Rare Sights On Grand Bahama Island! A Sharptail Eel
What a Rare Treat!
This past fall while on vacation to Grand Bahama Island, I saw quite a few interesting fish in the water. Fish I never even knew existed in such large abundance in the wild.
The beauty within the waters are plentiful, and a treat to the eyes, a relaxation to the mind, and the things I saw forever captured in memory... and of course on film.
While floating the waters at Fortuna Beach, no less that 10 feet out I spotted the coolest thing I had ever seen.
It seemed to be a snake due to the fact that it didn't have a head the way eels usually do. It freaked me out at first because I had no idea what I was looking at, I snapped some photos and hoped that perhaps the instructor over at the dive shack could fill me in on exactly what this thing was.
It was brown, with beautiful yellow/white spotsall over it's body. It had the head of a snake, but with itty whiskers. This was no catfish though, because the whiskers were not the type you would imagine on a cat fish. They were small, but very easy to spot.
I didn't want to get too close because seeing that I had o clue what it was, I imagined this thing could be poisonous.
I took my photos to the dive instructor, and oddly enough he had never in his life seen such a thing.
I knew then what I had spotted was quite rare.
I was intrigued. I had to find out what it was so naturally I took my search online. Without knowing the things name, I googled everything from water snake, to saltwater snake... and of course eel.
It literately took me hours to find exactly what this beautiful thing was. Finally the answer was right in front of me, a Sharptail Eel.
Sharptail Eels are not poisonous to humans, and you can even handle them in the water.
They are though in fact pretty rare to spot, and mostly common Panama. I felt pretty privileged to learn that I had seen something that normally doesn't travel in the Bahamas.
I also felt pretty privileged knowing that I got to spot the Sharptail Eel on my 3rd day there. There are some divers who dive all of the time and never have gotten the opportunity to actually see one.
figured seeing that photos of the Sharptail are stretched far and wide, I'd share mine with the rest of the world.
Pretty fantastic wouldn't you say?