What was your most amazing dive experience?

[PToone]

First time I learned to REALLY respect the animals in the ocean.

Descended on an electric ray (Torpedo Ray) and was taking pictures of it. I was too close for his/her comfort and it came at me, hit me in the chest, then followed me as I ascended and swam away. It finally stopped following me, and I was thrilled/excited/amazed all at the same time. Much more respectful of creatures and their space now...

 

[buleetu]

when i was in egypt the last time we went on the day boat to jackson reef, i didnt think we would get to dive the seaward reef where the hammerheads are because the sea was choppy,but in the afternoon after lunch we had perfect flat seas and we had a go and trying to find the hammer heads, it was late in the season i think so we were so luck to see 1 hammer head in the distance swimming along in about 40 metres or so, it was a big fella too, thats my most amazing dive so far,but im going back to the red sea soon so hopefully i will see some more hammerheads please god

 

[tonythediver]

Divng the Flower Gardens in the gulf of mexico we were fortunate enought to sswim with a small whale shark for most of the dive.The amazing thing is that when the w/s showed up all of the divers forgot about the planned dive and just enjoyed swimming with such an amazing creature.
The shark hung around for a good amountof time then seemed to just vanish as quickly as it came.
Ive decended through hammerheads and seen spears fly at amber jack schools but nothing was this much fun or has ever impacted me like this.
There are some amxing sites and life forms out there.Keep diving and stay safe.

 

[Teamcasa]

Here is another thread with some more amazing stuff
The coolest thing you ever saw on a dive?

I've posted this before but it is still pretty funny and amazing.

 

[peterbj7]

Descended on an electric ray (Torpedo Ray) and was taking pictures of it. I was too close for his/her comfort and it came at me, hit me in the chest, then followed me as I ascended and swam away

You were VERY lucky! Remember Steve Urwin?

 

[InTheDrink]

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.)

I'm just catching up in this thread and only got half way before this intriguing post, so please excuse me if this is out of context to more recent posts.

What way did he dive that made you think that? There's not an ounce of cynicism in my question - I am extremely curious.

Cheers.
J

 

[InTheDrink]

Oh and as for most amazing dives, here are three recent ones. None involving nearly getting eaten by sharks thankfully:

Melbourne: seeing several blue ringed Octopus, including two mating right at the end of the dive. I still hope we didn't cause coitus interruptus.

Maldives:
Maaya Thila: night dive, with lots of grey reef and black tip reef sharks. Hitherto I'd always been nervous of night dives, period. But this was the one I felt totally at home in, and with sharks literally swimming between my legs it was a good time to find that feeling. Slight jolt of adrenalin on seeing 6ft barracuda towards then end of the dive sitting motionless. Looking back at my video that moment looked all very blair witchy, as I realised what and how big and silver it was and when it moved well it was jerky camera time. What a wuss.

Maldives again:
Can't recall off hand the site, but fairly famous or well known hammerhead site. Requires early (5am) start. Think it's in North Male Atoll. Anyhow, after a while at 20m waiting for some action it became clear it wasn't going to happen. So I started paying attention to the tiny lights in the blue around me (it is a very blue in open water dive, no reefs walls etc). So these little tiny lights, violet and magenta were gorgeous. They were all around, everywhere. So I reached out to touch one. As my finger approached one, the light went out and it skiddled (new word by me) 2 cms to the left. Reached out to another, same thing. Every one that I reached out to made the same behaviour - turn the lights out and skiddle sideways. It was like a combination of The Abyss and The Simpsons. Anyhow it was pure lovely and I totally engrossed myself in it. And then the hammerheads came. I had hardly any no deco time (we'd been at 20m for 45mins or something, can't remember) and they appeared below us. Couldn't help myself and sank down to get close. They came close by and my heart only raised throuh pure thrill. I was annoyed to hear my watch beeping at me. Then they slid into the depths and gave me a good excuse not to get into trouble with the guide. That was a magic dive too, as much for the little bio-luminescent scaredy-cats as the fat hammers.

But every dive where you're flying and breathing under water is a an amazing experience.

 

[KraftyWill]

How is Pulau Weh? I would like to go next time I'm in Singapore. Did you take the ferry from Penang or fly into Medan?

Pulau Weh is amazing. Deep diving, strong currents on occasions that come out of nowwhere, so best for more experienced divers i would say, but the diversity of fish there is amazing and if you get the currents right, the high speed drift dives are awesome. I was there in 2001 doing my DM, back when there was a war going on in Aceh, so the only people that made it were people that had heard how good the diving was. Not many people made it and those that did were excellent divers. Since the Tsunami and the end of the war there are a lot more NGO and charity workers based in Banda aceh.

Looking at going back from Singapore soon and it looks like the easiest way is to connect in KL straight to Banda aceh, then a 4 hours ferry ride over.

I couldn't recommend it highly enough, i have dived a lot of places and nothing has ever compared to the consistency of the diving there. Every dive (that i remember) was amazing, though it was a long time ago so I may have it up on a pedestal!

 

[bryors]

Three things stand out. Two good one not so good.

First, the good:

Cozumel: Just catching a glimpse of a very large squid (I don't know if you would call it a giant) as it accelerated down a wall into obscurity the depths.
Ixtapa: During a family vacation hired a local to take me out. On the second tank we could hear humpbacks as soon as we hit the water. Sometime during the dive we caught a somewhat obscure view of two of them at the edge of our visability.

The not so good:

Tacoma, Washington: I was helping on my daughter's open water certification and we found a dead guy. It turns out he was a jumper from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge three days earlier.

 

[dpbishop]

Diving with sea lions at Los Coronados, at the Middle Grounds. They were riding the surge through a tunnel from the cove to the ocean. They kept looking back at us after they did it until we did it too. Finding 6 Giant Sea Bass at Italian Gardens at Catalina when I hadn't known they were back. Diving La Paz.