Moray Eel Attack

[diverrick]

My wife had "an encounter" with a green moray in Roatan recently. She had seen it out , swimming freely, and she was following it to get a good photo, seeing as we are new to photograghy underwater. Well... The eel settled down and turned around and stopped... Looked at her. My wife took the opportunity to snap off a couple of pics. The eel stayed put so she moved a bit closer, and took another shot. She was about 4 feet away, trying to get the camera set up, when I saw the Eel start to move towards her. She saw it also, and started to back away, The eel came up and struck her lens as she pushed him away with the mera case. and then he retreated. I have never heard someone scream underwater before, I did that day. It all haapened so quickly I had no time to react. We all kinda laughed it off afterwards, but after looking at those pics, I might be a bit more cautious in the future. Bad news was my wife had the close up lens on when she was taking the photos, and forgot to take it off, so all the photos came out blurry. Too bad considering the (unknown to us) risk she took to get the shot. I didn't feel that she was too close, but the eel thought differently.

 

[JennTheMermaid]

Regarding the need for dive knives...

"but unless wreck diving it must be very very unlikely"


I was diving a little bit off the shore in South Beach Miami this past week and I got CAUGHT by a fisherman that was fishing FAR AWAY on a jetty, his line must have been 100' long!

I surfaced and thought I had seaweed around my neck. I pulled it and realized it was getting tighter and tighter around my throat! I got it out far enough to see that it was a fishing line. I pulled it over my head and I called my buddy over and he untangled it from my gear. Then I thought CRAP, there's a hook somewhere on the end of that line! AS SOON as I said that, BAM! Hook went right through my hand. OUCH! I was trying to stabilize it so I could get it out and the fisherman started freaking reeling me in!!! I yelled up and we waved our arms for him to STOP! I got the hook out and kicked my *** for not bringing my knife with me that day. I got a cut on my neck and a hook in my hand which could have been headed off with a quick cut at the beginning.

Yes, I will take it from now on.