The fact that humans need machines to breathe underwater should be a logical enough reason to stay above ground and let the fish run the waves. However, humans are stubborn, and will not only explore any body of water, but they actively try to find ways to go even further and deeper into the abyss. There are enough stories out there—specifically ones on Reddit—that shed light on how terrifying underwater is and how helpless humans are down there, and yet, for some people, it just makes them even more curious and ready to get back in the water. If anyone is thinking about going underwater diving in the future, maybe avoid this list. As for the people who can’t get enough of Blue Planet or are crazy enough to explore the depths themselves, continue reading because this is right up your alley!
1. Too Close for Comfort
When I was a kid, we used to go to a place during the summer holiday that had some very nice beaches and, in particular, an estuary 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 looking down with my mask/snorkel on when a MASSIVE stingray passed directly underneath me. This thing was easily two meters across, covered in white scars and missing its tail.
I just froze in the water and it felt like my heart stopped. If I hadn’t 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 any danger, but having a massive creature appear so unexpectedly and so close up was absolutely terrifying.
2. Public Service Announcement
These are my two biggest. My buddy was taking pictures and 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. All of a sudden, a largemouth bass snagged one of the pieces of hot dog that was maybe six inches from my face. My mask blocked his approach. Scared the crap out of me.
Second one was a night dive in very salty water. Visibility was less than three feet—lowest I mark, if I can't see my outstretched arm, it is less than three feet. We were near a flooded structure—maybe an old water tank?—at about 35 ft (10 m). Something was flashing from our lights. Suddenly, I'm covered in something and I 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 get clear. It was a large plastic trash bag. Keep your trash out of the water, please.
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3. Nailed It
On a night dive in Scripps canyon, a cormorant rammed directly into my dive light at high speed and knocked itself unconscious. I thought it was dead but gently brought it back to the surface where it woke up and took off.
41. Fish Eat Fish World
Not a deep-sea diver, but I was diving and watching this enormous jellyfish effortlessly swimming along when a huge sea turtle came from behind and over me and ate the jelly's body in almost one gulp. Never even saw him until the open mouth devoured the jelly. The sea is brutal.
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5. Super Size M-eel
I got told a story once by a Maori Language teacher of mine during my time in high school. We didn’t learn much Maori, just listened to stories. A dam in Waikato, New Zealand had visible cracks in the concrete on the outside part of the dam and some drivers 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. Turns out what they thought were large logs were in fact huge eels which 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.
Pixabay
6. Underwater Living
You can dive in 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 (30 m) beneath the water in the dark, eerie quiet.
I asked him if there were any weird or big fish out there. He said there's definitely stuff down there bigger than he expected—four or five feet. They're attracted to the light and noise but watch from a distance, which is nonetheless disconcerting—just dark, 2D shapes drifting nearby. None of the monsters other folks are bringing up, though.
Pixabay
7. Can’t Someone Else Do It
Someone just dove to the bottom of our lake to check a drain and now he won’t go back under because he said he saw a fish that could swallow him whole. 20 ft (6 m) long he said.
8. Follow the Guidelines
A coworker of mine goes cave diving all the time and says that while it's not super common, you do find dead bodies in swim gear in caves sometimes. People either go too far into the cave and then run out of oxygen on the way back, or they squeeze past a tight gap and get stuck on the other side, unable to come back the way they came.
9. Terrifyingly Tragic
I dive myself but heard this story from a Garda diver. In 2010, a man took a test drive in a car with the salesman and in an attempt to take his own life, he drove the car off the pier into the sea and drowned. The salesman managed to escape by breaking the window and swimming to the surface. The divers were dispatched to retrieve the other man's body.
This part isn't in the news report. Simply through working in marinas at the time, I was able to be part of the conversation with the diver in question. When he got to the car, he said the man was still facing forward, hands on the steering wheel, eyes wide. He'd been there a couple of hours now, but where it gets creepy is when the diver opened the driver door.
This, combined with the smashed window, caused the currents to flow through the car and the man's wide-eyed head to turn around to slowly face the diver.
10. Not the Fish They Were Looking for
When living off the coast, some buddies and I would take regular fishing trips out 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 me and two others were diving down checking out the structure, we decided we needed to move due to lack of life around the rig.
We all get back in the boat, and as one of my buddies is reeling in a line we had a red snapper baited on, an easily 8’ to 10’ tiger shark starts chewing on it right behind the prop, so close I could have poked his eye out. The idea that 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.
Pixabay
11. It Brought Backup
I've had plenty of run-ins with barracuda. They are almost invisible in the water until they get close enough. I'd say two of the scariest experiences I've had were both on the same trip. I was snorkeling in some shallows and was looking along a wall for octopus or any kind of colorful fish. I looked up and was face to face with two barracuda. I lifted my spear to defend myself and this must have scared them off.
The second was when we were swimming near some kind of old structure and there was a barracuda dwelling in the shadow of the structure. We scared it off and proceeded to swim around and jump off the structure. A few of us, including myself, were diving down and looking at the coral around the structure's supports and that same barracuda came back, but next to it was a massive silhouette. It was bigger than me and the same shape as a barracuda. I'm pretty sure after that most of us tapped out.
I’ve been harassed by sharks, too.
12. Didn’t Sign up for This
Not unexplainable, but 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 was working in Orkney, North of Scotland, on the fish farms. 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 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. And that's when I looked up and saw a four-foot tear in the side of the net. Screw. That. Crap.
I was only a newbie at this point—fish farm work is generally the best way to start a diving career, doesn't pay the best but you get plenty of minutes logged, which helps for experience. I told the supervisor, who said get out right away. They sent one of the more experienced lads in after me and he fixed the hole quickly and then rigged the seals up to be lifted out.
Turns out the seal had been killed by an Orca and it 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 the water for if seen. Only one of the seals had a bite mark, the other two got caught in the net. Not supernatural or anything, but I remember a significant shiver running down my spine that day.
13. My Precious
An old World War II ammunition ship off the south coast of England was full of brass topped shells. Most of them had been taken by divers over the years and it was now very rare to see them, apart from a pile in one corner of the ship. This pile of shiny brass metals was miraculously untouched and remarkably clean after spending years underwater. You only found out why if you swam near them.
Out of the murky darkness, the largest eel I have ever seen snakes forward. Without exaggeration, this thing had a head the same size as a horse's head, full of jagged teeth. I could not see the body as it looped into the dark and deeper into the ship. No one got near those shells. Turns out for years this thing had been guarding the shiny brass shells, slithering over them making them shine.
We found out at the bar later that he was famous in the area and many people went to the wreck just to see him. No idea why this giant creature was guarding them like a dragon and its horde, but some said eels are like magpies and like shiny things.
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14. Peeping Scuba Steve
When I was a kid swimming in the lake at summer camp, I dove underwater and I swear I saw someone in SCUBA gear hiding underneath the dock, watching us. I told the lifeguard, but he wasn't able to find anyone.
15. Phantom 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 40 x 80 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 hell out of me. Needless to say, I swam back to the hatch as fast as I could. I ended up getting my torch changed out and did another hour in the water, but 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 heck of a fright.
16. Calm in the Face—and Foot—of Fear
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 and counting something off of the Santa Cruz Pier when he finds a shopping cart with bricks, cinder blocks and a chain attached to the handle. He naturally followed the chain and found a bare foot wrapped in the chain. He assumes something probably ate the rest of the body. Apparently, 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 and he looked around and didn’t see anything. He figured it was a seal because they like to play. When he was nudged again, he saw it was a great white. 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.
17. Who Put That There?
I used to teach canoeing lessons to Boy Scout troops at a local neighborhood lake. 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 further than five 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 I 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 heck it got there was beyond me. Clearly, it had been under the water for years.
20. In Need of Medical Attention
Probably half a shark, still swimming around but his entire left side was just gone—organs hanging out of him and everything. It was like a living Resident Evil zombie shark. He must have been very recently attacked because I doubt you can live very long with your entire insides poking out.
19. Just Saying Hi
My story is not very exciting, but anyway. First time diving in Australia and first time diving with sharks. We start descending and the guide is at the front of the group looking for the sharkies. I'm at the back of the group. Suddenly I turn my head left and there's this 6’ monster about a foot or two from my face. He just swam peacefully past the group.
It was a bit creepy but lots of fun.
20. TFW You’re Deep Sea Diving
I used to do a lot of night dives hunting for lobster off the coast of California. We’d start at nine or 10 at night so everything is 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 ignore 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 but 50 ft (15 m) underwater in complete darkness.
21. Deadly Watch
Barracudas, man. One time, I was swimming close to the shore in Palm Beach, F.L. and had my watch on. The water is crystal clear down there. I’m 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 like 30 yards I'm thinking, "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 stupid!!" and I threw my hand over it. Instantly, the barracuda turned 90 degrees south and disappeared.
It was a good five feet long at least. It wouldn't have killed 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 in a kayak camp I attended a couple years earlier, or else that would have sucked. I was 15 and just loved my first "masculine, adult" watch. Wore it everywhere.
22. Fun for Some, Terrifying for Others
I've taken some friends on a night dive before and they joked about the paranoia of seeing big, dangerous fish prior to getting in the water. It probably wasn't helpful, but I told them they shouldn't be paranoid—there is a 100% chance of this exact thing occurring and you just have to accept it. Every night dive I've been on has some fish that like to follow you.
I've even had a decent sized nurse shark—six to seven ft—just cruise behind me for an entire dive, curious about the light. The constant feeling of discovery in the dark is what makes night diving so much fun.
23. Cue the Jaws Sound Effect
I once went diving in Port Elizabeth, South Africa where it is quite popular to see sharks. We started diving and we were quite far from the shore. There was a cool looking structure under us so we swam towards it to get a closer look and I just started getting this cold, cold, cold, cold feeling running through my body, and that’s when a shark appeared and I physically shat myself from fear.
24. Punk’d but It’s a Horror Show
At Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, Utah, there’s an old school bus and retired flight school airplane at the bottom for divers to explore. There’s a geocache in the bus so my brother—a retired Army Ranger—and myself—a civilian mechanic with no diving experience besides trying to beat my son in a breath-holding contest in the pool out back—set out to find it on a sunny summer day.
After about 15 minutes, we found the bus, rusted, rotting, and covered in algae. We entered from the back and began searching for the geocache. We found it, signed it and swapped the item out. What we took out was a piece of paper wrapped in multiple zip lock bags and the zipper cut off and torched to seal it indefinitely.
On the paper was a single instruction, “Item too large to put in container, check driver seat.” Intrigued, we made our way to the front. Now, I wish I were making this up. I was the first to reach the driver seat. I got to the front and what do I find? A body wrapped in trash bags and taped with a 45-pound chain around the ankles.
I let out a blood-curdling scream like a five-year-old was just told he couldn’t have a cookie right before bed. My brother, without reacting, grabbed the body, pointed to the weight and we made our way toward the surface. Once we got to the surface, we put our flag up and got on our boat once it arrived. We called the rangers over the radio and met them at the docks where we met a fleet of park rangers and county officers.
They cut the bags while they were taking our statement to find that someone had left 130 or so pounds of sugar in gallon zip lock bags in the shape of a body.
25. So Much for Resting in Peace
I do not dive often but I had gone to a lake with a couple of friends and we were all diving in different parts of the lake, looking for other people's lost belongings. I was bringing up an ammo box I had found when I looked over to a group of my friends at the dock and one was holding what looked like a small cloth bag.
I didn't really bother walking over to check it out and kept diving. Turns out it was a bag full of small urns with the same name on it. It really spooked us so we figured whoever put it there wants it there so we put them back and left almost immediately afterward.
26. Next Time Take the Hint
This story isn't really mine, but it came from a friend of mine who does night dives. Here on the Brazilian coast, there's a fish that resembles a shark, but it's considerably smaller. It’s called "Cação." You have to hunt these things at night because they're nasty in the open, but easier to shoot when in their coves.
So, my friend—let's call him Regis—is about one km from the coast, diving near a reef. This thing is massive and you have to go really deep to get to the slope with the coves. He is descending with a partner using cylinders for oxygen and armed with a harpoon gun—the kind that shoots the harpoon and is reloadable—which is kind of heavy, making movement a tad slower.
It's super dark at the deep during the night and too much light will alert the fish they're hunting, so they have to use flashlights that are weaker. Regis said he had a feeling while descending that everything was off. The smaller fish were absent, there were no turtles, and the water was murkier than usual. His partner stays back with the flashlight and he goes closer to the reef.
Regis searches for the coves but can't find any with the Cação he wants, so it takes kind of long. At a certain point, he feels a shift in the water, like something big is swimming near him, just as the weak light from his partner waves frantically and goes off. He doesn't know what to expect and goes into flight or fight mode, except he can't ascend too fast.
He then tries to stay at the same level, but he has his back to the reef now. He cocks the gun with the harpoon and waits. Waits and waits, but he doesn't see anything in the murky night seawater, not even his partner's light. That had to mean one of two things—either his partner’s light ran out of batteries, or he saw something and didn't want to attract its attention.
Regis finally decides to start ascending very slowly. The weird feeling he had got worse and turned into chills. As he's going up, he feels that same shift again and does not hesitate to harpoon whatever it was, but missed. He said he never saw something so big underwater and it swam fast. As Regis couldn't see much in the dark, he couldn't make out a proper shape, but saw that the thing went deeper near the reef.
So he tries to go up as fast as possible and makes it to the boat, where his partner helped him up. Turns out his partner warned him about it with the light because he saw “something abnormally big” swimming in a dangerous distance but couldn't get to him because he felt like he was being watched by the thing. They both call it the blackfish, since they couldn't really see what it was.
It's said to be as big as a man, about five feet. Regis lost the harpoon in the end. Both of them still dive at night. It's a no-no for me, though. Also, always dive in groups, guys. If something happens, you need someone to have your back. You never know.
27. Curiosity Killed the Cat
I was spearfishing/snorkeling in the Atlantic. The depth is about 30 to 50 ft (9 to 15 m) with a lot of pocket reefs around. I swim away from a reef to see what is in that direction. Visibility is about 40 ft (12 m). In front of me, at the surface, right at the edge of visibility, I see a massive body. What I can see is around two to three feet thick, and about 6 to 10 ft long.
I can only see a body—I can't see a tail or head. It is a light silver with somewhat darker golden or brown stripes. It was only there for a second. It must have been turning to go the other direction and I only saw a part of its body. I had never seen anything like that. I was curious and intrigued. I started to swim towards it to see what it was.
I got about 12 ft in that direction when a fright came through my body. It was a primal, undeniable feeling of absolute dread and horror. My body was telling me that whatever that thing was, I needed to get the hell out of the water as fast as I could. I stopped swimming towards it and immediately pivoted back to the boat.
I swam on my back so I could keep looking behind me, in the direction that that thing had been. I don't know what that thing was, but it was massive. It was a giant and I was a fly. Some part of my animal brain knew what it was and it knew that it was a danger.
28. Don’t Get High on Your Oxygen Supply
About three years ago, my boyfriend and I went on an unguided dive in Egypt. We both knew the dive site from previous trips we'd been on, so we felt pretty comfortable going out alone. It's not a very difficult one and we didn't want to hold up a group in case my boyfriend wanted to take some pictures, which can take a while.
One of the perks of this particular dive site was a single coral reef at 124 ft (38 m), with a 90% chance of finding a longnose hawkfish—a really cute guy, please Google it, 10 out of 10 would recommend. The normal procedure would be to spend most of your dive at about 85 ft (25 m), make a quick stop at 124 ft (38 m) to check for the hawkfish, and make your way up again.
This shouldn't take very long at all, usually only five minutes or so, but we didn't end up finding him and wasted quite a lot of time looking. At this point, I was getting kind of sleepy—in retrospect, this was the first sign that something was going horribly wrong—and wanted to finish the dive so I could take a nap on the boat.
I basically dragged my boyfriend away from the coral and we're about to make our way up again until I notice something hidden between one of the rocks. It was the strangest looking octopus I've ever seen. It was bright red (you cannot see the color red that deep underwater, it's physically impossible) and had super weird silvery eyes.
All in all, it looked super funny and we were both laughing at its stupid face. My boyfriend takes quite a few pictures until his computer goes crazy and basically forces us to slowly ascend and make three decompression stops along the way. That finally snapped us out of it because we did not intend to make a deco stop, let alone three.
We finally reach the surface with only 20 bars left in our oxygen tanks—a huge no no, you should always have at least 50 on reserve—and are still absolutely blown away by that strange octopus. We've never seen anything like that before, and so we change our equipment ASAP so we can look at the pictures. Except when we go through the pictures, there's nothing.
Just 20 plus pictures of one single rock, with no octopus or anything in sight. The rock wasn't even a strange color...and that's when it dawned on us. The depth, the time, our strange behavior underwater. That sounded a lot like nitrogen poisoning. You should know, the longer you spend at great depths, the more likely nitrogen poisoning becomes.
It's basically an anesthetic that first makes you high and delirious until you pass out. And underwater is basically the worst place to pass out, ever. So there we were, at 124 ft (38 m), giggling at a rock without a care in the world, basically tripping on nitrogen with our oxygen running dangerously low. I'm pretty sure if it weren't for our computer, we would have passed out and died.
We still cannot explain how we both saw exactly the same thing, though.
29. Sitting Duck
Honestly, it's not super creepy at all now, but at the time it kind of was. On a LiveAboard in Egypt we were doing a night dive in a big group, but with designated buddy pairs in case something was wrong or in case you wandered off or something. It was a simple enough dive—we started from the boat and went straight down from there.
But as we are starting to go down, I notice my buddy struggling to descend. So we both surface again and she notices she lost some of her weights when she jumped off the boat—she had it secured to her back, but it was an old rental and the zipper broke or something. For some reason, the dive guide didn't notice we were gone so he went further down with the rest of our group, whilst my buddy and I swam back to the boat.
However, my buddy—much more experienced than me—asked me to stay where I was to kind of map out where the group was. We were fairly close to the boat, so I was never really alone but still, there I was, floating alone at sea when it was pitch black all around me, while my buddy was on the boat getting some extra weights.
All of a sudden, I was surrounded by hundreds of fish, clearly being hunted around by something. Super not fun when you’re alone and can't really see what’s going on. I went on with the dive anyway when my buddy came back and we found the group quickly so no harm, no foul. However, after the dive, we were back on the boat and saw a huge group of fish being hunted on by two sharks, so there’s that.
30. Don’t Take the Stairs
Obligatory not me, but my dad used to do a bunch of diving around some lakes in Minnesota. His favorite was diving in the old iron mine pits around the town of Crosby, Minnesota. These lakes are exceptionally deep compared to the natural lakes, and they're almost always as clear as glass (except when the pine pollen season hits, for obvious reasons).
After a certain depth, there’s a layer of silt—I think just decomposed matter—that lays flat and blocks out the little bit of light that gets to it. There was this one pit that my dad went diving into that had these steps leading into a cavern, being at the right depth for the silt to gather, making a very, very ominous looking stairway to nothing.
Thus being dubbed—The Stairway to Hell.
31. Something Is Coming
I was free diving with Galapagos sharks, and about a half-hour after swimming with them they all slowly started to move further down in the water column and I got chills down my back. When I scanned the area, a massive tiger shark swam into the open. The thing was huge, like probably 15 ft (4 m). Scared the heck out of me.
I’m not wary around sharks, but the way the whole thing went down was really unnerving.
32. That Hole Is Baa-d News
Not me, but a guy I know used to be a river warden on the River Bann. If anyone disappeared in the area of the river that he was in charge of then the search and rescue teams would ask him for his advise on currents and the deepest parts of the river. The River Bann, in places, has large holes that go down below the depth of the river bed and sometimes missing people can be found in these holes.
During one search of these holes, a diver was down for slightly more than his allotted time. Once he came up he explained the reason. He was down a hole about 16 ft (5 m) that was full of barbed wire, and he managed to get snagged on the wire. On trying to escape, he was hit by something and pinned to the side. It was a rotting sheep carcass wrapped in barbed wire.
33. Something No One Gnomes About
There's a sea loch in Scotland called Loch Fyne that is popular with divers. Once on a dive, in what I thought was a remote part of the loch (I used a boat to get there). I was descending a vertical wall and came across garden gnomes around 33 ft (10 m) down, just sitting in the ledges. One was fishing. We concluded that it was another dive club having fun.
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34. Premium Part of the Resort
It was a while ago, but I went scuba diving in Mallorca. It was on vacation in a resort, and I went with the resort's local dive club. Quite experienced divers, and they were happy that I sort of was too, even though we were trained differently—they were PADI, I was CMAS. Anyway, the coast was quite rocky, and underwater you'd hear a constant chattering sound. I'm guessing that those were pebbles moving around.
When we were about 66 ft (20 m) away from the beach, we went into a small cave/inlet. First thing I noticed was a complete void of color—just grey in varying shades. Then, that it was dead quiet. No sounds except that of our SCUBA gear and no chattering of the rocks. Finally, I saw an upturned sun chair, clearly the same model as what the resort had.
Since it was so far away from the resort itself, and it was relatively deep inside that cave, someone had to have placed it there themselves. No chance it got there with the current. I suppose it’s nothing special, but it was surreal. In a completely grey, featureless, soundless cave, I saw an upturned sun chair. Darn shame I left my camera at home
35. We Should Probably Wait a Minute
I was finishing a night dive and stopped with my buddies approximately 15 ft (4 m) directly under the dive boat. Everyone turned their torches off and we were able to see the silhouettes of about 30 sharks circling the boat.
36. Someone Got a Free Lesson
I was an instructor in Roatan, Honduras and took one diver on a recreational dive in the beautiful reef there. It involved a couple of swim-throughs, coral tunnels, with sandy bottoms. On the second one, about 50 ft (15 m) long and 5 ft (1.5 m) wide, I didn’t bother turning my flashlight on, as I saw my client, who I knew was behind me, although I couldn’t turn around and look, had turned theirs on, as I saw the beam of light passing by me and illuminating things on the wall here and there.
When I got out of the tunnel, however, hovering nearby was my solo client waiting for me to exit. They had never even entered the swim-through, as they confirmed on the boat after the dive. That creeped me out royally. Also, not far from this dive site, at about 155 ft (47 m), is a cross put on the reef wall for a troubled guy who years before just kept going into the deep and never returned.
A local submarine scientist once saw his gear snagged on the reef wall at about 400 ft (122 m) deep.
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37. Free Bed
It was last year when my friend and I were testing our scuba gear before going on a vacation in one of the lakes near our city. The depth was around 15 to 20 ft (4 to 6 m) when we saw a soviet-style army metal bed simply standing on the bottom of the lake.
38. Don’t Turn Off the Lights
I did a night dive in Hawaii called the Pelagic Magic Dive. They take you out into the open ocean at around 8 or 9 PM, attach you to a chord that is tethered to the boat and let you get in. All you have is a flashlight in this pitch-black water. I decided I would turn off my flashlight to just see what it was like and it was absolutely terrifying.
I’ve been around sharks many a time and this is the first time I was genuinely scared.
39. Protecting Her Babies
A mother humpback charged at me after her curious calf had swum around us and we were between her and the calf. Two of us never saw it coming as we were watching the baby, but our third diver watched her come. She kicked down and swam under us last minute. We didn't see anything until that 60 ft (18 m) freight train passed just underneath us.
40. You’ll Never Guess What’s in the Freezer
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 it multiple times with about five cinder blocks attached. It was very, very rusted and the deep freezer itself had to have been 30 plus years old, probably more. This was about 90 ft (27 m) deep just off Vancouver Island, Canada.
The situation gave myself and the other divers the newbie jeebies. I logged the GPS and depth co-ordinates and notified the police. We were able to find out what was inside, since one of the divers had friends in the local police—10 porcelain dolls.
41. Hunting Buddy
I dive, but I don't night dive. My father did, though, and he came back with this story. I've shared it before on Reddit, so you might have heard it. He was swimming in the darkness and he was dimly aware of someone next to him. Not exactly unusual as there were several people in the water, but he was concerned about why their light might be off.
Without that light, there's absolutely nothing to see. It's just a dark, empty void. Before he had the chance to shine his light on this person, he suddenly became aware of the fact that his dive partner was on his other side. So either whoever was next to him was separated from their dive buddy...or it wasn't a person at all.
The need to know caused him to shine his light, tentatively, at the shape, revealing a massive barracuda, keeping pace with him. Rightfully surprised, he moved back a bit, but the creature just kept near him. Dredging up some boldness, he moved towards it, and it moved away from him, always keeping that comfortable distance between them.
After a moment, my father continued on, trying to put the thought of the predator out of his mind as it continued to shadow him. It didn't take long for the beam of his flashlight to illuminate a fish, and then, in an explosion of speed and bubbles, the barracuda shot out of the darkness and intercepted the fish, retreating back into the inky waters, only to return to my father's side a few heartbeats later.
This kept up for as long as the dive did. The barracuda stayed close, using my father's light for hunting. When at last the time came to return to the boat, the barracuda remained by his side until they reached the craft, then spun in the darkness and dove away.
42. That Must’ve Been an Awkward Ride Home
I have 150 plus dives but I can't say I've seen anything all that creepy. But I do have a cool dive story to share. I was diving the Blue Hole in Belize and we were at max depth, which is 120 ft (36 m). It gets weird at that depth. The light level is getting pretty low and it feels—oppressive. You realize you're WAY down.
There are some lemon sharks that swim around the Blue Hole. They are curious and like to check out divers, but they are harmless. They look mean as hell though and can grow up to eight to nine feet, easily. At 120 ft (36 m), one of them decided to come check out me and my—now ex—wife. She was a bit in front of me but when she saw the shark beelining towards us she quickly swam behind me and SHOVED me towards the shark.
I was NOT expecting that and it took a minute to process what happened, but I felt bad for her more than anything. She was terrified for a few seconds. I laughed about it later and said at least I knew where I stood with her. She is a good diver but the sight of that eight-foot shark swimming straight at her with a mouth full of teeth triggered her survival instincts.
As I got shoved towards the shark, who was at that point only about six feet away from me, he calmly turned to the side and glided right past me and then went on to check out some other divers. We started our ascent and I didn't see him again.
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