If the recent Maldives diving tragedy has taught us anything, it’s that the ocean can be a dangerous and unpredictable place. Five highly trained divers lost their lives in May, after an underwater expedition went horribly wrong. Their bodies were eventually recovered from a cave, days after they failed to resurface. But not before a sixth person – a navy diver tasked with finding them – suffered the same fate.

The world watched in horror as the drama unfolded… It was a stark reminder that even the most skilled divers aren’t immune to unexpected disasters. People have been sharing their own diving nightmares in a series of online threads. Bored Panda has put together a list of the scariest ones. From underwater explosions, earthquakes, running out of oxygen, and encountering giant sea creatures, many of these tales might leave you with Thalassophobia – a fear of deep water.

#1

I am a blackwater diver. At night, we motor about five miles offshore and drift for roughly two hours to observe the animals that migrate toward the surface after dark. In my region, this usually happens over water that is 600 to 900 feet deep. We see all kinds of unusual things, and anyone who dives blackwater regularly has at least one moment when their body reacts before their brain does. It is that sudden drop in the stomach, the adrenaline surge, and the instinctive realization that something demands your full attention. Here are two of mine.

1. Broadbill swordfish

Broadbill swordfish (Xiphias gladius) sit at the very top of the food chain for these vertical migrators. Many of them live their entire lives without ever seeing the sun, and their eyes are extraordinarily sensitive, like extreme versions of a cat’s eyes. When one moves through a group of divers, our 10,000 to 30,000 lumen lights become the brightest things it has ever encountered. The light reflects straight back out of their eyes as a vivid green beam a few inches thick. You can watch that beam flick from diver to diver, like the eye of sauron, scanning the group in a way that immediately triggers your monkey brain to “DO SOMETHING”.

These are also one of the very few fish known to charge or attack divers. Being approached by even a “small” seven-foot swordfish is deeply unsettling. We have had a diver impaled by one, and it took five months of rehabilitation before he was able to return to the water. Knowing that history changes how your body reacts when those green beams appear in the dark.

2. The black cone

On another dive, I was around 85 feet photographing a diamond squid when I noticed something below me at roughly 130 feet. It looked like a massive, perfectly smooth black cone. At first I thought it might be some kind of egg mass, but it was far too uniform. Then it registered just how large it was. I could only see the first 15 feet or so, and it continued downward into complete darkness.

The sense of dread that washed through me, starting at the back of my neck and moving through my body, is something I will never forget. I felt completely frozen, my mind was racing with “WHAT the F**K is THAT”. Thankfully, my training kicked in, and almost subconsciously, I made a controlled ascent back to around 40 feet to regroup with the rest of the divers until I calmed down. When I asked if anyone else had seen it, the response was a casual, “Yeah, that thing was huge.”

The best explanation we could come up with was that it might have been a large sheet of industrial black plastic drifting vertically in the water column. Or maybe that is just the version of the story I tell myself.

Theres other cool less terror-inducing stories like realizing the floor was moving, but how could that be, we’re over 640ft…. until we realized it was a horizon to horizon school of football size bonita, a river of fish uniformly at the same depth, slightly undulating.

© Photo: Sharkhottub

#2

When using cutting tools underwater, a lot of hydrogen gas is produced. If you don’t adequately ventilate the area behind what you are cutting, hydrogen gas can build up and be ignited by the cutting torch. The result is an explosion funneled through the hole being cut, and in the case I witnessed, blasting clear through the divers face plate.

© Photo: Shavings_in_the_RIO

#3

This is the scariest thing but was also so much fun.

I was going through a wreck and I turned a corner into a fairly open room and there was the biggest Goliath grouper I’ve ever seen just sitting in this room a few feet from me. Scared the soul out of me for a few seconds because I had never seen one on this island. He made a hilarious omg face as well and swam out the door.

© Photo: NecessaryCockroach85

#4

Maybe not “terrifying,” but a Titan triggerfish protecting its nest during their nesting season is *not* something you ever want to be near.

© Photo: aheaney15

#5

My instructor almost ended himself and me with him in the process.

Was broke, so I went dive centre shopping to find the cheapest one. First mistake.

I find a place and they decide to take me. It’s just me and the instructor diving. We get in the water and start swimming toward the Blue Hole. It’s not far, and I’d done it before.

Did I mention the instructor is new?

We get close to the entrance of the hole, but it’s at around 7 metres and we’re too deep so we miss it. We keep swimming. I know we missed it, but I follow my instructor. We’re just swimming nonstop at this point, him in front, me behind, trying to make the most of this failed Blue Hole dive.

Oxygen is running out.

He asks how much I have left and I give him the hand signal each time. When I signal 70 bars, he reacts like he’s surprised, panics, swims faster, then at 40 bars he hands me his octopus. We do a safety stop and ascend.

I look out of the water and we’re by the “Abu Gallum Protected Site” sign. That’s at least 300 metres away from the Blue Hole.

Now we need to get to shore. We are forced to walk on the rock and coral because there’s nowhere else to go, and he doesn’t want anyone else witnessing his mess up. Which he managed to do being a quarter km from the dive site.

We still have all our gear on. Waves are crashing against the rocks and us. I keep my centre of gravity low, always trying to find grip. Him? Not so much. Walking normally, wobbling here and there, trying to rush.

Then I see the wave.

It’s huge.

It hits him and he disappears into the foam. Gets tossed around for a bit, then somehow manages to get out of it.

When we finally make it back to shore, I look at him, and he looks like he just walked out of a crime scene where he was the victim 

That was the last time I cheaped out on diving.

© Photo: pomacanthus_asfur

#6

About ten years ago, I was diving using rented equipment because my own pressure gauge was faulty due to salt buildup. Unfortunately, the rented gauge was also inaccurate—the zero mark was offset to 10. When it showed 15, I believed I still had sufficient air and began my ascent for safety stop.

During the safety stop, the gauge dropped to 10 and suddenly delivered no air. I tried breathing again but got nothing. I looked toward my buddy, who was about 2–3 meters below me and facing another direction. When I looked up, I could see sunlight above, so I made an emergency ascent, exhaling continuously and pushing all the remaining air out. I reached the surface safely.

That incident ended my diving hobby forever. Now, after nearly ten years, I’m planning to return to diving—this time with reliable personal gear, better fitness, refreshed training, and most importantly, a small secondary cylinder as a backup for added safety.

© Photo: iAyoobS

#7

Pulled a body in 2 years ago not overly concerning. It was having to listen to his wife and kid screaming at him to not go, and that they still needed him.

© Photo: Divers_down13

#8

Lack of fish life.

© Photo: 8008s4life

#9

On a dive in Fort Lauderdale, DM had a leaky o-ring and was completely out of air by the time we hit 65 feet. Somehow no one, not even him, noticed the steady bubbles streaming up from behind him as he descended. He turned to me when we hit bottom, and I could tell he was distressed, and he gave me the “no air” hand signal. I immediately swam over and gave him my secondary reg, then escorted him back slowly to the surface. It was my first blue water dive, and I was the only other diver who happened to be within 15 ft of him. Could have been a lot worse.

© Photo: disgracedcosmonaut1

#10

Dying reefs in the Florida Keys.

© Photo: BadAtExisting

#11

I saw my buddy on his 100th dive. He was naked.

© Photo: falco_iii

#12

I was guiding a dive in Australia and a kid in my group was digging around in the sand and he pulls up a cone snail.

If you aren’t familiar with cone snails they are also known as “cigarette snails” because if they sting you, you have just enough time to smoke a cigarette before it ends you

I immediately slapped out of his hand and was mentally preparing to haul a passing kid to the surface.

Luckily it was just the empty shell, but for a brief moment, my heart rate went through the roof.

© Photo: pedrovic

#13

Diving with a father and daughter, rec boat dive, the 3 of us plus the DM (I was also a customer) Daughter a brand new OW (14 years old) struggling with trim and buoyancy, father bragging about 30 years of experience (also OW only)…

daughter was a sweetheart, attentive to the DM, enthusiastic, listening to and applying instruction and advice.

father was clueless. we were swimming along the edge of a wall @ ~60 ft that drops to over 1000… guy gets ahead of the DM and starts swimming gradually further down, DM calls the turn, bangs like hell on the tank, dad doesn’t register, DM is reluctant to leave the girl to fetch the dad, so I signal that I will get him. ended up swimming as fast as I could for 200 yards and finally catch him at 90′ and he’s headed down down…. perhaps he was narc’d I don’t know.

yanked his fin 3 times before he turned around and looked at me confused. I point, make the turn sign and the up sign and get him going back in the right direction. we got back, everyone’s ok.

not much in the way of things but it could have been bad.

second dive the DM buddied me with the girl and kept a close eye on the dad. I worked with her on buoyancy and trim and spent the dive pointing out all the cool stuff. DM spent the dive with his head on a swivel.

© Photo: wobble-frog

#14

I was on a night dive in Cozumel by the pier, small dive party as it was a bad night and raining but we figured its fine under water so what the hell. Hindsight conditions in a storm can change fast.

after finishing our dive we came up and their is a full storm going on with lightning etc and surge has picked up and our boat is no where to be found and we are getting close to the ferry zone. That was a feeling i will never forget. eventually another boat saw our lights and radioed our boat to come over but that feeling stuck with me.

© Photo: austic

#15

Once in a dive we all went down looking for the ground expecting it to be there at around 40 to 50 ft. We went past 40 or 50 we went all the way down to 120 and there was still no ground. Turns out we had drifted a bit and we were out in the deep blue. We didn’t know this we were all just sitting at 120 ft looking around pointing at each other. I remember looking down and in every direction and just seeing absolutely nothing and it was the most strange experience. Because of my training I just tried to stay calm and tried not to think too hard about what we were looking at. But it was hard not to let your mind spiral into panic despite 100 ft vis, looking out at nothing was peaceful and terrifying in retrospect.

© Photo: mossberbb

#16

Really, REALLY strong down current.

© Photo: IF*CKEVRYTHINGUP

#17

I saw/heard a 5 point something earthquake underwater. I was diving with a group during the big earthquake swarm event in southwest Puerto Rico in early 2020. It was strange, like this rumbling all around, a big crack sound, and then the whole ground kind of jumped, the sand just lifted and dropped, like when a dog or something bumps up under a table. We all looked at each other all scared, but the fish seemed completely unbothered.

© Photo: Ritoki

#18

Was snorkeling off Catalina and saw an older scuba diver clinging to kelp for dear life, eyes bulging and panicked. He and his buddy had taken a sailboat to dive a point, completely obvious to the current that sometimes rips around it. I ditched my weight belt and dove down, pulling him to the surface. Once he surfaced he kept screaming he was going to pass away until I inflated his BC and calmed him down. His buddy had just accepted the current and came to the surface roughly 100 yards away. He kicked up later acting aloof. After I told him to get out and stop diving, they climbed onto their sailboat without any Thank-You’s.

If that was yall two and by chance you’re reading this, you’re welcome 😂.

© Photo: Puzzleheaded_Ad_6998

#19

Unskilled divers.

Had to retrieve one who was sinking fast down the Cayman walk. Caught her around 180 ft.

Topside later she seemed to have no idea how dangerous that was.

© Photo: que_he_hecho

#20

Not really terrifying but i’ll share my weird stories

* in Galapagos a sea lion played with me and then brought me a red lipped bat fish as a gift. I was chilling at about 20 feet for a little decompression and it started swimming around me playing with my bubbles as normal. Then the sea lion dove down the wall and came back a few minutes later with a the batfish in its mouth. The Sea lion swam around me twice in a circle then dropped the fish directly in front of me and swam away. I have all of this in photos. No one on the boat believed me until I showed them.

* I saw a sea turtle full blown body slam my dad, that was funny. We think it was defensive over a female nearby.

© Photo: avboden

#21

On a 30m (90ft) wreck dive in the Red Sea.

One in the dive group didn’t do their due diligence on the boat. Nor did they on the buddy check. We all get in and descend. Get down to the full depth and start exploring the top side. Visibility is good and him and his buddy is at a good distance from each other.

Suddenly he tries to breath but it’s like trying to breath through a brick wall. Nothing. His buddy is busy with the wreck. Too far away. I see him but am too far away since he’s not my buddy. One of the guides get to him fast and he gets the octopus and can breathe again.

When we get back on the boat and do a debrief, it turns out he was sloppy turning his air on. Didn’t do it fully but maybe half way on. So when the air started to go a bit lower, the membrane just shut off the air flow, and despite having more than half a tank left with the air gauge showing that he got nothing.

It was scary for us all, and absolutely terrifying for him and his buddy. Could have been so much worse.

© Photo: miss_Saraswati

#22

Only time I got scared was in Australia’s great barrier reef.

Was admiring some corals at about 20m depth. When I saw this big shadow. I turned around and a tiger shark was like 1m from me; he turned suddenly and swiped me with his tail.

I was still shaking when I got out of the water.

© Photo: ObjectiveResistance

#23

Besides a lifeless bloated purple diver being medevaced in Cozumel, acres of bleached coral and rubble where a thriving ecosystem used to be.

© Photo: Langame_WoW

#24

3 months ago at Truk Lagoon we entered a WW2 wreck at about 80-90 feet, penetrated through a torpedo hole in the hull, then into a corridor and turned left through a pretty tight 2 ft x 3 ft opening into a smallish room that connected with another room.

DM was in the lead. I was in the rear, 5th of 5 in our group. The guy right in front of me was flutter kicking when he should have been frog kicking as we had been instructed. When I got to that tight opening it was completely silted up. All I could see was orange. I couldn’t even see the lights of the divers in front of me.

I tried 3 times to get through that opening but kept bumping my tank valve and 1st stage on the top. I was thinking, “This is how people pass away in the stories in my scuba magazines.” I knew that if I panicked I was done for.

Fortunately there was room for me to turn around and find some daylight back the way we had come in. I retraced my route and exited the wreck into open water then swam in the general direction we were heading, toward the bow, and waited for the group to emerge. They looked surprised to see me waiting there. If I had gotten stuck inside the ship, I’d have been 100% on my own.

I had a word with the diver in front of me when we returned to the Truk Odyssey after the dive.

© Photo: hunkyboy75

#25

I saw a sheep crab eating an octopus alive in Monterey Bay. It wasn’t all that creepy compared to what others have seen but it was sad to see what is basically a cockroach eating something so intelligent.

© Photo: BillNyeForPrez

#26

Was a newbie instructor teaching a deep dive off the coast of a little island called Portmuck off Northern Ireland. We had a line down for the safety stop as the current was going a good clip that day and nothing between us and Scotland.

So we’re a min or so into the safety stop when I notice this black hole midway up the water column. Visibility is awful with the current stirred up, and the other instructor and I are gesturing about what this thing could be while it slowly gets bigger…and bigger. Just a giant black void coming straight for us. Our two students are between us on the line, and we’re not sure whether to go up or down or what because if we let go we’re away with the current and can’t go up yet so kind of just stay there hoping it’s not actually coming AT us. Genuinely thought it was a submarine or something as it was when the Russian subs were making the news.

Heart’s going a mile a minute when this black hole finally gains form in the shape of a massive mouth. It was a basking shark, must’ve been 25ft and blew by so close could’ve reached out and touched it. Thought it was going to swallow us by mistake. Felt like Pinocchio and the whale, but the students loved it.

© Photo: EightLivesDown

#27

Diving with a guy (not my buddy just part of a small group) who just disappeared into the deep—and we were all on air, including him. I was at about 115 feet myself, and the DM was signaling to him not to go deeper. He went anyway. He resurfaced and joined us on the boat.

© Photo: Constant-Visual-5109

#28

My first ever dive was in the UK, doing my Open Water test in March. Everything goes wrong all at once. The drysuit starts leaking 5C water, and as I’m struggling to fix it I knock my mask off and the second stage regulator (the mouthpiece bit) starts free flowing. The free flow causes a drop in pressure in the first stage, which causes the first stage to ice up. Within a few seconds of free flow, the first stage is now a block of ice. I try to swim upwards but the leak has caused my drysuit to accumulate large amounts of freezing water and I can’t feel my legs while my lips have started turning blue.

I got it do most of the Open Water drills in a real life setting though so that was pretty cool. Luckily it was pretty shallow.

© Photo: handsomeboh

#29

Once was diving a site called Bushrangers bay, which is adjacent to a quarry. Wasn’t aware of this at the time. The site is home to a nearly constant presence of Grey Nurse Sharks (aka sand tigers, raggies). Once on a dive there all of a sudden an enormous noise started up randomly. It was shaking every bone in my body and the seabed seemed to be shaking. I immediately thought there had been some sort of earthquake, or even a sonar probe from a military submarine scanning the area. My buddy and I were about to call the dive but we noticed the sharks weren’t freaking out like us, so we stayed. Turns out the noise was just created by quarry blasting. Goes to show how a completely normal action happening kilometres away from you can be turned into something scary due to how sound and vibrations travel underwater.

© Photo: theurbanshark234

#30

What scared me was when tarpons used my light for night hunting.
During a night dive I used a light with a small ray if light. Tarpons like to make use of your light to hunt at night.
I know there are super friendly but also very large and they managed to jumpscare me over and over each time they popped into my lightbeam.

© Photo: Mediocre-Gazelle-400

#31

I was one of the ones in the boat topside for this one. We were hooked to a buoy off a shipwreck in Lake Erie one summer.

There were two of us on the boat, two still under, and all was quiet at the moment so with permission, I borrowed the boat dog and we went for a quick little float around the boat to cool off then popped back on the boat.

During their dive I noticed on the divers go into shore, which was very close by, and look at a sign at one point. And then two divers came back in not too long after.

Turns out the sign the diver had saw said “Watersnake Sanctuary” …. We haven’t been back to that dive site since….

#32

Diving at Wolf Island in the Galapagos 2 years ago in strong current and fair viz. My wife and I both had about 300 dives at that time and are pretty fit for our 60+ years. We were with our group at 50-55 feet, holding onto rocks or barnacles and watching the amazing parade of marine fauna pass in front of us.

My wife and I got to 1000 psi, so we alerted the DM and he pointed us out into the blue where we could find the zodiacs to take us back to the liveaboard. So we swam out a minute or two into the blue with no reference point when I looked at my computer and saw I was now at 75 feet and my wife was a little behind me and 8-10 feet lower and not seeing me trying to signal to her. I knew we were in serious danger. I was thinking this is like the stories I’ve read in scuba magazines.

It took me at least another minute to get her attention and signal her to check her computer. When saw how deep we were, I signaled her to put just a little air in her BC and come to me. We then surfaced slowly but surely, constantly checking our depth. We made our safety stop and surfaced with about 500 psi.

Lesson learned: Keep a constant eye on our depth when we’re in the blue with no reference points to guide us.

Pro tip: Before you go to the Galápagos, go to Carhartt or Wally World and buy a pair of close-fitting metal-reinforced gloves for $10-20. The sharp rocks and barnacles you’ll be hanging onto in the strong currents as you watch the parade of hammerheads at Wolf and Darwin will shred your expensive neoprene “scuba” gloves. People on our boat were envious of us after a few days when their pricey, fancy gloves were ripped and our cheapos were good as new.

#33

Alachua Sink a few years back. Had just gotten my drysuit neck seal replaced and thought I had it trimmed correctly. We were about 45 minutes into the cave at 150ft when I started to feel short of breath and lightheaded. Didn’t realize it at first, but the neck seal was too tight and partially limiting both blood and airflow and it was being exacerbated by the work of swimming into the flow, light as it was. Started to get tunnel vision and realized I was going to black out if I didn’t do something, so I cut it. Completely flooded my suit. Of course, I’m still hyperventilating and even the slight pressure of my hood is causing throat spasms, so I take the reg out and pull my mask off so I can remove it and of course it starts free flowing. I still vividly remember thinking one clear thought, which was “get the reg back in, fix your breathing, or you’re going to d*e here”. Grabbed a rock and was able to stabilize my breathing and fix my buoyancy. Didn’t bother with the mask until then. Got it back on and signaled to thumb the dive. Swim out was uneventful, but the hour of deco was brutal.

#34

Singaporean DM guest who swam up to me signalling low on air, then, on my occy, managed to drag me to the surface out of the Deco stop in an area with a lot of boat traffic. He surfaced fins first with me yelling through my reg “who the hell qualified you”??

#35

I once got separated from the group because of crowd, I guess we got confused. I tried to find and waited 1 minutes instead of 2 minutes because the instructor said during briefing to wait only 1 minute because there’s more current in the water.

After I surfaced and waited for 5 minutes I didn’t see anyone surfacing and now I can’t recognize the dive boat because there were at least 15-20 dive boats in the area. And I deduced I must have been pretty far from the boat.

After surface swimming for about 15-20 minutes I finally find the boat. I get in and got out of the gear. I still don’t see the sight of the group, but after another 30 minutes they come in and they seem to not even have noticed I was one of them, the buddy that was assigned apparently didn’t understand I was their buddy and just kept swimming and forgot completely that he has a dive buddy.

Since I’m still less than 40 dives, this was very terrifying. But the next dive was better.

#36

How could I forget the time I was surprised to be on a cave dive, as in I didn’t know it was a cave?

The diving in Mexico is great, and the cenotes are really cool and unique. I had a group of divers here in Cozumel, and one day the port was closed so I arranged cenotes for us to do instead. At this time, my group had mostly new divers, including three that were half way through doing their advanced open water. They’d done the deep dive the day before.

So the time comes, over we go and off to our first site. I’d told the guide what my group was, and that we’d maybe like to do something other than the crowded ones. We arrive after an hour of too fast diving on a scary highway, and he briefs us on the first dive, Angelita. This cenote is objectively cool, deep, crystal clear and a cloud layer. We go, descend, all ok. He signals us to go through the cloud layer, ending us up at 40m/130ft. For three fifths of the groups second deep dive. I’m on video spinning circles as everyone is showing me their computers, they’ve never seen them flash and beep like that before. Other than that it was uneventful and all is ok.

We head to the second dive. This time the guide described it as a cavern type dive, with some overhead passages, but only the length and complexity a regular swim through. Since it’s shallow too, ok, that’s fine. We get in, and descend. We’re following in a line, all ok. We come up to the grim reaper sign, you know the one that says caves aren’t worth ending your life for, go no further unless you have cave training. THE GUIDE PROCEEDED TO GIVE THE SIGN THE FINGER AND TOOK US 20 MINUTES INTO A CAVE, COMPLETE WITH LINE AND NO AIR BREAKS.

I tell you I was pooping myself. I was up front, with these lovely new divers behind me. And we’re heading into a real actual cave, AND I DIDNT EVEN KNOW THIS WAS WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. I just kept going, as I know if I showed stress they would too. We made it in and out fine, but frick me I know exactly how dangerous that was.

Since then, I’ve moved to Cozumel, and I’ve been here for two years taking private groups of diving in the far superior ocean. Now I know there is no such thing as “cave discovery” diving, and what that guide considers appropriate site choice, I sure as hell warn people to be careful of cenotes. This was three years ago nearly, I’m still so mad.

#37

Mine’s more situational than an event.

Swimming through a wreck near Cancun, C-58. Lots of schools of fish, pretty open bow because much of it was gone, mostly beams and supports etc. It really was a good site.

I come from more enclosed areas into to the bow and exit.

I end up over the bow and see into the area I was just swimming in.

There was a 7 foot barracuda. I never saw it when I was who-knows-how close.

They like shadows for camouflage, and it works!

Spooked me quite a bit seeing it there. It was massive!

#38

Frankly it was not terrifying just weird.

In Aruba, and I hear a really weird sound and it is getting louder.

In in the end it was one of those “submarines” that allow tourist to go underwater. Its more like you sit in a hull with windows and the hull is underwater. The boat is not truly submerged.

Anyway our whole dive group went up to it and waved in the windows. My wife got to scare some tween who was too busy on her phone to participate. She gave the girl quite a jump scare when she knocked on the window.

#39

Diving from a closed off beach to the open see through a tunnel. On the way back, we went into this dark hole expecting to see daylight on the other side at any moment. Suddenly felt a current starting to drag us into the darkness. We panicked and turned around, sprinted out. Turns out we missed our tunnel and actually entered some random cave.

#40

A year and a half ago, a juvenile nurse shark uh… Slurped? (I hesitate to say bit. Do they even have teeth? 🤔) my dive buddy repeatedly on the stomach, even after getting bopped on the head by our DM multiple times. 

Turning around to see a shark attached to your dive buddy is very surreal, even if it is just a dumb dumb nurse shark. 

Also, when I was getting my OW/AOW in the Philippines, a sea krait swam up my instructor’s shorts. We had just been talking about them being venemous minutes before. .

#41

I did a shark dive off Rangiroa, French Polynesia. Small group on a zodiac out into the blue. We descend to 30’ and form a semicircle per the DM in Crystal clear water. The skipper start chumming last night’s fish dinner from the boat up above us. The largest shark I’ve ever seen emerged from the bluest blue I’ve ever seen below us, circling up to hit the food, then curiously circled us as his three friends arrived. Maybe oceanic white tips but identification isn’t my strong suit. It was challenging to keep sight of each of them. I became aware of exactly how long my limbs were at that moment.

#42

First time diving with new dive and exposure gear so I my weighting wasn’t properly sorted. This was a drift dive in Florida and first time diving these waters. By the time, I sorted out my weights and was able to descend the group had drifted away. So, I’m down at around 65-70 feet all by myself, struggling to stay in place in current, and looking for bubbles so I can locate the group. As I’m trying to sort all this out, I see a large grey reef shark in the distance (about 30 feet away) swimming in my direction. Now, the water is bit murky so I’m occasionally losing sight of the shark and a bit of panic is starting to set in as I’m completely exposed while trying to navigate this current that’s moving me into the shark’s direction. So, I made myself as big as I could and stared in the shark’s direction. Luckily, the shark didn’t really get much closer than 20 feet as it swam past me and shortly thereafter I spotted some bubbles and made my way over to the group. Needless to say exhilarating and a bit terrifying at the same time. Now, mind you this is my first time seeing a shark and having only about 35 dives. This one is etched in my brain.

#43

Diving in Bonaire “angel city” dive site with my partner. Were the only two out there swimming in the channel between to reefs. A GIANT moray eel swims out of the reef. Dude could have probably eaten a small child, was about 4 ft long with a head the size of a basketball. A legit sea serpent.

#44

I was diving in Malapascua, in the Philippines and a boat went by us dragging its anchor. We were super close to it but miraculously no one was hit. We also heard dynamite blasts during some of those dives. 😑.

#45

I looked up once to check on my dive buddy, as one does, and there was a caribbean reef shark with their face not 6 inches from mine. I screamed into my reg and I think the shark heard it cuz they freaked out and swam away really quickly. I jokingly call it the time I almost went to first base with a shark, even though they were probably just hoping to “hunt by diver” as I call it.

#46

Sharks, on a quick trip from Tinan to Leyte.

Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know you can tell by lookin from the dorsal to the tail. More sharks arrived, so we formed ourselves into tight little groups, squares, like the battle of Waterloo.
Hollered at them to leave us be, the sharks didn’t care.

Sometimes that shark he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, in spite of all the pounding and the hollerin they all come in and… they rip you to pieces.

#47

>But as we got to 20ft it switched to an UP current and we had to hold ourselves down on the line while whipping around on the safety stop.

Just a reminder, when you are diving within NDLs, you safety stop is *optional*. If getting out of the water is a safer option than doing a safety stop, get out.

#48

Idiot client diving faster and deeper down the wall into blackness at 190ft before I could grab his fin. His third dlive after basic cert and he knew everything. Poor divers scare me more than anything else in the salt water.

#49

Getting separated on the surface from our liveaboard at the Brothers Islands in the Red Sea. Honestly thought that was it.

Plan was jump from the dive deck and look for thresher sharks above the plateau of Big Brother. Didn’t see any threshers, made a normal ascent up to the boat’s mooring line. When I reached for it at 6m we were swept down by a strong down current and in seconds were at 20m. I could also see that we were no longer over the plateau so had been swept away from the island too.

I put my DSMB up & we ascended again. Made it to the surface, by which time the islands were already disappearing in to the distance. We tried swimming again the current as hard as we could but it made no difference. We were 35 miles offshore and heading for land. Even if we’d got there it was all desert.

I had a HP whistle in my BCD direct feed so blew that constantly, and waved the DSMB. Unfortunately we knew that the dive team had given two dive options – go from the platform or take the zodiac to the far end of the island and drift back – so we knew the zodiacs would be otherwise engaged at the other end of the island.

Pretty soon we couldn’t see the islands or the boat. The sea was pretty rough and the sun was strong. I thought that was it and could see the story in the UK dive mags saying two divers were lost at the Brothers. But I kept reassuring my buddy that eventually they’d realise we were missing, send the zodiacs and find us. Didn’t believe it myself obviously. I kept wishing we were diving off the UK where a helicopter would be out looking in no time.

After a couple of hours a zodiac appeared over a massive wave and nearly landed on us. The zodiac driver shouted at us like it was our fault. There were around six liveaboards at the Brothers at the time and apparently they all sent their zodiacs in a line to look for us.

Another guest on the boat was an RNLI volunteer in the UK. He said he saw the zodiac that found us appear over the horizon, and he was on the top deck of the boat looking through binoculars. He said we’d had a lucky escape and in his experience reckoned we had a one in ten chance of being found.

What did I learn? The dive team shouldn’t have offered two options. There was clearly no one on lookout when I set up my DSMB. I made a packing error, not taking my collapsible flag with me. Never get in the water without it now. And not to go with that boat again.

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