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Home ~ Photos & Video ~
Scout's Honor (continued)
Below the surface, behind the scenes filming
Coral Reef Adventure
By Rob Barrel
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(story continued from page 2)
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| Cat carting gear. |
"Heeward, can you hee-ah me?" crackled the com unit as Howard waited for a very boring scorpionfish to lunge at a damsel.
"Round and queer. What have you got, Cat?"
"Oi gat a sheshake ep hee-ah"
"Okay, okay, where are you now?"
"Ummm, just sowf-eas of Borneo - hurry ep, heezwimmin away."
And the circus was off down the reef carrying housing, tripod, weights, lights, and light cable - and fairly certain that the snake would be gone by the time we got there. But in this case, at least, we were rewarded by a big, bold sea snake that allowed Michele and Rusi to handle him like a child's toy.
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Not as accommodating were the triggerfish. Nesting triggerfish are ubiquitous certain times of the year, and while filming sea snakes at Gau, there were extremely aggressive triggerfish defending nests everywhere - hundreds of them. Howard was even attacked by one, an experience he reported on in his project summary.
The impact felt like I had been hit by a rock thrown by a major league baseball pitcher. The result was a short gash on my forehead and a nasty lump to go with it. The funny thing is that I have occasionally been injured by marine life. But in all previous cases, I had provoked the attack either by simple stupidity on my part or by trying to get an animal to perform for a shot. I always felt the injury was my fault. In the case of the triggerfish, however, I was completely innocent! I did nothing to deserve or provoke the attack! I hope the damn fish broke a tooth!
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| Richard setting up a shot. |
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| Cat and Jelly |
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On the day that the triggerfish nesting was to be shot, Cat went out separately to locate a good nest while the others wrapped up the sea snake sequence. This, from her diary:
We had watched the triggers for the previous seven days while filming sea snakes. There was an endless supply of nests and big brazen fish. But something seemed amiss that eighth morning along the reef edge. I fobbed it off as nervous paranoia. But there was suddenly a conspicuous lack of triggerfish and nests. And here and there were the hollow divots of previous egg-masses. Suddenly the halls seemed empty. I called through tentatively on the coms.
"Call me stupid, Howard, but I don't see any nesting triggers this morning. Maybe they knew we were coming? What if they are all g..."
"Hey, stupid."
After lunch the conditions remained perfect. Dead calm, clear as water can be, consistent sky cover. Michele and I were to be sacrificed to the jaws of a triggerfish on the giant screen. The rebreather blokes tumbled into the water in search of a nasty trigger with a big rosy nest in about 40 feet of water over rubble and coral. Easy, right?
"Stay here Cat, we don't need you to scout for us. This afternoon you're a meat puppet. Save your air until we choose a nest and call for the camera. Just a few minutes is all we need."
Ten minutes passed, nothing. 15... 20.... I couldn't stand it, grabbed a tank and rolled in for a quick peek. Nothing. But, well, I wasn't down for long, so... I'm sure they have something by now. The coms-crackling seems unusually quiet, though. I'd better come up and see. I'll just sit on the camera boat for a bit. 25.... 30.... |
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| Michele and Siph Wall at Mt. Mutiny. |
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Finally the com unit came to life:
"OK, wair cummy uff. We ahh thurfathing."
At the distant mouth of Nigali Passage we saw their heads pop above the hazy reflective surface. They had covered more than half a mile of the reef. John and Brad readied the camera on approach.
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| Brad & John set up camera. |
"Not a goddamn triggerfish - anywhere. Cat, what did you do to them this morning?"
And so another marine natural history discovery was made. Titan triggerfish, it appears, coordinate their nesting - and synchronize their hatching - in discrete locations. Hard to believe we could have had worse timing!
There were other astonishing animal behaviour surprises that didn't make the film - like mating lionfish. Cat was with Howard and Bob on a night dive at Wakaya to film the lionfish hunting. Fatefully, the camera was at the surface being loaded with a new roll of film when Cat saw something strange happening. |
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| There were lionfish everywhere and about seven were happily herded to the lights where they lunged and danced and feasted with abandon. The tidal current began to fall out of the channel so we hunkered in close to the reef. One of the fish seemed to be nudging its head under the "wings" of another. It looked sick or something, but it was very persistent. Finally, the other turned head-to-head, then pushed his mouth into her wings too. They began to spin each other around and around vigorously. It looked like they had actually bitten onto each other's feathers but on close inspection their mouths didn't seem to be clamped onto anything. It was more like they had gotten a feather or two tangled and were trying to twist the other free. Gloveless, I tried to shove and separate them, save them from having their beautiful feather-fins torn off in the fray. There was a sudden burst of energetic twisting and a cloud of silt or something was dusted off the reef top. But the small one didn't then rush to escape! She followed the big guy some more, acting like she needed shelter or something. |
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| Rusi and cleaner shrimp. |
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"Howard, this looks like hanky panky to me."
"They're fighting, I'd like to film that. Surface, is the camera nearly ready?"
Bob came over and another lionfish pair joined forces. In mere seconds this time, the fish twisted and spun in the open water with a puff of silt. Hang on, open water? Silt? Bob and I looked at each other, shone our torches on the silt and started grunting and nodding and pointing for Howard to look. Egg cases, no mistaking it. Hundreds of glistening little baubles loosely connected, drifting out of the channel on the turning tide. It all suddenly made perfect sense. The smaller lionfish then seemed to collapse with exhaustion before slinking off to a more peaceful moonlit overhang - probably to have a cigarette.
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(story continued on next page)
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