TRAVELSPECIAL
Send in the clownfish
Extra Divers staff did a fine job supporting the divers , but the boats were lacking in refinement . Our specific gripe was that we had to perch on an elevated , narrow gunwale before doing a backwards roll to enter the water . The crew would assist , but it was needlessly taxing , and proved uncomfortable for some of our group .
Current affairs
If you want big fish , you need big currents , and Maratua Atoll has a site that delivers exactly that . Big Fish Alley is a currentblasted channel opening , where divers can use reef hooks to observe jacks , barracuda and grey reef sharks as they pass by .
Nabucco ’ s staff spun some foreboding tales about the hazardous nature of this site . Fortunately , I had the world ’ s best buddy to keep an eye on me , BSAC ’ s National Diving Officer Sophie Rennie , who
you can see modelling in some of these photographs . In the event it was no worse than a Maldivian atoll pass . We made a negative entry , got down to the reef with minimal fuss and hooked onto bare rock .
Sure enough , the water column was full of snapper and bigeye trevally , and we were treated to close swim-bys by grey reef sharks . So far so good , until the divers from other resorts arrived . Now , I may be known for my fulsome love of my fellow humans , but as far as unknown divers on the same site are concerned , they can jog on . I ’ m sure they felt the same about me , but then I didn ’ t lunge off the reef and completely disrupt the shark encounter .
With tiresome predictability , a solo diver with ridiculously long freediving fins appeared in the blue , spooking all the sharks and ruining the dive for everyone else . A quick look at the other rule-obeying divers revealed
Radioles of a Christmas tree worm
Red gorgonian coral with yellow polyps
Hippocampus denise pygmy seahorse
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