Ocean Journeys: Beginnings. Brandon Southall
notwithstanding, the hand-sized fish seemed quite docile, rocking with the gently surging water. I imagined that for tiny polychaete worms and shrimp, the predator didn’t seem so docile. To prey, the pinpoint black mouth must have seemed to flash thunderously out of nowhere, suddenly filling their whole world.
I dropped over a ledge and stood in fifteen feet of water. The entire length of the reef out to seventy feet was bordered by rippled bands of peppered sand. I went pretty negatively buoyant there because once on this sloping sand bar, it was possible to simply walk along and inspect the reef from below. It was like strolling around wide-eyed through a huge, brilliant aquarium in surround-sound.
In twenty feet of water, I took off my fins and dug them deeply into the sand, placing a loose rock on the exposed ends to hold them against the subtle heartbeat swell. My bubbles rose like jellyfish domes gurgling to the surface. I kneeled on the sand and watched them rise above me and rupture against the pink-bright mirror. A decorated collector urchin inched along. Once I saw one of these prickly pincushions decorated with a lighter and a tampon for camouflage; this one had a more natural disguise of algae, shell bits, and crumbled coral.
Snapping shrimp were audible between my predominant breathing. Different animals made very different sounds and various parts of the reef were consequently identifiably distinct. I felt the lightly rippled sand with my toes as I headed down the gently sloping reef.
Christmas tree worms and gray feather dusters flowed from lobe corals, rocks, and rubble. They fanned the water, filtering out suspended particles, cycling life-blood matter. Even at this shallow depth, greens and reds of the corals dimmed; blue light travels deepest, whereas other colors are quickly absorbed. Many deep water fish and invertebrates are thus red because they appear black to visual predators. Colorful fish like Achilles tangs with vivid orange patches around the base of their tails look blander on the reef shelf than in two feet of water.
Down the changing slope, I peered under a familiar ledge at forty-two feet. The rock was peppered with invertebrates. Barnacles lined the underside, grasping for invisible particles in that common mode of filter-feeding. Tunicates, sponges, and snails filled in the remaining gaps in the shoulder-to-shoulder life. Orange-band surgeon fish, ornate butterflyfish, and yellow tangs darted in and out of the darkness. One night, a six-foot moray eel slithered out of this opening and slipped along my bare leg; I tended not to crawl in it too much thereafter or poke my hands in dark crevices. But I lingered for several minutes, gazing at the diversity and abundance of life tucked in the small alcove. There was little reason to suspect the dive was about to become exhilarating, and a little frightening.
The spine of the reef ended in about seventy feet of water. It wasn’t a definite conclusion, but a gradual transition from a coherent point to a dense assemblage of car-sized boulder to widely scattered smaller rocks and coral rubble. The smooth-groomed bar of deep sand between the two reefs faded similarly away. Rope-thin garden eels poked out from the furthest reaches of the sand, swaying with the current like grain in a gentle plains breeze. Patient and cryptic, they waited to ambush stray wrasses or other small fish that happened off the reef. Any disturbance sent them zipping back into burrows.
Outside the reef, a loose-rubble shelf sloped quickly away. On some edges, Hawaiian coral ecosystems seem broad, but they are in fact quite tight to shore compared with the massive expanses of many shallow South Pacific and Caribbean reefs. A bathymetric side view of the vertical rise to the Hawaiian Islands correctly scaled with the vast surrounding water depth shows these islands as igneous columns shooting almost straight up. Reefs hug the edges, bolstering the islands for future generations as these pillars crumble back to the sea.
We turned back from bluer depths and walked (literally walked despite being six stories under water!) back up the sandy stretch, entering the amphitheater of breaking waves, crunching parrotfish, snapping shrimp, and the occasional distant vessel. At thirty feet we paused for a brief dive stop.
I was adjusting my weights when my buddy tapped me on the shoulder and placed his flat hand vertically on his forehead. I froze for an instant in a mixture of excitement and concern, recognizing the symbol for shark. A good-sized “manō” had followed us up the slope.
The twelve-foot tiger swam slowly toward us. We moved together in a defensive posture and I scooped a jagged rock from the bottom and bit my regulator like a football mouthpiece. When the brute was perhaps thirty feet away, it turned slightly and began to slowly circle us. The sun dappled the rippled sand and highlighted vertical bars on the sharks’ side. The great fish investigated us, swimming deliberately. Its eyes were piercing black diamonds locked on mine, its jagged teeth tangled thorns. The reflection of the overhead sun off the sand illuminated its white belly, spotlighting the predator. The omniscient sounds of the reef faded away and the ocean seemed motionless.
Its tall, dark tail sliced the water with a threatening, understated ease. My breathing quickened in a mixture of fear and awe as the shark arched its back. This can be a visual sign of aggression, but this animal just seemed uncomfortable in water nearly as shallow as it was long. It continued around us, focused, ignoring the plethora of reef fish hugging the nearby rocky wall. We turned with it for the entire circumference of its route until it banked back toward deep water. Having investigated us, the shark swam away just as slowly and deliberately as it had approached. Rhythmically swishing its powerful tail like a haunting metronome, it faded past the outer reaches of the sand bar. Garden eels shook in their burrows as the tiger cruised off the reef.
Divers are rarely hit by sharks. Many attacks involve the mistaken identity of those riding the same near-shore waves that the sharks larger prey (turtles and marine mammals) frequent. Several weeks earlier, a kid on a boogie board had been killed by a tiger shark just a few miles away. I have no idea if it was the same shark I saw – probably not, but it crossed my mind. Usually after someone is attacked, there is a fervent, pointless hunt for the culprit in which many sharks are killed. Most people fail to appreciate that the ultimate culprit is us, having over-fished areas where sharks hunt, changing their ecosystems and foraging patterns, forcing them closer to shore. I was slightly intimidated by being circled by the potentially deadly animal, but more so privileged to have shared the reef with it.
We sat in the warm sun drying off. Hibiscus blossoms pointed straight overhead to the noontime sun, recalling the sign of the remarkable tiger shark encounter. The wind shifted to the nominal trades, blowing in from the ocean, stirring the sea as another group of divers headed out. With the changing conditions, their dive would be more typical of windward Big Island reefs than had ours – they should have gotten there at dawn.
I closed my eyes and rocked internally with that pleasant after-dive sensation. There is a perfectly logical neuro-sensory explanation for this feeling, having to do with different movement of vestibular fluids in the inner ear on land and in the water. But I choose to believe it is the residual synchrony the body retains following an intimate connection with the living sea. Even if you haven’t just been in the water, you can, with the right mindset close your eyes, block out reality, listen with your soul, and feel the rhythmic pulsing of the sea – of life’s very creation.
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We headed north, toward Honoka’a into one of the most remote rainforests on the Big Island. There were no roads extending more than a few miles up from the Belt Road that crept through the steep, wet North Hilo district. Above that, there were no developments until ten miles into the Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge. This northeast slope of Mauna Kea bears the brunt of the southwesterly trades, sifting moisture from the tropical winds. Streams rushed under the Belt Road, pouring steadily through wind-sculpted cuts and occasionally forming impressive waterfalls like the thunderous 450-foot vertical drop of ‘Akaka Falls. Huge tree ferns, honeysuckle vines, and ōhi’a lehua branches overgrown with epiphytic plants formed damp, tangled jungles.
Persistent mist and nectar laced the air, hints of cloud forests lurking further up the dormant volcano. Two friends and I stashed Tonka under heavy foliage along a one-lane road and started up the Hakalau stream. I hated experiencing it without Elizabeth, but subconsciously I knew we each had to find ourselves – and that this would ultimately lead to difficult choices.
We hacked our way through bogs, scrub