Despite its size and impact on life on Earth, the ocean remains one of our biggest mysteries. In fact, more than 80 percent of it has never been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans.

Drawn by this mystique, Reddit user ThatPizzaGuy5150 made a post on the platform, asking: "Divers and water lovers, what is something you've found while underwater that you can't explain or scared the hell out of you?" Turns out, many more people wanted to hear the answers—the post has received over 3,400 upvotes.

And all of these folks got what they desired. From curious sharks to missing persons, continue scrolling to learn what you can discover when you descend into the unknown.

#1

I was diving off the Florence, OR coast with some friends and we found a body on the ocean floor in the creepiest condition possible. He was a surfer who'd gone missing a few days prior so he wore a wet suit with his legs, arms, and head exposed. Crabs had eaten the flesh from his exposed bits so basically he was a torso with a skull and skeletal limbs.

The creepiest dive of my life though, two buddies of mine and I were on a night dive in the Pugeut Sound hunting prawns. It was about 1am and we're a good 100ft deep, the pitchest black you could imagine. We used to do this thing on night dives where we'd get in a circle, turn off our lights, then stir up the water and watch the bio-luminescence float around us like floating stars in a black watery space. Beautiful. Only this one time we turn off our lights, stir up the water, and the water glows just enough to reveal a fourth person sitting in our circle.

We were at a dive resort so it wasn't so odd to see another diver, only it was 1am--we'd seen no one else prepping a dive at the dock. He was also alone which was odd considering the dangerous conditions of a night dive in those waters, and he had no fins or gloves. I don't know how he swam so well without fins or didn't get hypothermia without boots or gloves. We wore drysuits because it was so cold but this dude was in a wet suit with exposed skin and we thought we saw a giant gash in one of the legs.

So the three of us all notice him and we're too f*****g scared to move, I can hear my buddies panting in their regs, and the guy just smiles and waves, then swims away.

That was 100 times creepier than skeleton dude. Whenever you think you're alone and someone just shows up, like in an alley at night, it's weird as f**k. 100ft under water at night is terrifying.

Image credits: pteam-pterodactyl

#2

I don't know if this counts but I'm a water lover, so maybe so.

While water skiing in the lake one time (Louisiana) when I flew off I landed like pretty much on top of an alligator. I kinda felt my leg hit him and we were like eye to eye when I gasped for air. Then he went under. The moments after that were the most terrifying moments of my life because I was so certain Id feel him bite my foot any second and drag me under. I started screaming and couldn't stop until the boat was back to me.

You don't realize how long 2-3 minutes is until you're alone in the open water.

Never again for me.

Image credits: tsim12345

#3

I was diving of the coast of manly island, near sydney, on my gap year. We were told to stay away from caves and whatnot because common sense, what with sea snakes and such. Me and 3 friends jump in and swim for a bit. We're were at the edge of a reef and just checking out some coral and junk. Me and another guy swim to the very edge of the reef to check out the deeper bits (not going down too far of course), and swim past a small crevice. It was so small we didnt even notice it. I turn my back to it for a bit to check where the other guys are and my buddy starts shaking the begeezus out of me and is franticly pointing towards the crevice. I turn (already expecting a demon or some monster) and squeezing out the crevice comes this f*****g enourmous blob of maroon flesh and suckers. At this point i wet my pants (no lie). So basically it was a octupus with the arm span of a paddling pool and it lunges and the other guy, squirting him with ink and dissapearing. I thought it was gone cause i couldnt see s**t. I saw his arm flailing out of the blackness and i thought he was swimming to safety and i was ready to get the f**k out of the ocean forever. From a distance i saw that the octopus had him by the right leg and was groping him in a mass of inky horror. I had no idea whether or not to help him, i had never been more scared because i knew octopus can kill people. I was so scared i could barely breathe. I tried to go help him and when i got close to him the octopus scarpered further down into the reef. I had never seen a man look so frightened in his life. He swam so fast up to the boat with me in pursuit and the guy didnt need a ladder to get up to the boat, he just breached the surface and hoisted himself by his arms on the edge of the boat. I called the driver over and he ran over. My buddy had a chunk of flesh the size of a tennis ball out of his calf. He still has marks from the suckers (those mofos are strong). To this day he has never even been to the beach, and he's even scared of baths.

Image credits: anon

#4

This happened when I was doing my 2nd dive on the entry level course to a scuba diving organization (I can't recall the name).

So we're about to descend to the ocean floor to do some basic exercises (e.g. letting water into your mask and getting it out again). My friend, let's call him Daniel, was the first diver that descended all the way with the instructor, but when his flippers touched the ground there was a hidden wobbegong shark. He hit it, and it RUSHED towards and bit Daniel in the thigh. Daniel was scared and ascended WAY to quickly (ascending to quickly without proper "form" can kill you). He was scared shitless, and so was I as I was right next to him. I grabbed his calf and tried to push him down and he kinda realized what he was doing. At the moment I was scared, but 10 minutes later on the boat we nicknamed him "The Shark Tamer" - everything really does want to kill you in Australia huh.

Image credits: Fnuzilla

#5

I was diving a spear fishing spot about 30 miles off shore. I was 60 feet under water. There I was swimming along when I noticed them a school of Mahi Mahi. There were about 30 maybe 40 of them. These fish where all between 2 and 5 feet long. They were so beautiful with their sides flashing all different colors. That's when I felt the tug on my leg. I looked down at my legs to see a 12 tiger shark pulling on my dive fin and taking me along for the ride. In a second he had ripped the fin off my foot. The shark then swam away but kept circling just at visual range. I think he was still curious about how I tasted. I kept an eye on him the whole time I was swimming back to the boat. Scariest moment I have ever had in the water.

Image credits: EnderWiggin3rd

#6

Surfing off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Sitting there waiting for waves when this big dark shape slithered underneath me and my board. I quickly went to a kneeling position on my board with an audible 'holy s**t balls.'

moments later the friendliest face poked up out of the water in front of me. A big curious Seal. Curse you Seal....you scared the p**s out of me that day.

Image credits: viperfunk

#7

I was leading a group of 8 students on a night dive off of our liveaboard dive boat in Egypt. Every few minutes I'd turn around and just make sure everyone was still there and hadn't gotten lost.

About 30 mins into the dive, we all settled onto the bottom in a circle to turn off our lights and check out the bioluminescence . After we turned our lights back on I scanned the circle quickly to count everyone.

Kneeling off to one side of the group, alone, with no dive light, 45' underwater with no other boats in sight on the surface, was a single unknown person - fully geared up, breathing steadily, and making eye contact with me.

I panicked a bit right then because I had NO idea who the f**k this person was or where they came from or what they were doing down there... and so I did the only logical thing: lead my group back to the boat, and never mentioned it to any of the kids.

Still creeps me out.

Image credits: orodruinx

#8

Rescue diver in the Bahamas... [I was] diving in a submerged blue hole (the entrance is below sea level) and a diver went missing.

After an hour or two of searching, went back into the blue hole to see if there were any signs of him. Saw the glint of his watch and his arm sticking out near the bottom.

Start descending down to the bottom to recover the body. On the way down realized that the "bottom" was a school of sharks that must have been there for breeding. So many sharks that they blocked the view of the actual bottom.

Descended into the darkness, grabbed his arm (couldn't stand to look at the body) and started ascending. The sharks followed. And were circling the both of us. Had to take a break halfway at around 65 feet as to not get the bends. Scared sh*tless. The entire time waiting to normalize scared sh*tless. He was struck by a passing boat.

Image credits: keithbah

#9

I was diving in Thailand and we were at a site diving where there were two steep hills underwater full of rock formations, coral etc. Between these two areas was a sandy bottom with scattered rocks ranging between the 1-5 meters across, all full of holes and full of life.

Were were swimming from one hill to the next and inspecting these rocks along the way. I was swimming along one large one when I get wacked in the side of my stomach very hard. It startled the s**t out of me and I quickly back off. The dive instructor noticed and came over and we inspected what happened.

That's when we a gigantic moray eel (I'm later told it was a Giant Moray). He was absolutely massive, never seen one so big. Was easily a couple meters in length and was probably as wide as my head. We assume I had passed too close without noticing and he attacked, he hit my BCD and luckily didn't persist.

Image credits: gloriouspenguin

#10

I grew up diving, as my family owned a dive shop. I've dove all over the globe, but the thing that creeped me out most happened on my local lake. I was about ten, and had taken our ski boat from the dock to a secluded cove to look for an abandoned cemetery (the lake was created by TVA in the 30's and displaced an entire town, leaving several places like this lost in the trees with no access). When I got onto the shore, I found a blanket with all the edges tied together to make a bundle. I didn't open it, but did some exploratory poking. There was obviously a cinder block in there, and the rest was just squishy. After a particularly vigorous poke, blood started seeping through the blanket. I hauled my little a*s back to the boat and never looked back. Decades later, I still think about that and wonder what was in there.

On a lighter note, our shop got a lot of business retrieving dropped items and speed boats that idiots would sink. My dad was the shop's master instructor and normally passed these jobs on to me or one of the regulars. However, he took one job in January to test his new dry suit and took along one of his friends. I was their gear-tote, and waited on shore. Dad came up first, and started telling me about this weird looking fishing lure he'd found while sifting through the silt. About that time, the buddy surfaces and asks dad why he was playing with that tampon for so long.

I had an awesome childhood.

Image credits: warwatch

#11

This was a long time ago, but okay. It was a training dive under the ice: Enter via a bubbler keeping ice from a ferry, swim out to a sunken wreck via lines, stick to cave protocol the whole time. Five tank dive, each, with mixed gases and O2 for decompression. On the way back, well over 90 minutes in the water, [a fellow diver's] reg explodes into a free flow.

No problem: Swap onto another, kill that tank at the valve, stow it and keep going. Two minutes later it happens again. No problem - we keep going. Then again. Sh*t is serious now, and we've all got extra regulators at the ready. Buddy is getting a little shaky, and suddenly he hits his drysuit inflator and flies upward.

We followed as fast as we could without blowing our deco and endangering more people, and pass through a cloud of blood. Found him wedged in a crack about five minutes later, already gone.

#12

Went snorkeling off the coast of Mozambique near an island when a dugong swam right under me. It was MASSIVE. I literally peed myself.

Image credits: dontwanttostop

#13

On one of my night dives at the Flower Garden Banks Marine Sanctuary in either 2005 or 2006, had my first encounter with a Beaded Sea Cucumber. I thought I stepped out of the real world and into a science fiction/fantasy world seeing this long worm with tentacles surrounding it's mouth like a cross between a snake and an octopus. Very scary initially, now I look for them because they are pretty cool.

On a more recent dive (this spring), although I knew I was going to see it (the whole purpose of the dive after all), finding the 3 year old 80 lb golden lab that had been swept away in the spring floods and trapped in debris under a bridge scared the heck out of me when I first found her body visually. Knowing you are looking for it, and actually finding it are two different things. But at least I was able to bring her body home for her family.

Image credits: SeasDiver

#14

My grandpa was in the Royal Australian Navy during the Vietnam War. They were taught to shake the hand of dead sailors when recovering the bodies to make them more comfortable and familiar with handling a dead body. On my grandpa's first recovery dive, he shook the hand of a dead sailor and the arm came off the body. Had to keep his cool and bring the body up, but still pretty messed up.

#15

I was out doing my job one time in the absolute darkness of the void. I had been out a good 30 or 45 minutes when I saw something swish over the top of my vision really fast. I looked around, couldn't see anything. Spooked me good and so I just focused on my tactical breathing and not losing my fingers. A minute passed and I saw something go a little behind the pylon and down.

I was 100% sure it was a kraken or some sh*t. Another minute passes and then this 2-or-so-foot fish comes swimming up to me. Weird looking motherf*cker. Pale and long and skinny with BIG eyes and a bigger mouth. It just kind of darted around me for a bit, just hanging out with me while I worked. When I was done, he took off.

#16

Down in La Jolla California, they have caves along the coast that you can swim through, if the tides are right. This particular day the water level was high enough that you could swim through this one cave that was pretty narrow. Well, it's my turn to swim and when I'm half way through a set wave comes in and clears the cave while I'm still in it. I was smashed against the side of the cave, bloodied up the back of my shoulder pretty good.

But we're thinking, well s**t, we just got in the water. We were planning on swimming out to a buoy and then back to shore. So I just say f**k it, let's do it, exposed wound in an area known for Great White sightings, no big deal, gotta get a work out in!

Well we get to the buoy and I just have the biggest sense of dread. We're probably a good 15 minute swim from shore and I start thinking about this wound on my arm just leaking shark bait into this giant vast ocean full of stuff that probably wants to eat me. Sure enough, I'm looking down and I see something swimming towards me, it's dark. I'm like what the f**k what the f**k what the f**k and I started swimming away from it, and I turn around to and I see two more of the same things coming at me from different directions. My face goes completely white, I'm expected to get grabbed and pulled under and never seen again. Nothing happens.

My friends can see the look on my face and they're asking me what happened. We all decide to swim in together. My friends were all better swimmers than me, but on that day I beat them all back to the shore easily. I'm practically kissing the sand when I finally made it to the shore and this old man comes up to me and says:

"You shouldn't be swimming with that cut on your arm, you're attracting sharks!"

Image credits: anon

#17

Drift diving in Sulawesi, Indonesia and I glided over at least a dozen human skulls in a distance of about 30 yards.

Image credits: anon

#18

I was diving in bermuda, 85 feet down, coming out of the wheelhouse of an old fishing boat. I felt something start tapping my hand, turn my head with thoughts of all kinds of horrible terrifying sea creatures reaching out to grab my hand and see a tiny little fish flinging itself into my hand and waving it's fins at me as if to say "get out of my house! go on scram!"

That was when I discovered you could laugh through a regulator

#19

Ok here's a fun one, made me feel like a b***h at the time, but now I look back and laugh.

Snorkeling on the gulf side of Mexico, just after high school. Had set up a day beach, good location, water dropped to about 20 feet deep just a short distance off shore. Things are going well, we're seeing just HUNDREDS of fish, small school of puffers (didn't even know they schooled), which scared a few people.

So at one point, I'm just swimming back up to the shallow beach, and turn around to swim backward, when I see... I don't know, 6-12 of these small fish, white bodies with yellow fins, RIGHT off the end of my flippers, swimming HARD. Like, chasing me. Moments later I'm scrambling up on the sand like a shark is right on my a*s. Did that whole "look around to see if anyone noticed me being a fool" thing. In retrospect, they probably liked the current I was generating with the flippers or something, I know they weren't dangerous. There's just something truly freightening about so much smaller than yourself being aggressive or chasing you.

TL;DR Chased by tiny, probably harmless fish while snorkeling, scared the c**p out of me.

#20

Surfer here. Grew up in Southern California now live and surf on the east coast. In the outer banks area of North Carolina, there are tons of sharks which are usually not aggressive so I have no problem surfing around black tip sharks and such. Was out on the water for a sunrise surf session when a fifteen foot manta ray literally jumped over me. His (her?) wing slapped me on the back and knocked me into the water and all I could think of was how Steve Erwin died and I literally crapped myself.

#21

Not a diver, but my dad is a PADI instructor and used to run a small diving business.

He has hundreds of awesome pictures that he has taken while diving, but he told me a few weeks ago that when he was In Tobermory, he went to a wreck and found the exact dive camera he was using, and it looked pretty new on the floor of the water.

Apparently he noped so far out of there.

Oh and he's seen like creepy s**t. Like dolls, and creepy old antiques and s**t

Image credits: RogueToasters

#22

Years ago I was having a fun day snorkeling in the lagoon in Diego Garcia. On the way back across the lagoon a pod of dolphins came up and were jumping around the boat. Shut off the motor real quick and jumped in. I'm pretty good - usually dive down 15-20'. It was amazing... Dolphins all over the place. I went down about three times. Next time I went down.. Nothing. I looked around... And then there they were. Hammerheads. Hundreds of them. All around me. Blood went cold. Panic sets in. Some small... Some as big as me (over 6') some were just monsters... I didn't panic - slowly drifted back up to the surface. When my head broke the water I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by death incarnate - and couldn't see a single one. I've never felt fear like I did in calmly trying to climb back into the boat... It was amazing. It was incredible. It was utterly horrifying....

#23

It was my first deep wreck dive, and I was venturing in the hold of a sunken fishing trawler. At the bottom of the dark hold, I found a full size skeleton. My wife and dive buddy freaked out, and swam straight into the wall. She dropped her dive light, which settled 20 feet below between the skeleton's legs.

I dove down alone to get it, because SCUBA gear is expensive. Up close, that skeleton was an obvious plant.

#24

Not sure if this counts, but I learned to scuba dive in False Bay while on vacation in Cape Town a few years ago. Not even a week later, a man was eaten (not just bit!) by a "dinosaur sized" great white in the same area we were diving. I'm sure this sounds dramatic but I haven't dived since and probably never will. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.
Witnesses described the terrifying scene. The shark was "longer than a minibus", Coppen told the Cape Times newspaper. He said: "It was this giant shadow heading to something colourful. Then it sort of came out the water and took this colourful lump and went off with it. You could see its whole jaw wrap around the thing which turned out to be a person."
News article about the attack:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/13/cape-town-giant-shark-attack

Image credits: Penelope2124

#25

I swam out into the middle of a lake in northern Wisconsin on a warm summer day. I was floating on my back, just relaxing. After a bit, I started thinking about how deep the water was, and then about a horror movie I had recently seen that featured a giant monster bursting up through the water in a lake not unlike the one that i was floating in.

I started to feel kind of nervous.

Suddenly, I heard the most god-awful roar as if the lake was exploding beneath me. Terrified, I bolted up to tread water only to see the trailing smoke from a SAC fighter jet that was practicing flying under radar.

Image credits: Travesura

#26

I did find a bag full of cat bones once... we were pretty perplexed about it. We brought it up and found a cross and rocks in the bag. I'm assuming (hoping) it was a burial of a loved family pet and not the alternative.

Image credits: SupervisorEric

#27

So I'm in Cancun, Mexico with my host family (exchange student). There's this hotel that's surrounded by a river thingy that you snorkel in.

I can't sink (lol thanks, body fat) so I don't have a life jacket. I'm about a mile of swimming into the river when I see something interesting at the bottom.

I struggle downwards (the water was maybe 9-12 feet deep?) and I see it's a conch shell! What a perfect present for my younger host sister, it's her birthday today and she's love it!

I keep trying to swim to the bottom, only to get pulled back up, over and over by my own mass. It's been thirty minutes and I have a headache. I'm not going to give up that easily.

I manage to get a hand on the shell, and pull it toward me! Victory!

I have a sudden sharp pain on my stomach. I drop the shell in surprise, and I see a little blood coming out of a new wound. I swim to land, and investigate the mark on the shore.

The wound was bizarre, shallow but in a shape that looks like the bite from human molars. I've been pinched by crabs plenty of times, and this looked nothing like a crab pinch. Didn't feel like one either.

I couldn't figure out what was living in that shell. I scoured the internet and my zoology textbook, but nothing matched my bite marks.

To this day, I still don't know what bit me.

Image credits: anon

#28

I was diving with some friends and found a fisherman's glove with a hand still inside it. We brought the glove to the local police and they told us that they hadn't received any kind of report of a guy with a missing hand.

Image credits: gdwcifan

#29

Bodies.

One summer at my cousin's lake house, my cousins and I were out swimming and at one point my sister started screaming bloody murder. All the adults jumped into the lake to drag her out.

Turns out she had just had seaweed wrap around her leg. What our parents hadn't told us was that a man had drowned in the lake and his body hadn't been recovered yet. He washed up on our shore the next day.

Still a little scared to swim in that lake.

Image credits: 2ndcircle

#30

I was snorkeling in the Caribbean and I got separated from the rest of the group. We had be sticking close to the shore to look at the small fish and things. Touristy stuff. I stayed behind to look at a small school of fish and when I looked up they were all way ahead of me.

To catch up, I took a shortcut across deep water. I was swimming along for a while, not seeing any fish or anything, when I just saw a murky outline in the distance. You know, when you're looking at something underwater from a distance and its just a shape? Like that. But it was huge. Easily bigger than me. Just slowly swimming parallel with me.

I didn't take the time to investigate it closer and just swam to shore as fast as I could. Still gives me chills when I think about it.

Image credits: Yeti_Hairball

#31

I was about to go on a night dive along the GBR outside of Bundaberg when I couldn't get my wireless watch to sync to my tank, so I waved my dive buddies on telling them I'd catch up later. I finally get the watch to sync and check in with the dive master and leap off the boat into the black water. I am really good at going down fast so I sink to the bottom and then shut off my flash light and start swimming to the divers in the distance. Night divers are not hard to find as they are the only source of light, so I keep my flashlight off and swim through the darkness towards the group.

Every once in awhile I shine my light around to see landmarks and keep on a decent path. I started using a small coral outcropping as a guide. Just as I come upon it I shine my flashlight only to scare the p**s out of a shark that I only get a strobe like glimpse of as my light bounces off its snout and in a huge rush of bubbles going tearing off into the black. I calmly try to maintain my breathing so as to preserve my air and slowly swim to the group.

I thought it was a nurse shark. I kind of still do. But I found out the next morning a tiger shark was curious about us and hanging around since the late afternoon. We ended up seeing it the next day as it swam around us in the distance. And then we even watched it attack a turtle for a half hour during lunch. So it may have been that bad boy I ran into in the pitch black ocean.

#32

When I was taking my navigation portion of my PADI advanced certification, my instructor had me swim out from the wall into the deep blue, all while swimming completely by compass. While I was on my return swim a remora attached itself to my stomach causing me to spit out my regulator, inhale water, and freak the f**k out. The scariest part was that I had swam far enough from the wall that the instructor and the dive group could see none of this happening. Luckily I did the proper regulator recovery before I inhaled too much water and drown. The remora did end up following us the rest of the dive. So, at least when we got topside and I told everyone what happened they believed me.

#33

I was snorkeling in the Bahamas when I came across a barracuda that was at least 2 metres long. Eerie looking creature, just sat there with its teeth poking all grumpy looking. Turns out after speaking to the locals, this particulate barracuda is called Henry and these waters have been his territory for years.

#34

Was doing a drift dive down in Mexico. Saw a VERY large grouper off in the distance. Let myself drift towards it. I soon realized it was far bigger than I had thought and I was putting myself in danger (possibly). This thing could have taken me down too far or damaged my gear or knocked me out. I've seen videos of these things eating 4 foot sharks. And this bad boy was bigger than the ones in the videos. I was a bit shaken after that dive.

#35

South Floridian, here. I grew up fishing and diving, which has led to a few notable stories. The one that sticks out the most was during my high school years. I had just taken a deep breath and gone down to a reef about thirty or so below. My friend was still on the boat above and we were the only ones on the reef. I got down to the bottom and noticed a thin upright pole. Upon closer inspection it was indeed a normal fishing pole, but old and rotten under the water for so long. Right as I was going to grab the pole it was pulled from my hands, just shooting up and away, as if being reeled in by the other side. It was gone within a matter of seconds, so i started my resurface expecting to see another boat responsible. No boats, nothing in sight, but of course just my friend and his boat. I never bothered telling him, because he would have never believed me anyway. The only explanation I might have is that the pole was still attached to a fish or something, although I doubt it. Still gives me goose bumps thinking about it.

Image credits: Ursus_Crap

#36

I was scuba diving with my family in hawaii. We were pretty deep, im guessing like 25 feet under water, when the lady in front of me kicked out my breathing mouth piece. I had just blown out all of the air in my lungs so im deep under water with no oxygen and not a whole lot of time to react. So i start clawing for the surface frantically. As i was going up i felt this horrible expanding feeling in my chest. It was the scariest moment in my life. One of the instructors popped up a minute or two later and said she didnt expect me to be alive or concious or something like that. I went back to the hotel pretty shaken up and cried a little bit from sheer terror. It was a rough day

Image credits: Old_Dirty_Badger

#37

Guns... dozens and dozens of guns. Rotten stock and rusted closed, but there are certain spots locally where I can bring up as many as I can carry just about every dive.

#38

Creepiest thing was diving a sunk passenger ferry in Egypt and seeing suitcases of the people who died scattered around the seabed. Scariest was doing a night dive and dropping my torch - it swung on the line attaching it to my BCD and a HUGE shark swam through the beam. I grabbed the torch and shone it around, but it was nowhere to be seen. Spent the rest of the dive convinced it was stalking me in the darkness.

Image credits: phibber

#39

I was spearfishing in the Bahamas once with some friends a few years back. I had finally killed a good sized black grouper under this rock that had taken 4 shafts already so I turned around to show my friend and his face was blank staring past me. I turned around and a bull shark that must've been 10ft at least came up from below us and ate the whole grouper shaft and all. It yanked my pole spear too so now I was in the water defenseless with an aggressive bull swimming around. I got back on the boat quicker than I have at any other point in my life.

#40

Probably not the story OP is looking for, but still scared me!

I do recreational scuba diving with my grandfather, nothing too deep I think we went to ninety feet once. We have only dove twenty or so times and nothing too recent due to my grandfathers buoyancy issues. When you go diving one of the first things you want to do after getting to depth is attain your buoyancy so you can control your depth through you breathing. My grandpa can do this just fine, maintains this state is an issue for him. Whenever he takes a deep breath and starts floating up he dumps his air, starts falling to the ocean floor, and then pumps his BC full of air again causing him to float up even more. This is a huge problem.

So most of our dives went well and this wasn't a huge issue, but when we were on vacation in Cozumel he scared me to death. We were doing a reef dive (40-60 feet) having a good time when he starts fidgeting with his buoyancy. Next thing I know I see him float up nearly to the surface and then come crashing back down to my level. A few minutes later he goes soaring back up this time reaching the surface and all I see is I'm flopping about the waves. Now I don't know how easy it is to get the Benz or how easily this can kill someone, but seeing him just flip around on the surface freaked me out. The worst part is I'm 50 feet down and helpless to do anything.

When we finally got back to the boat he was puking, but nothing else ever came of the incident. That was the last time we dove and as much as I enjoyed sharing the experience with him I don't plan on ever diving with him again.

#41

Well I definitely *don't* love water, but here's mine:

Was down by the beach, was around thirteen. My brothers and I went down there to play a lot around then. There's a seagull, they're pretty common around there, flies down to the water to grab a tasty fish. Well, it must have misjudged the size, because whatever it was grabbed the seagull and dragged it under water.

Dunno what it was, but I didn't want to play in the same water as it.

Image credits: ArsenalOwl

#42

Was diving off Gloucester north of Boston and saw what I thought was a blanket spread on the bottom. It looked like there was something under it so I went closer thinking I'd see what was under it. When I was about a foot away I realize it's not a blanket with it rises up and faces me. It's a very large [torpedo ray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_torpedo). These are a member of the electric ray family and can generate enough charge to render a human unconscious. I almost swallowed my regulator. Fortunately he wasn't aggressive and I just backed away slowly with my heart pounding rapidly.

#43

I was diving off the coast of Fiji and we went through a natural tunnel (like a 10-meter cave/passage through a rock formation). So we start swimming through the cave and suddenly the light was weird, like the blue tint from the water has been replaced by a red one. Now all divers will know that this isn't only weird because the color changed but also because red is the first color to disappear after a certain depth (usually between 30 feet and 40 feet), and we were over 70 feet deep. Also bare in mind this was late morning on a sunny day.

So imagine this scene: Me and my dive buddy are going through an underwater cave and suddenly everything, for no apparent reason, is tinted red, a color that you are literally supposed to be unable to see while diving at that depth during the day.

Upon exiting the cave, everything was back to blue. I thought it was just me so I didn't signal to go back up. After the dive my buddy asked me if I'd seen the water tint red too. We can't explain it and the folks from the local dive shop had no idea what we were talking about.

#44

I had had my certification for about a year and had not done any diving and I was itching to do so. Best I could muster at the time was a fresh water dive in Canyon Lake. A buddy was gonna dive with me but backed out at the last moment and sat on shore. Knowing I should never solo dive I said screw it were only talking 30' - 50' feet and jumped in and started a slow descent. Really nothing to see until I got near the bottom and saw an old pickup truck was down there. I swam around it and wiped the silt off the doors windshield and shined my dive light inside to see if I could see anything but nope just silt particles floating in the clear, clear water. I tried the truck's door handle and it opened with little effort. Just then the biggest catfish I have ever seen in person darted out at me. It was bigger than a washing machine and scared the living f**k out of me. I choked and gobbled and started to shoot up before I caught myself and slowed down. When I surfaced my friend said he had never seen my eyes so wide and that was through my mask. He thought I found a dead person. Same weekend I dove in a river and could not surface due to all the [Nutria](http://www.skyhdwallpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Nutria_Family-Pic.jpg) above me. Hundreds of them. Had to go down a ways to get out. Those were my first two dives other than certification. Since have had many, many and yes in salt water ;). Had a grouper swallow my arm once while petting it but he released immediately, no harm.

#45

Me and a buddy of mine were diving the Edmonds Oil Pier in Washington. We're cruising along and he points his light out into the murkiness that is Puget Sound. I see this white streak in the distance. Both of us drop to the bottom and get behind one of the pylons and watch as a pod of orcas goes by.

If we had been in the open water, we would have been a tasty morsel for the pod

#46

I was snorkeling in a decommissioned canal when on a family vacation in Canada. I was in 12 year old heaven, as everything I lifted had large crayfish under it. I go into a rhythm of lift, grab catch, lift grab, catch, when I saw a weathered log. I sprayed bubbles into the clear water when I realized the "log" was actually the tail of a gigantic snapping turtle.

#47

Divers in one area of Honduras took to feeding an eel. It was a big a*s moray eel, and it got to like divers, because they always gave it food.

One day I was on a dive and nobody gave it food, and the dive master didn't really mention it. Next thing you know this tame moray eel is swimming furiously after a half dozen divers, and they are scared as s**t. I hovered about 20 feet above them and watched the mayhem unfold. These people all thought they were going to die, but really that six foot moray eel with razer sharp teeth only wanted his doggie snacks.

Image credits: bellevuefineart

#48

A little late but here I go.

I was 8 or 9 yrs old, snorkeling in Florida at sunset maybe 6-8 ft from shore 4-5ft of water. There were huge schools of smaller fish swimming right up to the edge of the shore break, we're talking thousands of fish, and I noticed that if you dove under and swam against the sand the fish would envelope you in a shiny silvery bubble. It was beautiful and honestly enchanting and I got lost just doing this. On one of my dips underwater, im just going along the bottom when suddenly my bubble opens dead ahead and all I see is long sharp teeth, a giant dark eye, and something much larger than me grazes over my back. As fast as it happened, my bubble is my own again and I stand up and haul a*s out the water.

Turns out it was a large sand tiger shark (9-11ft) patrolling through the bait fish.

#49

I was like 8-9 and snorkeling in hawaii. I turned around in only a couple feet of water and a turtle rammed me full speed in the face. Scared the hell out of me and broke my goggles. Dunno what the hell it was doing

#50

Not really a underwater story, But one year i was fishing the Potomac river at a dam by a recycling paper plant. The dam was old so it had a lip where if the water was low enough you could walk out and cast out into the center of the river. Well that morning i got down there early, and I saw this what appeared to be a rock or type of log like thing out in the middle of this lip. Well i was still on shore setting up my rod when i saw it move. Now i was younger back then like 16 or so but i was a big kid, 6'0 300 solid kid, and this thing was easy 6 and half foot long 5 foot wide. Well next thing i see is a Head careen up like a snake and look over at me, like its looking back at me over this shell thing. The neck was atleast 4 feet long, it got up on 4 legs of some sort and pushed off into the river. Never walked out on that lip again.

#51

My Dad told me a story from when he was in college. Him and his dad went diving somewhere and he went into some kind of caves. After turning a corner and exiting another mouth of the cave, he was faced with the edge of a cliff with nothing but a black abyss below him. He said it was one of the most terrifying things he has ever experienced.

#52

A summer camp I used to go to was made on a man made reservoir. Where the reservoir was used to be a small village. When we went kayaking and canoing you could still see the top of a 40-50ft talk church steeple roughly 10-15ft below the surface of water. Turns out they've didn't tear down the village before flooding. The houses and stuff are still there.

#53

Oh, man, I got to go to the maldives really shortly after getting my open water certification, and I knew basically *nothing* about what was out there. And when you actually get out there, it's absolutely teeming with life. There are millions of fish, coral, sea slugs, all sort of things and I had no idea what was or wasn't dangerous.

So I saw sharks which it turned out were absolutely not dangerous at all, but on the other hand I ended up getting stupidly close to a Moray eel, and I had no idea how dangerous it was.

Moray eels are basically like the Ridley Scott's Aliens, but for real. [They clamp down with their huge jaws, and then there's a telescopic second jaw inside that shoots out and starts ripping chunks out of you.](https://youtu.be/qVQ4m8hfx-4?t=251) When I read up on them when I got back to shore, that scared the hell out of me.

#54

I like kayaking when I get the chance, but one day, in a lake up in Glacier Nation Park, Montana (The most beautiful place I've ever been, and I totally recommend it) when I saw a small boat. A little, vintage looking, tiny motorboat. The little tiny mini speed boats you always see in 70's movies set in Miami or something, just a few feet underwater, perfectly preserved. I could reach down and touch it. There was no signs of damage, no signs of why it sunk. It was strangely eerie. I had to leave because for some reason it just freaked me out. The idea that something could sit, inches from the air but still submerged for years, probably. It made me so uncomfortable and I don't know why.

#55

scuba diving down a ledge - dim, a bit murky: doll's head lodged on the ledge face made me scream into my regulator.

#56

I was knee boarding one time in a lake not too far outside of my home town. The water is very murky and dark. Well the front end of the board dipped downward in to the water but I kept holding on to the rope. I shot probably a good 20+ feet deep in a matter of a couple of second and when I let go I completely lost my place it space. It was pitch black and I couldn't tell if I was right side up or upside down. Didn't really "find" anything scary but being that lost in space is truly terrifying. Started buying more buoyant life jackets from that point forward.

#57

Scuba diver here:
Once I was going along a common route between 2 underwater way points when I found a small shiny object on the sand. I recognised it as part of the assembly which fits on top of the air tank and connects to the breathing regulator. Now this is something you can't breathe without, so it creeped the hell out of me to think about the story of how such a crucial item ended up there.

#58

I was out on a pontoon in a lake with some friends swimming and found like 15 dolls in a pile like ten feet down. Not really sure what that was about. After that we drank more beer and had a fantastic day.

#59

I was snorkeling on a [blue hole] (http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2010/07/21/bahamas_islandx-topper-medium.jpg) in the bahamas (not the one pictured) and this one didnt go straight down but kind of at an angle and it was 6 ft high by 20 feet wide so more crack like. I am an avid water dog and can free dive 60 feet if I have flippers on, but this cave being sideways got dark FAST. Thing was, there were a ton of angel fish about 25 feet in, so I kept going back down further and further. The last time I went in, I was down far enough I couldnt see more than 10 feet to the sides, so the edges were in complete darkness. All of a sudden I see a huge mass wiggle out and barely come into view. This this was longer than me and probably 4 times as massive. I felt my heart seize up in terror and I noped the f**k out of there. On reaching the surface and recalling what I saw, I determined it to be a [Goliath Grouper] (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BdMOE0Gf5EI/maxresdefault.jpg) which despite its size is a mostly harmless fish. Or maybe I am lying to myself and I saw a sea monster. Either way, I've never been more scared in my life.

Edit: It was [Mystery Cave] (http://offislandadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/426399_235689393186407_1189347636_n.jpg) in Exuma if anyone is interested. Google search for that string returns a lot of pics of other places, heads up.

#60

Diving in Cyprus, doing swim through caves. I've done several of them, but this one it was the first time due to being allowed to do the depth.

When we went in, it was glorious sunshine. But in the middle of that cave, it suddenly went dark, to the point where we had to pull out our torches. Creeped me the f**k out, as if it was a bad omen.

Turned out fine in the end, although it is rare that we have a dive that goes without a hitch.

#61

Snorkel in the great barrier reef. when it was time to get back on the boat the underwater photographer grabbed my attention by pointing down. I Looked down and there was this big shark just holding pattern on the bottom....needless to say I climbed to the boat rather quickly.

#62

Was snorkeling a few hundred meters off shore in the Cayman Islands when I stumbled upon what i thought where two big a*s sharks just chillin. Michael phelps would've been jealous of the speed I was swimming back to shore before I realized that they weren't actually sharks but rather two average size tarpons. Great time

#63

The water was so clear off the coast of the Outer Banks that day, I was seriously kicking my own a*s for not bringing my dive mask & flippers. We were swimming just off Nag's head pier, killing time while my friend finished his shift at the pier's fishing shop.

There wasn't much to see close to shore, so I swam a bit further out, freediving here and there. The pier is about 750 feet long, and I reached the end of it without seeing anything too exciting. I finally gave up and decided to head back in.

Met up with my friend after his shift, and we were talking about the clarity of the water. "No s**t!" he says, "I got some great pics of the sharks off the end of the pier!" He pulls out his phone and shows me the image of about 10 hammerheads clearly visible, circling around the exact spot where I'd decided to turn around.

#64

I was doing a solo dive on a wreck in Florida and found a dive knife. At first I was pumped to get a free knife but the more I explored the wreck the more stuff I found. Pieces of wet suit torn up and some weights made me start to feel uncomfortable. It was one of the only solo dives I did and when the visibility was only 15 ft it made me really paranoid the whole ascent.

#65

I was diving around Fishers Island, NY. The bottom was very sandy and I spotted an area about 3 feet (probably closer to 2 feet, in reality) in diameter that looked like it had been smoothed over. I figured something had been buried there, so I found the edge and stuck my knife in and tried to pry whatever it was up.

Immediately, the whole thing (whatever it was) started to shift back and forth (rotating an in or two clockwise, then counterclockwise). I removed my knife, took a deep breath, and floated upwards. The shifting continued for a few seconds, then settled down.

I swam off, deciding not to f**k with whatever it was. Someone suggested it was some sort of sea turtle hiding in the sand. I've never seen a sea turtle in the area and I didn't know they did that.

#66

I was a commercial pearl diver on the north coast of Australia. For roughly three years. Had several face to face encounters with crocodiles and sharks. Diving during the "wet" season was the worst. Almost zero visibility, from the rivers running out the ocean. Did I just bump into a log or a croc? Sharks working out our dive schedules. Good Times, good times.

#67

I was snorkeling in catalina, following the coastline, when I came around a bend and saw a goat sitting on the sea floor. It really tripped me out because it was just sitting there with its legs tucked under itself kind of swaying with the tide. After I was done
questioning my entire sense of reality, I realized the goat was of course dead. I swam to the surface and noticed we were next to a sheer cliff face. So what I assumed happened was that the goat fell from the cliff and settled in the water like it was sitting. Tripped me out for a moment though.

#68

While in Egypt I decided to go snorkeling in the ocean.

Water was maybe hip deep and I am floating around just enjoying the view and the atmosphere, when I come by a sea anemone.

Not expecting anything bad, I just want to float by, when this freaking Nemo (clown-fish) attacks me and hit's my goggles.

I am so scared, I scream, which is a bad idea as screaming under water leads to water in your lounge, leads to almost dying, until I finally remember to just freaking stand up and take a deep breath.

Stupid fish scared the air out of me.

Nemo is a ruthless killer, do not let the movie tell you otherwise.

#69

I was on an island called Koh Lipe off the coast of Thailand. I decided to go snorkeling one day and swam out into the reef. Obviously the further out I swam the deeper it got but I enjoyed free diving at that time so swimming down to 25 or 30 feet was a fun challenge.




I finally swam out to the edge of the islands shelf where it basically drops from 40ish feet deep into an abyss of nothing. I stayed there for about 5 minutes looking down over the shelf when I see something big swimming about 70 or 80 feet down. I turned right around and swam back as calmly as I could so I didn't sound like I was struggling.




Once I got to shore I sat there for a good 2 hours.

#70

Got my fin tugged on while free diving in a kelp forest only to whip around and see a curious harbor seal, also fully hit a female elephant seal while boogie boarding on a wave in a surf break. Both of which scared the s**t out of me but were kinda funny. Also saw a baby great white (or possibly a thresher shark) in a surf line up, wither way took the next wave in.

#71

Scariest thing for me when diving was the first time I was truly in some deep water. Diving the Bloody Bay Wall in the Caymans, we go through a cut in the coral and the next thing we know we are spit out of the wall into the open ocean. Looking down you can't see the bottom and then I remember, this is the start of the Cayman Trough which goes down a little over 25k feet. Was a very primal fear that made me feel I should not be here.

#72

I was surfing near the pier in Port Hueneme when I noticed a weird bright green thing under the water. I wasn't close enough to make out entirely what it was but it looked like a bright green orb about 5 ft in diameter under water. After about 10 seconds, the neon green color slowly diminished and was gone. I was pretty weirded out. Pt. Hueneme is a naval base so I thought later it might be some autonomous military submarine thingy.

#73

I was diving with some friends and found a fisherman's glove with a hand still inside it... We brought the glove to the local police and they told us that they hadn't received any kind of report of a guy with a missing hand.

#74

I was diving in Thailand and we were at a site where there were two steep hills underwater full of rock formations, coral etc. Between these two areas was a sandy bottom with scattered rocks ranging between the 1-5 meters across, all full of holes and full of life.

[We] were swimming from one hill to the next and inspecting these rocks along the way. I was swimming along one large one when I get hit in the side of my stomach very hard. It startled the sh*t out of me and I quickly back off. The dive instructor noticed and came over and we inspected what happened.

That's when we [saw] a gigantic moray eel (I'm later told it was a giant moray). He was absolutely massive, never seen one so big. Was easily a couple meters in length and was probably as wide as my head. We assume I had passed too close without noticing and he attacked, he hit my BCD and luckily didn't persist.