|
Quoted: Did a vertical drop into the rise of the Aucilla River. In salt water, Barracuda generally stay a respectful, wary distance from divers. Gars do not give a single fuck. and are utterly indifferent to your presence, and that is fucking creepy. One one dive at "The Elbow" in Belize, I saw a 30-35 foot whale shark and an 8-12 foot sunfish in one dive. The Sunfish appeared and stayed at the edge of visibility and went on it's way. The whale shark appeared at the edge of visibility and kept getting bigger and bigger. There was an entire conversation between the my ancient lizard hindbrain and my frontal lobes as that shape kept getting bigger at 60 feet below. SHARK, RUN!! I'm underwater. ITS GETTING BIGGER! RUN!! Cant run at 60 feet. Hey look... are those lateral lines? It might be a whale shark. Yeah, look at the mouth. YEAH, LOOK AT THE BIG FUCKING MOUTH RUN! It eats plankton. IT'S GOT A BRAIN THE SIZE OF A WALNUT!! HOW DOES IT KNOW YOU FROM PLANKTON! RUN!!! I must have burned 500 psi of air during this internal dialog. LOL I stayed and watched it go on by. Amazing dive! Diving with whale sharks in near the top of the bucket list!!! What a great experience |
|
Quoted: People dive open circuit scuba on trimix gas down to 200'+ Quoted: 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'+ Yes. Been there, done that. I think the ultimate limit for depth is either neurological effects or work of breathing due to denser gas. We jumped out of my friend's zodiac out by Monterey, to dive a reef at 250'. I was wearing double 104 steel tanks with 2 80's for stage bottles. Pretty encumbered, I wasn't moving anywhere fast. My buddy comes over so I can help him unfuck his mask which was all wonky with his drysuit hood. As I'm futzing with it I see a huge grey fin stand up out of the water about 20 ft behind him. He said my eyes got as big as dinner plates. I briefly considered climbing back in the boat with my 200 lb of gear, then pulled my mask up and stuck my head underwater to see the great white that was about to eat us. Much to my relief, it was a great big Mola. Just about the most unscary thing in the ocean, in fact they're downright comical. We saw them from time to time on the surface, but never when diving. |
|
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. Damn dude, that's freaky. I've done quite a bit of diving and running out of air isn't high on my list of fun things to have happen. Glad you're ok. |
| Diving in Hawaii at night, we jump off the boat and drop down but stay about 30 ft above the bottom, just swimming along looking at stuff with my light. I see this big moray and he starts using my light for hunting. We swam along with him for a while, lighting up the reef, but he didn't catch anything before we surfaced. At some point I swear he looked up and said "Hell yeah, borther, shine that light over there" |
|
Quoted: I don't know what's down at damns but when I was 17 or 18 we took a men's fishing trip with the church. 2 men had pontoon boats they brought. We put the new gas grill Dad had bought Mom at the start of summer on the boat of the man who fished a lot. The other man was more of a just ride around type of boater. Anyways we went through the locks and it was exciting to have never done it. When we got below the damn we started fishing. I had bought a catfish rod and reel that Kmart had and some just released spiderwire fishing line. I hooked into something that we chased all over the water but I could never get it up enough to see it. It literally pulled the boat around it was that strong. I guess when I die and go to Heaven I'll ask Saint Pete what that was I hooked that day. @Spiffums I've never seen a channel catfish over 4 ft long. They're nasty, STANKY and fight like hell. So do Gar. Neither one serve any purpose other than to keep you busy for a few minutes till you get them reeled in and the inevitable "AW FUCK". They're like big underwater wasps.
|
|
Quoted: My mom had the opposite problem in Bonaire. It just started free flowing and she was fairly deep. Fortunatley my father was willing to share. Quoted: Quoted: No, it was open. Busted regulator (rented). My mom had the opposite problem in Bonaire. It just started free flowing and she was fairly deep. Fortunatley my father was willing to share. |
|
Quoted: 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. Good ol Mortuary... Per my ex-wife, who went to CHS. The surf isn't great---the break is like a building collasping, as you said---and I still don't dive, so never spent much time there. Much preferred Moss Landing south of the harbor entrance or Manresa. We knew Great Whites were out there but never worried about it. The very large seal that barked at me on my board---I'm wondering now if it was a lost elephant seal---was something else. |
| Diving off the pinnacles at Pyramid lake, something happened I can't explain. Now days, the pinnacles are closed to the public, and Pyramid is considered to be haunted by the Piute's. My dive partner and I were at the swim area back 25 years ago, and it was clear water and we could see plants on the bottom. We both went down there and things got strange. Because I stood straight up to dump the air out of my bc (buoyancy compensator), I couldn't watch the bottom. In a matter of a minutes I realized that the water had gone dark. Checking my depth gauge I saw that I had passed 80 feet and was moving rapidly downward. I immediately inflated my bc and started up. It was then I felt something grabbing my fins! I paddled as hard as I could and after a few seconds whatever it was trying to pull me down let go and I made it to the surface. We were 200 yards around the other side of the pinnacles!! All in the space of a couple of minutes! That freaked both of us out, and we have never dove at Pyramid Lake ever again. The Piute's I worked with told me all sorts of stories about that lake, and I absolutely believe them now. Water babies, guys fishing just off the shore disappearing suddenly never to be found and on and on. Take a tip. Do not dive in Pyramid Lake Nevada! |
|
Quoted: Did Boy Scout camp at Cherry Valley (my dad did too), very familiar with Bird Rock The 1 mile swim was around it Quoted: 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 I've snorkeled around Catalina and the drop offs there always freaked me out. The water would go from nice and warm where it was shallow to instantly cold and dark below you. I am glad I was young enough I didn't really ever think about sharks or know about all the GW's up the west coast
|
|
Quoted: Commercial guys use mixed air and stay down for a looong time to get the most work in. We did originally come from the sea. I think. Reading a book about it. The main idea is that every dive table contradicts other dive tables. And throw in different absorption and expelling rates for nitrogen, helium, oxygen narcosis. It's a mess. |
|
Quoted: Well don't keep us all waiting! What was it? Quoted: Originally Posted By @doc540: 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. Well don't keep us all waiting! What was it? Half of this thread is waiting. |
|
Quoted: His name Rockwell? Quoted: Quoted: Buddy of mine worked on a oil rig as a underwater welder. He did it for a year. He quit because he said he was to freaked out by things he saw down there. He said he always had a feeling something was watching him. His name Rockwell? No Baskin |
|
Quoted: Just to interject. My nephew has footage of a whale shark when he was diving the rigs in the GoA. Lots of fishies, bugs and crabs too. Tasty, tasty critters. I seem to remember someone saying in another post a while back about how they would dump perishable trash/food off of rigs a certain time each day. The notice after a while sharks learned to be there waiting for the food. I'd hate to be diving anywhere near a rig when that happened. |
|
Quoted: 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. 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. 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. Yeah I heard stories like that as a kid. They said cat fish the size of a Volkswagen around Wolf creek dam in Jamestown Ky. |
|
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. I watched a program on TV where someplace the catfish would stalk pigeons that came into the waters and eat them. Here it is. They were Wels catfish |
|
Quoted: I seem to remember someone saying in another post a while back about how they would dump perishable trash/food off of rigs a certain time each day. The notice after a while sharks learned to be there waiting for the food. I'd hate to be diving anywhere near a rig when that happened. Falling off a shrimp boat while they are shoveling what they cannot keep over the deck would probably end badly also. |
|
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' When I first dove outside my area (which was always in the winter), I blew through my tank. The DM is talking to me, I'm in good shape. I had about fifty tons of weight on me because I was used to a fairly thick wetsuit (I'm a lean guy) and was new. I was diving in shorts and a t-shirt. After he took off about fifty tons, my dives went much better. oops. |
|
Quoted: Yeah I heard stories like that as a kid. They said cat fish the size of a Volkswagen around Wolf creek dam in Jamestown Ky. Quoted: 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. Same thing at two lakes here in Missouri. |
|
Quoted: Half of this thread is waiting. Quoted: Quoted: Originally Posted By @doc540: 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. Well don't keep us all waiting! What was it? Half of this thread is waiting. I bet it was Saxsquatch out on his boat enjoying the night. |
|
Quoted: Good ol Mortuary... Per my ex-wife, who went to CHS. The surf isn't great---the break is like a building collasping, as you said---and I still don't dive, so never spent much time there. Much preferred Moss Landing south of the harbor entrance or Manresa. We knew Great Whites were out there but never worried about it. The very large seal that barked at me on my board---I'm wondering now if it was a lost elephant seal---was something else. Quoted: Quoted: 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. Good ol Mortuary... Per my ex-wife, who went to CHS. The surf isn't great---the break is like a building collasping, as you said---and I still don't dive, so never spent much time there. Much preferred Moss Landing south of the harbor entrance or Manresa. We knew Great Whites were out there but never worried about it. The very large seal that barked at me on my board---I'm wondering now if it was a lost elephant seal---was something else. We saw half a seal off Pebble Beach once. That was kind of sobering. Around that same time I met Marco Flagg, who had been bit by a large shark but lived to tell about it. https://www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/issues/y1995/ID0895/SharkAttack0895i.pdf The stitches were still fresh. |
|
Quoted: Yep, his mini-me and Buddha, too. I have seen them as well. The thing I remember best from diving the Duane or Bibb (i think it was the Bibb) back in the early 2000's was a HUGE jew fish that lived in the wheelhouse. It was literally Volkswagen bug sized. EDIT for spelling |
|
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. What about your buddy? If you were diving solo, you should have had an alternative air source. |
|
Quoted: Friend of mine was from St. Lucia. He was diving a coral reef and swam under a large reef overhang/cave. He saw movement that he could see well so he flicked his light on. It was a child’s body from a drowning. It destroyed him enough that he stopped diving. Damn.... 
|
|
Quoted: What about your buddy? If you were diving solo, you should have had an alternative air source. Quoted: 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. What about your buddy? If you were diving solo, you should have had an alternative air source. Yeah, I had wandered off a bit. |
|
Quoted: Buddy of mine worked on a oil rig as a underwater welder. He did it for a year. He quit because he said he was to freaked out by things he saw down there. He said he always had a feeling something was watching him. That's interesting. One of the, um, biggest under-achievers in my high school class became an underwater welder and did very well for himself. He had a story about working on an oil rig in the Indian Ocean, at night, when something "pushed" him from behind. He said it wasn't a hard hit, just something very large with a shit-ton of mass that gave him a little shove to see what he was. Turns out they pay those guys all that money for a reason. |
|
Quoted: @doc540 Go on.... Quoted: 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. @doc540 Go on.... |
|
Quoted: Colossal squid? Quoted: 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. Colossal squid? I just saw a video, of course I can't find it now, where a WW1 German u boat was sunk and the few survivors got into a lifeboat and some hung on the side. They were in the Atlantic off of Africa. At night a large tentacle started slapping around the boat and survivors when finally it wrapped around a guy and took him under Apparently it was corroborated by the survivors. It's the first I'd ever heard about it but fuck all that insanity ETA. It was a British ship from WW2. Here's a bit from Wikipedia A giant squid allegedly attacked a raft with survivors from the Britannia in 1941, which had been sunk in the South Atlantic. One of the men was dragged away by the squid, and another, Lieutenant Raymond Edmund Grimani Cox, managed to narrowly escape the same fate, though suffering tentacle sucker wounds.[24][25] The chronicle of the survivors was first told in 1941 by the London Illustrated News, which stated that, according to the account given them by Cox, a survivor first had his legs bitten off by a shark and then was devoured by a giant manta,[26][27] but in 1956, Cox himself contacted writer Frank W. Lane to tell his story.[28] They required marine naturalist John Cloudsley-Thompson to examine Cox's scars at Birkbeck College, and the former further validated the story, assuring the marks, of 1-1/4 inches in size, belonged to a 23-feet long squid.[28][29][30] The story has been called the only substantiated report of a giant squid killing humans.[28] However, other authors have called it into question, considering it an urban legend. |
|
Just a Rec diver. Was at the hang line and a 6ish foot Barracuda was about 5 inches from my face and refused to leave. Took me a few minutes to figure out, it saw it's reflection in my mask.... Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File All pics out of Morehead City NC |
|
Quoted: That's interesting. One of the, um, biggest under-achievers in my high school class became an underwater welder and did very well for himself. He had a story about working on an oil rig in the Indian Ocean, at night, when something "pushed" him from behind. He said it wasn't a hard hit, just something very large with a shit-ton of mass that gave him a little shove to see what he was. Turns out they pay those guys all that money for a reason. Yeah I'd be wearing something with spikes. I'd look like the 3rd member of Legion of Doom was welding |
| I've reached out to him asking for any details. Will report back if he replies. 4 family members on a 31' not 35' sloop. He finally talked to me about it years ago after I mentioned their collection of vintage Zane Grey books on fishing and among them were several old books about sea monsters and sailing. He's a serious waterman and still had difficulty talking about it. |
|
Quoted: I just saw a video, of course I can't find it now, where a WW1 German u boat was sunk and the few survivors got into a lifeboat and some hung on the side. They were in the Atlantic off of Africa. At night a large tentacle started slapping around the boat and survivors when finally it wrapped around a guy and took him under Apparently it was corroborated by the survivors. It's the first I'd ever heard about it but fuck all that insanity I'll take "the rest of the crew ate that guy" for a thousand. Seems unlikely that something with tentacles big enough to pull a man off a boat, and whose hunting routine would include attacking stuff floating on the surface, would be unknown to us. Giant squid is the only thing I can think they live at >1000ft. ...most of the time. Well hi there big fella!  Japan divers capture rare footage of live giant squid | AFP |
|
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. Around 2007 there was a documentary about Chernobyl and the host went to Pripyat and NPP 4. In the plant's cooling ponds there were 9ft catfish. Normally they don't get over 70 pounds because of predators but the 1986 incident killed off the large predatory birds and gave the bigger fish an opportunity to continue growing. |
|
My nephew is/was a sat diver. I think he said he usually works at 4-600'. The small fish with teeth bug them the most. Attack your hand where the wetsuit ends and gloves begin. His aunt asked him what do you do if you have to go to the bathroom? Shitting in your hand wasn't the answer she expected to hear.
|
|
Quoted: Around 2007 there was a documentary about Chernobyl and the host went to Pripyat and NPP 4. In the plant's cooling ponds there were 9ft catfish. Normally they don't get over 70 pounds because of predators but the 1986 incident killed off the large predatory birds and gave the bigger fish an opportunity to continue growing. 
|
|
Quoted: 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. Quoted: 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. I spearfish Destin/FWB/Pcola, and this is true. They will come and check you out from afar, and if they feel no threat they will come close and swim with you. One time a big male came close to check me out. I mad a clicking sound underwater as he went by and he visibly turned and looked straight at me like "whatchu saybro?"  They like to show off sometimes too with some jumping. |