Every time I am near a river or even a lake I think about that too. I know the odds are astronomically low that I would be bitten but the thought freaks me the hell out.
There is a recreational lake that is considered part of my old college's campus (despite being 15-20 minutes south of the actual campus) where everyone goes to canoe, wakeboard, swim, etc, that is full of alligators. I don't really understand how everyone did it. Can you imagine wiping out on a wakeboard, then floating in alligator-infested water while waiting for the boat to pull back around and get you? I also used to see alligators on the real campus fairly often because there is one large lake and a couple of smaller ponds on campus. I brought my sister there for a football game this fall and we were coming around a row of cars parked by the lake for tailgating and there was a gator sitting right by the back wheel of the last car. We probably passed within 10 feet of it. It was only another minute or so down the sidewalk that I saw a gator walking out of the lake toward a group of three people sitting on a lakeside bench.
Can you give me an example of "astronomically low", please? I've heard "astronomically large" and "astronomically HUGE" but it's the first time I've heard "low" used with this phrase. Do you mean like x * 10^(-10^(-e) ? Or do you mean as small as the earth in the Universe?
Seriously.... you don't mention what ocean you're worried about (that I saw) and you want advice, in general, if crocs/gators are a danger in the ocean because THAT is the one thing keeping you from swimming in one? What's keeping you from skydiving, bear attacks?
Dont know if this has been talk about from an Aussie perspective however.... We have two main crocs in Australia. Fresh Water crocs, they are smaller than the better know salt water crocs. They can hurt you, give you a nasty bite, but they are only found in fresh water and therefore, usually inland a little. Salt water crocs however will swim in the ocean and go up river some way. In fact, in Northern Australia, I just wouldn't swim in any water at all because you never know where they will be.
Australia seems like one of the scariest places for going into water. It seems like all the scariest shark attacks I read about originate down there.
I'm not much of a beach person so it doesn't really effect me but we just know how to deal with the dangerous animals we have. For instance, we have nets up at some beaches to keep away sharks, they don't work great though, most of the dead sharks they find in them are swimming into the nets from the beach side! Some places you just can not go swimming because of sharks or jelly fish. As I said, I wouldn't swim in a lake or river in North Queensland if you paid me. The Crocodiles we have in Australia are like Dinosaurs, they would have little problem taking a cow or a horse under the water. A person would be a snack for them. Our Snakes are bad too. We have the worlds most venomous snake, but it is in isolated areas so it isn't a problem. Here in Sydney though we have a number of the worlds deadliest snakes. We also have the Redback Spider, which honestly, you see it, it looks like black polished marble with a blazing red mark on its back....it just looks like death! The good news is they are eaten by White Tailed spider....who if they bite a human, sometimes cause their flesh to rot. For me I hate the Sydney Funnel Web Spider. They are huge, they have fangs like a snake, I think its the female which is the bigger and much more deadly. In short, we are fearless us Aussies. :grin:
I graduated from high school in '85, and back then, Jamaica Beach and Indian Beach on the west end of Galveston were "hangout" spots on the weekends. High school and college kids would fill up the beaches and get drunk and hang out every weekend in the summer. Anyway, I'll never forget going down there early one morning back then and seeing a truck from Sea Arama (long since closed down now) on the beach with several men standing around it. We walked over to see what was going on, and they had caught an alligator way down on West beach. This thing looked huge up close.....his snout was buried in one corner of the truck bed, and his body was curved so he could fit into the bed; his tail came around almost all the way to the corner opposite his head. He was all tied up with his snout taped up with a LOT of duct tape. If it was a six foot bed, he had to be around 12 feet long.......maybe bigger (and my memory fails me a bit.......it could have been an eight foot bed). Regardless, this thing was monstrous. They didn't know how he ended up there, but they speculated he came down one of the rivers and ended up in the ocean. Could have been down the Trinity through Galveston bay or the Colorado through Matagorda or one of the smaller streams/rivers in between. Who knows. The guys were still out of breath from wrestling him into the truck. All I know is it is hard for me to go to the beach and not think about that thing. It was a hell of a lot bigger than I am.
I never understood people who can do those sorts of things either. I grew up in southern Louisiana (about 30 minutes out of Lafayette) until I was 11 in what was basically a swamp. You could walk 10 minutes to the bayou and see alligators ranging from two to eight feet long just about any day of the year. We even had a 4 foot one as a "pet" in a fenced in pond in on our property. We also would go boating (and swimming) in the Atchafalaya Basin which is basically the mini-Everglades. I was a kid and just figured if my parents thought it was safe than it must be. Only later on in life did I actually think back and realize how crazy my parents were to let us all swim with alligators in sight.
Yes, I was in cancun and jetski in the lagoon in the Hotel Zone.....Later that night I went to a restaurant that was close to where I jet ski and saw a gator swimming in the water. Aussie croc arent really that big....Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm in thailand has over 100,000 crocodiles. Yai is the largest captive croc recorded at 19ft in 1980s. I actually been to the farm in thailand.......Yai aint the only one 19ft trust me.....the farm is built on a bayou with bridges to walk around. the staff feed the croc in the water with chicken......I have never seen anything like these croc.....ya should youtube Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm ....Simply amazing....Gustave-the largest croc in africa as they say may just be another croc next to these guys.....when i was at the farm back in early 1997, there was a news article on one of the statues there stating back in the 1960s or 1970s the wooden bridge built for the farm collapsed and the tourists fell into the bayou....let just say the croc had a very nutrious meal that day.... I also went to a snake farm there....pretty neat place if u like reptiles...
Lake Wauburg baby! I remember driving around campus right after a hurricane w/ some friends and we saw a gator crossing the street.
Dude, I have a picture of a gator crossing 34th street in rush hour traffic. It happened during my senior year. One of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. I'll have to see if I still have it.
**** that would suck. There's nothing more terrifying than swimming in the ocean, for me. You have no idea what your swimming with and you can't see ****...
i reckon i tell yall bout encounter with a great big croc i had. i was on a walkabout in the Outback and i came across a little puddle of water in the middle of nowhere. i leaned down to splash some on my face. a croc snapped out of the water and had my head in its jaws. the croc did a few death rolls trying to drag me down under in his hole. except, the hole wouldn't hold both of us. he couldn't get me in. at that time, i grabbed Lola (my knife) and rammed Lola into his croc wee-wee. suddenly, the croc let out a high pitched squeal and retreated. boy, you never seen a croc run like that in your life. abandoned his hole and everything. i was no worse for the wear. couple of holes in my head..cracked skull. couple of pierced ears. like i said...a great big croc.
The only place you will find crocodile in the USA is south Florida. There are hundreds of thousands of gators in southeast Texas. You will find them in all rivers and bays along the coast, and throughout the eastern Texas rivers creeks and lakes.
