The Beast in the depth

[Ricochet]

What a day!
It promised to be a nice sunny Saturday here in good (c)old Germany, so I called a friend to join me, grabbed my dive stuff and headed to the quarry where I use to dive. 20 minutes later I arrived at the quarry and noticed that I wasn't the only diver this day.. actually the parking place was full of cars packed under the ceiling with scuba equipment... "Thats gonna be a funny day with all these 'bottled' divers" I though... and in fact... It's goining to be the most amzing dives I've ever had.

There are three quarries and like almost always we went the third and smalest one. I sliped into my wetsuit and 'teached' my friend how to freedive.. kinda ...
A few minutes later a group of scuba divers came and I did what I always do... sneaking to them from 'nowhere' and scare the hell out of 'em <g>... if they notice me...

But today I'm the one who will be scared to death...

Again I chased some of them through some old trees and as another tree apears in the range of the visibility I noticed a strange shadow 'hangnig' in the branches.
"What is that?!", I thought. "Another rusty road sign? Placed there by some funny divers?". I swam closer, leaving the noisy SeaDoo-propellered scuba divers behind. "No thats no road sign. Too big. Must be some kind of rubbish or an trash bag that got cought up in the branches of the tree".
As I kept swimming closer, now 7 meters in front of me, I finnaly identify what it really is: The biggest (and first) Catfish that I've ever seen!
"What the hell!!!" I can't believe my eyes. A 1,5m Catfish... In a quarry where I've never seed a creature bigger than a roach.
I bolted to the surface and yelled it to my friend "A catfish, a damn catfish!!".
Some other divers which were preparing for a dive looked at me perplexed.
I went down again and together with the divers that I chased before we watched this amazing creature. Carefully we approached to the beast. Weightless levitating infront of it. The beast... not even noticing us, it hangs in the branches waiting for its prey...


Cheers!
Sascha

[to be continued... but the cinema doesn't wait for me]

 

[quasimoto]

niceee, sounds like a fun time.
i would prolly shit myself if i saw a fish like that just chillin in the shadows. One time a seal suprised me at 40 feet and i yelled in suprise and all let all my air out........that wasnt very fun

 

[Fondueset]

I once did a dive in the Silver River in Forida. A fellow who was boating along there spotted us and our snorkeling gear and offerred to show us some cool spots. We went to a spot he said was a 'hole' in the river bottom about 50 feet deep. Since I was the freediver of the group I went down, down down in the dark water. The current was strong and seemed to form a kind of ball or dome around the deep area. I pushed through and a huge tree trunk loomed out of the dark - sticking out horizontally it freaked me right out. Just when I calmed down I saw on the other side of the tree 3 HUGE channel cats - certainly a meter or more each - with huge wide heads. I'd spent alot of oxygen fighting the current and getting freaked out by a tree - but let myself sidle in next to them in the lee of the log - they respectfully made a space for me but saw no need to spook off - so we hung out there for a bit.

 

[Prästen]

Shit. i want too see that too!!!


(both ricoshet and fondueset´s fishes)

 

[Sealdiver]

yeah i know the feeling, only i was diving with a group of seals during mating season and i was almost parent to a seal if i wasnt careful.
Sealdiver

 

[dcfreediver]

was it a wels catfish? i dont know if they live in germany or not
http://www.carpecarpio.com/tony160wels.jpg
http://www.catfish-camp-caspe.com/wels.JPG

they have been known to eat swimming dogs

supposedly its fun fishing for them, i know they are in britain, france etc, not sure about germany

 

[naiad]

The wels catfish does live in Germany. It is not native in the UK, but is introduced in a few places. It grows to about 2m, and sometimes more.

Lucia

 

[samdive]

mmm I got surprised by a huge pike under the SaltFree pontoon on Saturday but its not quite a catfish!

 

[Artemis]

I once saw a huge catfish while skindiving in Quarry in Alabama. I nearly peed my swimsuit.

 

[Fondueset]

Nothing spectacular - just a huge carp. But it's allwasy weird when they are headed straight at you.

 

[jimdoe2you]

You really haven't experienced true shock until you look up and behind you to see a whale shark swimming by!!!

The only thing that kept me from having a heart failure was after the initial shock I noticed all the uniform rows of white dots on it and realized immediately that it was indeed a harmless whale shark, but it still made me want to get out of the water.

Jim

 

[greendiver]

Cool!!, did it not notice you at all?

 

[Ricochet]

Damn, I've never continued this story... sorry.
How ever here's a nice pic:

 

[Fondueset]

TylerZ has a great story about an encounter freediving at, I believe, about 27 meters - on his site here.

http://Encounter