[ricki]

No other stories out there? Has to be, I know there are some incredible experiences out there. To prime things, here's a few from my end, just one liners only from 1980 and before.


- Diving/drilling on the barrier reef looking for Columbus' Santa Maria in a mound of coral off Cap Haitian in 1970's Baby Doc Haiti.

- Looking for a scuttled Hatteras sportsfisherman with a load of drugs along the reefs in 90 ft., with dead baby hammerhead sharks laying around on the bottom in lousy viz.

- Taking the Florida Secretary of State free diving on a 1830's shipwreck with media.

- Filming a crazy french guy with an electronic shark repelling device in a feeding behavior stirred up over the graveyard off Gun Cay in the Bahamas.

- Searching for and finding a $1M high definition side scan sonar fish in deeper water.

- Being a dive escort for a girl on her family's yacht for trips to the Bahamas at 16, she was crazier about diving extremes than I was too.

- A bounce dive to 265 ft. for black coral off Cozumel at 16 into intense narcosis and O2 toxicity.

- A bounce dive to 275 ft. because (... no good reason) at 17, fighting off a narc'd out diver and again sliding into O2 toxicity.

- Doing a photogrammetric survey of dredging reef damage in 90 ft. with a wetsub.

- Night dives in 180 ft. looking for spiny oysters in the sand drifting into the third reef at 90 ft.

- Designing a training course for the Sheriff's office for UW drug interdiction at night at 90 ft. using a wetsub in 1977.

- Almost getting castrated by a hungry permit while carrying a bunch of bugs in my hands conveniently but unwisely protected by my bathing suit.

- Doing a bounce dive to 250 ft. on a wall off the Biminis at 16 with 2/3rds full 72 cft tank, like an idiot. Resulted in a low grade DCS hit, earned that one.


and lots of other strange, sometimes unwise but otherwise interesting stuff. So how about it, what strange, interesting and hopefully not too shocking experiences can you relate?