Don't ever look under the water.

[Epidemic]

I just did the old Fairfield time share deal they payed for 7 days in florida I payed with hours of looking at their time share. Not to bad though.

But back on topic. Went to FT Lauterdale. Found a neat reef to take my daughter snorkeling at.

At first we simply went to a little non descript beach. We spent most of the day potching around in the water. It was tooooo hot to breathe. I watched these people snorkeling around a 50 X20 pile of rocks. after hours of watching this I decided to go to the car and get my snorkle. To my amazement I found a fully functional man made coral reef. Thousands of fish of all types. That night I decided to get my daughter a snorkel and trained her in the finer points of not choking to death on wave borne gags.

The next day I took her for hours up one side and down the next. she had a ball.

Now as for the name of the post I did find out things I did not want to know heh heh heh. Like the 36 inch baracuda I saw swim behind my wife who was shin deep in water. I could not believe how brazen they are. Ocean fish with big mouths are all around you and not paying you much attention. I would suggest that you do not wear shiny things on your ankles and wrists though. Muwahahahahah.

[Mike]

Don't worry, they rarely attack. Just don't irritate them, and gotta remember: If a fish wants to attack you, IT WILL ATTACK YOU.

[Knothead]

Heh, cool story...'till I got to the part about the 3' Barracuda. Never seen one, but I've heard/read fisherman's stories of what them bad boys can do when they get busy. **shiver**

[Martoch]

Cuda's eh? I snorkel/skindive quite frequently and have seen my fair share of them bad boys around...shiny jewelry will definitely get their attention! I don't worry about the cuda's too much, I can usually scare them away. We've got quite a few sharks around these waters also...on any given helicopter ride you can count 90-100 sharks within 100ft of the beach in broad daylight. Last time I was up I saw 3 sharks swimming about 40ft from 3 people floating on a raft...however, we have one shark attack every 20 years or so.
I'm not going to lie though, when I get into that deeper blue water where the visibility drops to below 10 yds I start hearing that "Jaws" theme music in my head...gets the heart pumpin' if ya know what I mean.
FACT: More people die each year from getting hit by coconuts than by sharks! It's true...

[caddmannq]

I would die to see a 3' barracuda!

...on the end of my line!

[Brainchild]

FACT: More people die each year from getting hit by coconuts than by sharks! It's true...

I'll take my chances with the coconuts, thank you very much too many shark moments on Discovery channel I guess
About the meanest thing in the water here is a snapping turtle, and those suckers can bite. But they are not much of a threat


But snorkeling does sound cool. I'm not a good swimmer though, could I have my snorkel 10' long?

Maybe I should use my Baby Huey life presever

[Theophylact]

FACT: More people die each year from getting hit by coconuts than by sharks! It's true...

Not true:

The Straight Dope

[Epidemic]

Two thing Brainchild. First as far as the swimming thing goes. if distance is your concern and you are an ok swimmer than you can snorkle for miles. it is like 0 effort swimming. not keeping your head out of the water makes swimming much much much much much easier.

If you are interested I suggest you learn at least two things in your pool first. Simply how to breath compfortably and how to purge water from the snorkel. Breath deap dive down and then come up and blow with all your might. then breath shallow to make sure you are cleared.

[Martoch]

Originally posted by Theophylact
Not true:
The Straight Dope

Hmm...all that article shows is that coconuts probably don't kill 10-15 times as many people than sharks.

So, Brent, do coconuts kill ten times as many people as sharks, or fifteen? No response yet from the UK.

The fact remains (maybe!), coconuts do kill more people than sharks...maybe not an overwhelming amount more though.

Ok Theo, how about this one...
FACT: The ratio of the number of people that kill sharks vs. the number of sharks that kill people is over 1,000,000 to 1! Besides, it's their water, not ours! How long would a shark last walking through one of our neighborhoods?

[Theophylact]

Maybe, maybe not.

The International Shark Attack File, which contains data on shark attacks from around the world, reports fewer than 100 shark attacks per year, with about 10-15 deaths each year. In comparison, about 1,000 people die from attacks by crocodiles; 1,500 from tigers, lions, and leopards; and 60,000 from snakebites.

Source: emedicine.com

We know about one death from a falling coconut, and a wild-assed extrapolation to 150. What "Cecil Adams" says is that we have no idea whatsoever what the actual number is.

I'll take my chances with both coconuts and sharks; I worry more about bee-stings.