Underwater thoughts - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 2

Their delicate look was deceptive, however, for not visible were the two-
foot-long tubes that lie buried beneath the firm mud bottom. That's
why we needed the pump and garden hose.
Although all of these anemones are the same species, they come in
three distinct colors. Most have light gray tentacles, but for some rea-
son a few have either deep purple or glowing orange tentacles. These
orange anemones are puzzling. Because seawater, as it increases in depth,
selectively filters out the red end of the light spectrum before the blue,
no orange light reaches fifty feet below the surface; yet there they are,
glowing bright orange. We understand the physics of how they appear
orange when there's no orange light—the tissues in their tentacles re-
fract the short blue wavelength and change it to the longer wavelength
of orange—but the biological reason for this phenomenon remains
a mystery. In any event, the visual e¤ect is striking. Selecting a fine-
looking orange specimen, I started blowing the muddy bottom away
from around the anemone's tube with the jet of water from the end of
the garden hose. Gradually working my hand and the hose deeper and
deeper until reaching the bottom of the animal's tube, I gently lifted
it out, unharmed, and placed it in a plastic bag.
What a bizarre way to make a living! Here I was, fifty feet below the
surface of the bay, totally obscured in a cloud of mud, with my left
arm stuck clear up to my armpit in the bottom, trying to dig out a sea
anemone. In spite of the numbing cold and zero visibility, I was thor-
oughly enjoying every minute and felt quite at home in this under-
water world.
At times like these, I wonder how I was ever so fortunate as to end
up in this strange line of work. Yet looking back, I can spot clear sign-
posts steering me away from well-traveled, traditional, acceptable em-
ployment routes straight toward my chosen career.
SLEEPING WITH FISH
The earliest sign, which I can't even remember, is one my mother told
me about. I was born in South Africa in 1927 to American parents. When
I was about five, my mother and father took my sister and me to the
seashore town of Durban for a day at the beach and to do some fishing.