Krazy Kiwi wrote:

> We tease Pete about this now saying he is a danger to himself .. but at
the
> time it was not funny. We were enjoying a night dive under the Busselton
> Jetty with the group spread out amongst all the pylons. A couple of us
were
> slightly ahead of the group & I kept turning around to look back to see if
> there were any dive lights going around in circles. That was our signal
for
> something all would be interested in to either photograph or film on
video.
> Out of the corner of my eye I saw an unusual flash that I knew was not
from
> a strobe or a dive light. I shot over to investigate & found Pete lying
> completely still face down. His reg had fallen out of his mouth so I
> cleared it & shoved it back in. While pulling him up to face me he
suddenly
> came round. On the surface I found out he had been tracking a numb ray and
> must have put his hand down on another numb ray while propping himself up
> for a close shop. I certainly was more alert that night while
photographing
> the nudibranchs on the sea floor. These numb rays are quite dark in colour
> (so I hear as I have yet to see one in the wild) blending in nicely with
> all the debris lying around under a jetty.

Florida has it's own version of an electric ray, the Torpedo Ray.  A full
grown one is reportedly able to generate enough current to knock out and
perhaps even kill a full grown human.  My only contact with them was while
snorkeling on Florida's west coast.

I saw a small ray, about 2 inches across, on the bottom and scooped him up
in my mask. I suspected what he was but, not having seen one before, I
wasn't certain.  My father cleared that up for me.  He came over, looked at
the ray and with a "isn't that cute," proceeded to touch the ray before I
could utter a warning.  All doubt about the identity of the cute ray was
immediately resolved.  I don't know how severe the shock was, but it was
enough to get my father's attention.  I chose not to repeat his experiement.

The funny thing was, the ray was quite friendly.  If I placed my finger in
the mask and stirred up the water a bit, the ray would come over and rub
against the side of my finger a little bit like a cat that want's attention.
We released the ray who swam happily away to a life of shocking others.
That's the only Torpedo Ray or, for that matter, electric creature of any
kind I've ever seen in the wild.  As far as I know, they don't venture to
the Atlantic side of the state and, because it is comparatively boring, this
diver doesn't venture, at least for diving, to the Gulf side.

Lee