Friday, January 27, 2023

Coming over to bite hard

 


14 comments:

  1. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie….

    ReplyDelete
  2. When you swim in the sea,
    And an eel bites your knee,
    That's a moray!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n59q8kl0slo

      Delete
    2. When an eel bites your thigh and you bleed out and die, that's a moray!

      Delete
  3. That's why you should always carry jawbreakers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A friend of dad's got bitten on the forearm by a moray. Morays have a ratcheting jaw; the teeth sink in and even cutting off the head brings no relief. Required is to separate the mandible then pull out the jaws. Then get a full set of antibiotics to ward off the infection.

      A moray bite is worse than a coral cut. For those who don't know, coral continues to live inside your flesh. No matter how painful, the coral must be excised from your wound. Urinating on the wound, or pouring bleach on it, helps but only short term. Infection is quick. The pain becomes indescribable.

      Delete
    2. I have seen plenty of these creatures diving in the PI and that toothy look is enough to keep you away. They never bothered me and I did not provoke them. I did get some coral scratches and they itch forever and heal slowly.
      -Snakepit

      Delete
    3. Spent 3 years on a Pacific Island. Standard rule for coral cuts or abrasions, especially for coral sand and dead coral rocks, was to scrub the injury with a stiff fingernail brush until the wound bled profusely.

      Ever wonder where ex-football players who become med-techs worked? Holding little kids down while the doctor basically ground the wound.

      Glad I never experienced that. Got close, but never had to get debrided by an angle grinder.

      Delete
    4. History has shown time and time again that when a thumb is forcefully applied to an eye socket the perpetrator of the attack will haul balls trying to get away from that which has caused it such intense pain.

      Delete
  4. Morays hide in the rocks just behind a lobster. They've watched that lobster grow until it becomes meal sized. Morays think the lobster is theirs.

    So when I came along to snatch away the lobster, the moray gave chase. There I was furiously back pedaling as the moray pressed his attack. The thrust from my fins presented a swift current the moray swam against.

    Up to near the surface from forty feet below, the moray gave up his chase. I had won, the bug was mine.
    I remember this like it was this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  5. More decades ago than I like to admit, I asked a shipmate of mine about his scar. He was a local, a guy from "the Big Island" as the locals called it, and he told me it was from a Moray. Seems the things, when they bite, then twist and rotate, to rip the victims flesh apart into bite sized morsels. I've got a couple sea stories about run ins with them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. They were stacked up in the crystal clear water under the anchored dive raft at Kona. Never bothered anyone. We were told not to get close them along the rocks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A tourist diving on the GBR off Cairns tried to pet a large Moray. It took his hand and wrist off at his forearm, which would have cramped his holiday rather.

    ReplyDelete