase from the rear seat. Wed made good time, the ship was not due for a good half hour and Plan B could go by the board.
I pulled my ICOM M5 out of the Halliburton, slapped a battery pack on the bottom and keyed it to channel 16. Whiskey, Victor, Foxtrot, Quebec. I repeated the call ships call sign three times and then identified myself as Portable One. This is Whiskey, Victory, Foxtrot, Quebec port one, come in. No response yet. I had some time to kill and the damp air was cooling off as the sun now dipped below the land. I shivered slightly and went into the Coast Guard station and introduced myself.
I explained that I was meeting a research vessel out of the Hole that would heave-to just outside the north end of the canal and send a Zodiac for me. The Coasties seemed happy to have something to break their routine; they offered up a mug of hot coffee and asked if I wanted to use their longer range base station to call the ship. The Officer of Day volunteered to save us time and potential confusion by running me out in their boat.
Now I could see the ship in the canal. I pulled on the bright orange coveralls that the CANDIVE Operation Supervisor had given me when wed worked together with the Deep Rover submersible at the Caribbean Marine Research Center the year before (but thats a story for another time) over my pants and sweatshirt. We went down to the dock, hopped into an overpowered Boston Whaler and sped out toward the oncoming ship, blue lights and siren flashing. We passed the ship starboard to starboard headed in opposite directions, came about in a tight turn and pulled up along side the moving vessel. At about eight knots our boat slid smoothly over to the Jacobs ladder that was hanging amidships off the much larger research vessels starboard rail. When the Coastguardsman shouted, Go! I leaped from the port gunwale of the Boston Whaler and grabbed on to the Jacobs ladder. The small craft veered off to starboard, throttled back and then came back up along side of me. I leaned out and the Coastguardsmen handed my case up to me. I passed the case up over the rail to a fellow Explorers Club member who was making the cruse with us and I clambered aboard. Not exactly the way I usually started a cruise, I was really having fun with action movie aspects of the situation.
Supper was still available in the mess so I had a meal and then we all got to work. The compressor van had to be plugged into ships power, the air had to analyzed and the bank brought up to pressure. Filling whips needed to set up at the waist and a 10,000 PSI rated Kevlar line needed to be run from the compressor on the O1 deck down to the filling station. All our gear for the next days dive needed to be unpacked and readied. Contact with Offshore Medical Services had to made and communications with our contingency helicopter evacuation facility needed to be tested. I rolled into my sack about 22:00 hrs and fell asleep quickly.
The change of watch and eight bells at 04:00 woke me. I got up, showered, pulled on my coveralls and went up to get some chow. No one else from the science party was up yet so I had a change to spend some time with the ships folks. I went over the general dive procedures with the Captain, who had stayed up beyond his usual midwatch assignment so that we could talk. The Coxswain set up the diving Zodiac and I went over the boat and all of its gear. By now it was seven bells in the morning watch and the science party was drifting into the mess, pouring coffee and sitting down in the library and the lab.
We were due on station at Ammen rock in the Gulf of Maine at about noon, the start of the afternoon watch. We were planning our first dive about two hours after getting on station. The science party spent the morning setting up their computers and laboratory equipment and each of the divers got his or her gear unpacked and stowed in the wet lab that had been turned over to dive locker space. As I hung up my black Viking suit one of the University of New Hampshire grad students was heard to exclaim, Oh no, its Darths waders.
Staging the dive is pretty straight forward. The Zodiac is on the deck. You assemble your tank, regulator and backpack and put it in the boat. You put your weight belt in the boat and then you go and get your suit on. By the time youre dressed into your suit the ships crane has put the loaded Zodiac and the Coxswain in the water and the crew had put a Jacobs ladder over the rail. The water is about nine feet down that ladder. The Zodiac is held against the side of the ship with a bow painter and a stern line and the divers clamber down the ladder into the boat. Divers put their gear on in the boat, run through their pre-dive checks and back roll off the inflatable gunwales into the water.
(Continued)
Most of the time underwater science is rather dull. Hours are spent collecting data. Data that is not particularly interesting in and of itself. Data that only has import when conjoined with similar data collected at other times and possibly similar locations. The stars of underwater science in the media like Sylvia Earle or Bob Ballard reach out to you from the pages of a glossy book or beckon from a tightly edited video production, crisp and seductive images that always intersect at a meaningful conclusion on the last page or in the last minute. But real life is not like that, at least not very often. Its repetitious hour after hour, cold, uncomfortable, often strenuous and occasionally dangerous. But every once in a while something special happens that more than makes up for all thats come before, something really special. And this was one of those times.
It had been a very eventful trip for me so far. Id had a close escape from one of those classic binds, a research cruise that I had be on, leaving the dock with the morning tide the same day that I was scheduled to deliver a paper at the annual American Academy of Underwater Sciences meetings. But my boss wanted both things done and so Id come up with a creative solution. The ship was leaving Woods Hole and then transiting the Cape Cod Canal on its way to the Gulf of Maine. If I could move my talk to the first slot in the morning, there was a good chance that I could be back in time to meet the ship at the north end of the canal just after sundown. And if I were late, Plan B was to call a casualty evacuation drill with a chopper a bud flew out of Otis AFB and use that cover for my ride out.
On Friday I stowed the last of my gear on the ship and I caught an oh-dark-thirty in the morning flight out of Boston down to Florida. A quick cab ride to the meeting and I was in front of my colleagues presenting a paper Id coauthored with Rich Pyle of the University of Hawaii which was an evaluation of his methods for using mixed gas open circuit scuba at depths of four to five hundred feet. Twenty minutes of talking, ten minutes of questions, I shoved my little certificate of appreciation into my case and scooted as out to waiting cab that took me back to the airport. I ran for a plane back to Boston and on the plane I switched my Sunday-go-to-meeting suit for a pair of 501s, a black U. C. Berkeley sweatshirt and my topsiders.
My work study student was waiting for me curbside at OHare. I threw my leather flight bag and black Halliburton case, the one covered with dive stickers, on the back seat, jumped in front and off we sped; south toward the Cape. Down Highway 3 to 6a, over the bridge at Sagamore and left onto Tupper Road, left again to Town Neck Road and once more on to Coast Guard Road. There, at the north end of the canal is a small U.S. Coast Guard station. We pulled in past the whitewashed rocks and I got out, retrieving my briefcase from the rear seat. Wed made good time, the ship was not due for a good half hour and Plan B could go by the board.
I pulled my ICOM M5 out of the Halliburton, slapped a battery pack on the bottom and keyed it to channel 16. Whiskey, Victor, Foxtrot, Quebec. I repeated the call ships call sign three times and then identified myself as Portable One. This is Whiskey, Victory, Foxtrot, Quebec port one, come in. No response yet. I had some time to kill and the damp air was cooling off as the sun now dipped below the land. I shivered slightly and went into the Coast Guard station and introduced myself.
I explained that I was meeting a research vessel out of the Hole that would heave-to just outside the north end of the canal and send a Zodiac for me. The Coasties seemed happy to have something to break their routine; they offered up a mug of hot coffee and asked if I wanted to use their longer range base station to call the ship. The Officer of Day volunteered to save us time and potential confusion by running me out in their boat.
Now I could see the ship in the canal. I pulled on the bright orange coveralls that the CANDIVE Operation Supervisor had given me when wed worked together with the Deep Rover submersible at the Caribbean Marine Research Center the year before (but thats a story for another time) over my pants and sweatshirt. We went down to the dock, hopped into an overpowered Boston Whaler and sped out toward the oncoming ship, blue lights and siren flashing. We passed the ship starboard to starboard headed in opposite directions, came about in a tight turn and pulled up along side the moving vessel. At about eight knots our boat slid smoothly over to the Jacobs ladder that was hanging amidships off the much larger research vessels starboard rail. When the Coastguardsman shouted, Go! I leaped from the port gunwale of the Boston Whaler and grabbed on to the Jacobs ladder. The small craft veered off to starboard, throttled back and then came back up along side of me. I leaned out and the Coastguardsmen handed my case up to me. I passed the case up over the rail to a fellow Explorers Club member who was making the cruse with us and I clambered aboard. Not exactly the way I usually started a cruise, I was really having fun with action movie aspects of the situation.
Supper was still available in the mess so I had a meal and then we all got to work. The compressor van had to be plugged into ships power, the air had to analyzed and the bank brought up to pressure. Filling whips needed to set up at the waist and a 10,000 PSI rated Kevlar line needed to be run from the compressor on the O1 deck down to the filling station. All our gear for the next days dive needed to be unpacked and readied. Contact with Offshore Medical Services had to made and communications with our contingency helicopter evacuation facility needed to be tested. I rolled into my sack about 22:00 hrs and fell asleep quickly.
The change of watch and eight bells at 04:00 woke me. I got up, showered, pulled on my coveralls and went up to get some chow. No one else from the science party was up yet so I had a change to spend some time with the ships folks. I went over the general dive procedures with the Captain, who had stayed up beyond his usual midwatch assignment so that we could talk. The Coxswain set up the diving Zodiac and I went over the boat and all of its gear. By now it was seven bells in the morning watch and the science party was drifting into the mess, pouring coffee and sitting down in the library and the lab.
We were due on station at Ammen rock in the Gulf of Maine at about noon, the start of the afternoon watch. We were planning our first dive about two hours after getting on station. The science party spent the morning setting up their computers and laboratory equipment and each of the divers got his or her gear unpacked and stowed in the wet lab that had been turned over to dive locker space. As I hung up my black Viking suit one of the University of New Hampshire grad students was heard to exclaim, Oh no, its Darths waders.
Staging the dive is pretty straight forward. The Zodiac is on the deck. You assemble your tank, regulator and backpack and put it in the boat. You put your weight belt in the boat and then you go and get your suit on. By the time youre dressed into your suit the ships crane has put the loaded Zodiac and the Coxswain in the water and the crew had put a Jacobs ladder over the rail. The water is about nine feet down that ladder. The Zodiac is held against the side of the ship with a bow painter and a stern line and the divers clamber down the ladder into the boat. Divers put their gear on in the boat, run through their pre-dive checks and back roll off the inflatable gunwales into the water.
(Continued)
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