REVENGE OF THE PUSSYCAT
In the first in a new series of real-life diving experiences, John Eastman describes what happened when
his party forgot to treat a hungry predator with due respect
I pulled the RIB to a halt and checked the transits, overlapping the point of the little rock at Punta Galinda with the stairs between two white houses on the headland. This gave me a precise fix, so precise that on a calm day I could drop our anchor into the broken boiler of the tiny wreck. I always liked to congratulate myself on my accuracy.
The wreck of a small wooden trawler lay on the sandy seabed at about 33m. There were no other features on the bottom of this vast expanse of channel between Majorca and the island of Dragonera, which is probably why so much animal life used it as a refuge during daylight hours.
A gentle current pushing up through the channel meant the water was crystal clear but it was too deep to see the wreck from the surface. We quickly kitted up and dropped down below the boat.
Shoals of saddled bream and horse mackerel loitered mid-water. On the bottom, a large Mediterranean grouper was lurking in the shadows of the broken hull. Scorpionfish sat confidently among the turmoil of torn nets.
But it was not this that we had come to see. Nor was it the hoard (up to 30 counted at one time) of brown and yellow-spotted moray eels that hungrily competed for the food we brought them.
We had come to see an even more impressive animal, the conger eel. Its massively thick silver body often measures more than 2m in length, powerful and muscular, cylindrical in section, and gradually tapering to the tip of the tail. It is distinguished from the more snake-like and lightweight moray eel by its dauntingly large eyes and its heavy head more than twice the length of its underslung jaw. Because it is a nocturnal hunter, a diver usually sees only part of a conger, perhaps its head or tail poking out from a retreat in wreck or rock.
We regularly fed the eels at this site so they were not afraid, and would come out of hiding to swim around us.
It was late afternoon and I was diving with three girls - Connie, Annie, and Georgina. Their first experience with the eels had been early the same morning. They had been exhilarated and excited. To swim freely with six or eight large animals was something to write home about.
They had seen me carefully feeding the eels with sardines and sliced squid that I had taken down in a screw-lid box. They had seen me fending off the smaller morays when they became too bold in their search for a meal.
Now the girls wanted to try it themselves. They loved the sensation of running their hands over the broad scaleless bodies. Georgina had referred to the congers at lunch-time as "cuddly pussycats". For this dive I brought my camera.
On the descent we met two morays locked in what was either frenzied combat or a mating ritual. The moment we touched down on the sand next to the wreck I noticed a difference in the normally leisurely movement of the eels. They seemed unusually erratic.
Within moments we were in the middle of a swirling mass of eels. Georgina's long hair flowed out Medusa-like in the water and it caught the interest of a couple of morays. She pushed them away but her mask was dislodged as one made an aggressive lunge.
She held the screw-top container of food, but as she opened it she tried to caress a passing conger. All the sardines and squid, with oil and other food debris, came spilling out into the water. Chaos ensued as morays and congers emerged from every orifice in the wreck and raced towards us.
I could see that Georgina was inviting trouble. Connie wisely ascended a few metres above the scene. Annie knelt patiently to one side on the sand, waiting.
A mass of animals, even the smallest chromis and rainbow wrasse, joined in the snake-pit of congers and morays to compete energetically for the food. I tried to lead Georgina away along the wreck but she was so distracted she had no eye for my signal.
Suddenly it all went horribly wrong. Annie, quietly waiting away from the action, was approached by a large conger that had broken away from the melee. The silver bodies of predatory fish like congers make them virtually invisible head-on.
Without warning a silver face with two big black and yellow eyes appeared close to Annie's. It had a head like a pit-bull terrier and its body looked as long as a telegraph pole.
Wham!
It was over in a split second. The poor-sighted conger had made a lunge for Annie's shiny metal regulator, mistaking it no doubt for a sardine, and instinctively she had ducked away.
The conger had buried its teeth into Annie's face. As it rushed for the cover of its hideaway, I saw her sitting paralysed with shock, with green blood gushing from an open wound in her cheek.
I dropped my camera and grabbed her. Strings of subcutaneous fat were hanging from the wound, pushed out by masses of blood and bubbles. I held my hand over her face and closed the hole as best I could with my finger and thumb. The punctured cheek made inhalation from her regulator impossible and she could have drowned if water had been allowed to enter.
Normally on this dive we would spend 20 minutes on the bottom and 20 minutes on the ascent. Fortunately, on this occasion we were still within the first few minutes, and I thanked God we could ascend without a decompression stop.
I kept a tight grip on Annie's face and her BC. I expected her to panic or pass out, but she stayed calm. The ascent took more than three minutes. It was a long time.
I got her to the surface and inflated her jacket. I then inflated my own, discarded it and leapt into the boat. I broke into the BMW First Aid kit which I always carried on board but never had any intention of using. It was the sort of thing the Germans supply for first aid at spectacular autobahn accidents. I stemmed the flow of blood and lied unconvincingly that it was nothing more than a little nip. Annie said it felt as if she had been thumped in the face. The other girls surfaced with the camera, and we headed full-tilt for the shore.
We found the local Red Cross surgeon, whose bedside manner was less than comforting. He was concerned that there would not be enough tissue to stitch, and that bacterial infections in a conger's mouth could cause complications. In my translation from his Spanish, I endeavoured to be more optimistic.
But the surgeon did an effective job, and apparently the clean Mediterranean water had combined with the heavy blood loss to rid the wound of any infection.
NowAnnie has nothing more to show for the incident than a small scar and a good story.
What did we learn from that day? Feeding congers early in the morning when they are lethargic and have full bellies after a successful night's hunting is one thing. Feeding them when they are hungry is another.
By and large, animals are not a threat to divers in the sea, but when food enters the equation things can be very different.
Congers are not "cuddly pussycats". They are large, predatory animals very much at home in their own environment; we are just honoured visitors.
We must respect animal life in the wild, wherever we go.
Appeared in DIVER - December 1996
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