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Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/8/2013 6:49:28 PM
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ulle trautvag
Posts: 378
Joined: 3/28/2008
From: Manhattan/nyc
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I have mine-- will post later.
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/8/2013 7:30:15 PM
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ulle trautvag
Posts: 378
Joined: 3/28/2008
From: Manhattan/nyc
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Maggie, mina ei tea mis sina raegist, aga koik on OK. BINK!
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/8/2013 7:52:34 PM
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uphillklimber
Posts: 5531
Joined: 2/17/2005
From: Bryant Pond, Maine
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Found a 3 1/2 footer, maybe 4 footer of Cozumel. He got interested in me and started coming at me. I turned left, he followed, I turned right he followed, I headed for shore, not sure when he turned back. Not like I could have outrun if he didn't want me to....
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Lovin life,
Bob
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/8/2013 10:23:09 PM
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marynot
Posts: 46
Joined: 1/18/2010
From: BC, Canada
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Our first time at Akumal Bay, i was on my own snorkeling as DH was nursing a bad cold on the beach with a few cervasa...
When I spotted the first turtle I had ever seen in the wild, excitement overwhelmed me as I looked for DH on shore I was surprised how far out I was. I spent a fair amount of time watching the most amazing turtle before a crowd appeared so I carried on. Further out I came upon what I later learned here was a fish ball...millions...ok thousands...or maybe hundeds of fish swimming in a circle, it was amazing due to the large quantity of silver fish. After watching for awhile I swam over the top of the fish ball, as the quantity of fish was amazing but come on they were not the flashy color of tropical fish. I carried on, watching, enjoying, and being so in love with Akumal Bay...when again I came upon the fish ball. Someone tapped on my shoulder, I pop up to see that I had swam into a large group doing a tour. The man who tapped me on the shoulder spoke in Spanish, I apologized in english for being in his tour...he switched to english said...no...no all ok look! At which point he shoved my head under the water and said "Barracuda"...which is what popped into my view. There in the center of this huge fish ball was the barracuda, still...mouth open...teethe showing...very still...oh yeah I said that.... in the center of the fish ball. So Imagine thousands...ok hundreds of silver fish swimming around the barracuda. I was spellbound, quite sure I had swam over and never saw the barracuda earlier. Imagine a donut., the fish are swimming around like the shape of a donut, and there in the center was the barracuda. This would have been, 2008 or 2009. The next day I dragged DH out...sick or not he had to see this, and again we did find the fish ball and the barracuda.
We have never seen the fish ball since that year, it has always remind me of the saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" I've always thought that those fish swimming around him/her were breakfast...lunch...supper and snacks.
Mary
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Mary
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/8/2013 11:47:17 PM
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Vancouver Sundog
Posts: 5918
Joined: 10/1/2006
From: North Vancouver
Status: online
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Mine was introducing Soleil to a fish ball in Akumal Bay - we peered through the fish ball to see Barry in the middle and assured her that was the only barry
- guess what - 2 smaller barries came on the outside heading straight for us
I still have her fingernail scars on my wrist
Best to see barries in the ocean - not ON THE HOOK
< Message edited by Vancouver Sundog -- 1/9/2013 12:33:03 AM >
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AASB 13 Done it - AAFB in the planning
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 12:28:01 AM
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jlooneyb
Posts: 307
Joined: 10/15/2009
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That our EIGHT YEAR OLD NEPHEW was the one to catch it!!!!!
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Barbara
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 5:38:12 AM
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coralfan50
Posts: 454
Joined: 12/4/2008
From: Northern Minnesota
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1st time to Akumal Bay I went out alone to find turtles. When I didni came back in to get my wife. On the way out we spotted a couplenof small rays which got her a little excited. We found turtles & she was in awe. After what seemed like an hour we started back when to came upon a huge swirling fish circle. Since we never had seen such a site we just watched when suddenly appeared the largest Cuds I have ever seen. My wife had notnspottednnit yet so I tapped her leg & pointed. She freaked bad. Started swimming back out away from shore. I finally got her turned around. She did not go back out the rest of the trip. This was back in 08. I had not seen this again until last March when friends were with me. Was a great experience for them.
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 5:03:05 PM
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Kay
Posts: 2265
Joined: 7/28/2004
From: Loco Gringo
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I usually save this story for happy hour, and some may have already heard it...
One Friday evening, late in September 2002, Gary and I were at Turtle Bay for dinner, there was wine involved. After dinner we decided to stroll up the beach. I thought it would be fun to go for a swim. We were in front of the Akumal Dive Center. I drop my linen and walk into the water. I was two maybe three steps into the water and something hit my foot. I brought up out of the water to see blood, and lots of it. I figured I was hit by a sting ray in the sand. Gary grabbed me and dumped my ass on to the beach and told me to get my clothes on, while he went to get the hotel security.
I get dressed, the security guys call Dr. Nestor, and they help me to the truck. We park by the Chomak, Gary gets me a bag of ice to stick my foot in. I am screaming at this point because it hurt like a mother #$V *)&^%. We wait for 30 minutes or so for Nestor. Nestor arrives. I shimmy my shorts down because I know I am going to get a shot in the butt, its the Mexican way. Nestor is the only man in Mexico who has seen my ass almost as much as Gary. Nestor gives me a shot of morphine.
Nestor then advises us to follow him to his clinic office at what was then the Robinson Club. Nestor and another doctor begin cleaning the wound. I am screaming and cussing in English and Spanish so nothing was lost in translation. Nestor, Gary later told me, had his fingers in my foot up to the first knuckle. As they worked on the top of my foot I am yelling about the pain on the bottom. There was a puncture wound there too. Nestor put 16 stitches in my right foot. He then lends me a pair of crutches that were too small.
Its now 11:30 at night I am home upstairs in bed. A couple of my friends were there. So to help me sleep we think hey lets smoke something it will kill the pain and help me sleep. Well no, it enhanced the pain! I would scream in pain, then fade out only to awake screaming in pain again.
At this point we have no idea what bit me.
The following Monday morning, I am on the sofa. Loco Gringo had the office in Playa del Carmen at that point. I was going to stay home. Gary was getting ready to go, I was watching the news, and I see smoke from a building in NYC and shout to Gary that a commuter plane hit the one of the twin towers. He comes down, and we watch the second plane flight into the other tower.
That night we are home watching Discovery channel. They has a special about barracudas. They had the jaws of the fish and it matched the dental records in my foot! Mystery solved.
Over the healing process, I managed to rip my foot open after falling off my crutches.
The ligament in little pig #4 was cut. I spoke with doctors in the US and they said they could work on it, but it would be like putting two pieces of linguine together and no guarantees. Needless to say, even today I have trouble with certain types of shoes. When I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro this past September I found that toe socks help keep the little pig in line with the others.
Theory on this attack: Moon was out, and I have light shimmery toe polish on and the barracuda thought I was a baby turtle.
To this day I am super nervous around barracudas. I generally do not have good luck with marine life, but I will save those stories for another day. Gary has photos somewhere of the incident, we'll see if we can dig them up.
PS: News travels on the coconut telegraph.... Ilana from Costa de Cocos in Xcalak called and word was I had died. LOL!
< Message edited by Kay -- 1/9/2013 5:09:47 PM >
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 7:35:43 PM
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ulle trautvag
Posts: 378
Joined: 3/28/2008
From: Manhattan/nyc
Status: offline
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Kay ,holy s---t! Glad you're still directing LG.
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 9:36:50 PM
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Vancouver Sundog
Posts: 5918
Joined: 10/1/2006
From: North Vancouver
Status: online
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quote:
lol - picture me yelling in my head with my snorkel on and OMG
After my scars healed and Soleil bacame respected friends with Barry's, her favourite trick is to surface near snorkel groups and in a loud voice state - BARRACUDA'
Amazing the reaction of the newbies suddeningly able to run on water and the snorkel guide trying to convince them - no just a skinny fish
Other Scuba story I heard was a couple of new certified divers meeting with the other divers the night before the week of diving started.
They gave the new divers a container of black shoe polish, warning of the dangers of shiny chrome regulators when diving with Barracudas - they were very thorough in making sure that no chrome was showing the next morning
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AASB 13 Done it - AAFB in the planning
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/9/2013 9:58:52 PM
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kallileigh
Posts: 3118
Joined: 11/5/2008
From: I am Phoenician
Status: offline
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Omg! Kay! Hands down you win!!!!
Here's an excerpt from my first ever trip report - my first ever encounter w/ Barry (on my first ever trip to Mexico back in 2009):
When we snorkel Alan swims out in front because he just likes to go go go and I like to toodle along and look at the little things. So he’s going going going and I’m toodling along. I looked off to my left and I nearly filled my bikini bottoms. There was a BIG barracuda, I mean BIG, I’ve seen the pictures you’ve all posted and this guy was BIG, and he’s about 10 feet away… staring straight at me. I think, "great, he thinks my camera is lure." So I fight the urge to point the lure at him and I slowly swim towards Alan (who by now has turned around to see where the heck I went). We meet about half way and I tap him on the shoulder. The conversation goes like this:
Me: Alan. (I can only imagine the look on my face)
Him: What?
Me: There is a… BIG… barracuda… right… over… there. (and I point back over my left shoulder)
Him: What?!
He gives me this look like I’m nuts, puts his head in the water, looks over that way, his head POPS back out of the water, his eyes are BULGING out of his head, he says NOTHING, and then he BOLTS! I float there like ‘cuda bait for a minute, stunned at his reaction. I look in the water again and the ‘cuda is still about 10 to 15 feet away and I slowly swim away. I finally get to where Alan went (way back towards shore) and all he can say is “Holy XIT!”
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"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all." ~ Helen Keller
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RE: Your Most Memorable Barracuda Experience - 1/10/2013 12:11:57 AM
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Vancouver Sundog
Posts: 5918
Joined: 10/1/2006
From: North Vancouver
Status: online
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At AASB12, we were all sitting at the Moonrise , sipping refreshments, watching the wonderful ocean
A lady was knee deep in the water when a school of small fish jumped out of the water a few feet in front of her - cool
A second later, a 2 foot barracuda jumped right in front of her following the school of fish
We watched her slowly walk backwards out of the water - somehow she lost her tan in seconds
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AASB 13 Done it - AAFB in the planning
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