Your most dramatic dive moment.

[Big Jay]

What was it?

Could be anything.

Bad situation, something amazing, odd, frightening.

I would say on my second wreck dive off NJ. I ran out my wreck reel down the wreck a little farther than i should have. Turned back to head to the anchor with 1000psi left.

headed back, kept following the wreck reel, air is going down, no anchor line in sight. Started to swim harder and faster using more air, down to 800 psi still no anchor line in sight thinking to myself yeah this is bad. Hit the anchor line @ 600 psi. did a controlled ascent up the line, completed my 5 minute safety stop, @ the surface next to the boat with about 200 psi.

 

[matt_unique]

That's a tough one.....I don't think I could pin the most dramatic.

A few of my dramatic moments: first time I successfully inhaled underwater, first time I dove the Chester Poling wreck, first time I dove the U853/placed hand on the bow, first time I layed on the bottom during a night dive and covered all lights (100' dive to the sand beside the Poling wreck), the time I spotted the great "Massachusetts Lobzilla" of myth and legend during a night dive (it's true), first time I experienced anxiety on a 150' deco dive, first time I dove with a seal/shark, then most recently when I was bit in the mouth by a fish.....that's all that comes to mind at the moment.

So many different types of experiences....

--Matt

 

[gfisher4792]

I would have to say diving in WPB, and being enveloped by a school of 50-80 barracuda. didn't even realize it until above, below, left and right of me were nothing but barracuda, everybody (including me) observing the same stretch of reef.

 

[Xanthro]

Second dive I was on, during OW class. At about 50 feet swim through some kelp following the instructor, over to my right were two HUGE Sea Bass. Size of a volkswagen, behind them were two other dives in a mirror image of ourselves. It looked like something out of a movie.

I've been blessed with luck while diving and seen many rare sights.

 

[Charlie99]

The most awesome moment for me was about 5 years ago, early one April morning on the backwall of Molokini.

I splashed in just 15 minutes after sunrise, looked down and saw the bottom. 350' down!

Incredible, awesome visibility that I've never seen before or after. Later in the dive I could look up from 100' and read the name on the bow of the boat.

It felt like I was suspended in air with the whole backwall visible in front of me --- the water was so clear that it was like it wasn't there. Never before or since has the "flying through air" feeling ever been so strong as that morning.

 

[SueMermaid]

My first real OW dive after getting certified at Dutch Springs. I was in Belize. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. It was one of the most profoundly wonderful moments of my life.

 

[Mo2vation]

What was it?

It was just over a week ago. We were in Belize at Turneffe Ialand Lodge, and mid week they trundle us up to the overrated Blue Hole for a dive. The second dive that day was on Half Moon Caye wall.

We drop over the boat, and cruise along the sand in the clearest water I've ever seen. We go into a canyon, and emerge hovering over a bottomless abyss, cruising along a wall the likes of which I've never seen.

Its eye-popping scale and diversity of life still gives me chills. It was all so big. Huge sponges and corals growing out from the wall and reaching upward. A pallette of Dr. Suess colors and shapes. Fish everywhere in little communities darting among the shapes. I was diving with the little Point and Shoot camera - I brought it up once or twice to try to compose a photo, but was unable to capture the scale of the place... so I turned it off, re-clipped it and just gawked at the majesty of the place as it went by.

I found myself slowing everything down - my breathing, my heartrate, my kick, my thoughts... everything. It seemed out of place to even make a sound here, or even have a lot going on in my mind. I wanted clarity and focus to take it all in. I wanted this dive to last. When I got home and downloaded all 17 dives from that week, this one had the lowest SAC of any of them - the lowest SAC of any dive I've ever done. It was the mellowest, the most striking, the most dramatic and most beautiful of all the dives we did in Belize.

I remember writing only one entry in my WetNotes (which is unusual, as I'm always jotting stuff down): "this is the dive of my life..."

All dives from this point forward will be compared to the dive at Half Moon Caye wall. I fear few will live up.

---
Ken

 

[SueMermaid]

Ken, we had a very similar experience in the same place.

 

[randy54]

Scariest was while playing tag with a sealion pup, I got away from the boat and other divers. I ended up getting tied up in some kelp. A couple days before this, I had read an article about an 18 year old who died this way. That came flooding back into my mind while I was trying to free myself. Kept say over and over not to panic, but I did anyway. The panic only lasted a minute or two before I got myself calmed down. I had about 30 dives at the time. Training finally kicked in, and I remembered why they taught us about removing our gear underwater. So that's what I did. Took off my tank/BC, cleared the kelp, and went to the surface, and back to the boat. A valuble lesson I learned was that sealions don't make good dive buddies. They may be fun to play with, but they cann't help with the simplest problems.

The coolest thing that happened was when the group I was diving with got dive bomed by about 50 sealions. They were returning from a good day of hunting, found us, and proceeded to put on a circus for as long as we were in the water. WhenI got back on the boat, Ted the captin said he'd never seen that many sealions come in on divers and stay. There was still a few divers down, and the water looked like a boiling couldren.

Very few dives don't have some really neat story to them.

 

[ScubaThor]

Coming up after a dive off Marco Island, FL...started going bad when we got back to the anchor line...or where we remembered it to be. No line in sight (which explained why I thought I heard a boat pass directly over us a few minutes earlier). Did the usual ascent and surfaced with the dive master...do a quick 360 and can't see the boat anywhere. Talk about scary. Finally realized it was hidden behind a wave and picking up another pair of divers who became separated and drifted with the strong current, about 600 yds away. Did I mentioned I watched "Open Water" about a week earlier?
All ended well though...just inflated the safety sausage and our bc's and waited for the boat to come and get us (and we did see a pair of Goliath Grouper on the dive).