Got Rammed by a Sea Turtle!

Yesterday I was diving with Abernathy's. Just surfaced waiting to be picked up and got rammed by a sea turtle! I don't know whether it was an aggressive bump or the poor animal simply didn't see me... which I think was most likely. It immediately turned and swam away.

Joe

cudachaser:

Yesterday I was diving with Abernathy's. Just surfaced waiting to be picked up and got rammed by a sea turtle! I don't know whether it was an aggressive bump or the poor animal simply didn't see me... which I think was most likely. It immediately turned and swam away.

Joe

Click to expand...

he probably caught you checking out his wife

Yeah...I also heard the males can get very amorous to divers

Once, when I was diving on the outer reef line in Broward just north of the Hillsboro inlet, I had a turtle literally swim up to me and bump the glass on my mask. It was a little disconcerting, especially since it was a BIG male loggerhead, and it actually pushed me back with its little friendly bump. I was doing some data collection on that particular dive, and the turtle actually followed me about for a bit! I have no idea whats its reason for this was, since it left the other two divers alone the entire dive. They were both convinced that the turtle was trying to get some action....

I do know that if you dive EPCOT they say that when the turtles are heading to the surface they don't care whats above them, and they will just push it aside it its between them and fresh air. So it is very likely it just didn't give a hoot there was a person there!

I've been "attacked" by sea turtles a number of times, with the majority of them occurring when egg counting during an arribada. Silly turtles quite literally walked over me as I had my head stuck in an hole watching eggs drop! Guess it was my fault for laying down on their beach, but who knew they would be so rude?

Last year I had a turtle swim up to my student and me on a safety stop. It sat in front of my face staring HARD....you know like people do when you're not getting a joke or something, it was covered in incredibly thick algae. It really wasn't budging and wasn't letting us go anywhere....and then the penny finally dropped. I thought - he wants me to clean him! It goes completely against everything I've ever been taught about turtles to touch them but I really gently reached out and pulled some of the algae off him....I swear he smiled. He sat there peacefully for about three minutes letting us clean him and then he swam off gently. It was an amazing experience. I still don't know what would cause a turtle to have an algae layer that thick? I'll never forget the dive and what a way for the stude to finish off his fourth ever dive!

We almost got run over by a huge old turtle off southern Belize, had to duck out of it's way when it got within feet and we realized it wasn't turning. This turtle was said to be blind in at least one eye, so presumably it just didn't see us. (Or maybe it just didn't care, as they also said this turtle had been weighed years before and was something like 600 pounds back then.)

There's one off West Caicos that does that - lives near one of the moorings. He's old - parts of his shell are white. He came right at me while I was swimming out to the drop, tried to run me down then took off. Later on the boat, the DM said - I see you ran into "...." so it must happen often.

When my buddy dove Epcot some years ago they told him one of the turtles likes to bump people in the chest.

I had this back home once a couple of years back - he didn't just bump me once, but again and again. Fortunately I had my camera, although not all the photos were in focus...