Mike in the Wild

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...

The last fatal shark attack in Hawaii was last year in Maui's Honolua Bay, my morning's snorkeling destination.  The previous fatality was in 2019, off Kaanapali Shores Resort, also in Maui and just six miles away.  Nevertheless I still thought it was unlikely I'd encounter any deadly marine animals when I set off on my underwater adventure.  So imagine my surprise when within minutes of entering the bay, I indeed discovered a threat: a barracuda, lurking close to the rocky shore of the popular and crowded tourist site. In my many snorkeling outings off the coasts of the Hawaiian Islands, I had never before seen a shark or a barracuda.  In fact, at the beginning of my last year's trip to Maui, Honolua Bay was closed to anyone entering the water; a tiger shark had taken up temporary residence after a fishing boat had inadvertently discarded some excess bait.  Nevertheless, I was still eventually able to snorkel the wide, clear waters of the bay unscathed bef...