Your Strangest dives.....

daveg

Splitting my sides here so I decided to post.... have a look at the readers strangest dives on divernet. 2 of the funniest below....


THE MAD RUSSIAN by Tom Smith
Imagine my luck! My first open-water dive after finishing my course, and who am I buddied with but a mad Russian?
It's a sunny day in Malta but the water is cool, even cooler below the thermoclines. I was a mildly apprehensive 15-year-old diver and this man had a chest like Rambo's, an aggressive crew-cut and a vocabulary limited to grunting.
It all started when we were getting our rental gear. The Russian didn't fit even the largest BC in the shop, and was crammed into an XXL with the straps fully extended. When offered a wetsuit, he said, with a curl of his lip: "I don't need one, I am from Siberia!"
The divemaster thought he was joking, but the mad Russian insisted that he was OK, so after fussing around with gear and putting together the world's biggest weightbelt, we set off.
On reaching the dive site and kitting up, he revealed his choice of exposure protection, a pair of blue speedos that should have been locked up for their brevity. His buddy check consisted of a grunt, and without even bothering to breathe from a reg to check that his air was on, in he dived.
But he didn't make the normal walk-in entry that the DM and I did. He just leapt 2m off a slippery rock into the shallow water.
After he had retrieved his mask, which had, of course, come off in the mad leap and floated away, we started the dive.
Weighed down by enough lead to sink a small battleship, he plummeted to the bottom in 22m and grovelled about in the sand, stirring up the silt.
As I reached him, he decided to roll over on his back, let his reg drop out of his mouth, and blow ******* - just *******, not rings. He was doing a very good impression of a drowned diver, and thoroughly terrifying me. I was wondering how I was going to get him back to the surface, when a judicious poke from the DM seemed to rouse him from his stupor.
After all of 20 minutes, the mad Russian informed the DM that he had sucked his 15 litre tank down to 40 bar, so it was time for a rather hurried swim back to the exit point, and ascent.
I can't remember what I saw on the dive. I was too busy trying not to panic as the Russian dude continued with some of the strangest dive procedures I had come across, including fully filling his BC to facilitate a Polaris missile approach to the surface.
The only enjoyable thing was watching Mr "I Am From Siberia" shivering away throughout the dive, and ending up the weirdest shade of purple/blue I've ever seen. It complemented the skimpy speedos perfectly.


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IT'S AN OCTOPUS, AND IT'S ARMED by Dan Blyth

Last summer I was working as a divemaster in the Canary Islands. My main duties were assisting instructors with new divers and also taking qualified divers on underwater "tours" from the shore. The area in which I mainly dived was a small cove off the east coast of Fuerteventura, which has its fair share of large octopuses.
One day while with two qualified divers I chanced on an octopus sitting in a small fortress of pebbles, its eyes visible over the top. One of the divers had requested the chance to see an octopus "free-swimming", so I decided to assist it in leaving its lair. The octopus always returns to its lair if the disturbance is minimal. I have handled hundreds and they generally always return within a minute or two.
I took my diving knife out and, reversing my grip on it, started to gently disturb the sand in front of the 'pus, which is normally sufficient to persuade it to move out. But I discovered almost immediately that I had seriously underestimated the size of this one, as an enormous tentacle whipped out of the lair, around my wrist, and took the knife out of my hand before I could blink!
The octopus then gave an excellent impression of smugness as it placed the knife beneath itself and sat there looking patiently at me. Slightly at a loss, I looked at the other two divers, who both shrugged.
After checking air (we were at 12m) I spent a simultaneously amusing and exasperating 10 minutes trying to trick the 'pus into giving me back my knife.
got it back in the end (with the assistance of an unsuspecting sea cucumber) and this particular octopus to the best of my knowledge still lurks in the area. They are definitely the characters of the ocean.

Mick L

There was a dive on the wreck of the Thistlegorm in the Red Sea, i think it was a night dive. We had explored the holds of the ship and were finning back along the surface of the wreck. There were about 8 divers in the group, led by a local dive guide. At one point the dive guide stopped to look at something so naturally we all crowded around, thinking that if it's interesting enough for him so stop and look at it must be good. What he found was called a crown of thorns, like a big starfish. One of the other divers was an instructor (CMAS/PADI) who was big into marine life. The dive asked her for a loan of her knife and before whe could blink he had taken the knife and stabbed the crown of thorns right through its centre, wiped the knife and handed it back. She was stunned and seemed to stare at the dying animal while the rest of us swam away. Needless to say she wasn't too happy. Back on board it was explained that the crown of thorns is growing out of control in the parts of the Red Sea and is slowly destroying wrecks and reefs in the area. A conservation effort was under way to try and control them.

Some other things that have happened include silt outs during wreck penetrations, having my air turned off at 52m and having 3 divers doing rapid ascents around me on the one dive.