T
HAT DIVER OVER THEREin the milky
middle-distance is acting strangely. He’s just
hanging midwater, all alone, and he’s staring
in my direction.
I’m heading through a narrow rocky gully that
runs below the luxuriant forest of brown kelp, and
for the next few seconds I’m straining to return his
gaze. Is he a ghost?
As I advance, the face recedes. Abruptly he turns
and, with a flash of silvery grey underbelly, the seal
has gone. Wow, that was spooky! The seal had
seemed so... human.
I turn back towards my trainee. She’s oblivious.
I notice that she’s in an upright position; one hand
shoots out to clutch at the gully wall for stability as
she struggles gainfully with buoyancy and a leaking
mask. Her fins beat intermittently and clumsily.
Sea urchins cascade downwards. Clearly we’re in a bit of a pickle.
While it might be easy for me to mistake a human-sized seal for
a diver, let’s be clear that there’s zero chance of the seals being under
any illusion about us.
Whoops! Is that some piece of falling kit? No, another head has
appeared and the canine-style teeth are gently testing the edge of my
trainee’s dangling fin. She’s trying to give me a brave OK signal. I’m
staying super-still and pointing relentlessly downwards: Look. Down.
Confused, she glances down at her fin, which now has a large seal
attached to it. Their eyes meet and an enormous cloud of exhaled
bubbles escapes from her demand valve – is this panic or delight?
Her face snaps back towards mine, and she has a huge smile that is
causing her mask to start flooding again. But it’s obvious that she
really doesn’t care about that right now. Stinging eyes and salt-
drenched nostrils are forgotten because we are playing with the seals!W
E DANCE INEPTLY,like a pair of awkward teenagers at their
first rave, as the seals twirl gracefully around us. Bonkers!
Their whiskers are close enough to brush against our outstretched
hands. Audacious and flirtatious, they sidle up to our fins and give
them a cheeky tug with their teeth.
A fairly standard bimble of a dive has suddenly transformed into
a life-long memorable experience; all because the big stuff turned up.
Now much as I’m fond of cute fish and those twiddly nudibranch
things, encountering big stuff under water is just so much more fun.
A large animal that approaches you with curiosity and looks into
your very being; that has to be the real deal in diving.
Mr Big Stuff – who do you think you are? And who am I?
It’s a huge question to answer as we stare into each other’s eyes
with wonderment and wariness. Are you dangerous? Are you edible?
Are you friendly? Can we play?
But being big and under water does not always mean smart and
responsive.
Much as I adore a whale shark, I’m not convinced there’s too much
going on behind those tiny eyes as it cruises around with its gob open.
A humphead parrotfish, the size of a small car, was more interested in
head-butting the heck out of the coral than interacting with me.
I could observe that this is not very different from the behaviours
shown by some of our super-sized diving officers. But I won’t. Well,
not today.Mr
Big Stuff
LOUISETREWAVAS
divErNEt.com 53 divEr
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