Things That Almost Bit You

[racerx_]

Had an interesting experience on one of my last dive and thought this might make an interesting thread.. Share your close encounters of something under water almost (or successfully) biting/attacking you!

Here's mine:
I saw something on a night dive and didn't know what it was. Like a little tube with rings around it and some fronds on top like feelers or anemone. So i wasn't sure if it was some kind of worm thing or just an anemone on a piece of trash (like a bottle cap or piece of pipe) So I got closer with my flashlight.. and closer.. finally just touched the edge of it with my flashlight and the thing bit my flashlight so hard and fast that it yanked it in my hand then disappeared. Scared me death! I yelled in my reg (thankfully no one was near to hear me LOL) Looked it up and realized it was a Bobbit worm!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbit_worm

Thank god I didn't use my finger!!

 

[JesperS]

Holy schnikies! Yeah, looks like you dodged quite a bullet.

Armed with sharp teeth, it is known to attack with such speeds that its prey is sometimes sliced in half. Although the worm hunts for food, it is omnivorous. It is also covered in bristles that are capable of a sting that results in permanent numbness in humans.^[1]

Little is known about the sexual habits and life span of this worm, but researchers hypothesize that sexual reproduction occurs at an early stage, maybe even when the worm is about 100 millimetres (3.9 in) in length; this is very early, considering that these worms can grow to sizes of nearly 3 metres (9.8 ft) in some cases (although most observations point to a much lower average length of 1 metre (3 ft 3 in)) and an average of 25 millimetres (0.98 in) in diameter. A long lifespan may very well explain the size of these creatures

 

[Diver0001]

I got nailed by a Goby once.

He was in a little hole and I had laid my hand out at the entrance to the hole because there were a bunch of shrimp there and I was showing my buddy that if you're patient the shrimp will crawl up on your hand.

I saw the goby stick his head out and then duck back into the hole a few times and then WHAP! Nailed me right in the finger.

Fortunately they're small and don't have teeth LOL. Have to give him an "A" for being ballsy though.

On another occasion I had taken a client out diving in a spot where there were a lot of lobsters. She was afraid of them and I had convinced her to take a dive there to observe them.

As I swam over one he propped himself up and started snapping at me with his claws. LOL. He couldn't reach me so I reached down and smacked one of his antennae, which caused him to scoot off. My buddy's reaction was priceless. Screamed like it was going to eat her. LOL

R..

 

[racerx_]

I got nailed by a Goby once.

Glad you lived to tell the tale! LOL

 

[merxlin]

Not me but- My buddy is fond of feeding kelp to Abalone. He's waving this kelp leave at the foot of an Ab when out from behind it races this rather good sized Morey eel. Luckily he just snagged my buddies glove when he bit, then released and went back to his den behind the ab where you couldn't see him.

 

[Nemrod]

"My bite is worse than my bark," he backed off.

N

 

[vladimir]

I got bumped by a silvertips shark in the Coral Sea. The SpoilSport used to do a shark feed dive they called "Scuba Zoo." When the boat moved for the next dive, the sharks followed. At the end of the dive I was taking pictures of the sharks near the stern of the boat when one bumped me from behind. I scampered up the ladder to find a crewman tossing chunks of tuna into the water.

I got bitten my a blenny in Bonaire. I got my hand too close to his territory, it seems, and he nipped me a few times while I photographed him. No blood, and pretty good pictures, so it was well worth it.

 

[divin'dog]

Sometimes the smallest bit of life has the biggest bite... Ever hear of Mantis Shrimp?
Video -- World's Deadliest: Shrimp Packs a Punch -- National Geographic

 

[Kilili]

In Mexico, had an elephant seal sneak up on me and chew on my shoulder, playfully, thank goodness.

In Fiji, there was one anemone fish that tried removing all the fingertips from my gloves, and my fingertips as well. Had to keep my hands in fists. Made photography quite difficult. If anemone fish weighted 10 pounds, they would be the most dangerous creatures in the ocean.

In Indonesia, got bit on the leg by a Titan trigger, way too close to the crotch. Imagine the headlines, "Man castrated by Fish. The species now renamed the Bobbit fish."

That's about it. Missed out on the saltwater crocs.

---------- Post added March 21st, 2013 at 06:03 PM ----------

Thank god I didn't use my finger!!

I think that would have the story more interesting though.

 

[TSandM]

Diving the Edmonds Underwater Park one day, I came up along the side of a cabin cruiser which had been recently sunk. I wanted to look inside the boat and see if anything had set up housekeeping there, but as I came up over the rail, a cabezon about 18" long FLEW at me. He grabbed the skin on my Fusion dry suit and began tugging on it vigorously. It was really hysterical. The fish was so small, and so determined!

Recently, I've had two unnerving encounters with ling cod in one of our local dive sites. They were both guarding eggs, and with the first one, I knew it, because I could see the egg mass. Lings generally just glare at you, fluff up their fins, and then swim in agitated circles, but one of these flew out of his den and hit my strobe, hard, and the other went straight into the shroud of my dive light.

But the biggest scary thing I've had happen was on a dive with a friend from Southern California (HBDiveGirl), when a Giant Pacific Octopus out in the open went for her, enveloping her head with its mantle, and tugging at her regulator and mask with its arms. I couldn't see her face, and wasn't sure how she was coping, and the best efforts of two of us were not doing a great deal to get the animal to let go of her. It all ended well, but I can tell you I have kept my distance from GPOs since then.