Best Thing you have seen!

[Kellykins]

Wow.. reading all of these [and watching video] has been awesome! My greatest.. was my first month after being certified back in the 80's. The most heart stopping and swe inspiring moment.. and I can't even fathom anything that could be better.

A resident pod of Orca's.. surrounding a pregnant female and her giving birth right there bearly 70 feet from me. To watch as another female took that baby up to the surface for a first breath was just magic. Even the birth of my own children was not this magical.

I've seen a lot of beauty in the deep.. but ... I can't even imagine anything more beautiful or humbling.

You saw an Orca give birth!! Wow that is absolutly amazin

 

[Johan Broere]

I have been playing with Sea Lions at San Pedro Island near San Carlos, Mexico for a couple of years now. For some reason I don't even have a picture of them with me. So, one day Leslie McFilmmaker comes along and shoots this awsum video. It's actually McCandless, but super video. Love it !
Dive San Carlos - Videos

 

[StarFyre]

Diving with Black tips, white tips, reef, and a lemon shark at Bora Bora

Sanjay

 

[Schizlor]

I have only logged 20 dives thus-far in my carreer, but the best thing I've seen so far was this:

 

[Soggy_Diver]

I had just started diving, and was in the Dominican Republic. Our group was swimming over the sand between the fingers of coral. There were hundreds of stalks of what I thought was sea grass, about two feet long and thinner than a pencil. Then I noticed that as we swam over it, the "sea grass" receded into the sand, then eased back out after we passed. It was actually hundreds of garden eels!

Probably commonplace for veteran divers, but amazing to me--I hadn't known that these things exist. Since then I have seen "cooler" stuff like mantas, sharks, really big bull rays, tuna, etc, but nothing as surprising as those garden eels.

 

[Hollywoodivers]

I love this thread. I have been with Hundreds of large Animals and they are my Favorite. But Great White Sharks...they deserve another look, and another and another and another

 

[WetLens]

Narrowing it down to one "best" is an extremely difficult task, but it has been fun - both reading others' anecdotes and sorting through the cobwebs as I recalled mine.

I have to go along with a previous poster and cite a dive on the North Wall in Cayman. My buddy and I were the first in and headed to a crevice between two coral outcroppings. The crevice dropped to over 100' where a coral pinnacle grew between the two walls, appearing much like the bowsprit on a great sailing ship as it extended out into the blue. We exited the crevice and directly out into the open water with arms spread like we were flying. The clear water, the abundance of marine life, the tinkling sound of our bubbles, perhaps a slight buzz as we were now at 125' - not sure I know what it was about this dive, but it is firmly imprinted. I liken it to a religious experience - praise the father Jacque, the son Phillipe, and the Holy Boat Calypso...

The year was 1977. I've made a lot of great wall dives since that time and have had many wonderful encounters with marine life, but I can't think of a dive that moved me in the same way.

 

[mistressmotorsports]

A mother orca with its calf and what appears to be a ray that the mother is dragging around. There were about 10 or so whales in the pod, I only got close enough to see a few from underwater.

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n150/mistressmotorsports/_0002.jpg?t=1257570870

 

[highlandfarmwv]

being face to face with a huge toothy sand tiger shark off Cape Hatteras, NC

 

[Aquabear]

In Hawaii, 17 Manta Rays swimming around us feeding on the plankton. Gracefully flying inches above our heads. Surreal. It was my 150? dive but my wifes 2nd yes 2nd dive. A pod of jumping spinner dolpins escorted us out the harbor too. Got a video of it too cause it was our homeymoon.

How the hell do I top that one for her???

Somene posted cuttlefish- that was an awesome sight for me too.