FATHOMS DEEP

Hokitika Guardian, 1 July 1930, Page 2

FATHOMS DEEP

BEAUTY OF THE SEA FLOOR. First I went under in*a very small depth and about- a few minutes. Rising to the surface, I looked over all to see that it was working smoothly,, and cautioned my tender to look out for the signals. Then we moved out to the deeper water, thirty or forty feet, I realised that all up to, now had been mere preparation: this was to be the first dive. I slid down my weighted rope till I stood on the bottom then stood still in astonishment, All my other experiments had • been off sand, beaches, generally with a fairly even sloping sand floor. . This spot, on the contrary, was in the midst of coral formation, and the novel beauty of it hit me like .a. blow. In fact, though I’ve been down since then thousands of times, probably in a thousand' different places all over the South Seas. I really think I have never come across a more ' strikingly beautiful place than this spot which I dropped into by the merest chance.. All about me was a sort of fairyland —something like what one 'reads of as a child, entirely different from the surroundings one has always known, strange and fascinating. One had' a sense at once that these branching coral formations were alive, though thev could he leaned against or wallc- , * . - s .« •ed on. • : .4

Most extraordinary of all was ■ the colouring. It was like something incredible a stage magician does before your eyes; when you looked, it was one colour; as you walked closer this shifted into a completely different colour. 1 could not understand this; I was continually going to examine some spot-, which attracted me,- und by the time I got there it was altogether another spot.

Then the fishes: In that crystal water I could see clearly for probably a hundred feet, and every instant

there were fish of all shapes and hues, moving slowly .about or darting here and there. A school would flash a hollow of thie rock coral, and wlM': they swam out again thpy had changed colour.' As for the coral, it took on all the colours of the rainbow. The sun’s rays, shooting down from/ the surface, and, I suppose, broken up by the little, waves dancing there, like those o-f the stage, where powerful lights of different tints transform the scenery; and there was a glitter where they pierced the moving water. —From “Pearl Diver. Adventuring Over and Under Southern Seas,” hv. Victor Berge and Henry Wyjsham Lanier.