divers problem

[aussie dollar]

LUCKY COULD ONLY FIND HIS THUMB

PHUKET GAZETTE
Eel makes meal of diver's digit

Matt Butcher says he won't be
feeding any more eels.

PHUKET: A 32-year-old Briton is recovering in hospital here after his left thumb was bitten off and eaten by a giant moray eel while he was diving at the well-known East of Eden dive site in the Similan Islands.

Matt Butcher, of Stanstead, Essex, said he had fed the 2.2-meter eel regularly over the past 18 months, and that she was well-known in the diving community for her friendliness.

“Many people dive there to see her,” he said from his bed at Bangkok Phuket Hospital. “She will swim in between your legs or curl herself around your arms. Divers often feed her scraps of food taken from their liveaboard boats. She likes sausages and will even eat fruit.”

Mr Butcher told the Gazette how, on April 18, he and his buddy, 21-year-old Becks Herbert, from Norwich in England, had descended to around 14 meters with some food for the eel.

He said, “I’ve been feeding the eel for 18 months and nothing seemed different on this occasion. She seemed quite playful, and was playing with Becks, while I took the food – a sausage wrapped in a plastic bag – from the pocket of my BCD vest and threw it to her.”

Mr Butcher said the eel (Strophidon sathete) circled round behind him and latched onto the thumb of his left hand, which was still holding the bag.

“I couldn’t get my thumb out of her mouth once she had started biting. The teeth of a moray are angled backward so she got a better grip [on my thumb] every time she bit down,” he said.

“I tried pushing the fingers of my right hand into her mouth to try and force her mouth open but she did not let go; she could taste blood by then…

“She was shaking her head from side to side, biting harder all the time. Five seconds later, my thumb just came off.

“She ate it and swam away. I didn’t even have time to reach for my knife.”

Mr Butcher and Ms Herbert surfaced and returned to their dive boat, the MV Queen Scuba.

He received first aid from Royal Thai Navy (RTN) personnel at Similan 9 Island before National Park staff took him by speedboat to Tab Lamu, whence he was transferred to Phuket.

Mr Butcher praised everyone involved in rescuing him. “They were great, everyone from the crew on board the Queen Scuba to the RTN, the park rangers and the hospital. They all knew exactly what they were doing.”

Mr Butcher, who is right-handed, has been told that surgeons may be able to transplant one of his big toes to replace his thumb.

He said that he will continue diving – although he will no longer feed eels.

He added, “I was wearing shorts during this dive, and I’m just glad that the thing didn’t swim up one of the legs and bite something else.”

[stevem]

Yep thats what happens when your not paying attention. Saw a mate have a *VERY* close call with one up on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, shook him up quite abit.

[Sunrise]

I think one has to say very quietly Som Nam Na.

All divers are trained to not interact directly with marine life, not feed the fish etc..They get used to it and such activity interferes with their natural behaviour. It may be very cool to have a moray feeding from your hand, but when they start feeding ON your hand, you have just learned about nature. I was surprised to hear the eel could bite through the bone. That is a strong bite!

[Diver69]

Originally Posted by Sunrise

I think one has to say very quietly Som Nam Na.

All divers are trained to not interact directly with marine life, not feed the fish etc..They get used to it and such activity interferes with their natural behaviour. It may be very cool to have a moray feeding from your hand, but when they start feeding ON your hand, you have just learned about nature. I was surprised to hear the eel could bite through the bone. That is a strong bite!

You are completely right. If he had followed the rules he would not have had this accident.

[seafox]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the board but have been to Phuket before(October 2001). I am hoping to return in September(have commitments in October, November, and December).

Moray eels have very poor eyesight and primarily find their food with their sense of smell. Once they get close to the food source they can usually see it but not very clearly. The diver's thumb looked like the sausage that it was conditioned to recognise as a piece of food and the diver also made the mistake of holding onto the bag that had contained the sausage and still had juice from the sausage in it so the moray eel went for the diver's thumb because it's conditioned response was that the thumb was just like it's previous meals.

Probably would have been a good idea not to feed it in the first place if it was that big and especially not to feed it something that looked like a part of a human beings anatomy. He is lucky he had shorts on and that he wasn't diving with his BG or thinking about her at the time.

If anyone has some questions about diving send me an e-mail. Hopefully I will be able to answer some questions.

Seafox

[haulass Hyena]

seafox and sunrise gave great advice.

I was on a trip to florida.me and some friends went on a diving trip (guided) While diving about 30 feet or so we ran across a Baracuda. The guide started feeding it with bait fish. He was showing off by holding the bait in his teeth. YEAH!!! Well to make a long story short. The Baracuda bit a fish in half and my buddy grabbed the half that was floating there just as he did that the SOB turned around and went to grab the fish from his hand and took some fingers with it. Well after 6 Operations my buddy got 2 fingers back but lost his middle finger. he can barely move the 2 fingers that were operated on. Also, the doctor said that he was lucky that he only lost 1 finger and not his whole hand.

[aussie dollar]

Welcome to the forum seafox & haulass Hyena thanks for posting.
havent done much diving but have seen doco's on moray eels seem very aggressive.
Have had sea snakes attack me and contuine to attack in Noumea very scary !!!

[eric-the-viking]

Originally Posted by aussie dollar

LUCKY COULD ONLY FIND HIS THUMB

PHUKET GAZETTE
Eel makes meal of diver's digit

Matt Butcher says he won't be
feeding any more eels.

PHUKET: A 32-year-old Briton is recovering in hospital here after his left thumb was bitten off and eaten by a giant moray eel while he was diving at the well-known East of Eden dive site in the Similan Islands.

Matt Butcher, of Stanstead, Essex, said he had fed the 2.2-meter eel regularly over the past 18 months, and that she was well-known in the diving community for her friendliness.

“Many people dive there to see her,” he said from his bed at Bangkok Phuket Hospital. “She will swim in between your legs or curl herself around your arms. Divers often feed her scraps of food taken from their liveaboard boats. She likes sausages and will even eat fruit.”

Mr Butcher told the Gazette how, on April 18, he and his buddy, 21-year-old Becks Herbert, from Norwich in England, had descended to around 14 meters with some food for the eel.

He said, “I’ve been feeding the eel for 18 months and nothing seemed different on this occasion. She seemed quite playful, and was playing with Becks, while I took the food – a sausage wrapped in a plastic bag – from the pocket of my BCD vest and threw it to her.”

Mr Butcher said the eel (Strophidon sathete) circled round behind him and latched onto the thumb of his left hand, which was still holding the bag.

“I couldn’t get my thumb out of her mouth once she had started biting. The teeth of a moray are angled backward so she got a better grip [on my thumb] every time she bit down,” he said.

“I tried pushing the fingers of my right hand into her mouth to try and force her mouth open but she did not let go; she could taste blood by then…

“She was shaking her head from side to side, biting harder all the time. Five seconds later, my thumb just came off.

“She ate it and swam away. I didn’t even have time to reach for my knife.”

Mr Butcher and Ms Herbert surfaced and returned to their dive boat, the MV Queen Scuba.

He received first aid from Royal Thai Navy (RTN) personnel at Similan 9 Island before National Park staff took him by speedboat to Tab Lamu, whence he was transferred to Phuket.

Mr Butcher praised everyone involved in rescuing him. “They were great, everyone from the crew on board the Queen Scuba to the RTN, the park rangers and the hospital. They all knew exactly what they were doing.”

Mr Butcher, who is right-handed, has been told that surgeons may be able to transplant one of his big toes to replace his thumb.

He said that he will continue diving – although he will no longer feed eels.

He added, “I was wearing shorts during this dive, and I’m just glad that the thing didn’t swim up one of the legs and bite something else.”

what can i say but serves the dum fcuk wit right ,
golden rule when diving you only take memories and you only leave bubbles

[seafox]

Hi Aussie Dollar,

Thanks for the welcome.

Sea snakes are usually pretty docile and the silver and black banded ones almost always take off if you get too close but I did have a big one in the Philippines come up off the bottom towards me as I was swimming above it and backed me off a little before it settled back down to the bottom and continued to look for food.

The olive green ones are a different story and will go towards a diver and I have had friends feel like they were being chased down by them. They are pretty inquisitive and like to see what is around and you do not want to bother them at all if it is their mating season.

There was a previous thread about titan triggerfish going after people and anytime you see them building a nest stay away from them.

I like to look for small porcelain crabs in anemones and have had clownfish come out and try to bite my mask while I am looking around, but not touching, their anemone.

One of my friends has said that they are so aggressive at times that if they were 3' long no one would go in the water. They really do get steamed up at times.

[Shagrath]

Originally Posted by seafox

Probably would have been a good idea not to feed it in the first place if it was that big

Very sound advise.... Follow the golden rule as ETV does.
IMO you shouldn't feed any marinelife while diving or snorkeling unless you have intimate (professional) knowledge about the creatures at hand, and even then you should be very careful.
Your own safety is one thing, but as Sunrise said, you are in fact interfering with their natural feeding pattern.

I've heard about a group of scientists that fed sharks regularly at the same spot over a periode of time, that got in trouble on a later occation when they didn't feed them... Nobody got hurt, but they learned that it's not a good idea to teach sharks that divers and regulator-bubbles equals dinner.

[seafox]

In the Caymans and a few other places in the Caribbean they feed stingrays by hand for their snorkeling and diving clients. If there is a storm one day and no one goes out to feed them, the next day the rays are pretty aggressive and I know some people who have actually gotten love bites(hickies) from the rays as they tried to get out of the water and the rays followed them to the boat and sucked on to them as they were leaving the water.

Pretty funny. Saw some pictures of the love bites mainly on snorkelers who weren't wearing wetsuits.

Take the animal out of their natural behavior pattern and the equation changes.

[eric-the-viking]

Originally Posted by seafox

Take the animal out of their natural behavior pattern and the equation changes.

some what like a B.G i should imagine lmao

[seafox]

ETV,

Definitely. Read an old thread about what to do with a bargirl when she keeps answering her cell phone when she is with you and in one of the threads a BM said his BG was always on the phone and then he got a call from a girl in Pattaya and his BG went beserk, grabbed his phone after he answered it(he was just doing a t*t for tat on her), told the Pattya girl to f*** off and hung up, and then threw a wastebasket at him as he was leaving. Now that there is a helmet law for bikes in Phuket all of us might want to keep our helmets on as we leave an upset BG just for safety's sake.

The girls in the Philippines text message each other all the time. My girl was getting text at 330AM every night from a girl in Manila who was trying to get in touch with a friend of mine at the resort with me. Took advantage of the situation and told my BG that she better wake up as now that I was awake I needed to get some exercise to put me back to sleep again.

[haulass Hyena]

Thanks aussie dollar

Here is a funny story. I was diving in a local area with some friends. It ended up being a bad day to dive the visibility was like 10". Wich sucks. well we stayed for awhile to see if got better(It was actually my first real dive). I was looking at my buddy trying to see what was going on. Then all of a sudden something bumps my leg. I looked down to see what it was and there was nothing around. I got my buddies attention to try and let him know what ws going on. Then all of a sudden this sea lion swam up and stuck his face right in mine. It scared me I spit out my mouth piece and raced to topside. I trully think I pi$$ed myself but it's hard to tell when your in the ocean..

[stevem]

Diving with seals or whatever can be a hell of a lot of fun, but I guess when the viz is that low, I have to ask why where you there in the first place on your first "real dive".

[haulass Hyena]

My buddy lives right on the beach and it's usually a nice place to dive. sea lions are nice to dive with on a clear day they usually stay away from you. I have been diving there for 12 years now and that was the closiest that I ever got to one but I still am very leary about them when their in the area.

[urtheman]

I usually like to sneak a piece of beef jerky in my buddy's bc before diving. He always wonders "why the fish like me" Then I'll pull it out later.