"Deadly
Bagfish"
Roatan
Field Report
October
2000
Dearest MOAV.Russ... please forward the lower portion of this message
(or the whole thing if it's easier) to the OBSO. I wasn't quite sure
of his e-mail address and, well, to be perfectly honest, I'm still a
little shaky about my experience last week.
On Wednesday... after the dolphin dive... the three of us managed to
make it out on the afternoon boat. On the way back from our dive
site, we asked the captain to drop us off on Coco View Wall for the
swim back in.
At this point I'm pretty high from my finds in the last 15 minutes...
especially the sea horse. Then there it was.... lurking about under
a deep, almost cave-like overhand... a deadly bag fish... <sigh>
At
first it was difficult to see, disguising itself as a jelly fish, but
I was able to make out its square edges and knew the creature had to
be neutralized. MOAV.Andy didn't yet know about these menaces of
the
deep, but he could tell that I was up to something serious. He
stayed by my side every step of the way.
I took my flashlight out of my pocket and carefully surveyed the area
for more of these creatures that might be lurking closer to the
ceiling of the overhang... there were none. With a gentle wisping
of
my toes (I didn't want to run up on this thing too quickly!) I slowly
made my way deeper and deeper into the crevice until I could reach
out and touch it... with one quick motion I snatched the bag fish and
began to wrestle it into my pocket. MOAV.Andy, seeing that I was
beginning to lose my battle with this thing came quickly to my
rescue. Together we managed to subdue it
and get it into my pocket.
Only one time during the swim in along the wall
did it make an unsuccessful attempt to escape.
After making certain that it was dead, I preserved the creature for
our next gathering. These are a particularly dangerous variety
since
they try to pass themselves off as ordinary jelly fish. Of course
no
one wants to deal with jelly fish stings so it's important that the
rest of MOAV be able to identify this variety in the open water.
We
should take pictures and post them on the web.
MOAVBonnie
MOAVBonnie and MOAVAndy wrestle and subdue an attacking Bagfish!
