I'm not sure what I saw on a twilight dive at the edge
of Turtle Cove (behind Navy housing on Guam) in 1974
was a monster... but it scared the be-jeepers out of me.
 
It came up over the top slope at the edge of the cove (from
hundreds, even thousands, of feet of water. It was no basking
shark, no whale, no matna ray -- I've been in the water with
all of these -- but I prayed TO GOD that it didn't see me or care
that I was there!
 
It was BIG, dark and moving at about 4 or 5 knots, real smoothly.
Fortunately, it had other things to do that evening and I scooted to
shore in something just shy of a panic, trying not to make any jerky
motions that might say "Here I am. Eat me."
 
Not quite so scary was a dive off of -- where else?! -- Makua, when
the water was slightly murky, ~50-60 foot visibility. Three big,
black dolphins were churning toward Kaena point (to the northwest)
from Waianae side (south). I saw them just as they saw me. All three
immediately changed course directly toward me and I did the only
that I could think of to let them know right away that I was a
human and, hopefully, was no threat to them... (no, not that!)...
I spoke to them... LOUDLY. (As I recall, it was something real
friendly, like "Hi, guys! It's just Bob swimming out to a dive.
Nice day, isn't it?") They swerved off to the bearing they were
on previously and soon were out of sight, swimming like they had
someplace to go and no time to spare.
 
(Oh, I was swimming out to collect shells -- MRC.)
 
Aloha,
 
makuabob (a.k.a. Bob Dayle)