Share your diving stories

[i_like_shiney_things]

After chatting in the chat box today it seems there are quite a few SCUBA divers out there with some interesting opinions and stories to share... as such I thought it could be fun to share some of our experiences

If you want to share your PADI number to demonstrate your ability level and how it relates to your story please feel free to do so... if you don't feel comfortable sharing that no problem

I'll start us off with a quick story since I'm tired lol

PADI Instructor: 638280

In 2009 I was working as a diving instructor on Heron Island, a tiny place off the coast of Gladstone, Australia. By far one of the best places I've dived, it had something for everyone... a few meters off the beach you could do shallow dives, drift dives and the night dives were amazing.
Because this is such a tiny island and not on the coast the coral is pristine and doesn't suffer from the monkey divers kicking the shit out of it with their fins.
If you head out on a boat dive you reach the deep reef quite quickly and there you are in for a real treat, huge drop offs, intensely powerful drifts, fish the size of VW Beetles (not many now sadly) and a variety of sharks to enjoy watching.
My story is actually about a shallow dive I was doing just off the beach with a group of 6 open water trainees... I'd taken then through the pool training and this was their second open water dive. Everything was going perfectly, they remembered everything they'd been taught and to be fair to them they were one of the better groups that I have certified
At around 7m down and less than 100 meters off the beach I led them around a coral head and came face to face with a Tiger shark lazing around... this beauty was around 5m give or take a few and could have taken great delight in gobbling us up
I slowly signaled my students to stop and then gently brought them to look around the coral head one at a time... not many divers out there can say they came face to face with a Tiger shark on their second open water training dive.
Just in case anyone thinks this was irresponsible of me I should state that I have been diving for twenty years across three continents, I'm a certified PADI instructor and I have a huge amount of experience diving with many different species of sharks. At all times the students were kept behind me and I closely watched the shark for any signs of aggression. In this situation it was actually considerably safer to keep my divers behind the coral head and wait for the Tiger to leave rather than try to surface 6 inexperienced divers

Well... that's my first story and I hope to hear many of yours in the near future

Happy and safe diving to you all :steel:

 

[frigpig]

Very cool. I've been trying to dive with sharks for over a decade unsuccessfully. Bucket list thing.

 

[Cadmito]

I'm regular old PADI open water certified and have mostly dove in the Caribbean but also the Great Barrier Reef and in Tahiti.

By far my best experience was at Moorea which is an island right next to Tahiti. Jurassic Park-esque views on the way out to the dive site. Small reef sharks were circling the boat as we dove in and even at 80 feet deep the bottom was clearly visible for the 125 ft visibility you get there. While under we ran into tons of sharks, mostly black tipped reef but also 10 ft Lemon Sharks. Also saw eels, turtles and heard whales off in the distance. Very surreal to know they were close. On the way back a group of dolphins swam and jumped next to the boat. Really an incredible experience that I hope to get to do again someday when I win the lottery.

 

[P4GTR]

I led them around a coral head and came face to face with a Tiger shark lazing around... this beauty was around 5m give or take

...aaaand that's why I don't dive anymore.

 

[Dr.Verylong]

Very cool. I've been trying to dive with sharks for over a decade unsuccessfully. Bucket list thing.

Red Sea: Plenty of sharks. Dived at the coast of Durban, the Heads of Knysna, at Gaansbai in South Africa or around the cape -> big ones. During one of the dives the SA dive guide in Cape Town was busy poaching crayfish, he missed them

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Very cool. I've been trying to dive with sharks for over a decade unsuccessfully. Bucket list thing.

It's an experience you'll never forget frigpig

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

I'm regular old PADI open water certified and have mostly dove in the Caribbean but also the Great Barrier Reef and in Tahiti.

By far my best experience was at Moorea which is an island right next to Tahiti. Jurassic Park-esque views on the way out to the dive site. Small reef sharks were circling the boat as we dove in and even at 80 feet deep the bottom was clearly visible for the 125 ft visibility you get there. While under we ran into tons of sharks, mostly black tipped reef but also 10 ft Lemon Sharks. Also saw eels, turtles and heard whales off in the distance. Very surreal to know they were close. On the way back a group of dolphins swam and jumped next to the boat. Really an incredible experience that I hope to get to do again someday when I win the lottery.

Great story... lemon sharks are one of my favourites to dive with

 

[Dr.Verylong]

Sharks are overrated IMHO.

Bluebottles and other poisonous (jelly) fish are much more dangerous.

And the biggest danger comes from the people operating the dive boats, especially the young boys on board. One of them went around, opening bottles on driver's backs. He closed mine without me noticing it. Sharp descent -> funny dance @ 20 meters

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Red Sea: Plenty of sharks. Dived at the coast of Durban, the Heads of Knysna, at Gaansbai in South Africa or around the cape -> big ones. During one of the dives the SA dive guide in Cape Town was busy poaching crayfish, he missed them

Red Sea has some great diving, did you have a chance to do the brothers or thistlegorm?

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Sharks are overrated IMHO.

Bluebottles and other poisonous (jelly) fish are much more dangerous.

And the biggest danger comes from the people operating the dive boats, especially the young boys on board. One of them went around, opening bottles on driver's backs. He closed mine without me noticing it. Sharp descent -> funny dance @ 20 meters

I don't dive with them for the danger element of it... incredibly few divers are ever attacked by sharks, I just love the gracefulness of them and the fact that they have changed so little over such a long period of evolution

Inexperienced boat staff can be a serious issue with real danger present... always make sure that your instructor/guide is fully certified and always check your own gear

 

[Dr.Verylong]

I did a lot of wreck diving in Egypt, but not the Thistlegorm. I was there shortly after that big pilgrim ferry sunk, so I saw it "brand new" and then in deterioring condition every year after that. The signs of looting were the worst.

Down south of Marsa Alam there are beautiful dive sites, towards Sudan. Not many people go there so the reefs are nicer.

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

I did a lot of wreck diving in Egypt, but not the Thistlegorm. I was there shortly after that big pilgrim ferry sunk, so I saw it "brand new" and then in deterioring condition every year after that. The signs of looting were the worst.

Down south of Marsa Alam there are beautiful dive sites, towards Sudan. Not many people go there so the reefs are nicer.

It's always nicer when you can dive on pristine reef... as an instructor my first aim is always to produce responsible divers who understand how delicate coral is and the heinous effect they can have on it. One stupid kick and 100 years of coral growth destroyed in a second

 

[P4GTR]

Inexperienced boat staff can be a serious issue with real danger present.

They forgot me once. Pretty glad they realized it and came back. Morons.

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

They forgot me once. Pretty glad they realized it and came back. Morons.

I've seen and heard of that more than should ever happen... my boat picked up a diver on a deep reef dive once that had been left by her tour. This was a five hour fast boat trip to get to that dive site, if we hadn't been diving in the same area I dread to think what could have happened to her!

There is no excuse for this kind of stupidity and recklessness, whenever a dive goes the divers need to be signed in and out of the water. A simple procedure and one which I've never understood why some tour operators omit icard:

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Time for me to hit the hay, assuming I don't wake up again soon I hope to have more of your great diving stories to read in the morning.

Good night to my fellow diving and watch aficionados


Sent from my elephants anus via the medium of tapas talkas

 

[Niek]

My most memorable dives are the canyon and blue hole in Egypt, and the shark dives at protea banks, South Africa. I dove there with Roland Mauz from African Dive Adventures. I really recommend him, and guaranteed sharks. We stayed in the boat for 1 hour on 1 particular "baited dive" waiting for the sharks to come while fish oil was beiing poored in the sea. When the scout told us to enter the water, there were about 20 zambezi (bull sharks), black tips and 2 tiger sharks. Just hung around at about 5-10m for 1 1/2 hours with them.
On another (normal "bank") dive there, there were about 500 hammerheads. Sadly I only saw 2 of them because I had ascended to 5m because of low air.

As for the cage dives in Cape Town: Did that, even had a Great white trying to eat the cage, but this was after Protea Banks.. so not really impressed and also really commercial.. also really murky water when I was there only about 1m sight.

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

My most memorable dives are the canyon and blue hole in Egypt, and the shark dives at protea banks, South Africa. I dove there with Roland Mauz from African Dive Adventures. I really recommend him, and guaranteed sharks. We stayed in the boat for 1 hour on 1 particular "baited dive" waiting for the sharks to come while fish oil was beiing poored in the sea. When the scout told us to enter the water, there were about 20 zambezi (bull sharks), black tips and 2 tiger sharks. Just hung around at about 5-10m for 1 1/2 hours with them.
On another (normal "bank") dive there, there were about 500 hammerheads. Sadly I only saw 2 of them because I had ascended to 5m because of low air.

As for the cage dives in Cape Town: Did that, even had a Great white trying to eat the cage, but this was after Protea Banks.. so not really impressed and also really commercial.. also really murky water when I was there only about 1m sight.

Sounds like quite the experience... love hammerheads, such bizarre looking creatures. I had the great pleasure to dive, by sheer accident. with a great hammerhead a few years back and that was one hell of a treat for me

Cage diving is something I've never been interested in to be completely honest... I'm sure it's an interesting experience but for me it takes away the pure element of diving for me. Of course we need our gear so we don't drown but apart from that I don't want anything between me and the underwater world

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Damn shame... I thought there were more SCUBA divers here who would be interested in reading others, and sharing their, diving stories :beatahorse:

 

[bradj]

Not really diving.. but funny swimming story.

USS Benfold anchored off the coast of Hawaii about three miles out. We had been away from home port (san diego) for a few weeks so the Captain decided to let us have a swim call. We drop a net into the water and everyone dives off the ship. Great day, everyone is having fun swimming in the ocean, topside party with burgers and cokes. One of the cooks decides it would be a good idea to dump a pan of blood(from the uncooked burger meat) off the side of the ship before taking it in for a wash.

Needless to say, chumming the water while a hundred or so sets of legs kicking around in the water wasn't a good idea, swim call was ended early. Thanks mess specialist.. back to book camp for you!!

 

[i_like_shiney_things]

Not really diving.. but funny swimming story.

USS Benfold anchored off the coast of Hawaii about three miles out. We had been away from home port (san diego) for a few weeks so the Captain decided to let us have a swim call. We drop a net into the water and everyone dives off the ship. Great day, everyone is having fun swimming in the ocean, topside party with burgers and cokes. One of the cooks decides it would be a good idea to dump a pan of blood(from the uncooked burger meat) off the side of the ship before taking it in for a wash.

Needless to say, chumming the water while a hundred or so sets of legs kicking around in the water wasn't a good idea, swim call was ended early. Thanks mess specialist.. back to book camp for you!!

lol... bet that cook was popular, close call for the humans not being the only well fed creatures that day