I was freediving in Kalbarri and stuck my arm in a hole chasing a cray and wouldnt you no it got stuck. Tryed not to panic but couldnt for the life of me get it back out. Eventually got it out but ripped my arm to shreads in the process. Very scary feeling.

I once had a seal try and get a cray out of my catch bag that was connected to my belt as I was trying to snare another cray under a ledge over near Carnac Island. That was back in the late 70's, but I still remeber that scare very well. I thought it was a shark nudging me.

Cheers
Dale

a few months ago had a dive buddy run out of air very quickly and at 20 odd metres and a fair way from the boat, was a slightly stressful trip back to the shot line buddy breathing.

Navigation was not my strong point.  That's why I gave it up.  Cut a long story short.  Went for a dive with my mate out from Mindarie.  Left another mate in the boat fishing in light easterly winds.  When we popped our head up after not being able to find the anchor, we looked up to see our mate about 300 metres away heading straight for a fairly shallow reef where some waves were breaking.  The strong westerlies had come in and he had no idea what was happening???  Too busy fishing.  The boat had obviously pulled anchor.  Luckily we were able to dive back down a few metres and swim close enough to let him know to get off the reef and come pick us up.

Remember trying to spear a wobby about 8 foot long with a multi prong hand spear in 5 foot of water.

Came on it as it was lying half hidden in the weed in 5 foot of water and being young ,dumb and full of cum decided to give it a go.Got right over it and reckoned that I've got more power that the sling rubber I'll use both hands and drive it right in to its brain.So giving it everything WHAM and all the prongs just spread apart and one very unhappy wobby had grabbed on the end of one of my flippers.Took what seemed like ages to kick the flipper off and bolt to to shore where a couple of mates had seen what was going on and were crapping themselves laughing.
Swam out there after ten minutes with a big spear gun to look for what was left of the mangled flipper.

Learn from that,never muck about with wobbies,even if they have been donged and have been sitting out of the water for half an hour---they can still bite!

...rolled over on top of me while I was trying to recover it from the reef off Yanchep, pinning me under a ledge and knocking the regulator out of my gob. Probably only took a couple of seconds to calm down and sort myself out, but seemed like half an hour!

Also got into a wrestling match with a very large octopus while doing a night dive at North Mole...again the reg came out and I could picture myself drowning in 6m of water! Fortunately, the occy let go when I let go of him!

problems with sharks and spearfishing, but you get used to it.

my worst was a 15ft tiger trying to grab a baldy off my spear, within 1m of my face, diving alone, and 500m away from the boat

that bitch was big and agro. she was just going the fish though, but i hate it when big sharks show up, and your gun is unloaded.

i landed the baldy btw.

Got stuck under a ledge in rough conditions scuba diving in shallow water near Ledge Point not long after getting my dive ticket.  A mate and I were diving for crays in shallow water and there was s lot of surge and crap vis because of all the sand in the water (we were basically diving in the surf zone).  My buddy and I got separated real quick in the poor vis, and as I was flat on my belly on the sandy bottom reaching into a ledge with my loop, when the surge picked me up and shoved me right under the ledge head first.  Gave me a hell of a fright, and something on my tank or BC got stuck on the reef and I couldn't back out, my reg was being almost pulled out of my mouth, and I knew my buddy was nowhere near me.  I was crapping myself by now, and was on the verge of full scale panic.  The surreal part was that the water was only about 1.5m deep and I knew that if I could just stand up, my head would be in the fresh air! I was able to contain the panic luckily, and when I had started to breathe again, I undid my weight belt and my BC and wriggled about until I came free and could get out.  Then it was straight into the beach to empty the lumps out of my wettie!

Had another scare nightdiving at the Abrolhos on a charter boat.  A few of us did a dive on a lump in the middle of nowhere on a very windy night.  In hindsight, we were too young and keen to recognise the very real danger and the skipper should have laid down the law and said "too rough".  Instead, about 6 of us went over.  Myself and two others stayed together.  We were in about 20m of water and we tried to keep sight of the boats deck lights while we were down so as to stay near the boat.  Anyway, after a good dive, we ascended towards the lights, only to surface and find we had been looking at the full moon, not deck lights.  We were about 150m down wind of the boat, and could not swim on the surface in the chop.  It was so rough we couldn't make any headway against it, and our snorkels kept taking water.  After trying for maybe 10mins without gaining any ground on the boat, and failing to alert the boat with our shouts or torches, we were knackered and decided to descend again and make our way on a compass bearing to the boat.  Luckily we all had just enough air left to make it back to the boat underwater.  Those on board hadn't even started to get worried about us yet!

Night diving in the river a few years ago in 16m when got knocked from behind by what turned out to be a massive sealion. I didnt have a clue what it was at first even as the big shape buzzed me. after a couple more buzzes I worked out what it was and the heart rate and air use returned to normal.

LOL! - was 15, saw my first shark while snorkeling, 2ft black tip - scared the crap out of me, could swear it was 110 ft long.

in deep water and thought da dum da dum dadadadadadada and jaws

Diving at Dampier Reef just shot a large fish in 19m of water swimming to the top I realised my reel had jammed but kept swimming upwards dragging the fish, next thing I know I am on the surface courtesy of my mate (very good mate ) Gav. Apparently I blacked out and was heading back down, he had dragged me up from 7-10m. Hardest thing was telling the wife when i got home!!! 

Also at Dampier Reef having a Hammer head and Bronzy smash my just shot Mackeral only feet from me  in dirty water,  it was a long swim back to the boat.

luckily no bad scares yet but anytime you go deep into a cave or ledge and get stuck certainly makes the heart beat faster and the breathing heavier. I hate the sound of trying to back out and hearing the tank clunk and jam into the reef.

diving off the james service retriving a pot with .005 vis and had s big black ray black out the sun and when i swung around to see wat happened the thing was about 2inches from my face smileing back at me scared the crap out of me

probaly more shocked than scared but i was chasing a dhuie through an overhang in 12m of water when my tank had hit the overhanging rock and a good tyre sized piece broke off and landed on my head. I first thought was that my tank had slipped off and somehow flipped over onto my head but turned out to be a piece of rock. Ended up with a slight cut on the back of my head. Just shows how brittle the limestone can actually be

Which is why I have been  somewhat retiscent to get back in the water - behind GI early in the season, two passes, the first we didn't see her just felt the wash from the tail and both turned around from the ledge slightly spooked having felt it, it then turned and returned and literally hovered whilst it checked us out as we sought to "make like the ledge" - the worst bit thought was the 28 metre ascent up the anchor line - needed a neck that rotated 360 degrees in every direction - up down and around.  It seems like an eternity covering the distance between the rope and the ladder ...........hmmmmm yup just a little %%^^&&**((

Went chasing scollops late in the arvo a while a go. Anchored in 20m on a sand bottom. The wind was sw when we went in. Two of us went down with nobody left in the boat. When looking for scollops there is no structure to navigate with so what we do is go in one direction from the anchor and then return back in a few miniutes and do this again but in a different direction. When returning back the third time we couldn,t find the anchor, but left in the sand was a trail of were the anchor had dragged. Swam for what seemed forever following this trail in the sand. It was late in the day and was thinking we werent going to catch the boat and probable be spending the night floating in the water. Started to panick and started sucking down the air. Was getting down on air so we slowly started coming up. Had a lot of s##t going through my head a this stage. When surfaced to my relief the boat had stopped and was about 200m away. Thank god. The wind had turn to the north east and later worked out on my gps that the boat had moved about 1km. I was completely exhausted from the swim but very happy to be back on the boat. Since then I now have tripled the amount of chain on my anchor and try a bit harder to have someone on the boat when diving. I think I would rather see a shark then go through this again.

Back when I was 16, diving in only 5 metres of water at Masons bay near Hopetoun, sitting on the bottom filling my catch bag with big greenlip abalone when a black shadow shoots out from a reef cave and grabs my ab....and shoots back in......30secs later shoots back out and grabs my dive gauge....turns out to be the biggest black cuttlefish I had ever seen....shot up to the boat and grabbed my trusty gidgie and that was the end of that sucker........imagine being scared by a cephlapod!!!

An ab diver mate of mine back in Esperance, told me about the time he was diving, on hooker, at 25m watching a seal playing in his bubbles 15m above him.............looked back up to see a 5m great white fly through and smash the seal!!! Farrrrk that!!!

Nothing bad for me but was Snorkelling and freediving ar little island and was gonna get this nice rock when a decent sized occy Darts out a tentacle at my hand well iw as quiker than it. then i was still there about 10 mins later when i see all these herring SPEEDING through the water infront of me and i was like wtf? and then it was just black! haha i fot such a fright cause a seal just darted righ tinfront of my goggles but he only wanted to play with me :)

welll....

I am going to the montes next weekend and was considering some snorkling / spear fishing..... after reading this FAAARRRKK that!!

mine was a near drowning for myself....yes there was a shark involved but not a toothy one!

we had taken a group of first time divers out for their qualification dives on the course they where doing through our dive club.
I was the spotter for that dive ( ie, skipper and spotter staid on the boat to see who comes up and where and if anything goes wrong does the first -aid etc.)

on the way out to the reef we where going to dive off Natal ( South Africa) the guys where kitted up and ready when a whale shark surfaced less than 20m ahead of the boat. Well too good an opportunity to miss, so the skipper moved ahead of it and ddropped off th diver master and seven students. I decided stuff this I want to play too, so I grabbed a set of sins and mask, and off behind them I went.

Well the whaley was pretty calm and let everyone cruise around him, I decided time to ride me one ( back in the early 1990's when you still could touch them), so I grabbed it's tail and went for a ride, and it was fantastic for a minute or soon, that's when I realized I was in trouble!!!
The Whale shark had slowly been descending from the surface and was now more than 30m down!!! and I was on the last of my lung full of air as I was free-diving!!!!. The others around me had scooted off with their cylinders on the their backs back to the surface and the dive master was ahead of me on the pectoral fin, so did not see me, go for the surface from more than 30m down. At about 3~5m from the surface I started to have shallow water black out as a result of the CO2 build up in my brain and just as I reached the surface lost consciousness, LUCKLY one of the students saw me pop up and roll over onto my back. She had the sense to grab me and when I came too about 2~3min later I was being hauled onto the boat. Bloody scaryyyyy.
I had to buy a round of drinks for the dive camp and where a pink hat for the rest of the trip as punishment.
We all live and learn, and when you lucky you live !

of Vanuatu on a old mine sweeper from the war days, thought Id put a little air into my BC to float me a bit, damm air valve got stuck, so up when at a rather quick rate of knots for a bit before my buddy grabbed me around the ankles whilst I got by Bc and gear off, managed to release the air button with some handy knife and teeth work....

Also diving at the abrolhos long while back, speared a large spaniard only to have a large whaler decide that he wanted it, whilst i was wrestling the mackie and holding him against me. Cut the spear rope a short while later, on;t to see the fergal swim off with my fish and straight hook hanging out his gob !!      

Diving  in Eagle Bay at Rotto and a mate wondered of into a fairly open cave and being claustrophobic i didn't follow. Anyway about 30 minutes or so later i went looking for him. Honestly we were only in shallow water maybe 10m and really just one big rock(small island). SO i Proceeded into said cave only to see it went up and over and eventually into a smaller section. Stuck my head into this part only to have it grabbed by a very scarred mate. He had virtually gone in, up and over and his torch had died. SO no light out, dust everywhere and with a fear that he knew i never followed him into caves he thought he was dead.

Anyway he know only ever dives with two torches.... 

one little rule I learn't along long time ago and still obey like the word of God..

IF YOU DIVE ALONE, YOU DIE ALONE!

very simple and very easy to break, so I always have a dive buddy and never loose sight of him,.

I have lost four friends over the years to diving accidents, in deep dives and cave dives, so you learn fast to respect water and know quickly you can't breath it!!!

a few years back i had my advanced dive ticket and my wife was learning to dive so i took her out to practice mask removal as she was nervous about not being able to breath while not having a mask on and suffered panic attacks , so whilst on a practice dive, she removed her mask and got water up her nose, spat out her regulator and went into a massive thrashing panic attack so i grabbed her and stood up as we were only in the shallow end of our swimming pool, once she calmed down i could help myself and started to laugh....  The following ten minutes was the scariest time in my diving time

large dolphin swimminmg towards me out of the gloom comes to mind, certainly set the heart racing.

Cheers

Being on the surface with a mate doing a crab dive at night in the swan, and we see a big blue fin swim past about 4 metres away. I say did "Did you see that?!!" He says "I'm pretty sure I heard a puff of water 30 secs ago...probably a dolphin". I said "How sure are you?" He said "Maybe let's go back to the bottom just in case.." Gotta say that I was kinda freaked out by that.

quite happerly snokling along getting my exercise yest. at hillarys,got attacked by some f...witts labrodor,scratched my legs,this is what happens when people don't think the laws apply to them

Standby diver diving from 21mtr boat, vis low,seas up,anchor jammed 23mtrs I went down following Anchor chain,reached admiralty anchor reef projection brook off,and chain tore the sleeve off my wetty,a bit of bruising and a couple of cuts.Diving off  work boat seas up two divers on surface supply air two divers on air tanks,boats motors running as anchor not holding in seas skipper would keep the strain off by slowly turning screws, the surface line got caught in the shaft and started to drag the 2 guys up to the mincers,I went for one and realesd his clip freeing him,the other ones line was cut within a meter or so of screws.Boat anchored in 15/18 mtrs,me and one other one surface supply (hooka) one novice on tank,I saw the anchor go past me heading for the deep,I tried to secure it in bottom but the wind took over,and it was then too deep to get it in,tow of us attached,one not,beet the regulator due to over exertion and had to free assent from about 25mtrs nearly got shallow water blackout.I took my tank off to get into a low cave / ledge (lots of good crays)had the tank next to me,happily getting crays,strong pull on goody bag,Bloody wobby about 1.75mtrs long as in there with me,I backed out free scented to surface 10mtrs got a gun went back down and retrieved my tank,goody bag and some fresh fish. Ledge collapsed on me ,dive buddy though she-it but the tank took most of the fall and water slowed the descent rate,about to go in,bloody shark swims by.Talking to a mate about diving a spot,23mtrs Bloody GW swims around the boat 5 times, a person I new dived in the Mount Gambeir Blue holes SthAust.both good ,well trained fit,went in,one came out,Rapture of the deep,(nitrogen Narcosis) I do not know if the other was recovered? and vomiting in 20plus meters,after a late night.and then all the way to and on the surface.not nice all the little fish were eating it.jersey  

Too right Lamby, I use a Apple mac and no matter how much I try to place paragraphs and so forth it changes when I post comment, it's not our fault!! LOL

Geeze scotto cry more mate.

Under a ledge once and a big red shot out and knocked my mask off and nearly knocked my reg out. 

I think often the most scary thing that happen diving are what other people see happen to their dive buddies. Buz said a big stingray parked on my back once while I was under a ledge. 

Freediviving off the abrholos about 6 years ago. AS soon as i jumped in there was a 12ft tiger sitting right under me, so naturally we swam the other direction. Only took a cpl of fish to be speared before he caught up with us, this time a little more friendlier. a mate handed me a smokie and said "use this if you think we need it". So anyways, my buddie dives down to ping a baldie and the tiger gets between me and him. So I decide to go for a shot straight into the brain. "pop", "gee i seriously thought  it woulda made a bigger bang than that" I said to myself. turns out the smokie had been taken diving for about 4 years before finally getting used, and the powder was useless. All it ended up doing was pissing off the shark  who sat there buzzing us for the next half an hr with our backs up against a reef trying to signal the tender to come and pick us up

Of editorial skills,and also spelling,grammar ,I can not blame the cp,I guess I got a bit carried away when relating to stories jersey

haha yep me and Brad know a resident QLD Groper that would push 250kg. He takes up residence in a rather unreal looking swim through - but it's strictly 'out of bounds' as he's very territorial haha..

Scariest diving moment was when I was freediving for crays once and I lunged my hand into a tight crevice to grab a cray, I totally misjudged and ended up getting my hand stuck. My heart sank to the bottom of my chest when I tried to withdraw my hand and realised it was stuck. Fortunately to my surprise I managed to stay calm and free my hand before things got nasty. Close call.

Well underwater I've come across too many crocs to remember one in a cave and when my eyes adjusted I was less than pleased. Every shark except a GW.Tug o war with several. Nearly drowned a couple of times getting tied up and even hooked in the head by discarded line and lures. Seals and sea snakes a little too interested and inquisative, still didn't bother me. But I can't handle big occies, they give me the creeps.