Presently the water deepened, and the sand gave way to coral. On my left loomed the rusty wreck of the small freighter which some years ago had been stranded on the edge of the Heron reef, and provided a useful windbreak for the boats transferring passengers to the Capre. I circled the wreck, and scared a few large fish back into the shelter of the trenches which the tides had scooped along its keel. There was nothing very interesting here, so I continued toward the deeper water.
It is always mysterious on the edge of the reef, when you are swimming along the steeply sloping zone which divides the reef-flat from the open sea. You never know what will come racing swiftly in from deep water, and you can be fairly sure that sharks are not more than a few seconds’ cruising time away. As I circled above the living coral, which was so near the surface that I could touch it with my flippers while continuing to breathe through my snorkle tube, I kept a wary eye on the seaward slope.
Suddenly, four most peculiar objects shot past me like rockets. They were traveling in close formation, and as soon as they had passed swung round in a tight curve to have a better look at me. I then saw that they were not some unusual fish, but were a quartet of squid, each a couple of feet in length. They were beautiful little beasts, colored in soft pastel shades, impossible to describe accurately as they changed them at a moment’s notice. Their tentacles were tucked tightly together and completed their neat streamlined shape as they shot head-first through the water.
Though they were inquisitive, they would not let me get within twenty feet of them, but darted off again so rapidly that I had no hope of following. As they disappeared into the distance, they looked like translucent parasols squirting themselves through the water. It seemed strange that creatures so closely related to the unprepossessing octopus could be so beautiful and so agile.
I continued my swim along the reef edge, pausing to photograph a small thicket of lavender-tinted staghorn coral. Once I came across a school of fish busily nibbling at some delectable portion of the sea bed, rather like the birds which gather behind a plow to peck for worms in the broken ground. They were much too interested in their own affairs to take any notice of me.
The scenery now became wilder; the underwater landscape was built on a larger scale. Though I was careful not to get more than a few yards from the edge of the reef, so that I could reach shallow water in case of cramp (perhaps the greatest danger facing the lone swimmer), I frequently found myself floating twenty or thirty feet above the coral plates and boulders which now practically covered the sea bed. There were so many fish that sometimes they obscured the view; this may sound like a piece of typical Australian hyperbole, but was literally true. When a school of fifty kingfish, each weighing ten or twenty pounds, closes in to have a good look at you, visibility is slightly restricted.
I spent more than two hours swimming and diving along the edge of the reef—the longest continuous time I had ever stayed in the water—and only the declining sunlight compelled me to leave at last. For that two hours I had had the reef to myself; I had been like a man taking a solitary walk through some lonely forest.
But any such land-based analogy can be no more than a pale reflection of the truth. There is no jungle on the surface of the earth as packed with life as the frozen forest of a coral reef. Nor can there ever be, for the air may give oxygen to the creatures which move through it, but it cannot give them food. Water does both, as the world may one day realize when mankind moves its farms from the desert of the land out into the fertile and inexhaustible sea.
It was in this same area, a few days later, that we met the biggest fish we ever encountered off the Heron reef—and, ironically enough, had a good object lesson in the dangers of solitary diving. Mike, John Goldsmith, and I had gone out in the dinghy on a general photo reconnaissance, and as we were short of compressed air, Mike was diving with oxygen apparatus of the type used by frogmen. There is an important distinction here which very few nondivers realize, as is proved by the number of occasions on which Aqualung-type cylinders are described by reporters and caption writers as being full of compressed oxygen, instead of compressed air.
The pure oxygen equipment is compact, gives greater endurance, and releases no telltale bubbles, since the exhaled gases are not blown out into the water but are purified by removal of carbon dioxide and used again. These features make it ideal for military use—but it has one serious disadvantage. Anyone employing oxygen rebreathers at depths of more than about thirty-five feet is liable, with very little warning, to become unconscious and thus to drown.
The reason for this is complicated; the explanation usually given is that oxygen breathed under the pressure met thirty-five feet down becomes a poison. Like most simple explanations, this is certainly only part of the truth, and if you know what you are doing it is possible to use pure oxygen sixty or eighty feet down, where the total pressure is more than three atmospheres.
I was in the dinghy, Mike was exploring with the oxygen rebreather, and John was skin diving along the edge of the reef. Suddenly John saw immediately beneath him a huge grouper, five or six feet long, and weighing at least three hundred pounds. It was drifting toward deeper water, apparently in no hurry—but it soon began to accelerate when it saw all the cameras converging upon it. Mike and John were quickly left behind; I was more fortunately placed, being further out from the edge of the reef, and was able to keep the fish in sight. After a few seconds it slowed down, and coasted along the bottom, thirty feet below me, making those disconcerting yawns—or rather gulps—which are so characteristic of the giant cods.
It was swinging out to sea in a great circle which, if continued, would soon bring it back to its starting point. I followed at full boost, yelling to the others and pointing out the grouper’s direction of travel every time I came back to the surface for air. To my annoyance, both Mike and John appeared to have lost all interest in the hunt, and had climbed into the dinghy. While I was trying to discover what had happened to them, I lost track of the grouper, which disappeared into the underwater haze.
My temper was not at its best when I reached the dinghy and demanded the reason for this lack of cooperation. However, I soon cooled off when I was given it. The carbon dioxide absorber in Mike’s oxygen equipment had become exhausted while he was on the bottom, and he had almost passed out owing to the steady accumulation of CO2 in his breathing bag. He had barely managed to blow up the bag by turning the oxygen valve full on, thus floating himself to the surface.
After this contretemps, we decided to leave the big grouper alone for the day, but to return later with more serviceable equipment. On this second visit, as it turned out, Mike’s gear functioned perfectly, and it was my turn to run into trouble.
The cod lived in a tortuous cave about three feet high, which almost completely surrounded the base of a huge coral plateau. Mike, now wearing the Porpoise compressed-air gear, went into the cave carrying camera and flash bulbs. I waited just outside with another camera, in case the fish emerged in some unexpected direction. For the first time on this trip, I was wearing my old Aqualung, as the cylinder still contained a good deal of air and I wanted to use it up.
Mike disappeared into the cave, stirring up a cloud of sediment as he did so. I crouched outside, wondering if I would shortly be engaged in a tug of war with the grouper—for it was quite capable, if provoked too far, of swallowing Mike’s head and shoulders.
Luckily for him, Mike did not need my assistance, for at that moment my breathing tube became flooded and I started to swallow mouthfuls of aerated water. I know that it was possible to clear an Aqualung mouthpiece of water easily enough by rolling over on your right—or left—side, and then blowing. Unfortunately, it had been so long since I had used the unit that I couldn’t remember which side to roll on. I tried both, but neither seemed to work, and very soon I had no air left with which to blow. Luckily, I was only thirty feet down, and so I wasted no time in returning to the surface.
I felt very annoye
d with myself, for this silly accident could have been serious had I been in deep water. A few days before, I had been using the Porpoise equipment fifty feet down, and in brushing against a rock had knocked the breathing tube out of my mouth. On that occasion, I had hardly given the matter a second thought—it was so easy to slip the mouthpiece back between my teeth and to resume breathing. The much smaller air space exposed to the sea in the Porpoise design made flooding virtually impossible.
It was doubtless my own carelessness which started me breathing water, and my own incompetence which prevented me from curing the trouble. But how much better, I thought as I emerged spluttering on the surface, to stick to equipment where this sort of thing couldn’t happen.
No one can swim on the surface with heavy breathing-gear on his back, for the weight of the air cylinder, if he tries to hold his head above water, promptly pushes him back again and he is soon exhausted. For this reason, you should never go diving without a snorkle tube tucked in your belt. Then, if you are forced to swim on the surface with an empty air bottle strapped to your back, you can still breathe comfortably even though your head and body are fully submerged.
I had my snorkle; what I hadn’t done was check to see that it was working properly. A breathing tube is such a simple device that it seems nothing could go wrong with it, but few things in this world are completely foolproof, as I was now busily demonstrating. At some time I must have given the mouthpiece too hard a bite, for the plastic tube had caved in and the rate of air flow through the construction had been greatly cut down.
Even this would not have mattered had not a third factor then come into play. For the only time during the entire expedition, I had left my own face mask on shore and had been compelled to borrow someone else’s. A diver should always stick to his own face mask, not only for hygienic reasons but because it soon molds itself to his features and so ensures a perfect fit. The mask I had borrowed was leaking rather badly; I had not bothered about this when I had plenty of air to blow the water out, but now it was a serious matter. I couldn’t get enough air through the snorkle to breathe properly, the mask flooded so that my nose was permanently submerged in a private swimming pool, the heavy air cylinder stopped me from raising my head out of the water—and the powerful current along the reef was sweeping me away from the dinghy.
I struggled for some time to sort matters out, then felt a warning twinge of cramp and decided that even at the risk of losing face I had better shout for help. Luckily, John was in the dinghy—discussing seaweeds and political economy with Dot and Celia, who had come along to watch us in action—and in a few minutes he had pulled up the anchor and rowed across to collect me. I climbed back into the boat, spat out quantities of Australian sea water and Australian adjectives, then grabbed a new snorkle and face mask so that I could find what Mike had been doing all this time. If he had been relying on my help, he was probably inside the grouper by now.
Luckily, he had managed quite well on his own. At first, when he had crawled under the ledge of rock, the general gloom and the sediment stirred up from the sandy bottom had prevented him from seeing anything. Then the fog had cleared, and his eyes swiftly adapted themselves to the low level of illumination. What had seemed to be a Stygian cave began to glow with color; the walls and ceiling were completely covered with living tapestries of blue and yellow and gold, with fiery crimsons bursting forth in surprising gouts of flame. The sight was so unexpectedly beautiful that for a moment Mike forgot his quest, but focused the camera on the painted walls, determined to record a scene which, until that moment, no human eye could ever have witnessed.
The explosion of the flash, lighting up the farthest corners of the cave, gave its colors a briefly enhanced glory which they had never known before. When his eyes had recovered from their momentary shock, Mike saw that the passageway on the left, from floor to ceiling, was completely blocked with a wall of tiny fish. There were hundreds of them, no more than an inch or two in length. It was as if they formed a living screen, preventing him from seeing what lay behind them.
The screen, however, was not continuous. Through its gaps Mike could see a great wall of scaly fish. The giant grouper was lying there, watching him with its bulging eyes as he crawled into its parlor.
It was impossible to photograph it behind its screen; Mike had first to claw away the multitudes of tiny fish that seemed equally unafraid of him and of the giant who could swallow them all at one gulp. They retreated as far as its gills, and the great head emerged into the open, its pugnacious underjaw jutting forward. Still it made no move, and Mike was able to take his time composing the photograph. When the flash blasted forth again, the grouper decided that it had had enough. It shot off along the tapestried tunnel, darted out through the back door of its coral home, and sought seclusion in the open sea.
Despite my troubles, the mission was one of the most successful we ever carried out, for when they were developed Mike’s photographs were perfect. The flash had captured every detail of the cave and every spot on the massive, bulldog head protruding from its living smoke screen.
Though we made several later calls, we never found the grouper at home again. I do not imagine that we had scared him away—the giant cod is one of the most unscareable fish in the sea, as many divers have found to their cost. He was probably out hunting when we came looking for him.
In the same cave, however, we did meet what is sometimes considered the most beautiful of all coral fishes—the fire fish or butterfly cod. This little creature has fins which open out so that they resemble a bunch of feathers, and swims daintily to and fro preening itself like a peacock. I had dived into the cave and was admiring the colored walls when I noticed the fire fish orbiting under the roof. Though I longed to capture it, there was nothing I could do, for the fire fish lives up to its name. The beautiful, spiny fins are poison-tipped, for though not as venomous as the stonefish, it belongs to the same family. I tried, in vain, to hook it with my snorkle, but it side-stepped me. Mike was equally unsuccessful with a hastily improvised net. We did not even get a photograph, for this was one of those days when all the cameras went on strike, the flash bulbs fired only when we inserted them in their sockets and not when we pressed the trigger, and in general a bad time was had by all.
Many of these equipment failures were our own fault; sometimes we were so busy diving, processing film, and doing the paper work of the expedition that we simply did not have time to service our gear as thoroughly as we should have done. We learned by our mistakes, and if we had to retrace our footsteps could now obtain the same results with about a quarter of the effort.
Perhaps we were lucky, in that we only made mistakes which gave us a second chance. That is not always the case when you are working underwater; the misadventures I have related in this chapter show how easily quite trivial errors or mishaps can lead to serious consequences. My flooding Aqualung—my ill-fitting face mask—my choked snorkle—any of these might not have mattered had they occurred in isolation. Yet coming all at once, they added up to a situation in which I was very glad that a boat was so near at hand.
However, I will waste no more time in cautionary admonitions. The divers and wouldbe divers who may read these words will fall into two categories. One group will have already made all these mistakes; the rest will do so in their own good time, despite all the warnings I or anyone else can give. I hope that they will make them in the security of their local swimming pool, instead of out in the lonely and unforgiving sea.
XXIII
The Last Dive
Our time on the Reef was running out; in a few days we should have to return to the mainland and retrace our path to Brisbane, Sydney—and then the northern hemisphere. Every moment now became doubly precious, and I hated to miss any chance of seeing the underwater fairyland which we might never visit again.
I was somewhat annoyed, therefore, when Mike was asked to carry out yet another salvage job, for I had photographic plans already dr
awn up. This time, the task was to recover a huge anchor, which lay with its two hundred feet of heavy chain in about ten fathoms of water. My annoyance turned out to be misplaced; any kind of dive, even if at first sight it appeared to be completely routine, is likely to provide something of interest, and so it proved to be the case here.
The operation was carried out from the Capre, and this time Mike used the Hookah equipment, with its pipe line leading to an air supply on the surface. However, he used it with one drastic modification. We were short of compressed air, being down to our last couple of bottles. As there was a cylinder of commercial oxygen on the Capre, Mike decided to use that.
As has already been mentioned in the last chapter, pure oxygen is supposed to be poisonous at depths of more than thirty-five feet, and Mike intended to breathe it at twice that depth. This time, it was true, there would be no danger of any carbon dioxide buildup through failure of the CO2 absorber which had caused trouble before. All the exhaled gases would be breathed out, and not used again. It was wasteful, but Mike was sure it was safe. In any case, he would be attached to the surface by the air hose, and if something went wrong we could always haul him up. . . .
The hose was coupled to the oxygen cylinder, Mike put on the harness, and slipped over the side. Since it looked like being a fairly long job, he was also wearing a rubber suit as protection against the cold. He dropped quickly to the bottom, taking a wire cable with him, and attached it to the end of the lost chain. That was relatively easy, but now began the tedious part. The chain was so heavy that only a few feet could be lifted onto the Capre at a time, and during this operation Mike had to remain in the water, attaching and releasing clamps fixed at intervals to the massive links. It was a dirty job, and if one of the clamps suddenly came loose he was liable to have a quarter of a ton of chain dumped on his head.
The Coast of Coral Page 20
