Comments on: I am a nice shark – to a desperate remora, anyway

By: Diving in Penang « Entice & Seduce

Diving in Penang « Entice & Seduce — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:59:39 +0000

[...] call mine a baby though, that thing was bloody huge! Those are remoras and according to this blogger, remoras are pretty notorious for mistaking divers for sharks and attempting to snuggle up. [...]

By: Audrey

Audrey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:07:33 +0000

Came back from the Bahamas May 18th and had the same thing happen to me. I didn’t panic, but I did exhaust myself trying to chase it away. It just would not be, and I found myself in the same situation as Paul. My buddy had a big camera and chased it away by hitting it with that, but I didn’t have anything big to hit it with, so it just kept pestering. It’s good to know I’m not the only one to experience this.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:36:51 +0000

We had a similar experience in Rangiroa in February, 2009. We were hastled by remoras 3 times while we were there. The more we swam, the more they chased us. When we shooed them them would become more aggressive. The first time I picked up 2 remoras I must have been 100 feet from Tiputu pass. The second time we were 1/2 mile northwest of the pass and the third 3 miles southeast of the pass.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:47:46 +0000

A couple of years ago I was diving in Cozumel and I had one attach to me. Out of 12 divers I was the only one without a wet suite on so it decided to harass me. At first it was just swimming near me then eventually it attempted to attach to me legs. I tried to shoo it away with no luck. I ended up sucking up all my air and had to cut the dive short. It was an unpleasant experience but ultimately it was good for a couple laughs afterwards.

By: davidscubadiver

davidscubadiver — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:58:04 +0000

A very nice post. They are a beautiful fish. I just posted a few pictures of a large one on my blog. He was swimming along other divers for a while. They have no trouble attaching to things, so I think when they are shadowing you they are not particularly interested in attaching.

When they do attach, you can put your hand on their head and push the head toward its tail and it should come off. I imagine they’d come off when you surfaced as well.

By: Miriam Goldstein

Miriam Goldstein — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:10:30 +0000

Menno, I would have totally freaked out. Belly tickling? EEEK! I am really glad I was wearing a full wetsuit during my remora snuggle experience.

By: Menno

Menno — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:43:52 +0000

I had this happen to me yesterday. Diving a reef in the Eastern Caribbean a small remora swam towards me and stayed close to me for the remainder of the dive, about twenty minutes. As the water is warm, I was only wearing shorts and I could feel the remora tickle my belly every now and then. It didn’t manage to attach though. I was told by other divers that shooed it off before that they can leave you with quite a hickey.

By: Rick MacPherson

Rick MacPherson — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:23:25 +0000

this happened to me on roatan, honduras, a few years ago… i dropped off the back of the boat with just mask, fins, and snorkel to survey a patch reef… the drop off point was in a channel a long swim from the reef, but it was murky deep water… this sort of blind swim creeps me the fuck out, especially in back reef, lagoon systems where bull sharks are common…

anyway, i’m kicking along on the surface when i feel something brush the underside of my legs (i was not wearing a wetsuit)… i immediately freaked-out, swallowing a huge gulp of seawater… when i turned around i saw this big remora following below me…

it was cool to watch for a while, but then i got the sneaky suspicion that maybe his “host” was somewhere out of sight… i started swimming back to the boat and sure enough one of the boat-hands yelled to keep an eye open for a shark he had spotted…

cool fish, but they still give me the chills…