Barracudas

Barry Barracuda
Everyone is afraid of barracudas. They have very long, sharp teeth and seem to stare at you as if they want to eat you. They are known to open and close their mouth while they do this so it looks even more frightening, especially when they follow you around, staying very close.
We saw barracudas everywhere we went in the islands, especially when we were diving. There was almost always guaranteed to be one on every site, and sometimes there were more. Some we got to know, somewhat, or at least recognized each time and there were a few of those who were named.
The largest one we remember was on a wreck dive in St. Kitts. He was always there, especially on our night dives. We usually found him stalking around the bow and there were many times we heard he had scared the you know what out of someone. He got Steve one night. He said he had peaked up over the side of the boat and there he was just a foot or so from his face. This barracuda was thick and battle scarred. He looked like he had been there and seen the worst and you were nothing to him. He sometimes became annoyed with the divers and would make sudden moves which unnerved many but was perfectly in his nature to do. He took advantage of the reef fish being preoccupied by all the activity on his boat to catch a meal while they weren’t paying attention.
This was a hunting method, we witnessed, of many barracudas. One, in particular, in Salt Cay, was not very large but had learned to follow me around as I snorkeled around the reef just offshore from the hotel we managed. He would stay quite close and shadow me, remaining at my side, parallel, and keeping me between him and his prey. On several occasions I saw him move at lightening speed but never actually saw him catch a fish. This isn’t to say that he didn’t, just that he moved too fast for me to see it. I don’t recall feeling it happen, however.
When a fish is struck by another it sends a shock wave through the water and anyone near can “hear” it. Sometimes a critically injured fish will emit a series of thumps or ticks which are also distinctly identified in the water world as death. It seems to be a warning to others in the vicinity that a predator is in the neighborhood and has struck. This signal is also reached by other predators who home in on a feeding and hope to get some of the food for themselves. This is how feeding frenzies can begin. Weather the fish’s vibes are a warning or a last farewell, I’m not entirely sure, but it is definitely part of the water world language.
I recall hearing this death thump when Steve speared fish. He was sending out a signal every time he hit one and inviting the sharks to come investigate. They did. He saw plenty and, as I mentioned before, ditched his bag, on occasion, to save his skin. I felt the loud “thwap” of a barracuda striking a fish once or twice as well and will never forget that!
We were diving off the gorgeous walls of San Salvador at a dept of near 100 ft. There was a steep drop here with a sandy bottom at a deceptively deep level below us. We had to watch our depth and not gravitate toward that sand, which we often did. I was leading this dive, there were perhaps three others with me. There were few fish on the reef that we could see. Most hid in the shadows when they spotted us coming. I saw a mid sized barracuda and a trigger fish. The fish was following us, very curious, and looking at us with his eye rolling around in our direction. He was beautiful, playful. I recall thinking that he had better pay attention to his surroundings, rather than us, but as soon as I had that thought, I turned my gaze in another direction and felt the hit. I immediately jerked my head around to look in the direction from which I felt the vibration, where the triggerfish was, and saw him. He was still swimming but seemed totally unaware that his rear end had been removed.
The sound and vibration seemed to hit me all at the same time. It really is hard to say if it was a sound or just a vibration. I knew exactly where it came from by the jolt. It told me. This is an incredible sensation. We are so accustomed to our hearing to guide us like this, it is not natural yet it was entirely natural and easy to understand. That barracuda took off with the back end of the trigger fish. I didn’t see him when I turned and saw the fish, he must have gone under the reef wall, into a crevasse. I wanted to stay and see what became of the front half of the fish but the people I was with did not want to hang around. It frightened one of them but I don‘t think the other two even noticed what had happened. They quickly moved further down the wall and I had to keep up with them. I was perplexed at how they could have missed it, or not felt that strike. I suppose that was the difference between my experienced comfort level in the water and their amateur, vacationing diver awareness.
That barracuda who followed me around the reef outside the hotel also had another peculiar behavior that I could never get used to. He followed me when I walked down the beach! I would walk the beach nearly every day and go one direction or the other. I didn’t see him every time but he did it often. He would stay in the shallow water very near shore and swim along as I walked. Now, this is obviously not a hunting method. There were no fish distracted by me for him to catch. Why did he do this? What purpose did it serve? Did he just recognize me? Was it a learned behavior? Was he just trying to make me nervous or was he glad to see me? I would love to have some animal behaviorist explain this to me. He made me nervous but not afraid. I always felt we had some connection but also asked Steve to spear him because I was just so nervous that I stopped going snorkeling and I missed the water. That is the effect a barracuda has on us. They make us nervous. We don’t know their intentions and they are creepy looking.
I have one more barracuda story. On the same beach, further down, toward the point, Steve and I went out to collect conch in the turtle grass. On this particular day, we didn’t see any fish or wildlife other than the conch in the grass and one barracuda. This one was larger than the one that followed me and he had come around to feed on the conch mantles we were cutting away and dropping as we swam along.
We had a brilliant system of collecting conch. Steve carried a bag, a little hammer, and a knife. I would swim down all around and collect the conch I found into a pile on the bottom. He swam down and picked up a conch, knocked a hole in it with his knife and cutting it from the shell. He would then take his knife and remove the mantle which was a fleshy skirt around the body of the conch muscle and was not an edible part of the animal. He usually managed to do all of this and bag the meat by the time he reached the surface. The mantles would simply float away and be eaten by whatever fish found them.
On this day it was this barracuda and Steve decided to have some fun and hand feed him. He held the mantles out for this fish, who was already following us very closely to get his bites, and would let go just before he grabbed it. The barracuda didn’t try to strike quickly. He knew this was easy and he just sucked it up. He kept begging for more and we fed him every bite we had until we were done and then he followed us to shore. It was interesting and fun but he still made me nervous.
Steve never did spear the barracuda who followed me while I walked on the beach. He just never got around to it and I’m glad he didn’t. Perhaps there were others who swam there after me who also got nervous by his following them and perhaps someone came along to study him or trained him to do tricks. I never named him but wish now that I had. If he had a name I suppose it would have been Barry. It is a kind name for a scary fish who never did anything to hurt me.