Your Most Interesting Moment Underwater

[Wingy]

Diving in an erupting subsea volcano.
Watching a GW languidly swim by on her way to do something or other, totally unconcerned about me what an amazing creature.
Diving with a salt water crocodile.
Diving through an 8.6 and an 8.2 earthquake
Coming up from a dive to see Mt Lokon spitting out bombies.
Diving from one year to the next every year for the last decade except this new years eve
Lots of dolphin whale shark dugong ray encounters and the recent giant marbled ray - I had no idea they could obtain that size.

Volcano diving rocks...Id have to say that was the most amazing moment of what I hope are many more to come.

 

[Centrals]

My buddy and I were looking out into the blue water at around 48m when a single hammerhead with an entourage of white tip swam by from a distance.
Could never forget that moment.

 

[drbill]

I've got a million of them (after 52+ years of diving)... but at my age I can't remember them.

One was diving on the Great Barrier Reef and "sitting" there watching a turtle feed on algae from a distance of 1-2 feet. It totally ignored me. Although I had forst used a video camera to document wildlife when Jean-Michel Cousteau handed me a Sony back in 1984 and asked me to film the release of bald eagles for a documentary we were working on, it was at that moment on the GBR that I decided to get an underwater housing and video camera when I returned home. My life was changed forever... now after every day of diving, I'm chained to my desk editing the video footage.

Another was when I was in the Philippines (Sabang) filming a flamboyant cuttlefish. It was amazing to watch it change color and feed. Unfortunately I also learned a lesson about capturing such color variation. My video lights were on low power (it was during the day). Had I put them on high power, I would have been able to better balance the ambient sunlight and bring out the colors on the more shaded side of the cuttlefish that I was filming.

And, of course, there was the time I was buddied up with Wyland since he wanted to film giant sea bass in our island waters. That 14 foot great white shark swam between us and...

Or maybe the time I descended with my HP120 tank on a sunny day and stayed under for 2 hr 36 min. When I surfaced, I discovered there had been a freak storm topside complete with strong winds and waterspouts. My gear had been blown all the way across the parking lot and there was no one left at the park. The really cool thing was that the storm created ambient underwater lighting tat produced some excellent video.

Oops, I'm having another "senior moment..." what was my name again?

 

[lostlugnut]

I started snorkeling in the early 80's and have been in or around water most of my life. My wife got me certified (for diving, the other type is soon to come). I was teaching her daughter to snorkel and went into the bay where the viz was pretty good and the water was really shallow for 50 yards. When she was 4 we were out there on a warm summer day and enjoying the water and the munchkin got our masks. we were in maybe 2 feet of water and she is having a blast. She sees all sorts of stuff, inchuding hermit crabs and a big school of tiny minnows about an inch long swim by. I pointed out a "white" blue crab hiding in the sugar white sand and she loved it. After we were in for about 45 min, we went back to get more sunscreen and she was telling her mom about everything. Her eyes were lit up like a kid that was full of wonder. The big grin on her face and her telling her mom "Mommie you HAVE to get your mask and come out. IT WAS SOOOOOO COOOOOOLLLLLL".

She has been my snorkel buddy since she was about 3 1/2 yo. She keeps telling me she cant wait till she is 10 so she can dive with me in "the big water". She just turned 6.

Other then that the first time I saw a sleeping nurse shark was what really made me go WOW. There has been so many I cant remember them all.

 

[diver 85]

More like a moment for me---rather than a 'thing'(something these sizes are not things to me)......2 times---face to face with either:...18' Tiger shark in Fiji:

[/URL]TS dive---Beqa Lagoon, Fiji 2010--by Early Ewing by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

or this time......whaleshark(s X 6) in Oslob, Philippines.......

[/URL]WS cruising by by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Iralub]

Diving in an erupting subsea volcano.
Watching a GW languidly swim by on her way to do something or other, totally unconcerned about me what an amazing creature.
Diving with a salt water crocodile.
Diving through an 8.6 and an 8.2 earthquake
Coming up from a dive to see Mt Lokon spitting out bombies.
Diving from one year to the next every year for the last decade except this new years eve
Lots of dolphin whale shark dugong ray encounters and the recent giant marbled ray - I had no idea they could obtain that size.

Volcano diving rocks...Id have to say that was the most amazing moment of what I hope are many more to come.

I'm officially jealous . Where does one find a diveable erupting volcano?

For me: diving with about 30 sharks swimming around (reef sharks), turning around just in time to see a manta flap by. First OW dive and realising, much to my surprise, that hey, I can actually do this.

 

[Wingy]

By Liveaboard on an exploratory trip through the dampier straights and north of raja ampat

 

[USFpsychDiver]

Ditto on the sea lions. Dove Bird Island out of San Carlos, MX with my daughter. A sea lion and her cub stayed with us for probably 20 minutes of that dive, zooming by us, darting around us, we'd roll, they'd roll, I'd purge my reg and they'd swim in the bubble stream -- we actually got a little tired of playing with them and when we ignored them the mom started picking up mouthfuls of shells and sand from the bottom and tossing them up in the water. It's the longest, closest encounter I've had with an animal in the wild anywhere -- really fun.

The other two were cave diving. During my initial cavern training my instructor took me in to see the gallery in the Devil's system at Ginnie Springs -- blew me away. The second was my first cave dive in the Yucatan when the guide took me in to Chinese Garden at Tajma Ha, a highly decorated room -- I started clapping my hands it was so amazing.

 

[nimoh]

Most interesting for me was seeing 10,000 year old remains of human activity inside a cave in Mexico. The remains of the fire pit was so vivid that I could almost see people sitting around it. Although the image was probably heavily influenced by movies, it was very surreal.