Green eel attacks my strobe----from behind!!!--lol, no less...Now saying this, I had

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diver 85

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no idea any of this was/had happened till after the dive.........Here's the story---(took place off Brac week before last--& told to me by the DM then later that evening @ dinner by another diver on the dive).......We were on the 2nd dive of the morning(shallow) & the DM had shot this lionfish-- carrying it around trying to get something to eat it...:
15419883097_dce3d71abe_z.jpg
[/URL]image by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

Well, finally had the grouper 'cornered'(we thought) under a coral ledge & I was thinking it was gunna 'take/eat it'......I was set up waiting to get an 'off the spear pole eating shot' when all of a sudden from behind me came this FAST free swimming green eel from my blind left side...In about a second or less this eel pulled the lionfish off the pole & started doing a 'death roll' with it--straight into the reef.....lol----all I wound up getting was this shot--& look @ the look in that grouper's eyes(you snooze , you lose..:))...

15682096871_1275518914_z.jpg
[/URL]image by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

Finished a great little dive & back on the boat the DM came up to me & said 'that eel tried to attack your left strobe'............hmmmmmm......About a minute later, he called me over to the camera table & said 'look @ this'......Lo & behold we could see(see 2 below pics) 3 'nice' teeth marks on the strobe(they are located directly over the 2nd Sea of 'Sea & Sea')........
15660125776_b5bf6410cb_z.jpg
[/URL]IMG_8292 by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]
15063888484_6b2347674a_z.jpg
[/URL]IMG_8301 by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

Later on that nite @ dinner, one of the divers present @ 'the ordeal' out of the blue told me 'man, that green eel started toward you & the strobe---stopped-- backed up & lunged very hard @ the strobe'....then said 'I thought he was gunna get more than the strobe'......hmmm--close---but came out OK......

EDIT:.......Maybe this should go under "Near Misses"--or whatever that forum is called....too bad the diver with the GoPro didn't get this down on video(I asked him that nite & he said he didn't)...:)
 
Thanks for sharing. I'm concerned something like this is going to go badly in another way someday. I wonder what made the strobe attractive to the eel? I would think a caucasian's hand could look vaguely like a dead lion fish or piece of white meat, to something with lousy vision.

Richard.
 
Part of the consequences when wild life begin to associate humans with being fed. Soon they begin to expect any thing about us or our gear to be food.
 
Had similar incident happened to me in Belize. A large green Moray (roughly 6 feet) came after me. I saw him charging me at full speed from about 20 feet below me. I pivoted and stuck my fin between him and me and he stopped just before my fin. He hovered there and gradually drifted back down to the reef slowly following our group of 8 divers. A couple of minutes later, he charged me again, not the other divers, but me. It was apparent that there was something about me that (as I thought at the time), he didn't like. This went on for about 10 minutes until I guess he got tired of me sticking my fin in his face and I never saw him again.

Only after we finished the dive (and the war stories of the moray wanting me for lunch), that someone from the group of divers who dove about 5 minutes before us told me that their DM had speared and fed a lion fish to a large green moray. I guess for some reason, the moray thought I looked like the previous DM and expected a meal from me and wasn't going to take no for an answer.

So.... I'm not a big fan of feeding lion fish to other fish. Sooner or later someone is going to get bit in the butt (literally) because of this practice.

Jim
 
I had an incident years ago at stingray city. After I tired of the feeding stingrays, I went near some coral heads to investigate. I hovered just above the sand and spied a green eel deep in a hole under a big coral head. I was checking the settings on my camera when I felt this strange movement by my waist and BC. The eel went inside of my BC around my back wrapping around me then out the other side of my BC, scared the heck out of me, he was quite large. I guess there may have been some previous feedings by some DM's
 
I had a moray bite my ring finger in Ambergris. I think it was because of my yellow fins. I have had lots of fish attacks; but, since I traded my yellow for black, no more problem.
 
Last week in Roatan I had Morays coming right up to the lens on my camera (made for some great shots!) and a couple checking out my son's fins. I couldnt tell if they tried to bite the fins or not. One also swim about 30 feet above the reef and got VERY personal with a divers and until she saw it and freaked out which seemed to scare it away back to the reef.
 
I heard a similar story on Cayman Brac last week; Becky that works in the Reef Divers dive shop used to be a dive master until she speared a lion fish and an over-excited grouper took a big chunk of flesh out of her hand.
 
You were lucky I had my left index finger shredded by a Black Spotted Moray on GC about 3 years ago.It came out of nowhere while I was taking a picture of an Arrow crab and hit my left hand and shredded my finger I did not know what happened until my SO/Dive Buddy pointed to the moray looking at me from inside some coral.It happened at the "Turtle farm" (Sundivers).Jason from Ambassador divers got out of the water behind me and was following the RED line thinking it was painted line.
 
I too fear that spearing and feeding LF to reef predators - eels, snappers, grouper - will lead to more negative interactions and things like missing fingers with divers. Spear them and leave them. Saw a Queen trigger take apart a LF couple weeks ago at French Cap between St. Thomas and St. Croix. I was about 40 feet away. If I got closer, triggerfish moved off. Only when I was safely away did it resume lunch.
 
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