Outside the Nigali Pass

"Michele with a banded sea snake." ©Howard Hall

   I was anxious to find a couple more sea snakes so that we could finish our film sequence, and the hours that passed without spotting a snake could be frustrating. But dives like this are why I continue to make underwater wildlife films. "It's the process that counts," I keep telling myself. "Enjoy the process." I enjoyed watching the reef drift by beneath me.

   A dark shadow interrupted the cobalt-blue water seaward of the reef. I recognized the shadow as a pinnacle I thought of as "the thumb." Peter Kragh and Betty Almogy dropped down to one hundred and twenty feet skirting the outer edge of the pinnacle. From high above they seemed suspended in space. Betty was looking for a pair of clown triggerfish she had seen nesting the previous day. She thought, quite rightly, that I should shoot a sequence of these colorful fish as they engaged in reproductive behavior. I had put off the idea wanting to get the sea snake sequence finished first. The question of when to do the clown triggerfish sequence became academic when Betty ascended and signaled that the fish were gone. I had waited too long.

   Filming a sequence when the opportunity presents itself, instead of waiting until tomorrow, is a lesson I keep relearning the hard way. Of course, it's difficult to break stride, drop a plan you're working on, and suddenly switch to filming another sequence right in the middle of a dive. But some of the best wildlife behavior I've captured has been filmed just that way. In this case, I figured that if the clown triggers were nesting, they'd be at it for days. I figured wrong, again.

   Anyway, there would probably be room for only one triggerfish nesting sequence in the film and I planned for that sequence to star titan triggerfish. These very large and colorful animals were nesting all over the reef. Swimming along, we would pass over a nest every minute or so. Common as dirt. Titan triggerfish were also very aggressive in defending their nests. Cat Holloway had a small scar on her ankle where a titan had bitten her a year earlier. And I'd seen a picture in a fish identification book of a woman who had been struck in the forehead by one of these fish leaving a nasty cut. Looking at that photo, I'd found it a bit hard to imagine how you could be dumb enough to let a fish bite you in the face.

   I planned to work on the titan triggerfish sequence as soon as we finished with sea snakes. I only needed a couple more shots of the reptiles before moving on. "I've got one over here," a voice said through my underwater earphone. I recognized Cat's voice immediately. Cat Holloway and Rob Barrel of Nai'a Cruises have been acting as our local guides and marine life experts while we worked in Fiji. There is no substitute for good local knowledge when making a wildlife film. Despite having six divers searching the reef for sea snakes, nearly all the snakes we'd found were discovered by Cat. It seemed like coincidence, but I knew better. She was familiar with the animals and was simply better at spotting them. Filming the sequence would have taken at least twice as long without her help.

   "We're on our way," I responded to Cat. "Surface copy?"
   "Surface, go ahead," John Anderson responded from the skiff drifting a few hundred yards away.
   "Launch the camera. Launch the lights. Launch Michele and Rusi," I said into my rebreather mouthpiece.
    "Launching camera. Launching lights. Launching Michele and Rusi," John confirmed over the comm.
    "Ok, ok, ok," I said.

   I couldn't see Cat from where I was, but she always out-swam the rest of us, so I knew she must be further down the reef. After a few minutes of swimming I saw her hovering thirty feet above the coral looking down at the reef. When she saw me approach, she pointed down at a banded sea snake moving slowly over the corals. I glanced to my left and right and saw most of the other divers converging on our position.

   A lot of things would happen now as the team went into action. Betty or Peter would surface marking the position. The camera boat driver would bring the camera into position for launching. The separate lighting boat would move in bringing the surface powered cable lights into position. Mark Conlin would enter the water to receive the IMAX® camera as John Anderson winched the 250-pound system over the side. Mark Thurlow would accept the movie lights from the other boat and Betty Almogy would help drag the cables into position. Bob Cranston would ascend to get a second underwater IMAX® camera to film the team and me as we shot the sequence. Michele and Rusi would descend from the lighting boat. Cat kept her eyes glued on the snake as the logistics for filming underwater in IMAX® fell into place. Me? I didn't do anything. I just waited and watched it all happen as I'd done hundreds of times before. And it was fun to watch. The team worked like a well-oiled machine.

   Peter and Mark mounted the lights on the camera and passed it over to me. I adjusted the focus and exposure then flipped the power switches for the camera and the video viewfinder. When I was ready, I looked up to see Michele and Rusi on their way down. "Michele, when I say action, pick up the snake gently. Hold him for about twenty seconds then let him go. If he begins to act unhappy, let him go sooner. Rusi, you hang about ten feet behind Michele," I said. Both Michele and Rusi gave me an OK signs. They understood. I glanced around to make sure all the other divers were out of the frame. I noticed Bob above and behind me with the second camera. He nodded that he was ready. I said, "Action!"

   The scene went perfectly. I wanted to show that these highly venomous but docile creatures did not deserve a reputation as being killers. Michele gently holding the snake would help drive that point home. During previous dives, I'd filmed Michele getting close and looking at but not touching the snake, conforming to the more modern diver ethic of "look but don't touch." The editors at MacGillivray Freeman Films could cut the sequence either way.

    The camera ran for about thirty seconds and then Michele released the snake and it resumed foraging on the reef, obviously undisturbed. We shot the sequence a few more times before running out of film. Then I sent the camera up for a fresh film load. That would take about fifteen minutes. While we waited, however, the snake swam into a hole and went to sleep. If I wanted to shoot more sea snake footage, we would need to find another snake. I called John on the boat and told him to hold the camera after it was loaded. Then I instructed the dive team to resume moving down the reef.

   As I swam, I reviewed the sequence in my mind and figured that we had enough footage to make it work. I decided that if we didn't find another snake before reaching the Nigali Pass, we should move on to the titan triggerfish sequence tomorrow. That should be an easy sequence. They were nesting everywhere.

   We had already been underwater nearly three hours. Fifteen minutes later the reef began curving east and I realized we were entering the pass. I looked over my shoulder to see if I could spot Bob, Mark, Cat, Betty and Peter, but I could only see Bob and Mark as fuzzy shapes in the distance. When I turned back to look forward all I could see was the huge, ugly face of a titan triggerfish about four feet away as it rushed at my face with incredible speed. I had no time to move, raise my hands, or even anticipate what was coming. SMACK!

"The homicidal titan triggerfish."© Howard Hall

   I took the impact on my forehead just above my left eye. It was like being hit by a thrown rock the size of your fist! I saw stars! I put my hand to my forehead then stupidly looked at my fingers expecting to see blood on them. My hand came away from my face in a green cloud. Yep, I was bleeding.

   I suddenly realized that I was swimming up and backwards, instinctively trying to get away from the insane fish. Then I saw it still swimming fast as it circled its nest in a state of high agitation. The nest was over thirty feet away! The crazy fish had attacked me more than thirty feet from its nest! I pressed the button on my comm. microphone and called to Mark and Bob. "Hey guys, see where I am? Avoid this spot. There's a mad triggerfish here that just bit the hell out of me!"

   Back on the Undersea Hunter, I looked in the mirror to discover a cut about an inch long over my left eye. It wasn't quite worth a band aid. But the apricot-size lump beneath the cut testified to the impact. I immediately realized that the cut was in exactly the same position and was the same size as the cut on the forehead of the dumb woman I saw in the photograph a few days earlier. Well, she's probably no dumber than me, I thought.

   The following day we went back outside the Nigali Pass to begin work on our titan triggerfish sequence. They were gone! All of them! Where there had been hundreds of nesting triggerfish the day before and on every dive we had made near Fiji's Gau Island, now there were zero! I couldn't believe it. I suddenly realized that triggerfish nesting must be simultaneous. Simultaneous spawning is known in corals and many broadcast spawning fish. But I had never heard of nesting fish coordinating their reproductive behavior. During our previous dives I'd wondered why I never saw courtship or egg laying behavior as I swam over countless nests. Now I knew the answer. If the egg hatching was simultaneous, then mating and egg laying had to be simultaneous. Thousands of triggerfish, all along the reef, had simultaneously built nests, mated, and laid their eggs. A few weeks later, the eggs all hatch at the same time. I then realized that I must have passed that crazy triggerfish's nest just as the eggs were hatching. That's why the parent was insanely protective

   With nesting over in Fiji, there was no way that nesting triggerfish would now appear in MacGillivray Freeman's film, Coral Reef Adventure. But I won't forget what I learned. Perhaps when I return to Fiji aboard Nai'a for my next film project I'll get the sequence on high definition video. Perhaps I'll bring a football helmet.