Great Barracuda!
Great Barracuda, length of 1.5m or so
Date: 11th August, 2008; ~1pm
Location: one of Kapalai’s dive sites
Equipment: Canon Powershot A620 in Canon WP-DC90 waterproof housing, Inon Z240 single strobe
It was almost 50 minutes into our 2nd dive of the day, at Kapalai (near Sipadan, Sabah, Malaysia). 6 of us together with our dive master ascended to ~7m, getting ready to do the safety stop and call it an end to another great dive. Thus far, the dive is excellent – among other sightings, I saw my first ribbon eels – 2 adults in blue and yellow colors, and one pitch black juvenile. I spent quite some time with one of the adult ribbon eels, trying to get a good shot of it but not really successful. My buddy Bill was not helping at all in that regard, but that is another story.
I had my first sighting of the juvenile Many-Spotted Sweetlips too, in orange with white dots. It is so much different than the adult version, and one will not forget it once you see it – it is an ultra active-whole body shaking non-stop kind of fish. I took loads of photos but none is in focus, but I did have a short video of this dancing queen. Amazing little fish!
Mild current throughout the dive, but when we ascended to ~7m preparing for safety stop over a huge rock outcrop, current gets really strong, so strong that some of us were finning frenziedly in order to stay position and not being swept away to open sea. My buddy Bill and myself were the last to reach the rock outcrop, while others were already holding onto the hard corals on the outcrop to stay in position. With camera and the strobe in one hand, I swam around to the right side of the rock outcrop, and look forward to the open sea. I thought I saw see a shark’s head. The rock was blocking the rest of the fish’s body. I swam up a bit in order to have a better view of the fish.
Wholly cow! it was a huge Great Barracuda, approximately 1.5m long, holding steadily just 3m away from me. I turned my head to the left, trying to alert others, and noticed that everyone is already looking at this huge thing. I turned back and look at the fish. It is still there, like a statue, not even moving an inch. I turned on my camera and the strobe, which I have off while ascending, wanting to capture a photo of this great fish. I realized that time is not on my side, so I snapped a photo of it with one hand – I have my left hand holding onto the hard corals to fight the strong current.
When I am ready to get another shot, the Great Barracuda thinks otherwise. The fish started to swing its tail, within seconds, it shoots to the open sea and vanished. I managed to capture another photo of it but only of its tail.
The first photo, above, turned out to be very bad quality due to out-of-focus, strong current, strobe position, reflections from suspended particles in the sea, and arbitrary camera settings – I just turned it on and shoot, with no time to check the settings beforehand.
But at least something is better than nothing. And it is the biggest Barracuda that I have seen, by miles! And what a way to end an already great dive!
You just don’t know what you will see when doing safety stop. Keep your eyes open to surroudings rather than fixing them at the near-zero-bar SPG gauge readings. 
