People have their own ways to explore the world. And one of the most adventurous people tries diving and snorkeling. It’s not easy because you’ll be underwater only with limited oxygen. Luckily, you always have your diving buddy who can help you.
However, imagine yourself trying to dive for the first time after getting your certification. When suddenly, you feel something unknown staring and following you throughout, going deeper and deeper. What would you do?
1. Huge Appearance
When I was a kid, we used to go to places during the summer holiday with some very nice beaches, particularly estuaries with a very wide river mouth.
One summer, there was a "king tide" where enough of the water emptied out of the river into the ocean that you could snorkel quite easily from one side of the river mouth to the other as it got so shallow that it was only a meter or so deep at the deepest part.
One day, I decided to snorkel across from one beach to the one on the other side of the river, and about halfway across, where the depth to the bottom was maybe half a meter, I was swimming along the surface.
I’m in a position of looking down with my mask/snorkel on, and a MASSIVE stingray passed directly underneath me. This thing was easily 2 meters across, covered in white scars, and missing its tail.
I just froze in the water, and it felt like my heart had stopped. If I had let my breath out, I would've dropped in the water low enough that I would've landed on it.
It was so close. I wasn't in danger, but having a massive creature appear so unexpectedly and close up was absolutely terrifying.
Captain-Crowbar
2. No Vision
Two biggest. My buddy was taking pictures. He wanted one of me surrounded by a school of fish, so I started tossing out small pieces of hot dog.
I was immediately surrounded by so many perch I couldn't see out. All of a sudden, a largemouth bass snagged one of the pieces of hot dog that was maybe 6 inches from my face.
My mask blocked his approach. Scared the crap out of me. The second one was a night dive in very silty water. Visibility was less than 3 feet (lowest I mark; if I can't see my outstretched arm, it is <3 feet).
We were near a flooded structure (maybe an old water tank?) at about 35 feet. Something was flashing from our lights. Suddenly, I was covered in something and couldn't see my light reflecting back.
I pull it off my face, but it is still black, and I can feel it touching the top of my head. I try over and over to free myself, but I don't feel caught, just covered. Finally, I got clear. It was a large plastic trash bag. Keep your trash out of the water, please.
umlguru
3. Floating Log
I was told a story once by a Maori Language teacher during my time in high school. We didn’t learn much Maori; we just listened to stories.
A dam in Waikato, New Zealand, had begun to have visible cracks in the concrete on the outside part of the dam, and some divers were organized to dive down and check the inside submerged part of the dam for damage on that side.
While they were down there, there was the usual debris you would find behind a man-made wall, which prevents the water from flowing as it would normally do if there wasn’t a dam there.
It turns out they thought large logs were huge eels that had gotten to the size of logs due to being prevented from migrating to the sea, where they breed and die.
So, from being prevented from doing their natural life duties, they just get larger and larger. That would be creepy seeing eels deep down in the water just floating around.
HandsomeKiwiBoy
4. Old Habitat
You can dive into man-made lakes and check out what's left of old flooded homes and communities. It's pretty dark and spooky down there, no matter what, especially when you think of all the big fish swimming around that are barely silhouettes until they're close.
My buddy likes to dive in lakes. He said the creepiest thing, by far, is finding cemeteries 100 ft + beneath the water in the dark, eerie quiet.
I asked him about big fish. He said there's definitely something down there bigger than he expected - 4 or 5 feet. They're attracted to the lights and noise.
But they only watch from a distance - which is nonetheless disconcerting, just dark, 2d shapes drifting nearby. None of the monsters other folks are bringing up, though.
UrethraFrankIin
5. Sudden Fear
I live in South Carolina, and we have a lake like this named Lake Murray. Both of my parents were scuba divers growing up, and I was also a child/young adult.
Can absolutely confirm that underwater cemeteries, old churches, shot-down war bombers, and catfish big enough to eat me are part of the reason I don't even get in swimming pools anymore.
Terrifying. I was snorkeling in the Bahamas when I was 6 or 7, and I kept trying to play with this little baby swordfish, who would dart a few feet away from me, leading me further and further from shore.
Then I noticed a large grey object heading straight for me, pretty far away but easy enough to see in crystal clear water, and it was about a 10-12ft tiger shark.
I panicked and turned around, hauled my arse back to shore, convinced the whole time my little legs were kicking like hell we were going to get bitten off.
Barely made it back. As I got on land, the shark was right there, maybe 30-50ft from shore. To this day, I am convinced baby swordfish and tiger shark had some kind of "deal." I will never swim again.
[deleted]
6. Kid Fun
There's a lake in my country that came to be when an old town was flooded. Now it's a famous summer spot and a lot of families and people go swimming there.
Anyway, when I was young, my friends and I were paddling around the lake on a surfboard. We were already freaked out because we heard about the town at the bottom of the lake.
But we really started panicking when we got stuck in some tall grass or some kind of growth and a buoy. We almost tipped, and it was freaky.
The cherry on top was when a meter and a half long and dark shadow swam underneath us. We almost shat our pants and hurried the hell out of the lake. I don't know what that thing was. Also, thanks to that old and creepy buoy, I have submechanophobia now.
BabysitterSteve
7. Eye Of A Tiger
When living off the coast, some buddies and I would take regular fishing trips to the oil rigs. We would always have some lines out, and a few would dive down and try to spear some mangrove snapper or cobia.
Once, while two others and I were diving down and checking out the structure, we decided we needed to move due to the lack of life around the rig.
We all got back in the boat, and as one of my buddies was reeling in a line we had a red snapper baited on.. an easily 8-10ft tiger shark started chewing on it right behind the prop, so close I could have poked his eye out.
The idea that a massive animal was in the water so close to me and two of my friends, but no one saw it, is terrifying. I bet he was watching us the whole time.
liquidtacomeat
8. Caught Off Guard
It was not unexplainable, but it gave me a bit of a fright; I worked as a commercial diver for about seven years in the UK and also some work in Europe.
I worked on the fish farms in Orkney, North of Scotland. One time, I swam down one of the bigger nets off Rousay, and it was very dark, very overgrown, and I could see some weird shapes lying in the dead man's sock as I descended.
There were a few more dead fish than usual, maybe a hundred or so, but underneath them were lying three dead seals. Big ones. It was hard to make out because they were covered in fish, but one of the seals had a big chunk of it missing.
That's when I looked up and saw a four-foot tear on the side of the net.
Screw that. I was only a noobie at this point. I told the supervisor, who said get out straight away.
They sent one of the more experienced lads in after me, and he fixed the hole sharply and then rigged the seals to be lifted out.
It turns out that the Orca attacked the seals and somehow got through the net in a panic. Orca are quite common up in Orkney and are the only animal we were told you HAD to get out of the water for if seen.
Only one of the seals had a bite mark. The other two got caught in the net. It's not supernatural or anything, but I remember a significant shiver running down my spine that day.
ThePowerfulHorse
9. Strange Loud Noise
I'm a commercial diver and was once on a job cleaning a potable water reservoir. I'd been in other reservoirs before, but this was by far the biggest, at 40x80 meters.
To get in, you had to open a hatch in the ground (the whole reservoir was underground) and climb down a ladder. The hatch was in a corner, so when you were in the far corner of the reservoir, it was completely pitch black, and you just had to hope your light didn't go out.
I was about halfway through a three-hour dive when the batteries in my torch started going flat. I watched the beam get narrower and dimmer until it cut out completely.
It's not a huge problem if you lose light, as you can just follow your umbilical back to the hatch. Just as I started walking back, some obnoxiously loud banging started somewhere in the reservoir.
I was the only diver in there, so it both confused and scared the shat out of me. Needless to say, I ran back to the hatch as fast as I could. I got my torch changed out and did another hour in the water, but I didn't hear the noise again.
I still have no idea what it was, but the combination of my torch going out and loud banging coming from somewhere gave me a hell of a fright.
Digestivesrule
10. Dad Encounters
This isn’t my story but my dad's. So when he was in grad school, he did some field studies classes, some of which involved diving in Monterey Bay.
One day, he was diving, counting something off of the Santa Cruz Pier, and he found a shopping cart with bricks and cinder blocks and a chain attached to the handle.
He naturally followed the chain and found a barefoot wrapped in the chain. He assumes something probably ate the rest of the body, and his friends had seen similar things, too.
Also, not mine but my dad's friend. He says he was on a shelf counting mussels when he felt something tap his tank. He looked around but didn’t see anything.
He figured it was a seal cause they like to play. When he was nudged again, he saw that it was a great white shark. He says he thought to himself, “If it gets me, it gets me, I can’t outswim it.” Now, I don’t know if he was actually that chill. I sure wouldn’t be, but that’s how he tells it.
taeamu
11. Patient Bed
Super small lake that's not very deep, but the bottom was hella thick with vegetation.
The water was "dark," so you couldn't see your hands in front of you for more than 5 inches under the surface. There was a small clubhouse, an open pavilion, and a playground all on the property.
When doing lifeguard work in the water during a swim test, my sunglasses fell off my head. I dove down to find them, and kid you not - I found a sunken, entangled hospital gurney at the bottom of the lake.
It took a few people to untangle it, but how the eff it got there was beyond me. Clearly, it had been under the water for years.
[deleted]
12. Locked Chamber
I’ve done a number of dives, and the strangest thing I ever saw was a large deep freezer with a heavy industrial chain wrapped around multiple times with about five cinder blocks attached.
It was very, very rusted, and the deep freezer itself had to have been 30+ years old, probably more.
This was about 90 feet deep, just off Vancouver Island, Canada.
The situation gave me and the other divers the newbie jeebies. I logged the GPS and depth coordinates and notified the police. We were able to find out what was inside since one of the divers had friends with local police. 10 porcelain dolls.
count_dynamo
13. Stored Underneath
I was on a camping trip with my youth camp and was swimming near an island in a lake in Ontario. The water was a fair murky; however, you could barely see the bottom.
However, when I swam, I swore to god, satan, and Cuthulu, and back, I saw a large stone box, a coffin, or a casket.
I was wearing goggles, and as I looked closer, I swear again I saw a skeletal hand.
However, when I told the councilors, they looked but didn't believe me or mention it again and shut me up every time it looked like I was gonna talk about it. It is still there, I think, and I remember how to get to it.
blubberfeet
14. Wave Danger
When I used to surf, I spent a good deal of time underwater - whether intentionally or not. One day, I went out on a surf that was absolutely massive (for me). It was 10-foot solid all day.
Bigger sets. Serious stuff. And it was a very dark, overcast Winter's day. And raining. You couldn't see anything above the water, let alone below.
At this place, the bigger it gets, the further out on the rock shelf it breaks. So I was at least 200 m from shore when, out of the gloom, towered an absolutely massive set.
Enormous. As big as I'd ever encountered. There were only a handful of other blokes out there. The wave was mine. At this point, I wasn't scared at all. No, I wanted to get the biggest wave of my life. So I tried. I got onto it, but I just messed up the position of my feet ever so slightly.
No chance of pulling out, so I tried to go with it. And that is when it happened. The scariest freaking water-based experience I ever had.
I fell off, and this thing just took me to town. It lifted me all the way up and over the falls - I thought I was OK, but no, it was just beginning.
It just kept pushing me down. Further and further. My ears hurt (badly), and it was completely dark and cold (even in a wetsuit) - I came to rest on what seemed to be a very large, smooth rock (I could feel it with my fingers whilst I was pinned firmly to it).
I was held there for what seemed like an eternity. Maybe 10 seconds. But then I could sense with my feet a ferocious current that seemed to stop at the edge of the rock - it was trying to pull me over the ledge and DOWN. I could hear it. At this point, I was panicking. Seriously.
I can't quite remember how I escaped. I have rarely been that scared in all my life. I made it to the surface. I really thought I was going to pass out.
I can't remember much more, but I must have paddled in so fast other people noticed. They came to see what was the matter. I just sat on the beach. I could not even talk. I'm getting the heebie-jeebies even reading my own recollection.
Trinkelfat
15. Drowning Savior
Southern California. I picked up surfing, and I sucked at it. I would basically play in 3-5 ft swells and pretend I was pretty decent. I had never seen bigger waves than 5ft in real life.
One weekend, there was a huge swell coming in all weekend. 9-14ft at 12 seconds or so. My friend and I went out there with the intention of having a great time.
We didn't realize that the waves we were currently looking at were not set waves, or even “god set,” as we called the biggest sets on a day that would roll through. We made it past the first break just in time to get caught in the main break.
All I could do was get off my 10ft board (I'm 6’ 1”) and dive to the length of my 10ft leash. I'm surprised the leash never snapped. I don’t know just how long I was caught in the break out there, but I was running out of breath.
After diving down for 10 seconds at a time every 10-15 seconds, it started to really take a toll on me. On top of the adrenaline and my 5 seconds at most of the breathing time, before another monster tried to axe me, I started to get scared.
I dove down to keep from getting rag-dolled by another wave, and while under, the thought crossed my mind, “I might drown.” And that is the thought that potentially saved my life.
I got a huge surge of energy and said, “Screw that.” I made it back to the surface and paddled in so hard. Now, the only reason I didn’t make it to shore sooner is because of the timing of these waves and how big they are.
I was drained, and after each wave, the water rushing back out to sea made it so hard to get out of the break zone. I was in the Marines at the time and in great cardiovascular shape.
Had I been in the shape I am today, I don’t think I would have made it. Also, I did the beach sit as soon as I got back to shore. Completely drained.
NonviableCody
16. Terrifying First Time
Well, this was my first time diving in Australia and my first time diving with sharks. Like, I’m starting to face my fear and exploring new things.
Anyway, we start descending, and the guide is at the front of the group, looking for the sharks.
I'm at the back of the group.
Suddenly, I turn my head left, and there's this 6-foot shark about a foot or two from my face. He just swam peacefully past the group. It was a bit creepy but lots of fun.
Sonic_Pavilion
17. Haunted Sea
I used to do a lot of night dives hunting for lobster off the coast of California. We’d start at 9 or 10 at night, so everything was obviously pitch black besides where we were pointing our lights.
Every so often, I’d get this unshakable feeling that something big was watching or following me.
Sometimes, I could quiet that part of my brain and continue with the dive.
Other times, I couldn’t shake the feeling and would end the dive after a few minutes. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but I guess I’d compare it to being in a haunted house 50 feet underwater in complete darkness.
Erkjoh
18. Shining Danger
One time, I was swimming close to the shore in Palm Beach, FL, and wore my watch. The water is crystal clear down there. I've been in the water for a good hour and start to bob around underwater, looking for shells.
As I'm scanning about, I notice a growing gray dot a short ways out. At about 30 yards, I'm like, "Is that a barracuda? Is it coming straight at me?"
It looks pretty big for one, but even big ones are too small to really see me as food. At about 10 yards away, my concerned curiosity turned to a flash of panic, and some subconscious part of me went, "Shiny stuff! Your watch is stupid!!"
I threw my hand over it. Instantly, the barracuda turned 90° to the south and disappeared. It was a good 5 feet long at least - it wouldn't have ended me, but I would have bled like hell and maybe needed surgery.
Those teeth are like long, curved nails. Luckily, someone had brought up barracudas and shiny stuff at a kayak camp I attended a couple of years earlier. That would have sucked. I was 15 and just loved my first "masculine, adult" watch, lol. Wore it everywhere.
UrethraFrankIin
19. Leading Near Death
I led a group night dive once when I was sort of new as a Divemaster. The visibility was awful that night, with lots of suspended sand due to recent storms.
I trusted my navigational skills with a compass, but when it was time to head back toward the boat, I couldn’t see any of the underwater features I normally used as a reference.
God forbid I damage my ego by popping up to the surface to look for the boat. We had about 15 minutes left in the dive, and a big barracuda came out of the darkness.
It just stopped to look at me, then turned around and started slowly swimming away. I followed it with my group in tow, and it led us straight to the boat.
allendstpsc
20. Deadly Companion
Not me but my godfather. He was crayfish diving in the Northern Territory ( top of Australia ). Now, you have to be really focused when looking for crayfish.
You wanna see their little antenna sticking up so he isn’t looking around, just in his zone. He gets smashed in his leg and pushed forward in the water and let go.
He says he turned around, and a massive saltwater crocodile was looking at him through the bubbles. So he used his spear gun to prod it away, not wanting to shoot it and lose his only real weapon.
The croc left him alone, and he hightailed it out. Normally, when a croc bites down, it doesn’t let go and just death-rolls you to oblivion. But he had his diving knife strapped to his Ankle. Reckons thinks it’s his lucky knife that saved his life.
im_a_dinosauurr
21. Water Bones
There's a lake in France that has a really dark point, meaning it's pretty deep (I think it's about 25m or 30m). So I went there with a friend because we used to mess up about this special point, saying there were weird creatures like a Kraken or something.
Whatever. We were exploring this place with big torchlights, and there were a lot of things there, mainly Iron Age-related sites and old buildings, which is pretty cool.
The lake is known for the number of old pirogues that sank there, but you gotta know that we didn't know all of them when we explored it.
Anyway, at that moment, I see a dark pile of something in the distance, and I approach, and it's a pile of human remains, maybe 5 or 6 total skeletons. So we were really creeped out, but we continued thinking about it for quite some time afterward.
AmadeusSkada
22. Self Defense
I remember one of my dad's old laborers told me when I was a kid that he used to go diving for old glass bottles at the bottom of the Sydney Harbour.
Apparently, people would throw them over the edge of the boat at boat parties in the olden days. They were often imperfectly shaped and worth a lot of money.
He said it was quite dark at the bottom of the harbor, and he often relied on feeling the bottles to get a sense of their shape. If they felt anything different from a modern beer bottle, he'd put it in his bag.
One day, he said he felt something nudge his side while he was picking up bottles, but the water was too dark and murky, so he couldn't make out what it was.
A second later, his torso was bitten into and most likely in the mouth of a shark. He pulled a small knife out that he had strapped to his leg and used it to stab the shark in the nose.
He swam straight back up, rushing with adrenaline, but didn't decompress on his way up and passed out soon after he got back to the surface.
Luckily, someone saw him floating, and he was taken to a hospital. Apparently, the bite wasn't too serious, but he did have to spend two weeks in a decompression chamber.
xflem1
23. The Missing Diver
I was on a wreck dive off Oahu down about 90 feet with an ex-girlfriend and the owner of a local dive shop. The ex and I are experienced divers, and we were all just messing around, checking out the wreck and the turtles nearby.
There was a group that was on the wreck, but they had left as we descended, so it was just us three. About halfway into the dive, another person shows up alone.
He got the attention of the dive shop owner. After furious scribbling on slates, the shop owner came over to us and wrote, “You both stay down and finish your dive. I’m taking him up,” He then turned to the other dude and gave the guy his octopus regulator to breathe from.
We didn’t know what was happening, so we had a lovely dive, got some good pictures, and ascended like normal. When we got back on the boat, we heard the story.
That other guy was from a different boat and had been diving at a totally different dive site. He somehow got separated and lost and drifted about a mile away from where he went. There was nothing else around in the direction he was going except Tahiti, which was a few thousand miles away.
The worst part is that the other guy's boat didn’t even realize he was gone and left without him. I don't know what would have happened if that guy hadn’t floated past our wreck.
The current pushes you away from the land where we were, and since the boat didn't even know he was lost, he would have been floating out for a long time before someone realized they had a missing diver.
Anjin
24. Gone Too Soon
One of my first dives was in crap show conditions. There was a strong current and so much sand/debris everywhere that visibility was at about 12 inches.
For some reason, the dive master was like, "It'll be fine once we get below 40 feet." We started descending on a guide wire, and after getting to about 55 feet, my brother and I (who were dive partners) could not see anyone else in the group.
We waited at the bottom of the wire for 10 minutes, and after no one showed up, we started to think that the rest of the group would be waiting on the surface.
We came up, and one guy from our group was at the buoy looking confused, and the boat was gone. Turns out there were so many problems that the boat was driven away so that the waves wouldn't throw it on top of us, but there were such large swells that the boat couldn't relocate us.
We floated for about an hour before finally getting the boat's attention and being picked up. By far, it is the worst motion sickness/ dehydration I've ever experienced.
DankHolland
25. Zero Visibility
My first dive ever. My goggles strap snapped off the rental gear, and they floated away. I wasn't scared, really, but I was 50 feet underwater without vision.
I just kept knocking on my tank, which made a specific noise in the water, signaling my dive group.
Eventually, my goggles were handed to me, and we carried on our way with the dive.
I can see how it would be easy to freak out, but I just trusted my group and my training, and their response time didn't take more than 15-20 seconds.
[deleted]
26. No Air
I had a dive buddy go OOA (out of air) on me at a wreck in St. Lawrence. Thankfully, this was a no-deco dive in < 100' of water.
We weren't actually inside the wreck, but the part that made it particularly challenging was that the wreck was right in the middle of the shipping lane (where really large freighters travel), with a really high current, so we couldn't just make an easy ascent to the surface.
We had to navigate along a series of lines (a pretty thick rope tied off on some good anchor points) that had been laid out to give divers something to hang on to so they could pull themselves against the current on the path to the wreck, and stabilize themselves during the swim back to the anchor line.
We made our exit, and everything went fine. He was on my long 7' hose out in front. I had a hand on his knee, so we kept in good contact.
I let go of his knee for one moment to deal with some gear. In that split second, he came off the line and got caught in the current, ripping my regulator out of his mouth.
I saw him manage to grab hold of another of the lines downstream.
He was hanging on for dear life, completely inverted, in a shipping lane, with no regulator in his mouth and no gas in his tank, flapping in the current like a flag in the wind.
I bolted towards him as quickly as possible while maintaining my safety. I gathered up the 7' of abandoned hose and regulator along the way.
I caught up to him and managed to get the regulator back into his mouth, but since he was inverted, it went in upside down and, as a result, didn't breathe like it should. He fixed that himself but slipped off the line he was holding onto in the process.
I managed to get a hold of him, but not without letting go of the line myself, so I ended up hooking both of my feet around the line to keep us both in place. Somehow, I managed to pull us both back down to where we could grab hold of the line.
At this point, another diver in our group saw what was going on and assisted. From there, we were able to get back to the boat without any further incident.
doofthemighty
27. New Ear Wax
Doing my PADI open water in Australia about 10-15 years ago, and aside from all the hilarious brushes with jellyfish and Aussies and, even worse, other Brits, I had a good dive that was just beautiful.
It was warm, clear water, good dive buddies, calm seas, and loads of fish - just what you hope for, except that I'm having trouble equalizing.
It's not awful, just a bit distracting, so I will carry on. Eventually, we head back up, and the pain starts to increase - still not debilitating or anything, just that I'm becoming more aware of it.
Back on the boat, and it's still there, so I talk to the dive master, and he just waves it off. I stick my finger in my ear and can almost feel something in there - he says it's a bubble of water and not to worry.
Ok, grand. Except it doesn't feel liquidy. It feels... Solidly... And it hurts. A lot, now. I keep trying and failing to not stick my fingers in there, but each failure still yields no results until suddenly I feel a scraping as I withdraw my pinkie.
There, sat on my finger as happy as a clam is a tiny bastard crab. I look at him, he looks at me. I look at the other divers. They look sick.
I look at the crab, and I swear to god he gave me a 'cheerio!' type wave and just scuttled off my finger and onto the deck before disappearing behind some kit.
I spent the next little forever convincing myself it didn't lay eggs or leave a few mates behind (he didn't, by the way!) And generally, wondering why we have stupid crab holes built into our stupid heads.
slipperyid
28. The Long Follower
I was coming up from a dive in Indonesia and didn't realize a sea snake was coming up for air at the same time until I surfaced.
Everyone on the boat just started yelling SNAKE. I kept my distance, and it went back down, but it freaked me out how close it was.
If they hadn't warned me, I might have run into it. Did a second dive and saw the bugger again, he kept following me for a bit, and that freaked me out.
apricotprincess
29. Unfamiliar Equipment and Companion
I ran out of air. I was using rented equipment. Normally, I'd be using my own, so I was slightly unfamiliar with what I was using. I wore a wet suit I didn't need and did not have quite enough weight to get down to the bottom as quick as I should.
I had to fight my buoyancy until my suit compressed enough to allow me to sink. Because of that fight, I used a lot more air than the guy I was buddied with (I was the odd man on a charter with many United Airlines mechanics that were missing a man), whom I'd never dived with before.
I signaled to him that I was low on air and heading toward the surface. At that point, he was supposed to end his dive and join me on my trip up.
Instead, he swam off. I went to follow him, and shortly after, I experienced a harder time drawing a breath, knowing it was time to go. When he later surfaced after I threatened his life, we had a very serious talk about our hand signals.
Leatherneck55
30. Holding On For Dear Life
I was 30 meters below the surface in a small shipwreck. At one point, my tank softly hit the ceiling, and my jacket kept inflating, which meant I was quickly going back up to the surface, which was really dangerous.
I noticed something was wrong when I couldn't deflate the jacket. I had to quickly swim down with all my might to reach fellow divers, but it was really difficult.
Of course, this results in the consumption of more oxygen. I had to stop the airflow from the tank to my jacket, and then I was able to deflate it. I had to inflate it manually for the rest of the dive.
I also once went diving with a group of beginners, and there was a lot of underwater current at one point. Eventually, someone got sick and was going to throw up.
He was about to remove his mask to puke, but the instructor quickly swam towards him and stuck her hand on his mask. The guy had to puke in his regulator. Oh, and some other guy found a moray eel and pointed at it. He got bit.
ayzee93
31. No Guidance
When I was getting certified, my dive master told me my terrible seasickness (which I had never experienced before) would go away once I got in the water.
They never told me what to do if I still felt sick. So, of course, I threw up at the bottom (no idea how deep, but not too far down) and did it out of my regulator.
Then, I choked on the water in my regulator. I ended up being left behind a bit and having to catch up while choking and ultimately surfacing too fast.
turtlesrkool
32. Danger Is Waving
I was drifting about 110' down off the shelf in Cozumel; my partner and I didn't realize our depth (a stupid mistake, I know).
We had to take two safety stops with only 300 psi remaining in the tank. We had a can of "spare air" (good for about 45 breaths).
There were two safety stops, and I felt the air in my tank getting easier and easier to pull (not good). Made it to the surface with less than 100psi. Didn't get nitrogen sickness. Whew. Was intense.
[deleted]
33. Communication Issues
I was in Belize for a multi-day diving trip with a girlfriend. This was her first dive trip after getting open water certified. We dove the blue hole and a few other spots, and because of the depth and number of dives, we had to do a decompression stop for 5-10 minutes or so at the end of this last dive.
During that last dive, my girlfriend struggled with water getting in her mask and started to panic. We were between 45 and 60 feet down.
I could see she was freaking out and pointing to her mask and slowly going toward the surface. I was trying to make signs to her that she had to stay down and not go to the surface, but it was tough to communicate that.
At around 15 feet, I had to physically grab her and start pulling her down. She had a little air in her BCD, which wasn't helping. I cleared any air from her BCD and just started pulling her down. It was really so scary.
No one wants the bends. When we finally got on the boat, she thought I was just mad at her for not swimming with the rest of the group, thinking I didn't understand she was having mask issues and didn't realize what I was trying to tell her.
ghostsolid
34. Tangled Underwater
After a day of boat diving in Monterey Bay on the California coast, we had a night dive planned. I was there with two friends celebrating my birthday, and we were part of a larger group of divers on a chartered boat.
My friends were too tired for the night dive, and I really was too, but I was invited to buddy with another diver whose friends also decided to stay on the boat.
Being tired and night diving in a kelp forest with an unfamiliar diving buddy is not a combination I would recommend. So, I'm following my new buddy through the kelp when some of it catches on my tank.
I tried to pull clear but managed to get tangled even more, to the point that I was unable to move. I kept shining my light around, looking for my buddy, but he was nowhere to be seen.
After what seemed like an hour, but was probably just a few minutes, I felt some of the kelp loosen up and then saw that my buddy was cutting it off with his knife. I was so exhausted after struggling that when we got to the surface, he had to tow me back to the boat.
duct_tape_jedi
35. Shark Bite
I did one of those shark diving experiences in the Bahamas, where you sit on the bottom of the open ocean with a group of other divers in a semi-circle.
A man in a chain metal suit feeds sharks and dead fish. No cage. Well, you're instructed not to move and to keep your hands close to your body so a shark doesn't mistake it for food.
The airline from my tank on my back to my regulator was exceptionally long and stuck way above my head in a big loop.
One of the sharks somehow managed to get stuck in it because I felt my line being pulled hard and this large animal struggling on my back.
I bit down on my regulator as hard as I could with the fear of it being ripped out of my mouth and not being able to retrieve it. Luckily, after 10 terrifying seconds, the shark got unstuck.
I thought for sure I was about to either have my head bit open or have my line ripped out of my mouth. Easily the most terrifying experience of my life.
xthefletcher3
36. Pretty Fish
I was about 10, and my dad and I went on a snorkeling boat tour. We finished the first stop and headed out to the second. Yay!
So, when I was 10 years old, I jumped in the water, and now, after 20 minutes in the water before making myself a pro, I started to swim a bit away from my dad and the group. I was following this really pretty rainbow fish.
Next thing I know, this shark comes out of nowhere and eats the fish. I flipped the hell out. I turned around as quickly as possible to get the boat while getting yelled at for splashing around.
I was still shaken up when I got back to the boat. I grabbed my towel, a snack, and a soda and hid on the boat. My dad got back to the boat.
I just told him I was tired and didn't want to snorkel anymore. My dad was confused because I went from the happiest kid to dead silent.
Later on, my dad heard some guy say, "Hey! Anyone check out that hammerhead?" My dad put two and two together. He asked me if I had seen the shark, and I told him he had attacked the rainbow fish. Me: Traumatized Him: Hysterical laughter.
lurlina
37. Too Deep
On my first night dive, we were diving on a rock called sunken rock, which is a column of rock that reaches about 110' at its deepest.
We weren't supposed to go below 60,' but I was engrossed in the beautiful reef colors and realized I was at 100ft and my dive partner had disappeared (around the rock).
I freaked out for a few minutes, thinking I couldn't find the rest of our group. Then, I saw the lights and found my partner. Luckily, I had only spent a minute or so at that depth, but those few minutes of panic were awful.
Biddee
38. Something’s Wrong
I was freaked out at the time. We were on our last dive to get certified. We had to do certain tasks while underwater. One was to remove your mask, put it back on, and clear the water out.
When it was my turn, I quickly pulled my mask up, put it back on my face, and cleared it. Well, the damn thing would not stop leaking.
Me and my partner were swimming around looking at cool crap, but I was freaking out because something was wrong with my mask 60ft below the surface. I'm getting more and more stressed out, so I'm sucking more oxygen.
I started running out of air, so my partner and I surfaced. On the boat, I realized that when I pulled the mask up and back down, my ponytail got wrapped around the strap on the back, preventing me from getting a seal on my mask.
I kept apologizing to my partner because I had cut his last dive short. It was not as crazy as being face-to-face with a shark, but I was freaked out at the time.
chartito
39. Careless Driver
This happened to my friend. Let’s call him Carl. He is a young commercial diver (19) and works with his dad and one other guy on a gooey duck boat. This was his first season actually diving and extracting the gooey ducks.
While he was down there, someone came up to his boat in a speed boat.
The driver of the speed boat paid no attention to Carl’s airlines and whatnot going down to his suit, so he was about 50 feet down.
The boat engine sucked his lines up into it, pulling Carl from 50ft to about 8ft in 2 seconds. He was scared, to say the least. Survived didn't get the bends. Going out to do it again come September.
esmealexander
40. Too Much Exploring
Deciding to enter the hold of a sunken fishing boat despite my dive partner not wanting to. I had a quick look around, then headed back out and suddenly realized I was finning but not moving.
It turns out a line had gone between my first stage (the top of my air cylinder for non-divers) and the back of my head. So I'm inside a wreck and can't move.
In a split second of panic, I took a deep breath and slowly figured out that if I moved backward, I could free myself. Still, for that split second, I wondered if my desire to explore was going to end in me being stuck underwater with my air running out.
Never went anywhere underwater without my buddy again (I got free fairly easily, but a dive buddy would have solved it in seconds).
GM7RQK
41. Facing Fear
We were in Egypt for a week-long holiday, doing 3 dives a day on average. On the very last day, we're about 30 meters deep in a coral formation.
To get out of the formation, you had to go through a tunnel that went down to a clearing. I'm slightly claustrophobic, so I already wasn't completely relaxed, and my ears were clogged up from all the diving we did, so equalizing didn't go as smoothly as I wanted to.
Halfway through the tunnel, I couldn't clear anymore. My ears really started to hurt, a really sharp stinging pain. And I started to panic.
I couldn't go back up because there were divers behind me, but I still had to go down several meters before I was out. I don't think I've ever swam so fast to get out of that tunnel.
My buddy had to help me surface because I was crying so hard. And that was the day I decided that caves and wrecks would never be my thing underwater. As an aside, having to clear your mask because your tears are filling it up is a really weird sensation.
tezzmaniandvil
42. Completely Breathless
On my very first dive with my instructor (the one you have to complete to get certified), my regulator malfunctioned at 65 feet. I didn't panic, as my instructor had an octopus that I could use.
After using the correct signals to explain what was happening, he (seemingly) slowly got his octopus in hand and gave it to me.
I tried to breathe using it, but no luck - it wasn't working. So we had already been sitting there for over 30 seconds. I was getting low on air and about to panic when my instructor grabbed me and started a controlled ascent.
He was giving me his regulator so I could breathe (and then use buddy breathing). This is all no big deal now, but on my first dive - 2 failed pieces of breathing gear? I was scared.
It turns out my regulator had gotten sand in it and was stuck in the open position, blasting all my air out but not usable. I've been caught face-to-face with a big bull shark, but even that isn't as scary as not being able to breathe.
undefined_one
43. Discovered Body
Two of my coworkers were diving a wreck off Rhode Island. The experienced diver went one way, the novice another. They were having fun.
The new guy spotted a fishing net snagged on the wreck in murky waters. He also found a fisherman in the net who had been missing for months.
He rushed back to the experienced guy and explained his find using facial expressions and hand signals. Finally, they tied a line to the body before returning to their dive boat to contact (and wait for) the Coast Guard.
Roundaboutsix
44. Muddy Encounter
I am not a diver, but I work with dive support vessels that conduct commercial deep diving operations on oil and gas platforms.
We had a team of 3 divers down in the bell at 320m for their 6-hour shift to install some new equipment and inspect existing assets.
One diver became separated from the team, but it was no big deal. The dive supervisor on the surface attempted to guide him back and keep the diver calm, working in mud so deep the divers were more in mud than water.
After failing to follow his umbilical back to the bell and his team multiple times, he was becoming quite distressed. The dive supervisor did an excellent job of keeping him somewhat calm.
This went on for 4 and a half hours. He was lost on the seabed with 320m of water over his head, wandering aimlessly in mud over his head.
He survived, but the entire crew on our ship was glued to the monitors, listening and watching the whole thing unfold. It was terrifying.
Sunkendrailor
45. Stingy Dive
Nearly all of my dives have been excellent, with only a few moments being scary. (Like having a ten-foot nurse shark approach from behind and swim next to you.)
However, during one dive, something happened that wasn't really scary in the way you might be thinking, but it was pretty bad for me.
To put it short and bluntly, A moon jelly got stuck in my swim trunks. Its stingers were in contact with my upper thigh for nearly a minute.
Probably less than that. It just felt like a long time. It was terrifying, coming up from an excellent night dive, only to feel a certain something float up into my swim trunks and continuously sting my leg.
Seeing all the OTHER moon jellies hovering in the water after the thing was no fun either. Nor was getting back to the boat when I could barely move my leg.
I had really bad marks for almost a week, and even walking was difficult. Thankfully, though, moon jellies are pretty harmless.
Usually, you brush up against them; it feels like a bee sting, and you go on your way. This just felt like a really bad bee sting for an extended period of time that was dangerously close to my family jewels.
Pohatu_