Coolest Animal Encounter?

[sunchaser1997]

The whale shark two weeks ago was my high point, but a close second would have to be running into a 400 lb Goliath Grouper (Jew Fish) inside a wreck. Kinda like the reply above, neither of us were aware of the other till we bumped into each other. I showed more emotion than he did.

[cutter77]

Long ago...........bull shark after a Blackbeard dive.

[Vegas]

It's tough to pick my favorite story...hmmm....I think this would be my favorite because of the combination of the animal and the location....

I was startled to see a Puffer fish every bit the size of a 35 lb Thanksgiving turkey just sitting by himself inside a tiny room near the lower engine room deep inside the Fujikawa Maru in Truk Lagoon. I thought "don't scare him! ...there won't be room enough for us to get by if he puffs!" lol ... interestingly enough, when
the last of our party of three moved on down the hallway he followed us....and continued to follow us all the way out of the wreck into open water. (do puffers get lost? - how can you tell? they ALWAYS look confused!)

The guide diving with me confirmed that it was the biggest puffer he had ever seen.

[scubadiver888]

I have two stories. My favourite animal encounter has no pictures. My second favourite has pictures.

My favourite animal encounter was Superman's Flight in St. Lucia. The week before diving there it had been raining. The DM leading the drift dive apologized for the poor visibility (it was only 60' but I'm used to 15' on a good day). There was a lot of microorganisms in the water and all the marine life was out for feeding.

We are flying along this fast current with a cliff wall on the right. I look all around as the fish drift with us. There are literally more species on this one drift then all the species I have seen in 20 different Caribbean locations. It is absolutely amazing. Then out of the murkiness I see a school of fish coming right at me. They are swimming hard against the current and veer to the right, passing me on my left. I glance over my left shoulder to wait them swim away. As I return my gaze to in front of me I am startled by a large barracuda just 6 feet away and closing fast. He veers to the right and passes me on my left. My heart is racing and I can barely contain my excitement.

I have seen a lot of barracuda but to see one hunting some fish was just so cool.

My other encounter was diving L'Abym in Dominica. This is a wall dive that drops off to way beyond technical levels. We swam along the wall at 60 feet looking at all the life. Again the abundance of life was amazing. Near the end of the dive we started hitting shallow water and the abyss ended. There was around a dozen of us and we'd some how bunched up into two groups. As we hit the shallows I looked over at the other group and saw a ray (mantaray?) following Rudy and Robert. I signaled to them to look behind them. At first Robert gave me strange looks. As he turned to look behind the ray moved to stay behind him. He finally turned around on the spot and saw it. Here is a picture of the ray:



the other cool thing I saw on this dive was frog fish. Here is a picture of two of them:

[Travelnsj]

I've had four encounters that come to mind 1) Whalesharks in Holbox that knocked me around....2) 9' Silvertip that bumped into me in Fakarava. 3) the Manta dive in Kona they will knock you down. 4) the Bottlenose Dolphin that was staring at me in Rangiora.

I do have high expectations in November to see that Blue Ringed Octopus and Flamboyant Cuttlefish in Lembeh.

[hoova-scuba]

I swam alongside green sea turtles in Maui. That was pretty cool for me.

[BuzzGA]

I had a great weekend of diving last week in San Carlos, Mex. We had a brief encounter with a whale shark that apparently had other places to be because it was moving right along. Also spent four dives with sea lions which were amazingly curious and liked to challenge divers to a game of Simon Says. My wife actually ended up with 3 juvenile sea lions trailing her through a swim through at about 50 feet and they hung with us for the rest of the dive...zipping around and getting right in our faces

[Pelado]

Sealion in Los Cabos, Mexico. There are some videos of that day: YouTube - upelado's Channel


Last week, Acapulco night dive. Spotted Manta face to face, less than 10 ft. I was frozen, tryed to move away a little, it came right to me and passed just inches from my fins... the only thing I was thinking was on its tail... could it hurt me? (I know there are too few posibilities, but that was REALLY close)

Shame thing was: every diver (5) pointing their lamps at us and did not realize that I have my cammera until it was gone.

[thor]

My most recent fish encounter was pretty great. We ran into 3 Eagle Rays, at, where else, Eagle Ray Pass in Grand Cayman, swimming in formation. Looked a little like the flying Blue Angels, but more graceful. Just when you thought they were gone, they turned and came right back at us.

[caburrid]

Originally Posted by Travelnsj

I've had four encounters that come to mind 1) Whalesharks in Holbox that knocked me around....2) 9' Silvertip that bumped into me in Fakarava. 3) the Manta dive in Kona they will knock you down. 4) the Bottlenose Dolphin that was staring at me in Rangiora.

I do have high expectations in November to see that Blue Ringed Octopus and Flamboyant Cuttlefish in Lembeh.

Guys, I have to say I absolutely love the pictures that have been posted with this thread. It really does get me excited to hit the keys and get under the water! I am sooooo excited!