oak

done my open water last year and have had no real problems diving
i only shore dive so don't go very deep, probably most of the time under 12 metres
i seen in the paper a group of divers surfaced and drifted 30 odd miles away from their boat and weren't picked up until the next day,
have you had any scary experiences,

Brendan Hughes

Being attacked by a trigger fish off Koh Tao. TBH I didn't find it that scary, my instructor was none too impressed though.

Suresh

Running out of air at the 5m stop owing to faulty pressure gauge. My dive buddy first thought I was messing around when I kept signalling "out of air"

Tell you what, the training really does work if you pay attention and I could surface in a controlled manner using my buddy's octopus.

Suresh

Daz34

Poking my head where I shouldn't & coming face to face with big conga eels.

Finishing a deep dive & having to do 40 mins of deco stops whilst holding onto a delayed SMB when slack water has ended & I am going up & down like a yo yo.

Darren

Tiggs

theres a flick out soon about the couple that went on a dive trip, everyone surfaced but the dive ppl did a bad headcount and set off without them!

when they surfaced the boat had gone!!!

shark food!

(true story)

oak

i'm feeling sick just reading this

argonaut

Had a type 2 neurological bend back in 1999 when i tried to stop a student pannicking and surfacing from 28 metres in a hurry.

He was fine, i got bent to hell and back.

8 hours in the pot, followed by another 8 hours the next day!

Dont panic Oak, accidents are rare and if you do your training correctly and keep in practice, you should be fine.

Oh, and make sure your kit is well serviced and in good condition!

happy diving mate.

darlodge

I've only been a few times, but I've had my mask sucked off by a octopus and then during the same dive another student spooked an Angel shark and it swam right at me, and its fin cut my left hand

As Suresh said, the training they give you before you go in is vital and could save your life.

Comical story
A more comic story was when I was walking out of the water onto the beach after a dive. There were about 10 students and about 4 instructors. The instructors were just herding up the last of the students so that we could all walk off the beach at the same time. I was feeling quite happy with my self and thought I looked cool . What happened next however still makes me laugh.

The last of the students were up with us now so everyone else started walking towards the beach but I could not move. I tried lifting my left foot, nothing, tried my right foot, nothing. So I leaned forwared and then I went down like a pack of cards, right onto the sea bed . It turns out my weight belt and fallen on top of my flippers and was pinning them down. Then there was the whole process of getting out of the sea bed with a bloody heavy tank pinning you down.

I thinking everyone of the students was laughing and even some of the instructors were It still makes me laugh now thinking about it

Darren

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

getting chased by a barracuda in the cayman islands the barracuda was chasing after a fish and it bumped into me the fish dissapeared so it started stalking me i just swam for a group of divers as i thought if its gonna bite someone its gonna have a bit more choice than just me certainly made for some interesting converstion on the boat when we surfaced as a lot more of the other divers had a better view of what happened funny thing was on another dive that day my mate got chased by one after his watch lol

RussP

Scariest bit so far is half flooding the bloody mask and then having to clear it during my open water training.

So I Guess the stories will get more glamorous then!

dpb

whats a 'delayed' submersible bouy (i presume) DAZ...ANYONE..................

Sbradley

Meeting a whale shark. Totally harmless but I thought it was a submarine at first. 'Kin ENORMOUS!

Ferreting around in Beirut harbour on a UN job and finding the bodies of 7 or 8 locals attached to chains on the harbour floor.

Same job, different day, checking on something else and finding an unexploded but very, very battered and heavily corroded 2000lb bomb

SB

BlkKnight

@ 30 meters going through a wreck in T-shirt & shorts wetsuite (hot water)

Went through a hatch and hit some fire-coral (for the frst time) all down one arm & both legs OOOOOOUUUUUUUCCCCHHHHHHH fecking hurt. Got into a mild stress. got out of boat and went down to bottom (about 2 meters) and rubbed sand into it to cool it off.

During this time (whilst calming myself down) I had burnt up loads of air and had to buddy for a minute or to at the 5m hold point.

Morals of this:

1. ware a full wetsuite & gloves.
2. keep a very close eye on your air - espcially if under duress & at depths you are unfamillar with.

chrome

i also suffered a damaged FPR on a holiday in cyprus years ago in my teens... was quite scary but the guys who were chaperoning my group checked everyone every few minutes and they caught mine in time ! I was about 20M down!
turned out i had JUST enough air to get back up top.. the regulator had bene letting way too much o2 in if i remember right. i was high as a kite

Iwan

Had a dive buddy freak out on me (panic attack) at 35m+ once. I was keeping a close eye on him as the conditions were pretty murky and all of a sudden he was grabbing my legs in a bear hug with eyes like saucers.

I calmed him down and we started calmly heading for the surface. At 30m he freaked again and bolted for the surface. I managed to get a finger through a D-ring on his harness and held onto him as long as possible - slowing his ascent by dumping everything from my suit/wing. We went up like a missile as he'd inflated his wing fully, i couldn't hang on or reach the dump toggle so i let him go at about 10m.

I reached the surface a few seconds after him and he was fine. Both our dive computers were in SOS mode

Went in to hosptital as both of us had mild DCI (sore elbows, back pains etc), but after some tests they decided we didn't require any recompression.

Pretty scary...

ScoobyDoo555

coming face to face with a Barracuda sh@t my pants!!!

Dan

oak

i'm putting my stuff on ebay i don't want to end up having any of your experiences

Gordo

Dry suit diving in Loch Fyne in January (snow on the surface). Fecking (hired) suit was slowly leaking (unbeknownst to me) - I didn't realise until I started shivering down at 20m - I was blue with a full suit of freezing water when we surfaced. Spent the next hour in Loch Fyne oyster bar shivering by the fire with four fleeces on! I was not best pleased with the dive shop that hired the suit......!

DarrenC

Getting harassed by a reef sharf during a night dive whilst at 29 metres in the Maldives, was not funny. It never fails to amaze me that you can go through nitrox so bloody quickly. Oh I Did Laugh !

Chrome, how did the reg let too much O2 in ?

Darren

Daz34

Delayed Surface Marker Buoy (SMB)

You take it on the dive with you & before you start your ascent you unroll it & connect it to a reel. Put a few squirts of air out your reg into it & as it ascends the air expands & it gets bigger & faster (it's important that the reel pays out correctly & doesn't snag & drag you up!!) & should reach the surface fully deployed. Your dive boat now knows where you are & can keep track of you as you drift on your ascent.

Daz