What was your most amazing dive experience?

[Walter]

it seems as though y'all think diving with sharks is a good thing

You didn't ask for good stories, merely amazing ones.

On the other hand, diving with sharks is usually both amazing and really, really fun. The first time you see a shark on a dive is something you'll never forget. It will also most likely be when you lose your fear of sharks. We are often told sharks are unpredictable. Sharks are usually very predictable. Sharks almost always totally ignore us. If we swim rapidly away from a shark it will often come closer to see if we really are prey since we are acting like we are. If we swim toward a shark, it will usually leave the area because we're acting like the shark is prey.

By the way, your fear is not irrational. Sharks can be very dangerous. Understanding their behavior and how to deal with them is very important. Never lose your respect for them. It's when people become complacent around sharks that they tend to have trouble.

 

[Hawkwood]

Diving with Sea Lions off Norris Rock in B.C. on my 50th birthday. It was a truly "amazing" experience. Talk about interaction with the wild life - you couldn't avoid it! They are inquisitive and very smart.

 

[Jorbar1551]

I'm primarily a cold water diver in Monterey but if I can only say one thing, it would be my dive in Oahu in Hawaii. We dove the corsair at 110 feet.

The visibility was around 75 feet the water was warm. The was awesome life both inside the wreck and around it: octopuses, eels, colorful fish, and the history that surrounded the wreck and the plane. Awesome dive alone but what made it a spectacular and rememberal dive was the song that the mother whale and her baby were making just outside the range of our visibility. I've never heard anything more spectacular and majestic than that.

 

[knotical]

1968 off Praslin, Seychelles. Encountered huge aggregation, at least three species, of foot-long reef fish (grunts?). Swam gently into them. They parted and re-formed around me. They were so many they obscured the view in all directions. Bliss.

 

[TSandM]

I've been lucky enough to have a bunch . . . Having an octopus with a mantle bigger than a basketball crawl out of its den and sit directly beneath me for several minutes; almost scootering into a 14 foot six gill shark; dropping off the boat into a pod of dolphins, and having them stay and play with us for five minutes; my first dive in the cenotes in Mexico, marveling at the inconceivably beauty underwater.

But the most amazing dive, and the one which changed my diving life, was my first dive with NWGratefulDiver, when I looked at someone who dove totally differently from anything I had ever seen before, and I said, "I want THAT." (I'm still working on it.)

 

[spt29970]

One of the great things about diving is that it is always changing. There are always more amazing experiences just around the corner. One that sticks out in my mind was when I was diving at Socorro Island and just the dive master and I were still in the water doing our safety stop. A group of four wild bottlenose dolphins buzzed us and then I realized that they were imitating us. We blew bubbles, they blew bubbles. We hung on the descent line, so they hung on the descent line. Finally, they came right up and peered into our eyes. Amazing. I was almost out of air, but I had to get off the line to capture this moment. Here is the result. Click on the image for more details.

 

[BDSC]

I'm not sure I would call this an "amazing experience" but it was certainly unforgetable. My main diving buddy had moved from the Atlanta area down to the Keys and had hooked up with some local divers there. So when I went down to visit he knew of some great little reefs off the beaten path and three of us headed out on his boat. We dropped anchor and started to tour the small patch of reefs when off at a distance we noticed something out on the sandy area. So we go over and low and behold we find what appeared to be the remains of two people who had been weighted down and thrown overboard. They were pretty badly mangled. To tell the truth it was hard to say what they were but you could figure it out. So we head up and call the authorities and waited for them to arrive.

They recovered what was left and we found out later it was the remains of two people who had been reported missing a few weeks earlier. They had a long criminal record of drug trafficking.

 

[RonFrank]

Here is the photo of the Green Moray hunting with a Tiger Grouper in broad daylight!

This was at Palancar Gardens (Coz) at around 100', so somewhat deep. We saw this behavior on and off throughout the dive. After 60 minutes the Eel was hanging out free swimming on the shallow reef, but the grouper was gone.

 

[Monkey_Gland]

Dozens of up to 7 meter Basking sharks in Cornwall, slipping into the water with snorkels on ever so quietly...

 

[spt29970]

Dozens of up to 7 meter Basking sharks in Cornwall, slipping into the water with snorkels on ever so quietly...

Wow! Where did you find a snorkel big enough for a Basking Shark?