diving with a school of snapper - Dangerous ?
BC
20 metres out from the end of the pier..and saw a big school of ( I think)
snapper...classic silvery whitish fish anyway... We were just watching this
big wall of fish... and the they all started cirling us until we were
completely surounded on all sides... it looked quite amazing...but then I
started to wonder if this was a dangerous place to be... (been watching too
many shark documentaries..I know..)...but just thought we'd better move on
just to be safe...
So.. was that a dangerous place to be ???
BC
Diesel
you approach them they will turn away.
This is especially true if you are diving on normal Scuba equipment as
your exhaled bubbles are very noisy. Less so if you are on a
rebreather, which is much quieter.
In addition your suit (probably a dry-suit) will offer some degree of
protection; however, there are very few animals in the sea that
intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to humans, and even fewer
that do so to divers (neoprene tastes bloody awful). Most attacks in
the sea are to surfers or swimmers and the animal is attracted to the
splashing noise of legs and arms. Underwater you can't splash!
None of these animals are located around the UK shores, or if so, have
had any reported incidents in living memory.
The main creature in the sea around the UK that I would be very wary of
are some species of Stone Fish, which, due to being well camouflaged and
located on rocks, wrecks or the sea-bed, can be accidentally trodden on
or, worse still, have a hand or leg hit brush against. Their dorsal fin
contains a nasty venom, which is their only defence mechanism and,
although unlikely to kill an adult human, would be very painful and
cause severe swelling for several days.
That's a good reason to ensure you have good buoyancy control and look
where you're going!
Tony.
On 07/02/2009 05:11, BC wrote:
> Recently I was diving around the pier... my buddy and I headed about