Hmmm, "most dramatic?"
Coolest:
1977 - Key West, FL. I'm 14 years old, diving an 80' reef off Key West with Reef Raiders. I reach "safe" pressure and signal my "buddy" (an older guy they paired me with on the boat) that I need to surface. He looks at me and signals for me to go up alone, he was planning on staying a little longer (remember, it's 1977). I look up, see the boat, and start swimming for the surface. At about 40 FT, the boat gets silhouetted by the sun and the water turns crystal blue. At the same time a spotted Eagle Ray glides out of nowhere and swims right in front of me. The ray was probably 8' across and 10' long, really BIG, and just awed me. The sun reflected off of him, the bubbles from my buddy below were floating upward like shimmering diamonds and just for a few seconds, everything was perfect. Unfortunately, I never got to see an Eagle Ray again, but for the moment it was way cool!
Scariest:
1987 - Ginnie Springs, FL. Two friends and I had just finished the cave certification course with Mark and LeMar a few months earlier. We did an openwater cert trip to Ginnie with 10 students and decided to dive the eye afterward. Over several days we made our first "solo" dives (dives without a cave instructor present) and had started to get comfortable with technique. We were using double 80s and reaching "turn" pressure just past the "lips" (like I said, we were newbies). On one of the last dives, we made it to the "cornflakes" before turning. When we came back through the keyhole, I checked my pressure, turned to look for one of my buddies and suddenly became VERY disoriented. For some reason, I completely lost my sense of direction and even though I was looking at a marker on the permanent line showing the way OUT, I swore to God someone had reversed it and that I was swimming back IN. I tried to communicate this to my buddies via slate who both looked at me like I was crazy. Fortunately, I turned over lead to one of them and in a few yards we cleared the lips and I saw the gallery. To this date, that was the weirdest and scariest experience Ive ever had underwater.
Funniest:
1990 - West Palm Beach, FL. One of the same two friends and I were drift diving off West Palm Beach (the only time I ever tried it) on a stop on the way back from the Keys. This guy is an ex Army Medic, Special Forces, etc., top rate dive buddy. We hit the water, descend to about 30 FT and drift along with the current looking at the bottom about 15 FT below. I'm looking to my left when I suddenly see a Green Moray Eel clear the reef and start swimming up to us. This dude was all of 5FT long and quite thick. Now this gave me pause because it's VERY unusual behavior for an eel and I actually started to get worried for a second. Then I said, wait a second Drew, this guy's a friendly and looking for a handout (I had a bag of hot dogs for this purpose, but I was thinking FISH, not eels!). So, I minimized my movement and watched as he approached, stopping just to my left. Now I was thinking my buddy saw this too, but when I looked to my right, he was looking in the other direction. When I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, the Moray became impatient and suddenly swam right at him, ending up less than 1 FT from his face. I'd never heard anyone scream underwater before until that day and he screamed LOUD. He then did something that ASSTONISHED me. He grabbed ME by the harness and PUSHED me between him and the eel. The poor eel got scared and proceeded to wind himself up in my gear and BCD to hide. He ended up with his head next to mine, trying to hide from my buddy. I'm looking at the eel, he's looking at me and we're both looking at my buddy like he's CRAZY. Fortunately, this was a VERY friendly eel and I proceeded to coax him out with hotdogs, for which he was very grateful. The Divemaster reached us a few seconds later to make certain we were OK, he had seen the entire incident and couldn't believe it. Needless to say, I gave my "BUDDY" a rashing when we got back on the boat...
Hope ya'll enjoyed...
