Feeding The Eels, Seeing a Shark

Wolf Eel swimming around

We were diving in the Puget Sound of Washington State USA off of a park that many divers visit because of the opportunity to feed the Wolf

Wolf Eels hiding in their home

Eels.  These big headed eels have large jaws with many teeth and they love to eat sea urchins; you know those large spiky balls.

We dove to 60 feet on the way gathering up sea urchins to feed to the Wolf Eels.  We were still at the top of the wall when we saw the first Wolf Eel.  She was mostly black all over and very long.   (You can tell males from females by the color of the males, they are a light gray and usually bigger.)

She came down and swam all over the diver in front of me circling every part of the diver until she was satisfied that they had no sea urchin to feed her.  Then it was my turn and I gave up my urchin quickly to the jaws of this snakelike beast.  Luckily there were more urchin when we got to the base of the wall to feed to the rest of the Wolf Eels.

Now these things are big, at least longer than I am tall and I am over six feet tall, not to mention all of their teeth.  By the way, the teeth on these and the fact that the sea urchin are poisonous when their spikes enter your skin…  do you wonder how are we picking them up and why are we not scared to have the wolf eels take them from our hands?

The only reason that we are a little more comfortable doing this is because we are in water that is about 58 degrees to 65 degrees and we are wearing 7mm wet suits with hoods and gloves.  This stuff is like mini armor even crab pincers have a hard time getting to you through them.

This sea urchin has been cut in half as we did to feed the eel

The visibility that we had this day was great and my brother, dad and I started to feed the Wolf Eels.  We were told to cut the urchin in half and then hand them over to the Eels.  I remember holding my hand out as this ugly looking head comes forward from the small cave like hole in the wall of coral reef in front of me.  It comes down and takes the urchin from my hand and destroyed it as it eats it.  Amazing was all I could think, I was new to this experience and so I did not recognize that they told us before we started this dive that the Wolf Eels would swim all around us for the food.

As the dive progressed we had a such a great time and but as all dives do, they eventually end.  My father used up his air first so he headed up the wall after letting my brother know he was done.  I was looking out into the ocean not seeing much at 60 feet down in murky water.  The tide had changed and visibility that was great turned into a fog of floating debris.  I saw a rat fish they are cool looking with sharp fins and a sharp nose.  I motioned to my brother by grabbing him with my left arm.  He was floating a couple feet above me.  I pointed at the rat fish and he shook his head yes he saw it.  He also pointed out that dad had gone up and he then pointed at his own air to show that it was time for him to go also.  I agreed and then looked back toward the rat fish.  That is when the six gild shark swam into my view.  It was an adrenaline rush as I watched and my left arm started to grab at my brother.  As the shark came closer probably drawn in by the sea urchins that we had cut up.

Look at the eye on this shark!

As the Shark came closer within 10 feet or so, I could see his large black eye, which as he focused on me became a small black dot.  I could actually see the retina shrink.  Wow talk about goosebumps, on top of the goosebumps I already had.  At this point I really wanted to share with my brother and that is when I noticed my arm was not touching anything.  I looked over my left shoulder and found that he had already gone up the wall and was just breaching the top.  I swam up to him and caught up to him just over the top of the wall.

Now I had my brother it was time to tell him about this shark I had just seen…how am I going to do that without being able to speak?  We are still in 30 feet of water and I am making shark like symbols with my hands.  Mostly things that resembled teeth.  I think I was humming the jaws theme as I tried in vain to tell him I had just seen a shark.  He just shook his head and pointed at his air gauge.

After looking at his air gauge the realization that I had just seen a shark and it was behind me was when the fear and

Diver with eel in the Puget Sound

the movie jaws started to click in my brain.  I was off like a shot for the beach leaving my brother behind.  He was confused but quickly followed me to the shore.  Once I was at the surface I filled my dad and brother in on what I had seen and we smiled a lot at the great experience.

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