I was attacked by a ling cod recently! They can get up to 60 inches and 105 lbs. They guard their egg masses this time of year, and I got too close. He came straight at my face, but luckily we both veered off. Another cod hit my arm when he didn't like me being where I was. And another diver was bit on the ankle - left a perfect impression of his mouth on the neoprene drysuit!
My fins were bitten repeatedly by a very friendly harbour seal who wanted to play with me. It was great, but made me a little nervous because he outweighed me, can go deeper, and doesn't need a reg to breathe... He was about 6 ft., 250 lbs. He stayed with us for our entire dive, and seemed to be having a great time nipping our fins, and darting around us. During our safety stop at 15 feet, he actually pulled my husband off the rock we were holding on to, and pulled him down about 5 feet by his fins.
I've also had an aggressive encounter with a very large wolf eel. He became nervous when my husband and I looked at him for too long. He suddenly sprang out of his den and lunged at my husband's face. Luckily, a swimming scallop happened to come near at that moment, and the eel veered off and snapped at the scallop instead. I know of one diver whose arm was broken in three places by a wolf eel bite; they are basically a huge swimming jaw. Our encounter happened at a very popular dive site, and many others are in the habit of feeding sea urchins to the eels.
A popular past time is to kiss wolf eels - literally! Take the reg out of your mouth and kiss them! I think this is incredibly stupid. From reading these posts, I'm even more convinced. Wolf eels probably aren't much different in temperament or power than morays. Keep your face out of their face and you might keep your face - intact!
