Your most dramatic dive moment.

[isurus]

most dramatic 4th dive on monad shoal in the philippines - first 3 dives yielded a manta and a couple of distant threshers but the 4th yielded about 12 sightings of perhaps 6 different sharks including a pair following one another that were both absolutely huge (one of the two was gravid and passed within about 10 feet of me). All made more intense by the relatively poor viz and slightly gloomy dawn light (which is my excuse for having one rubbish picture in my gallery to show for it). all done before breakfast!

 

[Ishie]

Hmm, scare/drama:

This last weekend, a series of dumb things had me in a temporarily nasty situation. It's a tie between the first attempt to retrieve my gear from the bottom of Whaler's Cove, where I tried to shoot down with way too little air and ran OOA at 15', and the second attempt with a full tank an hour later, where the inflator on my borrowed BC got stuck and bottle-rocketed me to the surface from 60' before I could disconnect the thing. That was really scary. Got my kit back from 75' on the third try though. And yes, I did loooooong stops between 10' and 20'. No bends, no embolism, though apparently not for lack of trying.

Beauty/drama:

Channel Islands, had JUST seen the shadow of a 4' mako shark pass the outskirts of the vis and shoot off, when from the direction where the shark had gone, a gorgeous bat ray came out of nowhere and headed up at a 45 degree angle. The vis was good and the boat was directly overhead, with a sunny day, so the sunlight did the "god rays" thing, filtering around the shadow of the boat with the ray in the center of all of it. It was awesome.

 

[DaveLair27]

Is it safe to ask how a fish bit you in the mouth??

 

[valligurl]

Like so many others, there are many to chose from...

Two of my best were in Palau. The Ulong Channel. We started at the mouth of the channel, hanging on reef hooks in a strong current and watched about 15 reef sharks circling below us. A pregnant female swam up to a member of our group and bared her teeth. Then, we let go and ripped down the channel. In-efen-credible was the phase used by all. Like a tremendous waterslide, scary at first....The channel had a lettuce coral garden that was HUGE!!! I was third in line behind the divemaster and my buddy. One minute they were there, the next minute the current had pushed them so far ahead of me I couldn't see them. All of a sudden I'm at the head of a group of 6 other folks. Just went for the ride. And at the end all I could say (just like a kid on a rollercoaster ride) was "Let's do it again!"

My second dive in Palau was the German Channel. We had just gone down to around 70 feet. We were hanging at a Manta cleaning station. But the DM had told us they hadn't seen any for awhile and not to get our hopes up. I was praying hard, cause I'd never seen a manta before. Only a few moments after our arrival, with a video camera running, a gigantic Manta lazily swam past us. I swear I was holding my regulator to keep it from falling out, cause my mouth was hanging open. After passing by, he decided to come back, then as a coup de grace, he swam right over us, with our videographer practically beside himself with joy. When we disappeared in the distance we just sat there in complete bliss. Then I saw my first clown's and anemonefish. An incredible trip with so many awesome memories.......

 

[fonfon5]

It happened last month in Cozumel. 4 months after I was assaulted by my dive instructor in Huatulco Mexico, I returned to diving. I was scared but the feelings of fright were quickly replaced by awe and sheer amazement. I felt like I was flying in the water. With a visibility of 200 feet, I felt that the water wasn't even present. I was in my own world; suddenly I relaxed and realized how much I loved diving and that everything was going to be fine!! It was a turning point in my life.

fonfon5

 

[Ishie]

Is it safe to ask how a fish bit you in the mouth??

I cannot emphasize enough how much people need to make sure their sushi is cut up before they try to eat it...

 

[RiverRat]

The first big rush for me was in G. Cayman 2 years ago. I was a new diver, fresh from AOW and a few local dives. After dropping some lead I finally found out what "true" neutral buoyancy diving was. At the end of the week they took us to the North Wall.
I remember cruising through a swimthrough and blasting out over the wall with a 3000' - 6000' foot bottom. What a RUSH! Didn't expect to "fly" out like that! I'm sure it was a combo of AWE and Narcosis to some degree but I'll never forget that flying feeling!

 

[annie]

A few years ago, I managed to do some night diving at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia with a German TV crew who were filming an underwater documentary.

While crossing the sandy bottom, on the edge of the group, I nearly went straight into an enormous guitar fish, also called a shovel nosed ray I think? It was HUGE. We filmed it for a bit and it was pretty calm, moved around a bit but was still for long periods of time. I think it lulled us in complacency. After filming it, we then carried on and came across another, smaller one, sleeping, still pretty big, at least 1.5m long.

The film crew got into position above it, and myself and another 'helper' sat some distance away in the darkness, watching. Suddendly it woke up with a start, panicked, shot up vertically, tried to escape between the lights, unfortunately the camera was there, it somehow got stuck in the arm between the camera and the light (I thought it was attacking the camerawoman), freed itself, whizzed around, headed straight for me, at the last minute went over my head, and dropped someone's torch which it somehow had in its mouth.

My eyes were like saucers . . . .camerawoman had to go back to the boat unsurprisingly. All very thrilling for an Irish girl who hadn't even done much night diving before that.

 

[ReefGuy]

Last year, in Key Largo, diving the Eagle.

I had gone out with another charter in the morning, as the one I was staying with wasn't going out that morning (conditions were marginal), and had two good dives. Went out that afternoon with the charter I was scheduled with (conditions had improved) and picked up an instabuddy. I should have known better, as he came with a large group and was the only one without a buddy.

I was using nitrox to lengthen my bottom time, and made it clear (I thought) to instabuddy that my max depth would be 102' (he was on air). We get to the eagle, and instabuddy drops immediately to the sand (~115'), with his console hanging around his ankles. He's completely oblivious, and takes off staying deep, while I'm above him at 100'. He cut through the wreck to the upcurrent side and into a ripping current.

While cutting through the wreck, he picked up some mono line that was still attached to the wreck and had a good sized hook headed straight for his hoses, so I broke my MOD and went down to get him. Pulled him up to 100' and untangled him (as we were pressed against the wreck from the current. Grabbed his gauges and looked: 700psi! (I still had 1800). Tried to get him back to the other side of the wreck, where we could get back to the mooring line, then share air, but instabuddy hand over hands the wreck back to the line and shoots straight up, passing several divers doing their safety stop.

When he hit the line, I initially tried to catch up with him, but realized that he was going waay too fast. At that point, it was bon voyage. Did a normal ascent and safety stop. Got back on the boat, and hunted him down before I even got my gear off, and asked "What the **** were you doing down there?" He replys "My air just disappeared. I don't know what happened". Then I started heaving (very unusual for me) and sprouted one of the worst headaches I've ever had.

Both the captain and DM came over and asked if I wanted O2, but declined, as I was pretty sure it was a CO2 hit from the exertion of freeing instabuddy from the mono.

I skipped the second dive, and went home a day early. Man was I ever pissed. He made the second dive and was headed back out the next morning while I was packing up.

 

[Deep Hull]

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.

Hmmmm....my most dramatic moment....that would have to be the first time I put a reg in my mouth and went below the surface in the pool. Wonder of wonders! Breathing underwater! I guess I am easy