Underwater, I have. I’ve seen two - a group of large barracuda and one extremely large eel - looked like a Giant Moray.
I was probably like 14-16 at the time, diving in the Atlantic and Pacific respectively.
Reactions for both were just to stay away from them and make sure they didnt come closer, while trying to get a good look. It was kind of surreal seeing them, because you don’t usually expect to encounter things like these.
Barracuda aren’t particularly scary, but they are some of the largest fish I’ve seen underwater - probably around 5ft (1.5m) long and I was within 20ft (6m) of two or three of them. They are also quite aggressive, though not usually to divers. I was swimming up from below them coming up from around 60-80ft (18-24m), so we got a good view of them swimming around near the surface.
This Giant Moray is the largest creature I’ve ever seen in the water bar-none. We were diving a reef, and as we swam over some rocky structures, there was this hollow in the rock - like a partly-covered underwater grotto - and in it I could see this absolutely massive eel. I thought it was some kind of coral or something until I saw its face. The surface I saw of the eel had to be nearly 1.5ft wide (45cm), since they’ye ovoid in cross-section I may have gotten the impression that it was larger than it really was. But even still, it must have been nearly that large in diameter and probably about 9ft (2.7m) long, though I couldn’t see all of it at once. I was a bit frightened just because of the sheer size of the eel, and I thought they were more aggressive than they are, but we couldn’t get too close because of the rock. It was really cool to see. In years since then I thought maybe I was misremembering the event because it seemed surreal to see such a large eel - but then I researched a bit and found that giant morays can be… giant… while there are other species that I’ve also seen that are much smaller.
I think they’re neat. Like with all wild animals, though, I want to keep my distance. Especially to the aquatic variety.
I experienced a sense of awe in both situations as well as a very real sense of how dangerous these animals could be if they wanted to be.
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