Now this is a slightly odd one
I'm a scuba diver. I love it; the humility felt when being underwater combined with the often incredible vistas one is faced with really blow my mind sometimes. From the cold and craggy North Sea, to the clear blue Atlantic in the Florida Keys, it truly is a fantastic experience. I'm also a bit of a fish nut, and find them fascinating to watch (I also keep fish as well, and have done since I was a kid).

So why do I sometimes feel myself going into panic mode when I'm snorkelling?

Case in point: Key Largo, some years back. The hotel we are staying in has its own private beach, with a creek running from the sea and right across the island. When we got there we were informed that we'd JUST missed a manatee swimming up the creek... bastard. Anyway, I gets my mask, fins and snorkel together and head off for a bit of a swim and a gawp at the pretty fishes.

About five minutes in, I realise that I've swum a bit of a distance out - not too far, but a bit further than expected. My mind suddenly clicks into gear with a reminder that one of Florida's native beasties has a large mouth full of pointy sharp teeth, which brings on a wave of irrational discomfort. Better get back to shore, thinks I.

However, in my slightly unfocussed state of mind I found myself not swimming directly back to the beach, but at a slight angle and therefore still away from the shore, and safety. My head is still submerged, and I'm trying to keep my breathing regulated...

When all of a sudden the seabed literally drops away before me, and I'm staring down into what seems like a never ending pit that appears to get dark very, VERY quickly. And swimming around just a few feet below me are the biggest fucking fish I've ever seen (later identified as tarpon)... I looked like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon as I tried to back-fin furiously, but not splash around too much so as not to attract the alligators...

So, scuba diving, 20 metres under the sea with nothing but some mechanical apparatus that could fail at any given moment keeping me alive alive and surrounded by big fishes (including at one point barracuda) = fine. Snorkelling in a few feet of water and suddenly confronted by a big but placid game fish = shitting my swimming trunks.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 18:25, 6 replies)

Oops
Misread "tarpon" as "tampon"...

*slap*
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 18:29, closed)

^^
me too - made a WTF moment!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 18:57, closed)

Hee hee hee, so did I
Do you think that's Freudian?
Are we stuck in the genital phase?
(Or is that the last one, so if you've reached that, theoretically you're ok?)
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 19:13, closed)

It might have been a tampon
that had grown to an enormous size after absorbing half the Atlantic...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 19:16, closed)

freudian or not
the idea of being attacked by a huge maurading jam stick would scare the bejesus out of me...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 19:20, closed)

Been there...
After so long diving in shallower water, I get extremely nervous when diving in something that I can't see the bottom of.
(FleetlordVT, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 20:33, closed)