- Messages
- 93,324
- Reaction score
- 91,419
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
Yes, but if you want to get close, swim out 10 to 15 ft in front of them and let them swim to you.
Last Saturday I visited one of our more popular advanced dive sites ... a clay wall in the Tacoma Narrows that is a popular place to find wolf eels. For those who haven't seen a wolf eel, imagine a serpentine creature roughly eight feet long and more than a foot in diameter (it's not actually an eel, but the world's largest species of blenny), bluish-gray in color, with a head bigger than yours who looks like an old Walter Matthau on a bad day. These creatures are common along this wall, and divers often bring out mesh bags of herring ... or worse, hot dogs ... to feed them.
You cannot swim out 10 to 15 feet in front of them ... they won't let you get that close before charging toward you like a big puppy expecting a treat. And if, like me, you aren't one of those divers who likes to feed them, they will nibble on your dive gear looking for the treat you've obviously neglected to hold out to them. And whatever you do, don't wear white gloves ... wolfies tend to mistake them for a handful of squid.
The whole concept of "don't touch the wildlife" goes completely out the window when you have to fend off a perpetually hungry animal who's roughly the same size you are ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)