What's the most wonderful thing you've seen on a surface interval?

[Luku]

Many beautiful Hawaiian sunsets with the occasional green flash.

 

[jupitermermaid]

I have seen several incredible things right here in Jupiter and West Palm Beach. There are the occasional dolphin pods we see playing along side of our boat (once there were so many we jumped in and swam with them for a few minutes). We spotted a whale shark a couple of times, and snorkled with one when he seemed to not mind. He played along with us until one diver decided to grab his fin for a ride; then he left us in our bubbles. Last week in West Palm Beach we saw a humpback whale breaching the water. Several other dive boats were watching as well, and as he swam along, the boats would motor south a ways to watch him doing his thing again. Magnificent creature!

 

[ScubabunnyCR]

Humpbacks breaching...I love whale season!!!

 

[drbill]

I see I misread the thread subject and wrote about seeing something on a safety stop instead of a surface interval. Chalk it up to yet another senior moment.

As for SIs, I've seen several waterspouts, a few beautiful rainbows, blue and gray whales, great whites, orcas, etc., etc. Here in the temperate kelp forests the lovely lady-go-divers all wear thick neoprene or drysuits so I rarely see a bikini on a surface interval... much less a Danish mermaid!

 

[Druid]

A bacon sandwich made with thick white bread and brown sauce

 

[Rescue Diver68]

A bacon sandwich made with thick white bread and brown sauce

Yeah! Fresh Guacamole!!!

 

[Hoomi]

The most awesome thing I've seen so far on a SI (and granted, with as few of dives as I have, the SI's are also few), was the grin on my wife's face after the first shark dive in Fiji.

Then again, I think we were both grinning pretty big after that dive.

 

[DiveTheGalapagos]

I could say snorkeling with penguins or a couple of dozen playful juvenile sea lions, but the memory that I appreciate the most was ascending only to have a guy on the boat yell to let me know there were fins all around me in the water. I thought he was just trying to scare me, so I yelled, "Cool! Where? I want to see." I climbed up in the boat and he wasn't kidding...there were fins everywhere. Without hesitation, I grabbed my snorkel and jumped back in. I had a hammerhead pass me about 4 feet away. That was especially wonderful for me because of the lack of hesitation. There was a time I felt like prey at the surface and realistically, probably still do. But hammerheads are creatures near and dear to my heart.

Another great one was seeing my first whale shark ever. Sitting in the boat after a dive, I saw him approach at the surface, a juvenile only about 18-20 ft long. Grabbed a snorkel and got to swim about 3 feet away until he took off.

 

[Meggie66]

This doesn't really qualify as a surface interval, but we were waiting for our dive guide to get into the water (he was delayed for a few minutes because of a minor equipment issue) and passed the time watching what I believe was a Jelly Blubber (although a big one for the species - the bell seemed to be about 45 centimetres across) propelling itself around underneath us - I'm always amazed by how gracefully marine creatures move.

More about Jelly Blubbers: Jelly Blubber - Australian Museum

 

[tomboyy]

I was in Belize and for our S.I we went to this little island that had a house and a couple out buildings and about 15-20 dogs. We had lunch and we kicked back being lackadaisical and were watching theses dogs. They were funny, seems they invented games to keep from being bored. One dog spent most the time we were there "fishing"