I have a few but most are too long to type so here are some of the shorter ones shortend further:
Stroked a half a metre wide turtle on the neck whilst waiting to surface, it swam over to us and circled whilst we did the 5metre safety stop and I couldn't resist giving it a little tickle.
The most beautiful fish I have seen regularly are baby lionfish they are unbelievably gorgoeous. Whilst learning I saw a fish which I have yet to identify but it was like a flying fish but it flew under water. It had its wings folded to its side when going quickly however normally it had its dorsal fin up which formed a large fan to the tip of its tail. The 2 side pectoral fins would become outstretched to reveal webbing which stretch to just short of the start of the tail. It had colouration like a butterfly and was around 9-10 inches wide and 7-8" long.
I was 15, in the maldives and it was my 28th dive so I was experienced but still a little panicky for sudden events, it was a wall dive so it was along a cliff. We were down 25metres so 2.5 times standard atmospheric pressure (each 10 metres is an additonal 1 times atmospheric pressure) is being exerted on the body. This means I had a 2.5 times the amount of air in my lungs, diving equptment, ect. My weight belt buckled failed I went up like a cork way too fast and as you go to shallower depths the air expands and if you go up too fast that air goes from its compressed state to 2.5 times the size it was at the start overexpanding your lungs, popping ear drums, any inner body seal basically explodes under the sudden pressure difference. Fortunately I managed to grab a rock/coral quite badly cut my hands up but meant I only rised 5 metres. I continued the dive but I had to release all the air from my dive equiptment and take really shallow breaths as breathing to deeply made me rise again.
I was off the maldives but it was outside of the protected island chain so was oceanic waters with oceanic conditions which are same basic principles but everything is a bit more extreme. We were doing a mound dive which is a small reef which acts as a cleaning station and is a small spark off life in the sea floor which is normally quite barren. Visibility was around 2-3 metres and there was a very strong current so we were swimming and using the rocks to crawl forwards around the reef. Lots of shoals kept zooming around and above us. Like shadows with occasional flickers of silver through the gloom swimming with the current so they would appear then suddenly be gone. A lone white tipped reef shark went past every few minutes but gave us a wide berth. I was on the edge of the dive group when a family of black tipped reef sharks each between 5-7 feet went past about 2 metres to my right so couldn't be seen by the rest of the group. One of the 7 footers swims against the current and comes back to me swimming 1 metre Parallel to me at the same speed as I was crawling along the rocks. We were together for 20-30 seconds before It dissapeared back into the gloom and I assume to the group of sharks I had seen it with a minute earlier.
I have had my teeth cleaned by cleaner shrimp in the dominican republic after a tiger shark had had its turn getting itself picked free of grime. All you do is take out your respirator and hold your mouth open out side of the cave whilst holding your breath ofcourse and they swim out and crawl on your tongue eating any microscopic food that may be lingering.
I was in Indonesia and on a strong current dive so no swimming was needed you just drift along with the water and try and avoid the obstacles through small kicks occasionally. Saw a school of 200-300 cuttlefish it was just a wall of tentacles shooting out along the reef snatching any small ffish or shrimp which were not good enough at hiding. Same dive saw a very large school of 2+ foot barracuda which formed a curved wall infront of us so that the current was pushing us into the centre of them. They swam off though without attacking any of us. I wasn't worried as they only go for things which are shiny silver and none of my equiptment was so wouldn't be me getting snacked on
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Rescue diver training:
When I was diving in malaysia I was doing my final day of my rescue diver course (I was 17) and with our dive school there were: 5 open water divers who were learning, 2 advanced openwater diver (one level up from Open water) 3 people that had already passed OW and 2 dive instructors/masters. We were sharing the boat with another school who had 15 open water learners so they were all novices and 4-5 divemasters.
One of my divemasters had gotten a bad cold so couldn't dive incase mucous prevented him from equalisin. So I lead a dive group ofcourse telling asking all the dive party if they were happy with me leading as I was not qualified to lead a commercial dive but as a rescue I do have all the base skills to save someone.
Conditions were great starting off and it was a simple dive around a small island which although I hadn't dived there before the dive master gave me the basic layout and warned me of the strong current running to the south of the island. I had been out drinking the night before and although I don't get hangovers I was quite dehydrated. I kept on taking my airsupply out so that I could line my mouth briefly with a small quantity of sea water or else I would of had a couphing fit from breathing the dry air from the tank (tank air has around 0% humidity to stop the tanks rusting internally).
We did the dive everything was fine until we had to surface all the group was around me when we I did the sign to rise and through the bubbles I thought everyone had come up with me but whe we touched surface only 3 out of 5 surfaced the two advanced had seemingly carried on unaware.The waves were suddenly 3-5 metres tall so you only got to briefly see whilst at the crest of the wave and we were the opposite side of the island to the boat so I was virtually alone in bad conditons and severely dehydrated. Long story short after 10 minutes descending and searching I got the group back together and decided we should swim on the surface round to the boat. I had to tow one of the Open waters back to the boat as she got knackered after about 20 metres into the 100 metre ish swim and in rough conditions that isn't easy. Finally got back to the boat and got everyone on which was incredibly hard as the boat was rolling around with tanks and dive equiptment following the roll it was dangerous.
I got on the boat helped to secure all equiptment and noticed one of the safety floats had come loose and fallen in the side and was in the current approx 50 metres in so I told the Divemaster and went in as if it was a simulated rescue of an incapacitated diver. All I had was basic snorkel and fins and a wetsuit still on for buoyancy. When I was about 5 metres back to the boat my instructor told me to help the other dive group as several of their divers had panicked once they had surfaced and their divemasters were towing 2 each back to the boat. So again off I swim and help tow 3 of the learners back by holding the float. I was absolutely knackered and my leg was going in and out of cramp but I just pushed through and carried on.
Finally got all the learners back on the boat and only me and the other schools divemasters were left and my dive instructor unbeknown to me had told one of them to simulate a dive rescue. One of them descends to 5metres and just stops moving completely. They don't tell you when learning whether its a rescue or not your just expected to notice and react so it took 2-3minutes to actually realise there was someone down their as I was still suffering in the high waves. I dive down and rescue them without a tank so had to hold my breath and during the course of the rescue the diver simulates panic and knocks off my mask as the quick release clips got hit. I ended resurfacing holding my mask with one hand, having the diver trying to kick and punch me all the way and still holding my breath with no weights and due to the wetsuit I was very buoyant to start with. Needless to say I passed
