David Strike wrote:

> A few years back, while diving at Osprey Reef out in the Coral Sea, a big
> hammerhead took a sudden fancy to the videographer's fins.  To give the
guy
> his due, he hung on to the camera and kept filming the thing while it
> nibbled at the blade tip before deciding that they weren't really that
> tasty! :-)

> I think we all developed eyes in the backs of our heads for the subsequent
> dives! :-)

Wow!  I seem to have developed a tolerance for sharks over the years, but it
was not always so.  Right after I saw the movie Jaws for the first time, I
had an almost constant neck ailment due to over rotation to make up for the
eyes I would like to have had in the back of my head.  I kept hearing this
wierd dum, dum . . . dum dum . . . sound.  8^)  On one of my less
intelligent dives, a solo shore dive to an old boiler a few hundered yards
off DelRay beach, where I lived at the time (about 20 miles north of here),
something large moved quickly by one side.  All  I could tell was that it
was big and fast.  The music started . . . dum, dum . . . dum dum . . . A
few seconds later, it went quickly by the other side.  The music was louder
. . . dum, dum . . . dum dum . . .  Darn I thought (you may assume darn was
not the word I thought of), I'm be circled by a big shark.  No boat, long
swim to shore no buddy to sacrifice to save my hide . . . guess this is it.

Then the fish came around in front of me.  It was circling for sure, but as
far as I know, even the biggest tarpon, and he was a big one, don't eat
divers.

My nervousness while in the water continued until I saw Jaws the second
time, a couple of years after it was originally released.

> While a lot of gastropods certainly do hunt down their dinner by
following -
> and even eating - the mucous secretion of others in the food pecking
order,
> this particular pair were both of the same species and had far more than a
> dinner date on their mind!  :-)

8^)  We can always use a few more gastropods.

Well, it's time for me to head in to work.  The boat I'm supposed to have
taken delivery of for the last 6 Fridays is still not completely mine, so
I've devised a new strategy.  I've scheduled a dive for tomorrow morning and
a poker run in one of my other boats for Saturday in hopes that it will be
like lighting a cigarette at a restaurant.  My dinnner/boat will arrive when
it's least convenient.  8^)

Lee