Why do eels hate me so?

Perhaps it is because I eat them so frequently in sushi restaurants, but I am not sure.  What I am certain of is that eels have it in for me.  On two consecutive days of diving I’ve had incidents with eels.  The last one was in Ft. Lauderdale and that guy was none to happy to see me.  This time it was in Belize and if it wasn’t the exact same eel it was certainly a close cousin.

I swam over the top of the coral finger and nosed down over the edge to find a green eel swimming pretty much straight towards me.  The good news is that this one seemed willing to be distracted by the others we were diving with rather than focusing all its attention on just me.  And while I haven’t really spent a lot of time studying the facial features and mannerisms of eels to decide when they are happy and when they are angry, this one didn’t seem particularly happy to me.

Another dive, another eel headed straight for me!

Of course, it is possible that my judgment of its mood was based on the fact that it was swimming straight for me, occasionally with its mouth open.  It turns out that I have a reverse gear when diving; I didn’t know that until yesterday.

And on this dive there was more than just the one eel.  There were actually several.  One little spotted eel hanging out in the coral was particularly photogenic:

A spotted eel poking out from the coral

Lots more pictures of pretty stuff underwater, but sharing of them is going to have to wait until I’ve got more time to post and less time planning my next dive profile. Time to get back in the water!