Originally Posted by AlbatrossWheeld

My 3 snake stories:

- One time my wife & I were traveling somewhere, think it was west Texas. We were going to go for a hike so we pulled our car into a remote parking area & sat there a few minutes getting things together, but when I opened the car door there was a semi-coiled snake 2-3 feet off my door, just laying there waiting to bite into my foot. Glad I looked down instead of just jumping out. Change of plans that day. Sometimes getting bitten is too inconvenient.

- In Western Australia we were going snorkeling in the Ningaloo area (pretty far northwest). I'd heard there were poisonous snakes in the area, but didn't know much about them. I had heard you should avoid getting too close to bushes where they sometimes lay under. On the way to the beach there was an old sign that said snakes are in the area so only walk on designated foot paths (better visibility). But sometimes I choose stupid so I chose to take the direct route thru the bush. I walked slowly, I looked for holes, I kept a wide berth around bushes, I asked myself why do I do this. Just as I made my way to the top of the sand dune that ran parallel to the beach I spotted snake tracks in the sand. Big tracks. Huge tracks. 8 inches wide (though I think the sand makes them look wider than they are), tons of tracks back and forth, some I could still see the detailed imprint from its skin. It was their highway, but I didn't see any. Wouldn't want to meet one so far from civilization.

- Maybe my most interesting encounter was when my wife & I were going to a beach on the Japanese island of Ishigaki, west of Okinawa. We parked our car, and just before getting on the beach was a big sign that showed pictures of the deadly creatures that can be found there throughout the year. I looked the sign over pretty well. Then we walked onto the beach and down to the waterline. We hadn't even reached the waterline yet when I look out & see something making a V pattern in the water...and it's heading directly toward us...it's not veering off...it's traveling pretty fast...what the hell is it? It's a snake. Cool, never seen one in the water before, except we're here to snorkel. Then I remembered seeing a snake on the watch out for board so I was looking intensely & filming with my phone. Then it dawned on me that at some point this thing is not turning away! It got to within 2-3 feet from the sand, we stepped back and then it made a turn to head back out to deeper water. I'm convinced it looked just like the one on the board. I suppose it saw us from far off & was curious. There were only two other people at the beach at the time, an Australian father and daughter snorkeling directly in the line the snake took after turning away from us. I yelled a warning out to them a couple times, but they ignored or didn't hear me. Finally concluded they're Australian, they grow up mindful of deadly creatures nearly every day so we watched them for a while to see if anything happened, then went snorkeling.