ATTACK AND ESCAPE SIGNATURE

The late afternoon light is still bright when we roll from the dinghy into the warm waves somewhere south of Misool Island, Indonesia. Three underwater seamounts thrusting up into a blue sea, straddling the undefined boundary between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, are our diving coordinates.

“I like this site, it’s one of my favourites in Raja Ampat,” Pep, our cruise director, tells us during the dive briefing. “There are some anchovies on the pinnacles and we may see some mobulas, jacks and other predatory fish as well.”

Suddenly, I’m aware of bullwhip-like cracks punctuating the white-noise of my exhaust bubbles somewhere below me. When large fish or large schools of smaller fish accelerate from zero to full speed in an instant, the equivalent of an underwater sonic boom occurs leaving an audible signature that either an attack or an escape has taken place. On this seamount, at this very instant, both attacks and escapes are happening at a frenzied pitch. shape-shifting shadow as my buddy and I reach the crown of the seamount at about 10 metres. In the gloaming, scores of reef predators are having their way with hapless anchovies – the source of the shadow – which numbered in the millions. Those who fail to negotiate the requisite last-minute escape manoeuvre leave themselves fodder for the predators corralling them on the periphery. Gobsmacked, I take it all in. The scene is surreal, it’s mesmerising, it’s fantastical. And I quickly look for a venue from which to best shoot the ever-shifting anchovies, whose individual numbers seem to behave more like a single, amorphous being. Pep’s comment regarding “some”anchovies is an obvious understatement.