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The scariest thing I ever encountered in the water was an oversized German tourist wearing nothing but a red spandex slingshot.

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I was out kayaking one day, and a pod of killer whales came through. They were about 500 yards away and one submerged. A thought flashed through my mind...I know they are 'friendly'...but do they know that...? Anyway, the orca surfaced about 300 yards behind me. A huge sigh of relief was evident on my part.

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Having grown up on the Queen Charlottes (Haida Gwaii, now), I have a few encounters to pass along: Scary meeting number 1: Happened to a friend of mine whose favourite pastime was trying to catch salmon with her bare hands. (I'm not kidding - she was pretty good at it, too!) One day she was out in the inlet at the creek mouth and saw this 'lovely big salmon' so she started her approach. She had finally managed to get close enough to the fish that she thought she had a good chance for the lunge, when it occurred to her first that it was an awfully big salmon - and that was when her brain finally kicked in and she realized that she had snuck up on a shark! And no, it was not a dogfish shark - it was the 'real deal'! To this day, she does not know how she got back to the beach as fast as she did.... Scary meeting number 2: We used to 'borrow' a skiff from one of the big working tugs owned by a local logger. We would then pile in with our picnic stuff and row out and around a large island for a picnic. To get around the headland was often tricky when the tide was running (much like rowing upstream) so one kid would be elected (forced!) to go over the stern and kick - a human outboard. The others would have to be on the lookout because that was when things could get dicey: for some reason, the kicking often attracted the porpoises and they would come to play. One time, they came up and actually lifted the skiff up and ahead by several feet!

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Back in 1998, I decided to go on a Shark Diving excursion in Australia. The first 45 minutes was amazing with 20 or so black tip and white tip reef sharks (3-6.5ft long), feeding on the raw meet we had attached to a metal triangle about 10 feet away from us. That was until a large potato cod fish entered the feeding circle. It was double the side to the sharks and therefore unexpectedly scared one of the sharks. One of the large sharks tried to escape the situation and headed my way. I had not realized that I was kneeling in from of a break in the coral wall.... that was, until the shark swam directly into my chest! He was stunned and I was slightly terrified to say the least. The shark backed up, checked me out and then swam over me. Although the sorry sounds a little far fetched... I caught it all on video!!

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Now, that's more like it girls!!! And it beats my stories no problem. I know there are sharks off the coast of vancouver Island. I have often wondered if somehow they could make it into the local waters of False Creek area...or English Bay. I have kayaked on the San Juan Sacramento river delta and one afternoon, I had one of those huge California Sea Lions ( they can grow to upwards of 8 feet and weigh 600lbs) surface, and swim like a human right alongside...as if it was doing the breaststroke...talk about scary. I wanted to kayak under the Golden Gate bridge but I found out that there are Great Whites in the Bay. Great stories girls...come on guys keep them coming.

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LOL we have a great whbite hanging around the beaches of Bondi and Tammarama here in Sydney the past week.. I havent seen it myself but its been on the news the past few days. Ive been up close and personal with a box jellyfish in North Queensland, Salt Water Crocadiles (in the same place) and blue ringed octopus...

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Hey Jaxon...G'Day mate. Great to have you aboard. Yeah I didn't do much kayaking after watching Jaws That's the one really scary thing for me about nice warm oceans...I've been out swimming on holiday, looked back at the beach to see a lot of people standing looking out past where I am...the dolphins have come through...al I saw was the dorsal fin...Zoom...Ii could heve given the ' Thorpedo ' a run for his money...but thankfully, it was only dolphins, but I didn't wait around to find out.

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I refuse to go into the ocean because of all the shark attacks here in the U.S. this year. I'd rather just stick to the pool!

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Watch out for those plastic inflatable ones Angie, they can strike without warning....cue the music. Dum Dum...Dum Dum..DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM...Darah Dadda!!! Chomp!!!

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Having run into my fair share of stuff, and living in a town known for whales and great white pointer strikes..... I can honestly say almost all me near death experiences were humans with boats and waves washing me off rocks at night. Also came back to me beach towel one time and a brown snake was hiding under it..... I know not in the water but at least it's an animal this time! I love the beach and really NO ONE EVER DIES BY SHARK ATTACK!! when you look at all the people swimming the odds are SO VERY TINY. Not even worth considering you are 800% more likely to have the person your in a relationship with turn on you and kill ya in your sleep! Sharks...... poor ba$tards. We kill them by the billion AND THEN decide to hate and fear them. I mean come on. Ya wanna fear/hate an animal try mosquitos or dogs. Those 2 actually do kill humans quite often I likes me fish My good mate is a scuba instructor, some of his storys.... wobbys latching onto the groins of people snorkling over them, putting his knee down on a big scorpion fish, savage attacks by giant toadfish in Darwin, mating triggerfish and a million angry damsels....... all that stuff and he fears the lionsmane jellyfish. Doesn't help that we seem to be seeing them more, ah well he'll just have to harden up :)

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Hello and Welcome FatCatfish. You sound like an interesting bloke, looking forward to seeing pics in your gallery and hearing more about your underwater...and on land adventures. You're right about people fearing something, and rather than understanding or learning more about things, humans take it upon themselves to kill first ask questions later. I have mates in OZ and they have told me some stories about the wildlife down there. You guys have some of the most lethal and poisonous creatures on the planet down there.

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On 10/12/2005 1:23:31 PM, TerryW wrote: The scariest thing I ever encountered in the water was an oversized German tourist wearing nothing but a red spandex slingshot. ROFLMAO

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hey Sparky, welcome back. Now THAT quote is too funny...

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A few years back, my family and I went to the island of Molokai. It's basically the last Hawaiian Island not ovverrun by tourism. If you've ever been there, it's the smallest island ever, but very peaceful. Anyways, one day we decided to go for a drive looking for a nice secluded beach to do some swimming and snorkeling. We passed a bunch of locals on our way, and eventually we found a great spot, and had a great time. On our way back, some locals asked us if we had been swimming in the bay that we had. They were shocked when we said "yes" because apparently it was shark breeding grounds!

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That same trip, my mom went for a walk along the beach. She wasn't wearing her sandals, and was walking in water not even halfway up her calf. All of a sudden, something sprang out from underneath a rock and grabbed at her baby toe. It was so fast we didn't see what it was at the time. Later, we went to have a look, and it was an eel that had mistaken my mom's baby toe for a tasty morsel. She almost lost her toe, and had to have quite a few stitches!

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this didnt happen to me but i stil think is a bit scary.. my family and some friends, and me of course, were all on a boat in panama (where i used to live) and one of the kids with us decided to jump from the boat into the water... but he didnt know there were thousands, or MORE, jellyfish under the water he was about to splash into. he got stung several times but luckily he was ok.

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they werent very big jelly fish but i am terrified of them for some reason

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the scariest thing i evr experienced in the ocean i think was when i was swimming and something moving brushed off my stomach and it was moving