Hi Sunnyfield!
Sorry I read your post so late. You love scuba diving? I guess we could sit for hours and just talk about that, couldn't we? It's always a pleasure to find some divers - those stories are always great! I could tell you one were I got almost lost outside an Atoll (not a reef, an ATOLL!
) on the Maldives....
Sorry other coffee friends - OT:
I was the last one that jumped from the boat which changed the position slightly. All the others before me managed to get down to the point quickly where the current was going into the other direction along the wall. I got stucked at the point where it was dividing, at the edge of the reef. When I cought my breath again (diving down the 12m against the current was hard for me - shoesize 36
I tried to follow my buddy, who was 2m in front of me, signaling him that I was ok. He turnd forward, started paddeling, and as took my hands off that dead coral I was holding on to and started to swim forward, too - the current against me was so strong, that it blew me across the roof of the thila in seconds, like in a hurricane. Paddling didn't help, and I was afraid to bump into something on my way, so I turned sidewards, still paddling and trying to get my (forbidden) gloves out of my pockets. I quickly put them on before grabbing something I don't manage to recognize in that unclear water. Then I saw that huge block of one of those brain-corals, one with about 1m height - I grabbed it, and made the experience that it was dead and loose already, so the current dragged me AND the huge coral I was hanging on across the roof..... We came to a sudden stop colliding with another coral block. And there I was waiting for about 8 minutes, hoping to see some bubbles rising from other divers somewhere. Not even the fish could stand still, I never saw them passing by so quickly. It was like if you fast forward a Chaques Costeau movie (or however you spell his name).
At the beginning I was just waiting, faszinated by the power, hopeful because "I'm married and my husband will look after me"
After a while I felt alone, really alone
Then I remembered that we left the Atoll to find this special thila where nobody usually goes because it's an extra long trip
...and we went there because of the specially huge amount of big fish, like hammerhead sharks
Well, I assumed,if I surface now, chances are higher that the Dhoni(boat) will still see me. Because the Dhoni always follows the current with the divers, which obviously at that time were still going the other direction. At the moment I got off my coral block - I got sucked away from the little island under the water in seonds. It got smaller and blurred and all the parts floating around - do you know that starfield screensaver that looks like you fly with a spaceship through space with wharp 9 ?
I reached the surface, laid back on my bottle, feet up (I'm always afraid to let my feet just hang unattended into the blue
and blew up my yellow bananaballoon.
Boy was I glad that I bought my own one!
Swaying in the waves I started calculating if I could reach Male with that current, because I was going into the east direction and I was between the Ari and the Baa Atoll.
I saw the Dhoni, but it was getting smaller and smaller. It took another 15 minutes until the guys on the Dhoni saw me, and roughly 15 more until they reached me. That was scaring. Afterwards my husband said to his defense, that he didn't see me behind him, and thought that I might have gone with another buddy of ours who is a very good diver and instructor.
Later we were searching for two other missing guys who luckily had an orange-red banana, and I have to say, they are MUCH better seen on shining waves in the sun than the yellow ones.
What about you? What was your worst experience?
Or best?
Blubb blubb
Joey