Swimming through a bait ball in Bonaire

[waterpirate]

My scariest moment ever on scuba was in Hattaras last June. Dive going as planned and the lights suddenly went out in about 80 feet of water. I looked around to see what gives and found myself in a bait ball!!!!!
In Hattaras my first thought was what is balling the fish? Holy crap!! I quickly dropped out the bottom and moved slowly away. Never did see the predator.
Eric

 

[piikki]

I added our little video of Bari Bait Ball to my photo gallery for anyone interested. Had to compress it pretty badly, so it does not show too well how the ball encircles us.
This was shot couple of weeks ago on our last dive (sniff) around the Bari Reef dock. The dive started 5 am and ended at sunrise. This is the first ever video buddy shot with the new camera too

 

[jchull]

I was at Sandollar last week as well, the scad were there the whole time. It was pretty cool to watch, and the noise from the school swimming was cool, like breaking glass. My wife swam straight into it, of course, she is the same person who got half her arm swallowed by a tarpon in the Keys right after I told her not to hold the fish, to just drop it, at one of those roadside fish feeding places. Tarpon do have teeth, they are just little, but they do leave a mark.

 

[piikki]

... ok well, the prog said it was a succesful upload but I don't see any video in my gallery yet... I'll check back later if it creeps on slowly or if I did it all wrong...

 

[EnronX]

We happened to see the bait-ball at Bari reef as well two weeks ago...it was an amazing experience to see how thousands of shad would dart and turn all in unison. While gearing up on the dock, it was also entertaining to watch the pelicans take turns dive bombing into the cloud of bait...I saw at least a dozen of the birds hanging out on the rocks around the beach, waiting their turn to fly and dive...at least they know how to share!

 

[dave4868]

These are the best I've got.... Karpata, I think.



Thanks for giving me an excuse to look through my Bonaire pics!

Dave C

 

[Temple of Doom]

Just hope you never find yourself in this bait ball!

http://www.kevinschafer.com/AlaskaWhales.html
(2nd pic is best)

I think it was in the excellent BBC miniseries Blue Planet that had incredible video of humpbacks feeding like this. I'll try to look it up tonight.

Craig

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Like we need any reasons to go back to our Bonaire pics! A couple snaps from Salt Pier last December...uh, if the Download Gods aren't cross with me. // ww

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Hmm, well I will admit to an imperfect grasp of how to stick a picture into a post so I shall research the matter further--before some tarpon whacks me with his tail. NIce fishball story Spike Digger. // ww

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Huh, that sorta worked. Here is the other one. // ww