What things in diving give you the willies?

[Rhone Man]

I remember solo diving on the Shinkoku Maru in Truk Lagoon. Bloody big boat. I mean really bloody big.

Anyhow, I am ambling around the deck and there is a hatch, which is open. I don't have a reel, but I figure I pop in and go down a few feet. I shine my light in every direction. I can see nothing except the deck above me that the hatch is on. Just blackness in every other direction. I go back up and check that the hatch is solidly stuck open with coral growth. No chance of getting locked in. I decide to go back into the hatch and descend to the bottom of the hold. The water is crystal clear, and I figure I can always see the hatch as it will be this bright blue light above me.

So in I go and I descend. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. At fifty I stop. I shine my light in every direction. Still nothing can I see in any direction. That hatch with the blue light coming in is looking awfully small. For no rational reason I can fathom I suddenly became very afraid. Too many bad horror movies. Blackness all around me and my torch can't make it far enough to hit anything. So I ascended back up - probably at faster than 30 feet a minutes and left the hatch for the clear blue water outside with a pretty good set of chills in my spine.

 

[WetLens]

Intrigued, what did you find?

Puppies.

 

[rhwestfall]

Alex Bay near the Islander - a cat skeleton, a rope, and a cinder block......

 

[divewench1]

Puppies.

NO!

:nailbiter:

 

[meagicano]

I'm still a little scared of fish and a lot scared of eels and snakes and things that will wrap themselves around me. I blame the Little Mermaid.


I hate night dives. Oh try it in the south, they said, it will be different, they said! The only benefit was the big moon helping to light things up but the pre-dive briefing talked about tarpon eating fish guided by our lights and I spent the whole dive, as usual, terrified of the Kraken or whatever just outside the beam of my light. Hate hate hate.


I get nervous in strong current because of my asthma. I had to hand over hand it and rest before submerging on a really strong surface current this year at the Lillie Parsons in the river. I've never seen it that bad before.

I don't do overheads without fully assessing the situation because I know what I don't know. I'm worried that I'm going to see a diving buddy or two on accidents or incidents (I'm sure gncarter knows exactly who I mean). I don't understand why people Insist on running before they can walk - there's a woman who came to Bonaire with our dive group who has only done 4 quarry dives for OW and then 35 or so Bonaire dives who signed up for ice diving. She's not physically fit, has no cold water experience and will be doing it in a wetsuit. I don't like to dive with risk takers but when I do I have to take care of myself and I'm also a bit nervous that I don't have a redundant air source.

 

[boulderjohn]

I just recalled that I got the willies last week. I was swimming through an enclosed area of a shallow wreck, something of what is commonly called a swim-through. Just as I reached an intersection with an opening to my upper left, a 6-foot Goliath grouper swooped down from that opening, turned in front of me while nearly hitting me, and swam off in front of me. I almost soiled the wet suit.

 

[uncfnp]

Puppies.

There is a special place in Hell...

 

[tkdgodess]

Dread post dive snot covered face of my favorite buddy, he is always covered...

 

[rhwestfall]

don't even get me started about sea cucumbers...

not necessarily the sea cucumber, but the fish hiding in its but..... EEEEWWWWWWW!

 

[Storker]

The thing that gave me and some times still does, is when I swim along a shelve and then swim out off a vertical wall and there is nothing under you just darkness no bottom

Heh. That's funny (not "ha ha" funny). I love wall dives. I really get a kick out of hanging freely besides the wall, looking up and barely seeing the edge at the limit of visibility, then looking down to see the wall disappear in darkness below me. I just love that! And that feeling when I'm leaving the hard bottom beneath and suddenly find myself floating weightless in the middle of nowhere... (darn, now I want to go wall diving!)

For me, it's overheads. Just the thought of running out of air (or having a freeflow), looking around to see my buddy is either nowhere within sight or too far away to donate his octo, and NOT being able to immediately CESA to the surface where all the wonderful oxygen is, scares the sh!t out of me. In fact, just writing about it makes me shiver...