Cozumel's Terrorizing Barracuda

I thought I knew a thing or two about barracudas. After all, I've encountered several in Maui and Cozumel, even writing in detail about them over a year ago. Slow, shadowy, lurking, uninterested in humans, intimidating in appearance, was how I mostly described the usually harmless, large fish. After my latest visit to a reef off of Cozumel a brand new word entered my lexicon when describing the predator: terrorizing.

Due to strong winds, I got a late start snorkeling on my single day in Cozumel, heeding red flag warnings all morning on the Mexican island's coral reef-fringed western coast. But at Punta Sur Ecological Park, at the extreme southern end of Cozumel, the weather and surf were postcard perfect. It didn't take long once I arrived for me to don my fins and mask and head into the inviting and azure Caribbean Sea.

A buoy marked where a reef that's part of a separate protected park begins several hundred meters from the beach. It's a lengthy swim even propelled by fins, so I decided to begin snorkeling in the shallows close to shore where sandy patches were interspersed with fields of sea grass. I was also exploring with an old friend who I'd never swam with before so I wanted to make sure we could communicate well before venturing too far from shore as a team.

We soon discovered the most plentiful fish in all of our Caribbean travels that week, the bluestriped grunt. I also dived for queen conchs, surfacing with successively larger specimens and finding reassurance each time I saw the living mollusk hiding within the ornate, pink shell. While the beach was as beautiful and pristine as any desert island beach of my imagination, here was proof the park provided some degree of protection from hungry fishermen in search of conch meat for their fritters.

Soon after, I floated upon a lone southern stingray. It was burrowing in the sand, below a steep edge of dense sea grass, and foraging for a meal. The next day, in Belize, I'd witness one trying to break into a conch; maybe that's what this critter was hunting for as I had just retrieved those conchs from a similar setting. I quickly called over my friend, Jackie, to share my discovery. We kept a safe distance as the ray's serrated and venomous spine was clearly visible.

We followed the ray when it tired of digging, watching it elegantly swim and undulate over a course of a hundred feet before it alighted near a sparser strand of sea grass. It appeared to burrow again into the sugary sand, creating delicate clouds of silicon as it dug several inches deep. I was eye to eye with the ray, staring at a creature that was surely aware of me. But it was preoccupied with its mouth's work, hidden on its underside, hopefully crunching on a Caribbean crustacean.

After a short rest on land, Jackie and I decided to gear up and finally head to the distant buoy and reef. Conchs, grunts, trunkfish and rays were exciting finds, but colorful corals, parrotfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, and surgeonfish were on our midday agenda. Several groups of snorkelers were crisscrossing the calm, sun-dappled sea, some undoubtedly heading toward the reef. I quickly spotted a type of hawkfish in the shallow water before I made the first of several stops to turn around and check on Jackie. Most of the time I could stand on the sandy or grassy bottom until her head popped out of the water and she gave me a thumps up.

Thanks to the date stamps on my shots, I can say it took a little over seven minutes to get close to the buoy. The water had deepened significantly and I could see a dark outline ahead that surely marked the reef. In addition, sergeant majors schooled in small numbers around me. But more notable was that for the first time on any swim all morning, Jackie called out to me.

"A barracuda. I saw a barracuda," she exhaled, snorkel barely out of her mouth. I swam toward her, face submerged, and sure enough to my left less than twenty feet away was a barracuda, close to the water's surface, the creature still and shimmering, like the pencil fish abundant throughout the area. But the barracuda was much larger than any fish around, easily over a yard in length, its body more than half a foot in diameter. And that face with cold, staring eyes and a jutted jaw displaying teeth: a portrait of menace.

Click, click, click, I couldn't resist photographing it in the calm, clear, sunlit water. I'd seen barracudas before, I'd written about them, I wasn't afraid, even though this one was uncharacteristically in full, sunny view, hardly shadowy at all. I was soon surprised for another reason when Jackie pleaded, "I want to go back. It swam at me."

Jackie's fear was palpable without my knowing any of the details of the thoughts racing through her mind at that very moment. I immediately agreed to head back to shore together. There was no way I was letting her swim back alone, of course, and I had a strict rule against snorkeling alone that far from shore.

I barely thought about the disappointment of missing out on our first reef in Cozumel because we soon had a bigger problem: the barracuda was blocking our way back to shore. Shit. Now I was also afraid.

It was a long swim and we were alone; anybody that we'd noticed at the start of our swim earlier had disappeared from view. When we later arrived back on shore, I would discover that the barracuda had seemingly attacked Jackie, darting toward her left hand's sparkling engagement and wedding rings before Jackie pulled her arms straight along her sides and the fish aborted its mission with barely a few harrowing feet to spare.

I could have surmised the episode by the way Jackie huddled next to me as we treaded water trying to remain calm. My first instinct was to put my camera in my pocket, thinking the metallic edges might flash, like a ring in the sun. Barracudas have poor vision and are attracted by the scintillating scales of small prey.

Jackie glued to my right side and the fish motionless a dozen feet to the left, we tried to veer around the barracuda. No going: it seemed to swim closer, toward the same invisible point where we were headed. When we turned slightly to the left, where the barracuda had originated, it made a quick dash towards us, or at me rather, as I was closest.

I yelled - perhaps I really instinctually screamed in terror - and then rolled on my back and kicked at the barracuda with my fins. Never for a moment did I think to lunge at the sharp-toothed torpedo with my arms as weapons, which it probably wanted me to do because I too was wearing a wedding band; I hadn't thought to hide it along with my camera. The tips of my fins got close to the fish which mercifully turned around.

The barracuda remained less than twenty feet away, still on our left side, daring us to play another game of chicken. Terrified, Jackie and I squeezed closely, our arms held tightly to our sides, except for the one I hugged around her. We proceeded again toward shore at a wider angle away from the fish. Eventually, the barracuda dropped out of eyesight, losing interest in our enlarged, shivering mass.

After the longest few minutes of our lives, we walked back on land. Soon after, Brent, sitting next to our beach chairs, visiting the island from Oregon and with worldwide dive experience, shared that he had the exact same encounter with that "mother f*#!er" on his just completed solo snorkel.

"What did you do," I asked? "I kicked him," was the reply from the seasoned diver.

I didn't have time for any smugness as my mind was racing with new words to describe the barracuda. Aggressive. Agile. Territorial. Opportunistic. Terrorizing.

Fortunately, I can't call the barracuda a maneater. Nor can anyone, really. There hasn't been a documented human death attributed to the species in almost seventy years. And attacks and bites are rare. Intimidating displays? Well apparently those are more common, as I found out for the first time that morning in Cozumel.

Two days later, on Roatan, one of Honduras's Bay Islands, I'd see another barracuda. It couldn't have been in a more beautiful setting, in a tiny, southern corner of the Mesoamerican Reef just several yards off scenic and sandy West Bay. After breathtaking encounters with all the colorful and elaborate corals, parrotfish, filefish, surgeonfish, tangs, butterflyfish, and angelfish that I desperately sought in Cozumel, far at the northern end of that vast Reef, I noticed the barracuda deep in a shadowed canyon. It was motionless, facing toward the darker sea, unconcerned with me. I quickly snapped a cautious shot but not before I put my ring finger in my bathing suit pocket.

The barracuda was acting normal, as I wanted and expected him to act, and I interpreted that as respectful. I owed him the same behavior and I kicked away, out of his territory.