| Was diving the Palancar off Yucatán with my Dad. I was 14 at the time. Was swimming along with a Mola aka Ocean Sunfish coming straight at me that I couldn’t see. He was like 8-9’ tall but only a foot wide. At six feet away he turned laterally and suddenly materialized. The fact that a fish that big could sneak up on me right in front really freaked my teen mind out. |
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Quoted: Everybody heard that one story about a friend that dives dams and went face to face with catfish the size of a Volkswagen. Maybe even that the whisker was the diameter of his arm. *Cool story bro. That is in every lake in every state. Someone knew the diver and told the story, but I’ve never talked to a diver that has seen the fish. |
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Quoted: I always thought the human body cannot tolerate the pressure past 70 feet or so. Quoted: Quoted: I need to find the video again, but the gist of it was an interview with a commercial diver who was doing saturation diving super deep and they were in these diving bells on the sea floor. There were multiple bells close to each other and each bell had a pool in it that went directly into the ocean. So if you wanted to go to another bell you would throw a mask and fins on with no tank and just free swim 50 feet or whatever to the next bell and surface in their pool. But keep in mind you're several hundred feet deep. He goes to swim at night to another bell and the bells have small lights on them but not near enough to illuminate between them. As he's swimming over in complete blackness towards the LEDs of the other bell they disappear. Well they disappeared because something huge swam between him and the lights blotting them out  Then something huge bumps into him and he about shit himself. Hard pass  I always thought the human body cannot tolerate the pressure past 70 feet or so. People dive open circuit scuba on trimix gas down to 200'+ |
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Quoted: Nah, I’ve been to 120, you aren’t staying long. iirc (been a while) the max depth for a rec dive is 130. But, some people can’t handle it, nitrogen narcosis is a thing. Around 90’, I start thinking everything is funny, I would laugh. The saturation divers are brought down to the depth they are working in (hundreds of feet). They hoist them up to a chamber where they sleep and eat, then lower them back down for work. There is often a pressurized life boat incase something happens to the ship. They get paid good money. I google, they do saturation dives down to 1k-2k feet. Fuck that. I've done 135' off of Saba, lots of aggressive reef sharks. One of the chicks on the dive ran out of air but buddy breathing worked. Not a particularly interesting dive but the island of Saba is a great memory: go if you get the chance. All of the dives there are deep, the diving was not the high point of the trip: good food, good wine, good atmosphere. Pay a taxi driver for a tour of the island. |
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Quoted: Close friend sailed a 35 footer from California to Hawaii. Saw something surface nearby at night that scared him so badly it took ten years for him to tell me about it. Don’t know why, but lately I’ve been on a YouTube kick of watching people that are sailboating solo around the pacific. I’ve always wondered how much weird shit they have seen when they are out there. |
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Quoted: Don’t know why, but lately I’ve been on a YouTube kick of watching people that are sailboating solo around the pacific. I’ve always wondered how much weird shit they have seen when they are out there. I was on schedule to do the Galapagos on my sailboat, then Covid hit. I will never forgive the .gov for that. |
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Quoted: Emergency ascent. (“Ooooooo….”) Straight up. Luckily under the boat. Tackled the tank hanging off the boat at 35 feet. Hung out for 20 minutes or so. Rental. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At about 110 feet I saw a gauge that told me I had 2/3 of a tank. However, every time I tried to inhale, nothing happened. That sucked. What did you end up doing? Alternate reg? Share with a buddy? Was this your gear or a rental? Emergency ascent. (“Ooooooo….”) Straight up. Luckily under the boat. Tackled the tank hanging off the boat at 35 feet. Hung out for 20 minutes or so. Rental. yikes. was the 35' tank prestaged? (otherwise how did they know?) That could have gone very bad. Heres hoping you weren't holding your breath - that would have been harder to remember under such an event. Wow, that experience sounds terrifying |
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Quoted: Oh, come on. Lol. I was just about to @Marie you because no one else did. You have to have some stories. Quoted: Quoted: Never mind You have to have some stories. I’ll tell you a story from my Madison, WI cave/rebreather instructor. Instructor is very big on local diving so she dives Lake Mendota a lot. A few years back she had a beginning rebreather student. They were on a place in Lake Mendota called Governor’s Wall. It’s the deepest part of Mendota and goes down to maybe 80 feet. With rebreather training, you’re in the water for maybe an hour or two each dive. Anyway instructor and student are swimming along the wall, when this massive catfish swims up from the depths. Student is 6ft tall and catfish was longer than he is tall. Catfish stalked them for a time. I’m scared to death of catfish. I was so happen when time came for my rebreather training in the fall of 2022 that viz in Mendota was very bad. We went up to Wazee Lake near Black River Falls instead. No one sees catfish there at all. |
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Quoted: yikes. was the 35' tank prestaged? (otherwise how did they know?) That could have gone very bad. Heres hoping you weren't holding your breath - that would have been harder to remember under such an event. Wow, that experience sounds terrifying |
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Quoted: I always thought the human body cannot tolerate the pressure past 70 feet or so. I'm sure there's some weird shit lurking at those depths. |
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Quoted: Not sure about the catfish, but alligator gar exist and they're a "protected species" in Tn. Quoted: Quoted: Everybody heard that one story about a friend that dives dams and went face to face with catfish the size of a Volkswagen. Maybe even that the whisker was the diameter of his arm. *Cool story bro. Not sure about the catfish, but alligator gar exist and they're a "protected species" in Tn. |
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Quoted: Night dive on the Big Island of Hawaii I was solo in about 40 feet depth looking at some frogfish and a Conger eel swims into my view and catches some kind of angel fish. Funky looking thing, reminded my of the handrail snake thing in Beetlejuice. I had no idea of what it was till I got back to the boat to ask. He decided to use my dive light to hunt with for the rest of my dive, very cool. I remember those! Did the same dive. They looked pissed that I was disturbing them. |
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Quoted: I'll tell you a story from my Madison, WI cave/rebreather instructor. Instructor is very big on local diving so she dives Lake Mendota a lot. A few years back she had a beginning rebreather student. They were on a place in Lake Mendota called Governor's Wall. It's the deepest part of Mendota and goes down to maybe 80 feet. With rebreather training, you're in the water for maybe an hour or two each dive. Anyway instructor and student are swimming along the wall, when this massive catfish swims up from the depths. Student is 6ft tall and catfish was longer than he is tall. Catfish stalked them for a time. I'm scared to death of catfish. I was so happen when time came for my rebreather training in the fall of 2022 that viz in Mendota was very bad. We went up to Wazee Lake near Black River Falls instead. No one sees catfish there at all. |
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Quoted: I need to find the video again, but the gist of it was an interview with a commercial diver who was doing saturation diving super deep and they were in these diving bells on the sea floor. There were multiple bells close to each other and each bell had a pool in it that went directly into the ocean. So if you wanted to go to another bell you would throw a mask and fins on with no tank and just free swim 50 feet or whatever to the next bell and surface in their pool. But keep in mind you're several hundred feet deep. He goes to swim at night to another bell and the bells have small lights on them but not near enough to illuminate between them. As he's swimming over in complete blackness towards the LEDs of the other bell they disappear. Well they disappeared because something huge swam between him and the lights blotting them out Then something huge bumps into him and he about shit himself. Hard pass That wins story telling time...horror movie level shit... |
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Quoted: I always thought the human body cannot tolerate the pressure past 70 feet or so. No, you can go much deeper. 70 is usually about the limit for your average occasional diver. Deep dive certified can go down to 130 on standard tank, but you won't be there for very long. Any deeper and you need to start mixing gases and planning for a series of stops on the way back up. That's all scuba, but if you're free diving, go as deep as your lungs will take you because you took that breath at a normal atmosphere. Its the breathing underwater that's all messed up. And then its not just getting air into your body, it's getting the good stuff into your blood cells and the bad stuff out.....and maintaining the healthy ratio of each. Fascinating stuff and a lot have people have died putting those dive tables together. |
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Quoted: I'm guessing they hung a tank at the "safety" stop in case someone needed it, my wife despite her small stature is an air hog. At 110' you burn through your tank a lot faster than at 35' Quoted: Quoted: yikes. was the 35' tank prestaged? (otherwise how did they know?) That could have gone very bad. Heres hoping you weren't holding your breath - that would have been harder to remember under such an event. Wow, that experience sounds terrifying Must be. that tank saved his life. But 35' is a long way from 110 when you aren't breathing. Jesus. As to 110', yea took me a bit to really figure that out. From what I can tell you don't actually metabolize faster, so much as you breath the same volume of air, at the same rate. But now your lungs are asking for that at 4x the pressure to match the pressure you are at. So pounding draw of air out 4x thr mols, or essentially 4x faster, for the same volume, but 4x the pressure. That drains out the tank in hurry. Talking to divers about deep diving, and it's an epic PITA. I've done about 100' on NitOx. I saw and killed a bunch of lionfish, was amazing. |
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Quoted:Knew a rig welder in the early 90's in Houston. He'd weld for a while and surf for a while. Came in the shop one day and said he was done. When we quizzed him he just said something swallowed his legs then spit him out. My neighbor on Oahu had a necklace of shark tooth scars on his chest and back. He was surfing off the mouth of the Ala Wai Canal and wiped out. When he dove under the wave, something big took his head and shoulders into its mouth, bit down lightly, then spit him out. The scars went down below his nipples and shoulder blades. The first time I saw them, they were fresh. My guess is big tiger, based on where he was. I've scuba dived there, and you can look up from 60-70' and see sharks between me and the surfers. He went back to surfing there as soon as the wounds healed over. |
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My dad and I were volunteer underwater archeologists doing most of our work in the Dismal Swamp. One time we were diving on the a boat we found, the CSS Appomattox. I had just suited up and gone in when my dad started pushing me around underwater. His fin even knocked my mask sideways and knocked the regulator out of my mouth. It was ZERO visibility black water and I couldn’t see him so I just surfaced to move away from him and work a different part of the wreck. However, my dad was still in our dive boat putting on his gear. Nobody else was in the water. I had no idea what had pushed me around but I figured it was a catfish as we are pretty far north and pretty far inland where we were diving. Turns out the local newspaper printed pics a week later that some kayakers took of an 8’ alligator on the bank and you could see the float we had on the Appomattox in the foreground. I had been pushed around by an alligator and didn’t even know it. |
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I’ll share a short story. I got my AOW at BlueStone quarry in NC way back when. Anyway, the quarry is filled with very curious and aggressive Crappies that we’re looking for hand outs from divers, the little bastards would ‘nip’ you on fingers, toes, ear lobes, etc. After the first dive I bought a body glove beenie to wear to keep the little fuckers from trying to nibble on my ears. Also, diving in Hawaii off Kauai I had a monster turtle come around a large part of coral. Both he and I came face to face scaring the shit out of each of us, it’s amazing to see a large turtle move so damn fast in the opposite direction. Once I calmed down the turtle had easily put 50ft between us. |
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Quoted: Oh man that’s sucks ass! Do dive tours usually leave a tank hanging like that? Quoted: Quoted: Emergency ascent. (“Ooooooo….”) Straight up. Luckily under the boat. Tackled the tank hanging off the boat at 35 feet. Hung out for 20 minutes or so. Rental. Oh man that’s sucks ass! Do dive tours usually leave a tank hanging like that? Small group I had dived with dozens of times. 5-6 people Always the tank hanging. |
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Quoted: I was diving in Destin a few years ago by the bridge with an underwater scooter and was approached by a pod of dolphins. I have it on video. I dove that same span and yes Dolphins are all over it. I’ve heard stories of Dolphins fucking with divers in a very playful way but I’ve never personally witnessed but they are very, very curious. It’s not unheard of for them to come up fast behind you and then dart in front of you which would scare the shit out of you to see a fast, gray dart do that. Your mind replays all those scenes from Jaws. |
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Quoted: I’ll share a short story. I got my AOW at BlueStone quarry in NC way back when. Anyway, the quarry is filled with very curious and aggressive Crappies that we’re looking for hand outs from divers, the little bastards would ‘nip’ you on fingers, toes, ear lobes, etc. After the first dive I bought a body glove beenie to wear to keep the little fuckers from trying to nibble on my ears. Also, diving in Hawaii off Kauai I had a monster turtle come around a large part of coral. Both he and I came face to face scaring the shit out of each of us, it’s amazing to see a large turtle move so damn fast in the opposite direction. Once I calmed down the turtle had easily put 50ft between us. Bluegill do that so in Midwestern quarries. I call them the wannabe piranha of the Midwest. That’s why I always wear a hood. Got nipped on the cheek once while hanging on the safety stop bar on the deep side of the local quarry once. I know someone who dived in just board shorts and his BC when it was really warm in the shallows in the quarry. He got hit by a bluegill in the nipple. Said there was a thin steam of blood when he got out of the water. |
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Quoted: Not diving, but snorkeling. About 1980, a friend was doing some graduate level oceanography classes at Catalina Island, CA. There is a little village at the Isthmus with a bar. It was a party place. I went to visit him for 3-4 days and help with his work, party with the locals, maybe get laid. There is a tiny island called Bird Rock in the Isthmus Harbor. Great snorkeling in the harbor - kelp beds, beautiful fish incl. Garibaldis. The water is 30 feet deep or so and super clear. On Day 2 we were rowing around the harbor doing the work and met a couple on a beautiful big sailboat, they asked us aboard for drinks. Turns out they were Ron and Valerie Taylor, stars of "Blue Water White Death", the documentary about Great White Sharks. It was a great time and they told some awesome stories. Next day we went snorkeling in the harbor and were having a fun time. My friend - may f*ck be upon him - suggested we swim around Bird Rock. OK. I'm a pretty good swimmer, so is he. Well, on the far side of the rock the water goes from 30 feet to god only knows how deep. The color goes from light blue, to dark blue, to black. I'm having mental seizures as I imagine a Great White charging up from the depths and eating me alive. I set a swimming record that day getting back to the harbor side of that rock. It still gives me the heebie jeebies. My firend still teases me about it. May f*ck be upon him!tldr; I did not die. But I could have.  Did Boy Scout camp at Cherry Valley (my dad did too), very familiar with Bird Rock The 1 mile swim was around it |
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Quoted: Bluegill do that so in Midwestern quarries. I call them the wannabe piranha of the Midwest. That’s why I always wear a hood. Got nipped on the cheek once while hanging on the safety stop bar on the deep side of the local quarry once. I know someone who dived in just board shorts and his BC when it was really warm in the shallows in the quarry. He got hit by a bluegill in the nipple. Said there was a thin steam of blood when he got out of the water. Youch….Good thing he didn’t go naked or maybe he missed a rare opportunity. |
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Quoted: I did a drift dive in Coz off one of those cattle boats, we had a bull shark follow us the entire time. Off to our left, I don’t know the distance, but closer than I like. Keep in mind, the boat leaves you after dumping you in the water and motors to a pick up point, in Mexico. Never again will I do a cattle boat in Mexico. Doing my advanced open water, we did our deep dive, wreck dive, and night dive all in one because it was winter (which is cold AF in NW FL) and weather had been bad. I’m still really new, it’s pitch black dark, I’m scared shitless, and all I can hear going down are these weird sounds that I think are dolphins. I hit the wreck and I’m gone, fuck you, bye, back up the line. The sound wasn’t dolphins, it turns out shrimp actually make noise. Then, we had this fat out of shape guy and I thought he was going to have a heart attack swimming to the dive platform. The boat capt is an asshole and yelling at the poor guy. All of my diving after is Caymans, because the crews are solid, the water is warm, the water is clear, and there isn’t any weird shit, plus you can do night dives off the beach. Diving with the sting ray is pretty nice, they are friendly fellas. Tell that to Steve 
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Quoted: I’ll tell you a story from my Madison, WI cave/rebreather instructor. Instructor is very big on local diving so she dives Lake Mendota a lot. A few years back she had a beginning rebreather student. They were on a place in Lake Mendota called Governor’s Wall. It’s the deepest part of Mendota and goes down to maybe 80 feet. With rebreather training, you’re in the water for maybe an hour or two each dive. Anyway instructor and student are swimming along the wall, when this massive catfish swims up from the depths. Student is 6ft tall and catfish was longer than he is tall. Catfish stalked them for a time. I’m scared to death of catfish. I was so happen when time came for my rebreather training in the fall of 2022 that viz in Mendota was very bad. We went up to Wazee Lake near Black River Falls instead. No one sees catfish there at all. You know what's funny (not in the "ha ha" way) is people die in Wazee every summer @Marie |
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Quoted: You know what's funny is people die in Wazee every summer @Marie I know people who’ve been to the bottom of Wazee! When I was doing some tech training in the summer of 2021, the day before some Hispanic guy had drowned in about 20 feet of water as he got to a drop off and couldn’t swim. I know divers who brought the body up. The day I was there parents were letting their little kids play in the water right near the drop off. I went over and told them what had happened the day before. They moved to a shallower spot. I’ve seen people paddle boarding without a life vest where it’s 300ft deep. Do divers die at Wazee every year or others getting into too deep? |
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Quoted: Everybody heard that one story about a friend that dives dams and went face to face with catfish the size of a Volkswagen. Maybe even that the whisker was the diameter of his arm. *Cool story bro. I heard this one as a small kid in the early 1970s in central Utah. |
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I was diving with a buddy at Monastery beach, south of Monterey. It's a difficult shore dive with a steep beach and very energetic waves that break right on the shore. That's because the Monterey canyon comes right up to shore there, and the waves don't feel bottom until they're right on the beach. Anyway you can swim out along the bottom into the kelp, then keep going and when you come to the edge you're at about 100 ft depth. At that point the seabed drops off straight down into the abyss. It's a cool place, reminds me of being in the mountains. We liked swimming along just outside the kelp with the black abyss below us. One day we were swimming along there and a seal came shooting up out of the depths and shot into the kelp, then hid behind one of the holdfasts. We looked at each other, wondered what the hell was chasing him, and hightailed it into the kelp ourselves. Nothing ever came up behind him though. I figure there was a big white shark down there somewhere. |
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I used to have a tank on my back at least three days a week in some pretty amazing locations. I have no interest in ever blowing bubblers underwater again, I was lucky too many times for the luck to continue. Clients care about their bottom line, not necessarily your safety 
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Quoted: There is shit down there that will make you a ghost.  The ones I have spoke to say groupers are assholes. Huge assholes. Seriously, some groupers are gigantic, and evidently used to being near the top of their food chain. Big fish. Some are tasty too, though I doubt it's like halibut, where the big females are just as tasty as the smaller males. |
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Quoted: No, it was open. Busted regulator (rented). Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At about 110 feet I saw a gauge that told me I had 2/3 of a tank. However, every time I tried to inhale, nothing happened. That sucked. No, it was open. Busted regulator (rented). That happened to a friend in a deep class, he was diving a Poseidon and it had been screwed up at the last service call. He gets to 75 ft on a 150 ft dive and it locks up. No breathing gas delivered. He turns to his buddy, and through a series of errors they lose buoyancy control and shoot to the surface. When I surfaced with my buddy they were sitting in the boat breathing O2. No apparent injury though. Apparently there's a small pin in the poseidon, if it's put in backward the thing will appear to work fine at the surface but will lock up tighter'n Dick's hatband at depth. |