Saludos de Cozumel

[Dominator]

Hi,
I'm Dom, a 21 year old student, currently living in Cozumel, Mexico. I have been here for 6 months, and have only just started to get really interested in freediving (a poor effort after 6 months in diving paradise i know!!). I have 4 months left here, and am looking to make the most of it.

Anyone here looking to teach/head out diving?

Anyone willing to share some advice? Where to dive in Cozumel (i will be shore diving as i have no money for trips/know noone which a boat)? Or any general diving advice...i need everything you've got haha.

Thanks guys, great forum..ive been lurking for a while.

One other thing. Barracudas. Went snorkelling with my girlfriend who was stalked by a rather large 'cuda last week, and needless to say she was rather freaked out, panniced, and splashed about. I swam over, and i too was fairly worried...this thing was huge! What is the general advice about these terryfying creatures..no shiny things (nobody likes a flasher) is the only thing ive heard.

ps. sorry for any poor english, been here for too long and am starting to lose my english (im from Kent, England and study in Southampton). Thanks!

 

[sross]

Hi Dom,

Greetings, hope your time on DB will be well spent.

It might not hurt to start a barracuda thread. Panicing & splashing is probably not a good thing to do around barracuda, but the most attacks seem to occur on people spearfishing.

If you're not spearfishing, the factor which may correlate most strongly with unprovoked attacks is feeding of 'cudas by tourist operaitons. ou should find out whether this happens in the part of Cozumel where you've been diving.

If you want to have your hair raised, take a look at this article:

Barracuda Attack: | Divers' Blogs

The comments are also very informative. Treat barracuda like any other large predator you would encounter in the wild. You could also try working to end chumming of water around tourist boats to attract predators, and to try to stop human feeding of these animals too. These are exactly the same issues that had to be dealt with for large land predators, in particular bears, too.