Your BEST DIVE!!!!

[manoreo1]

I am all too curious on how many great writers we have out here. I would love to hear about your best Dive to date. What was it, where was it, did it offer challenges, was it learning, playing, training, what did you feel before the dive, during the dive, after the dive, would you do the dive again???????????

I can't wait to hear these stories.

Anxious Cave Diver

[Sludge]

I can't play because, believe it or not, my most amazing dive was in salt water.

(Think thirty minutes of being buzzed by a huge manta ray, and then a sting ray who barbed my buddy's forearm and wouldn't let go for ten minutes.)

[manoreo1]

Salt water, freshwater, brackish water, overhead, openwater, wreck, deep, doesnt matter. If you have a submarine dive I want to read about it. Sludge your dive sounds awesome. Hows your buddy?

[mndiver67]

It was my first open water dive after getting my c-card. It was also my first salt water dive. I was in Playa Del Carmen with some friends and one was a diver who convinced me to dive with him and what a great choice it was. We rolled in and just reached the bottom in 40' when a whale shark showed up and swam around us for 20 minutes. Awesome!!

[phillip1]

Patrick came back form the first dive in Malaza Manga, I was sick so I had to cancel on that one, Patrick was psyched cause he just laid about 1500 feet in pretty epic looking phreatic cave, similar looking to Florida, except this was in Madagascar.

The plan was to go the next day with a stage and push the eol, Patrick said it looked like the cave was getting bigger and the last tie off was in a good sized room with dark decorations and it appeared the cave kept going, we called this rooms Ryan's chamber.

After a long walk in the Madagascar desert, a vertical rappel, a 1500 foot swim in truly epic looking phreatic tunnels and in 29C water no less I was finally at the eol.

I pulled out my reel that had about 2000ft of line and I was super excited at the possibility of adding a bit more line to this already pretty epic looking cave, what followed next blew my mind.

The plan was I would lay line and Patrick would survey, I tied in and started swimming off, I was in a big room, not super massive but pretty big, so far the cave appeared to be going south so I swam off to the southern end of the room, there I found a tunnel going off straight south, not a big tunnel but super decorated though and at the far end I could only see black, I tied off and started swimming toward what looked like a big room at the end of the tunnel and as I was swimming out into the end of the tunnel all of a sudden the floor drops out below and disappears out of view, I look left and I can’t see anything just darkness, I look right same thing just darkness, I look at my depth 21 meters the I look up and way above me I can make out a massive white ceiling, with big columns and what looks like a massive gas pocket.

At this point I don’t even know what to think, I cannot believe this just happened, a bonafide WTF exploration moment.

I really cannot see anything this place is so big, as I look down I can make out the floor way below, huge boulders the size of houses jumbled on on top of each other disappear out of view, I look at my depth again because at this point I have no other reference point, still 21 meters, cool.

I start swimming off with the intention of making the world’s longest shot, I was actually thinking to empty my entire reel in one shot, about 15 seconds later I know this is an incredibly stupid idea, but as an explorer actually being able to easily make a 1500 foot shot is as close to pure happiness as I will ever get.

At this point I am swimming in massive void with no other reference than my compass and depth gauge, I figure the cave was trending south so if I swim east i must hit a wall at some point, I start swimming east and soon in the distance I start to see a wall, as I get closer I notice it is a super cool weird decorated wall no less. I make a tie off and start following the wall, at this point I figure this is one massive room.
I keep swimming and making 100 foot shots, huge columns and super weird dark decorations flow down the side of this wall.

After about 1000 feet the wall is still going straight south, and I realize this is not a massive room but a full on gigantic tunnel.

I look back and way off in the distance I barely see Patrick’s light as he surveys behind me, I keep swimming as fast as I can along the wall, I can now kind of see the other side of the tunnel as it gets a bit narrower here, there are insane looking decorations everywhere, flowstone at least 20 meters high or more, black stalactites, white stalactites, weird dissolved rocks, and I still have a hard time seeing the floor.
I make a tie off and in front of me at the edge of my light I see black again, I make a tie off on top of a huge boulder and emerge into another massive black void, I look right and see just black, I look right and see just black, I look ahead and see dark, my light feels like a toothpick.
This cave is so big it makes noise, if you know what I mean.

At this point I reach my turn pressure and my reel is empty, so I tie off cut the line, make a loop for Patrick and start swimming out.

A few minutes later I see Patrick and we both celebrate this, screaming we are so stoked this is the epitome of cave exploration for us.

As I swim back and get to the phreatic part I think about how cool it is that to get here you dive through epic phreatic but sometimes really tight sidemount cave, and absolutely nothing leads one to believe this place is so big further in, without warning after a restriction you pop out into a big room that leads to the massive main passages.

After a long deco I surface, change and hang out waiting for Patrick in the huge sinkhole, I don’t even know what to say or think, we had been in Madagascar for 2 weeks, searched all over the place, dove many caves with no real going passages, Patrick found a dead village guy in one cave ceiling, and then this.

After a while Patrick comes out and shows me his empty reel, he tells me it gets even bigger with a super decorated ceiling now at 20 meters, but still no floor and a gigantic dark passage going straight south, south toward the ocean about 10 kilometers away…

[BigTex1836]

Mine was when after a couple months of TX green water lake diving I took my daughter (12 at the time) down to Cozumel for her first ocean dive. When we came to the surface after her first dive (palancar gardens), she turned to me with a huge grin on her face and said "now i see what all the fuss was about. this is awesome!" At that point I knew I had her hooked on something she truly enjoyed and I had a OW buddy for life.

She's now two years in to it and has logged just shy of 100 dives. She's even done some projects in her classes focusing on oceanic concerns (waste, fining, invasive species, etc) as well as scuba topics which turned a few class mates on to exploring it. She's also been asking if I could help her get a part time job at one of our LDS when she gets in high school.

The dive itself could have been any blue water site. The reaction, the passion for scuba, and the passing on of a hobby we can do together is priceless. Summer 2016, I get our son on the same habit.

[OutlawCaver]

I have four that are tied for Best Dives in terms of "awe factor"

1) Downstream Indian with great vis
2) Upstream Little Dismal into 6th room
3) DiePolder II Upstream
4) Sally Ward Cube Room

[FW]

... and then a sting ray who barbed my buddy's forearm and wouldn't let go for ten minutes...

I suspect that wasn't your buddies best dive

[FW]

My best dive keeps changing, but they all have one thing in common, no line before I got there

Aside from that, there are a few that stand out:
Fangorn Forest, Dan's Cave, Abaco Island
"Frozen Rain", Ralph's Cave Abaco Island
Warbla Cave, Nularbor Plain, Australia (we were there on a scientific permit)

[divingabe]

Boiler sea mount Revilligigados (Socorro Island), midday dive calm seas and a dozen plus manta rays looking to have their belly rubbed by both our bubbles and hand. One instance in particular while shooting video over head three mantas swam past and I could sea clouds in the sky above them.
Gabe