Maybe anyone can shed a light on this. Fred and I are having a discussion. Yesterday we where snorkeling the salt pier, and Fred was pretty impressed by the amount and size of barracuda's there. At one point there where about 4-5 swimming around me, and he thought this was pretty scaring. As far as I know they don't do any harm, as long as you don't tease them. How true is this? Anyone know of snorkelers (or divers) being bitten by barracuda's?

Karen, it is very rare. They say that shiny jewlery attracts them. We saw a school of about 9 by playa chacha last time. All encounters I've had with them they usually keep their distance and "watch" you...territorial? Maybe the Bonaire diving experts can shed light on their behaviour.

I've never had a problem with barracuda over the many decades of seeing them here & throughout the Carib. I certainly wouldn't want to either because their teeth are razor sharp, & if they ever did attack, they are faster than a lightning bolt! Not much you'd be able to do about it.

The things are thick up here and I have never heard of anyone having problems with them. Still, it's not a good idea to have shiny jewelery flashing around. My very first non training dive off the NC coast introduced me to cudas in a big way. I jumped in and when the bubbles had cleared I realized I had jumped smack dab in the middle of a huge school of them, ALL of which had turned to look AT ME. 360 degs of cudas all interested in me, since then a cuda or 2 does not even get my attention. Sure glad it was a rented wetsuit.

I was in the Sea of Japan during my military stay and was sport diving the area with 3 other Marines. We were at 50 fsw checking out a reef wall having a good'ol time when the light in the sea became dim and the viz decreased. Barracuda do not school in large numbers in the Atlantic, but do in the Pacific. We noticed a large school of Cuda's above us at 40 fsw. In 1964 the diving masks had regular plate glass in them and reflections could be seen by another diver. Well one of the Cuda on the outside of the school saw his reflection in my mask and approached me bumping my faceplate. He withdrew after hitting the plate but had caused my nose to bleed. I was in charge of the dive and let my fellow divers know I was OK and signaled to stay put at this depth. When the dive was over one of the guy's asked me why I didn't clear my mask to remove the blood. I told him that we all would have been fish bate if I would have done so..

Wow Ron, that's kind of scary!

My freaky cuda encounter was at Playa Cha Cha on my Peak Performance Buoyancy dive... the instructor had an underwater toy torpedo painted orange and purple and we were tossing it back and forth... it went over my shoulder and I turned to retreive it and there hung a barracuda just staring at me and the torpedo.

I'm from the midwest (WI but spent 8 yrs in MN) and I'm thinking it's going to be like a Musky and go after the torpedo like bait. So I didn't reach for it - too freaked out, but Jeffrey kept shrugging at me like - "yo... get the toy!" Finally when I reached for the toy, the barracuda took off the other direction. Too freaky for comfort for me.

Barracuda are harmless to people. I worked for years on a dive boat in the FL keys. I became very friendly with the resident barracudas at Looe Key reef & started to learn their personalities - they are like puppy dogs!

The captain of the boat could feed them hotdogs from his hand.

I also had a silver watch which i purposefully dangled, trying to attract them. They were uninterested. In murky water, where they cannot see their prey, silver might be a problem, but they seem to have good vision and can tell the difference between a watch and a fish.

I have never heard of a barracuda harming anyone, besides fisherman, and this is only when they get them hooked.

The only time I have ever been concerned about a cuda, I was snorkeling and observing a spotted eagle ray with two remora underneath its wings. Suddenly the ray jumped out of the water and lost a remora. The confused little remora looked for the underside of an animal - and chose me! It was swimming around my legs and hanging out underneath my body. Then I noticed "Bubba" - our 4+ foot barracuda was watching this whole situation play out from underneath the boat. He was eyeing the remora swimming around me hungrily. I was a little worried he might have gone for it & accidently bit my leg or arm. I swam down to a coral structure and chased the remora underneath a ledge and all was well.

According to Humann & Deloach's Reef Fish Identification book; barracuda are harmless. "Barracudas have the unnerving habit of approaching divers and following them about the reef. This appears to be nothing more than curiosity, as there are no reports of unprovoked attacks (only substantiated incidents involved spearfishing or hand feeding.) Normally move away if closely approached." Also noted is that the opening and closing of the mouth assist in respiration.

I personally find them fascinating and enjoy "swimming" with them.

Oooops forgot the photo :

We saw a Great Barracuda in April when we were on Bonaire over by Plaza. She was huge. Just stayed down on the bottom and watched what we were doing. When we go in the water, we do not wear any jewelry or anything shinny. I have a friend that was bitten in Cayman by a cuda, but he was ok after the bite. We have encountered many, but have been lucky. They like to watch us

3 anecdotes about diving with barracuda.

Once on Cozumel, snorkeling in 8' of water, I pulled out my knife and waggled it. Immediately a 4-5' barracuda was there. He just looked; when I put the knife away, he went away.

The only attacks I have heard of were on a shiny regulator (Yours are all dull, aren't they??? :–) ) and on speared fish on a belt stringer.

US Navy UDT people I have talked to say that there has never been an attack in their experience.

So don't worry unless you have a shiny reg. ;–)

(And, really not then. Barracuda do have large teeth, and can open their mouths to about the diameter of their body but are really just curious puppies. And they swallow their prey whole so most of us are a bit too large.)