What's the most wonderful thing you've seen on a surface interval?

[caymaniac]

The most recent was a whale wave and breach off Molokini, but the best was when we took a liveaboard off Australia's east coast and went to Osprey & diving at Shark reef while returning farther south we came to a area east of Lizard Island where before a night dive we had a chance to snorkel. I thought about not going because ... well... snorkeling, how good can it be? Well I decided to get in anyway and much to our surprise it was fantastic. The reef had great color, hues of pink, blue and yellow, the reef fish were very plentiful and there were many giant clams. There was maybe 3 ft water to snorkel with cracks that were 15 ft. deep, I was so glad we took this surface interval to snorkel.

 

[Sas]

Killer whales breaching 20m
from our boat. This was just outside Port Phillip Bay too so really unusual! They have to go further north now due to dwindling food supplies.

 

[Peter Guy]

I love the Pacific Northwest and while I've seen whales, dolphins, turtles, eagles, etc. (but no active volcanoes) various places, I think the following two pictures capture what I love about surface intervals here. (Note, neither picture was actually taken during a specific diving surface interval -- the night shot was taken while I was shore duty for other divers and the Mt. Ranier shot was taken while I was the designated boat driver one day.)

 

[joystershell]

Surface intervals can be as much fun as the dive. We have seen blue whales, turtles, dolphins and recently, was lucky enough to see my first ever Mola Mola (sunfish).

 

[Doc]

I once surfaced from "The Deep" to find

 

[H2O 70]

Or helping one of the crew members on the Truk Odyssey fix his split fins...

That is funny.

I'm jealous. Other than a bunch of sharks and the occasional dolphin I've seen squat on my SI's.

 

[dhuskins]

I'm still enthralled with seeing a humpback break the surface about 10-15 feet off the port side of the boat one day in Turks and Caicos. I even was lucky enough to get a picture of it.

 

[inventor]

Bighorn Stag coming down to drink at the lake's edge. About 80' the other side of the families camping next to our dive group. Never spooked just took his time, looked at us for a minute. Then took a leisurely climb to start, then rocketed up the steepest part of the hill.

Wow.

 

[bs63366]

I would have to say that for me its a tie between diving in Osezaki, Japan and surfacing to see Mt. Fuji looking down on us or when I was in Perth, Australia diving Rottnest Island and I group of dolphins came up to have a look at us so we hoped in with snorkels.

 

[Buoyant1]

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me on this dive...but the four HOT Brazilian snorkelers (in thong bikini's) that were along to fill out the boat on a dive I did off of Marathon a few years back were pretty nice! (not to mention they supplied some Champagne for the ride back in!)