Grouper Attack

[Thalassamania]

I guess this is as good a time as any to expand on a post I made back two years ago.

I was in Cayman at the invitation of Kent Eldemire, then the owner of Casa Bertmar, a small dive lodge that was just east of Sunset House. Teh minutes after I arrived Kent took me out for a dive on the house reef, he wanted to show of the huge moray that he'd tamed down. I was wearing a thin suit or dive skin and a horsecollar BC (FENZY, this was the late 1970s). Kent gave me a plastic bag full of cut bait and told me to not permit the grouper to get the bag, because the plastic could obstruct his gut. I tucked the bag in under my FENZY next to my chest.

We swam out, dropped down into about 40 feet of water and then continued slowly deeper, following the bottom contour. As I came over a coral ridge I found myself face-to-face with the biggest Moray Eel I had seen since the move "The Deep." he was a good ten feet long and his body was better than a foot deep. I flaired back and back peddled away, but he kept following and then started nudging hard at my left side, trying to get under my BC. I reached in with my right hand an pulled the bag of bait out, and away from my body. The eel, by this time, had burrowed under my BC and was coming out on the right side. At just this instant I felt something clamp down on my right bicep. The eel squirmed through between me and my BC and took off. I turned to look back and see what had a hold of me, it was a five foot grouper and he had my right arm up past my elbow down his throat. I still had a firm hold on the bag and I was able, by prying on his jaw with my left hand to finally extricate my right arm with the bag from the grouper's pharynx. Kent was about ten feet away and from the large amount of bubbles surrounding him I can only assume was laughing his head off. What was amazing to me was how little damage I sustained. No cuts, no damage to the nylon I was wearing, just a small amount of bruising around my right bicep where the fish had first clamped down.

I assume that the grouper that "bit" your daughter was in a similar circumstance to the one I encountered, habituated by divers feeding him and somehow confused by the circumstances.

Years later when I told this story an ex-commercial diver from the Gulf told me of dropping out of the hatch of a PTC in about 600 feet of water and finding himself up to his waste in the mouth of a grouper. A tug of war ensued between his tender and the fish that, fortunately, the tender won. He said this grouper was on the order of eight to ten feet long (I can believe this, the spearfishing record is 804 lbs, speared by the Pinders back on 10 May 1949 in Grandan Park, Florida).

[DandyDon]

That reminds me of the couple who went to a Hawaiian beach with the guy's boss & his wife. The subordinate's heavy set wife was going to snorkel and feed the fish, but to keep her hands free - she stuck the food down her cleavage. Shortly after entering the water, a multitude of tamed fishes went down inside seeking the food and she left the water naked & screaming.

Her hubby's boss was quite amused.

I get a chuckle from the Damselfish nipping at me, but when I see a Trigger posture - I seek a different path.

[bowlofpetunias]

It astounds me how people feed the creatures and NOT expect them to get pushy to the point of aggressive and dangerous. Yogi Bear and BoBo were an entertaining way to teach people what happens when we interfere in the balance. We are visitors in their world and if we want to enjoy the experience we need to respect that. Of course territorial behavior is natural to some degree but we compound it with out interference. It is fascinating watching the differences in the behavior of creatures of the same species in dive sites that are frequently dived and ones that are seldom dived!

I have had a couple undeserved "hits" by a Grouper who thought something in my hand was an offering of food. I have never fed the creatures and refuse to support any diving that does We can so easily avoid the food seeking mistaken attacks. We can't help it if a cuttlefish falls in love with our tank (guess I have a pretty cute tank or something). We can't help it if the fish see their reflected images as a threat or potential mate but we can reduce the risks by the way we behave underwater.

Your daughter did a brilliant job of handling a distressing situation.. Kudos to her! Thanks for sharing your story with us

[irishsquid]

It astounds me how people feed the creatures and NOT expect them to get pushy to the point of aggressive and dangerous. Yogi Bear and BoBo were an entertaining way to teach people what happens when we interfere in the balance. We are visitors in their world and if we want to enjoy the experience we need to respect that. Of course territorial behavior is natural to some degree but we compound it with out interference. It is fascinating watching the differences in the behavior of creatures of the same species in dive sites that are frequently dived and ones that are seldom dived!

I have had a couple undeserved "hits" by a Grouper who thought something in my hand was an offering of food. I have never fed the creatures and refuse to support any diving that does We can so easily avoid the food seeking mistaken attacks. We can't help it if a cuttlefish falls in love with our tank (guess I have a pretty cute tank or something). We can't help it if the fish see their reflected images as a threat or potential mate but we can reduce the risks by the way we behave underwater.

Your daughter did a brilliant job of handling a distressing situation.. Kudos to her! Thanks for sharing your story with us

Nice post!