barracuda attack august 5

[karmajewell]

Yes I had an encounter with one who wanted to eat my camera! Scared the bgeegeez out of me, I tucked my little shiny digital into my BCD and swam slowly the other way. I am tempted to get a black housing. My olympus camera is shiny and my housing is clear so bad combo I guess in the way the sun was reflecting it. No harm done but when I looked down to see a 4ft barracuda staring at me as I was swimming along it kinda freaked me out. We had seen the same one for 6 days straight, on the same ledge of the same wall at the same dive site we dove every day outside our beach house in the Caribbean. Weird curious toothy fish those are. Any hoo I thought I'd confirm they do like cameras!

 

[ScubaInChicago]

thanks for the reply and insults. As usual there are those who have nothing positive to add. I apologize for asking questions that may be way bellow your standards. I shall not make that mistake again.

Good, because you caused me to possibly re-read an old dead thread.....

 

[DandyDon]

thanks for the reply and insults. As usual there are those who have nothing positive to add. I apologize for asking questions that may be way below your standards. I shall not make that mistake again.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it an insult. The remark was perhaps a little rude, but some people get like that hiding behind keyboards & usernames. Such is the anonymity of the internet. I asked the owner of Scubaboard about the idea of locking old threads but he replied they are available for good reason, and I am sure that you had to click the box affirming that you realized that you were resurrecting a very old thread. There have been some other threads on cuda attacks here recently so I figured it was along those lines.

Dive watches that are made of stainless steel are still used by the watch industry. Should I be concerned about wearing these types of watches when diving? From what I have been reading, that might be a bad idea. If anyone is an expert on fish behavior, please feel free to chime in.

You did limit yourself on invited responses there. Experts on fish behavior are kinda rare as compared to the large numbers of experienced divers who have well educated opinions on such. I do know a fellow here who lost a large part of his face and nearly his life to a cuda strike off of Utila, not a great place for high tech trauma care but he survived the medical evac to his home town of Houston which is and is doing well today; he is an expert on fishes but you don't see him posting here much. Here is his story here on SB: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/marine-life-ecosystems/33429-barracuda-attack.html

If I may offer my not so well educated opinion, cuda attacks are rare but common enough when shiny or mirror like objects are involved with divers that I avoid wearing anything that might remind a cuda's primitive instincts of a shiny little fish. I remember one story a few years ago of a lady on a boat being attacked by one that came out of the water, or so the news report went. If you google barracuda attacks on humans, you get a lot of news stories and articles for whatever they may actually be worth. Anytime I see a lady diver on a boat with shiny earrings, I ask if she plans to wear those barracuda lures on the dive in hopes of politely suggesting that it's risky, but of course they always do; they should have been left in the room safe IMO, but once they are worn onto the boat, they're going to be worn in of course.

This slightly different google search brought up more stories, some horrible. Anyway, as an old farmer/cowboy, I like cheap, black plastic, waterproof watches that take abuse and tell time well, and nowadays I like the same watches rated to 300 feet deep. Whether you want to wear a cuda lure on your wrist or not is your call. I suspect that cudas kill a lot more people worldwide who eat them than by those struck by them, but some people keep eating them anyway.

 

[Paul Gregory]

I was thinking on my last trip to Cozumel and decided to look on the net for any reports of the cuda attack that happened in 2010 while I was staying at El Cozumeleno. I discovered this great site and joined! Anyway I had been at the resort for 2 or 3 days when I heard a young woman was attacked by a barracuda. It was said by some of the people, with whom I found myself sharing "rum punch", that she nearly lost a finger. I scoffed and suggested that people just like to create drama.

Well, the next day I walked south from El Cozumeleno to the old Playa Azul local. This is where I first stayed back in 2000(they had an amazing French Ex Pat running the restaurant-AMAZING FOOD!) Anyway, as I approached the spot I spied a young woman(minus her top and covered in tattoos) with her left hand and what looked to be 1 or 2 digits bandaged up. As I neared she sat up and retied her top. Her heavily tattooed and dreadlocked boyfriend greeted me and I asked if she was the person reportedly attacked by a cuda. "Nearly tore my f'n finger off." was her reply or something close to that. She was still wearing shiny silver bracelets on both wrists. They made it mildly clear that I was harshing their mellow by intruding upon their scene so I quickly entered the water and began snorkeling back toward my own hotel. Not more than ten minutes later what looked to be a 4 to 5 foot barracuda hung in the murky water before me. You know that look, just sitting there looking menacing and large and........holly crap I am outa here! I swam immediately to the shore on my right, threw my fins over the rocks and climbed up a rock face I would never have considered climbing before. A slight over reaction, yes it was. I walked further up the beach and re-entered with my wits about me and minus one testicle. Or so it felt.

I took a crash coarse dive class at Cozumeleno a few days later and then went on a dive with no fear at all. Nevertheless I would prefer not to run into another barracuda alone, there's just an unsettling feeling about it.

This is a great site, I look forward to reading more of the member's experiences and sharing my own!

 

[Mike]

I'd been in the water for over 10 years and grew to the point of dismissing baracuda due to seeing them all time just being docile.

Then one time snorkeling in roatan I was on one side of a coral head that came up to about 1 ft below the surface, just floating there... there were a ton of blue tangs doing there thing, which is munching all over the coral eating algae I think, suddenly one of them about 18 inches from my face exploded into a million bits, all I saw was a flash of silver then the tang blew apart and then there was a baracuda sitting less than 2 feet from my face gulping down the tang. When the cuda hit the tang, I screamed underwater and instinctively my hands came up and I pushed myself away from coral head cutting myself good. That cuda just sat there eye-balling me almost like he was sniffing the water with my blood in it. That scared the crap out of me and now I don't care for baracudas at all and watch them warily when I see a solo one.

 

[Ron Lee]

Mike, they look at you and think "probably tastes like chicken."

 

[mstevens]

holly crap

Is that a seasonal thing?

 

[PaulVS]

My perhaps funny viewpoint.... I was snorkeling at Isla Mujeres in some slightly rough surf... bobbing up and down... and was really disturbed by the fact I was losing sight every other couple seconds of the single barracuda that was seemingly staring at me the whole time. I wasn't even enjoying the snorkeling so I got out of the water.

Then I was scuba diving in Cancun... ended smack in the middle of a feeding frenzy with jacks, barracuda, nurse sharks trolling in.... and 10 minutes later a surface-to-sea-floor wall of about 100-200 barracuda gliding by... and none of it fazed me (or my wife) in the least.

I try to explain that sensation to people who feel much safer snorkeling than scuba diving.

And myth or not... I take off anything shiny when I'm diving.

 

[Mike]

And myth or not... I take off anything shiny when I'm diving.

I used to kind of blow that off, but now I'm on board. Not so much cause I truly believe that the shiny stuff will attract an attack, but more from the point of view of seeing first hand that you have absolutely zero defense against any barrracuda that is going to attack you, I'm not doing anything however remote the chances of inciting one, they are so fast there is no defense against one, no reaction time at all, so I'm just not taking any chances.

When a rogue barracuda gets that zombie look in it's eye and just keeps hanging near you, eye balling you with that huge jutted extended bottom jaw full of overlapping teeth and keeps getting closer and closer there is no chasing it off with waving your hands which just seems like all you're doing is offering it an easy delicious meal of your fingers, that thing could hit you so fast you wouldn't even see it, you'd just feel it.

This is the kind of stuff that freaks me out



Cause it can easily become this

 

[Skittl1321]

I try to explain that sensation to people who feel much safer snorkeling than scuba diving.

For me I feel safer scuba diving because it seems there are more places I can go- I can move in all directions. Snorkeling (since I'm not really a 'free diver') I can move side to side, and that doesn't give me much room to get out of the way. I also feel like the air on scuba gives me more time to think out a problem then the breath holding of snorkeling if I'm stuck under water. I really do not like snorkeling.

I have not seen a barracuda, and am glad of it.