AD 2018 Q1

“We are in an era in which pixels might last longer than
Had I not been preconditioned to worry about the health
of the coral I might not have been so obsessive about
photographing every bit of staghorn and antler coral
we encountered, but after a couple of dives we were
thoroughly reassured about the health of the reef. Our
anxiety was gone, replaced by the easy pleasure of fine
diving. There were vast fields of coral, but curiously a
few smaller areas had been absolutely pummeled. If I
had been in Indonesia I would have wondered if it were
the result of dynamite fishing, but I think it was just the
product of wave action on shallow areas. For the most
part, this was a gorgeous reef complex.
Our schedule brought us to the far north at the right
time in the lunar cycle for a coral spawn. We had to
decide whether to stay at anchor for the night dive or
leave early to get to iconic Raine Island for an earlymorning
dive along its southern wall at a spot called
Turtle Soup. The crew anticipated high winds later
in the day that might make the site difficult to dive.
The diving had to be done from a live mothership due
to navigation restrictions near the island, which were
in place to protect sea turtles. We opted for the early
departure to maximize our access to Raine Island. The
first time I heard about Raine I was reading National
Geographic. As I entered the water, David Doubilet’s
description was in my mind’s eye:
Raine … is the jewel of the reef. Every other year it
hosts 80,000 green turtles that come to mate and
crawl on the island and lay eggs. I went with a
scientist who had a permit to work there and swam
with hundreds of turtles that moved like underwater
clouds. They seemed to appear and disappear because
they blend in perfectly with the surrounding reef.
Such numbers in one small place makes them very
vulnerable. Ten thousand plus turtles would pull
themselves ashore at night. It was the Times Square
of green sea turtles. As dawn broke, the last females
were pulling themselves toward the sea. The island
was covered in tracks that looked like a massive
amphibious landing. I have never seen anything like it.
Perhaps we got there a bit late; we saw the tracks
Doubilet described and some turtles on the beach, but
only a few turtles were in the spur and groove formations
underwater. Some of us were lucky enough to also see
72 | WINTER 2018