From David Doubilet’s Water Light Time

Coral Eden


There is a centre, a heart, to the warm coral seas of the world. It lies somewhere within the complicated geography of the central western Pacific Ocean. Between the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea, across the enormous island nation of Indonesia, to the bastions of Malaysia—this is where the coral is the richest.

These equatorial seas are a labyrinth of volcanos and deep basins that survived the Ice Ages. This resulted in an astounding increase of species diversification. As an example: there are 67 coral species in the Caribbean but 450 in Indonesia. The different between the Caribbean and this coral eden is the difference between an English garden and an African jungle.

It is a visual feast where the most outrageous form follows the most outrageous function. I watched as a Rhinopias scorpionfish opened its mouth to inhale prey, a school of giant 200-pound bumphead parrotfish grazed on coral like buffalos and a clownfish flew over a field of lavender sea-anemone tentacles. I spent my life swimming around this eden as if I were avoiding a dream. In reality, these underwater countries were beyond dreams.

I dived along the black sand slopes of north-eastern Bali where blue-ribbon eels come out of the dark bottom and mantis shrimp with the most complex eyes in the world build their burrows. In Banggai Island off Sulawesi I found extraordinary silver, gold, and black cardinal fish living in the spines of sea urchins. These fish are fond nowhere else in the world.

There is a dark side to these seas of dreams. The huge expanding human populations confront a delicate sea. A reed can support a village of one hundrer but the same village is now one thousand and the economy has shifted from substinence to cash. There is massive overfishing, blast fishing and cyanide fishing. These reefs are new visions for humans, they are the richest visual environments in the world. We humans have been in the sea, truly in the sea, for only 50 years. In the heart of the ocean, we are in a race between discovery and destruction.

——
Island Kingdoms



In the water two-and-a-half miles off the giant atoll of Rangiroa, in French Polynesia, we are exactly in front of the mouth of its mountain pass. The water is a very clear Polynesian blue. Noon sunlight shafts into a bottomless sea and far below I see a group of white shapes fluttering like doves. Actually, these are the tips of the dorsal and pectoral fins of silvertip sharks. Suddenly three sharks, clean and elegant, are upon us, up from the depths in a heartbeat. With thick bodies and silver-tipped fins, they circle, attach, and bite at my friend Yves Lefevre’s hands and the yellow electronic flashes. We are in their kingdom. Then, having investigated us, they are gone. Sharks and pam trees, the atoll breathes with the changing tides.

From space the Rock Islands of Palau look like green calligraphy written on the surface of a blue sea. These islands are the tops of ancient coral reefs and at times some of them actually surround pieces of ocean water creating marine or saltwater lakes. They harbour life that is found nowhere else; enormous schools, billowing clouds, of Mastigas jellyfish. These lakes are like minature ancient oceans. The falling rotting vegetation from the forest causes the bottom of the lakes to stagnate, sealed off from the main ocean. Spooky Lake, far in the interior of Eil Malk island, is layered with clear water floating over bacteria-laden ‘plates’ of water. It is like diving in fog. Palau is a coral-reef system surrounding a wonderful ocean jungle, with caves containing stalactites, hidden passageways and undercut islands that look like topiary.

Lord Howe meanwhile, is an island that is a single dream. The remnants of an ancient volcano, it is surrounded by the world’s most southern coral reefs, four hundred miles off the south-eastern coast of Australia. A temperate island in a tropical sea, its lagoon is full of fish-damoselles, chrromis—and double-headed wrasse that move with the rhythm of the open ocean swell.

One hundred and fifty miles north of Lord Howe, Middleton Reef blooms in the empty sea like an orchid. Large black cod live here guarding Middleton’s many shipwrecks. One adopted me, following me everywhere. It would become enraged when I photographed other fish. It would then try to eat them.