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Displaying items by tag: Jimmy Griffin

#CongerEel - A Galway businessman had a life-threatening encounter with a conger eel while SCUBA diving in Connemara last month, as the Connacht Tribune reports.

Jimmy Griffin, who owns Griffins Bakery on Galway's Shop Street, describes the wildlife attack as like being "hit by a freight train".

He continued: "It had me by the face and I was being tossed around like a rag doll. It hit my head really hard. My regulator was knocked out of my mouth.

"I knew something was after hitting me and biting me, but I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t get my hands around it, it was so big. I managed to wrestle it off and the pain started to set in on my face.”

The pain was from a serious bite to the side of his mouth that would have sent a less experienced diver into a dangerous panic.

The Connacht Tribune has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Marine Wildlife

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.