Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Philippines, New Guinea and Fiji and had dived with at night in the cool
water outside the great New Caledonian barrier reef, the only place on earth
in the Age of Humanity where nautiluses could be seen in the depth ranges
of a scuba diver. But in those places, the nautilus lived on the deep fore-reef
slopes, the muddy depths in front of coral reefs. Here they inhabited a com-
pletely different environment. He had not seen any coral at all, and despite
the warmth of the seas, there were no reefs. Another mystery among many.
In spite of the bright sun he knew to be shining far above, he was now
gliding through a twilight world, a dim smoky topaz of clarity but little light.
Yet it was by no means silent: The snapping and crackling of crustaceans in
thousands of burrows around him produced a chaotic percussive symphony.
This was his only company as he glided ever deeper, and he felt very, very
alone—the only human on the planet, the only mammal larger than a
squirrel.
The water became clearer and colder as he passed through a thermo-
cline. Now he could see for many tens of yards in all directions. Ahead of
him, the greater depths of the slope he descended yawned like a dark night
beckoning. A large shape looming to his right startled him, and it resolved
into a slim shark following its own agenda, passing through the sea whips
and sea fans encrusting the rare rocks and larger shells that offered anchor-
age amid the pocked and burrowed mud. A school of small lobe-finned
coelacanth fishes fled before the shark and then resumed their own hunting.
An old friend
He reached 150 feet, his maximum depth limit on this dive, and now his air
supply and his body's nitrogen uptake became primary concerns. But those
worries vanished instantly as a small forest of objects resembling sticks and
large pencils descended to the sea floor about 10 yards to his right. He was
mystified; there was nothing in his long diving experience to compare with
the sight. He checked his camera settings, turned the camera strobe to max-
imum power, and glided toward this curious apparition, uncertain what these
creatures were, but unafraid. He approached the nearest of the sticks and saw
