Yellow lizard island

The French Polynesian legend of how "yellow lizard island" got its name is an odd one.  The yellow lizard was the child of a Tahitian couple, which they abandoned on an island when it reached such size that the mother feared he might eat them. Heartbroken upon realising he had been abandoned, Mo'orea threw himself into the ocean, to the mercies of the currents.  His body washed ashore and was found by fisherman, who ran screaming to the village screaming "yellow lizard!". 


After a few days holidaying on the island of Mo'orea, I  had decided that the name was a poor fit for such a tranquil and lizard-free locale. It was warm but not hot, and the light sea breeze kept the humidity down and the mosquitos away.  The azure coastline was every bit the travel brochure's promise.

Our days had passed in a leisurely manner; sleeping in, sunbathing, snorkelling, dining on delicious french cuisine of generous Polynesian proportions and the occasional day tour.  Between activities, I was playing with my precious new toy: an underwater digital camera that could go down to 50metres.

Gone were the days of 27 shots to an underwater film camera. Digital underwater photography was a game changer!

I harbored a secret hope that I might see a Napoleon wrasse. I’d heard that these big, inquisitive and colourful fish frequented Mo’orea dive sites and I was keen to add these to my dive critter bucket list.

Unfortunately, Napoleons are sought after for other reasons: their long life and wild fishery status made them a hot commodity in the Asian live reef fish food trade, selling for as much as US$250-300 per kilo in China (WWF Napoleon wrasse factsheet).  Easily caught when breeding in mass shoals on predicable dates and locations, fishermen had exploited the species and together with habitat loss, the species was now highly endangered world-wide. While now protected, sadly, the realisation came too late that these fish take a long time to mature and breed and for populations to recover. So seeing a Napoleon in the wild was something really special.

The “Brisbane” experience made me nervous about diving again.

However, what might be swimming within the sparkling waters of Mo'orea was too for me to not explore. My scuba confidence had been somewhat restored by a scuba refresher course run by an extremely competent and confident diving couple back home.  Finally, as I’d just been accepted into a university postgraduate course in marine science, regaining my scuba confidence was going to be a critical part of my course.

Down the anchor line we went, link by link, following the chain to the bottom.  I hit the sand with a bump, added into air to my vest to become slightly buoyant and was off.  Time to explore and to photograph!

While the corals were in poor form from the previous year's Cyclone Oli and Crown of Thorn starfish outbreaks, the fish life was fabulous.  Rainbow hued parrotfish flitted by, stopping to peck at  at algae and coral. I could actually hear their voracious appetites at work in the background. In the future I would come to associate this sound with healthy reefs and with beach building in the making. Parrotfish grazing contains algae growth, which would otherwise smother the slower growing corals. At the same time the coral consumed is excreted as sand (shown below). A single parrotfish has been estimated to produce as much as 90Kg of sand a year (although this figure varies between species).

 

Satisfied at observing important reef maintenance processes at work, I continued on. Angelfish and butterfly fish everywhere. I snapped a picture of these two forcep fish chasing each other around this coral bommie having some kind of territorial dispute.

Next I saw both the oddly shaped flutemouth and trumpetfish.  While both similar in shape, they were not even closely related. The flutemouth was getting cleaned by a blue striped cleaner fish.  I watched it for a while, and was thrilled to take another behaviour action shot.

What was this that the dive guide had brought me? It looked like a giant caterpillar. As I lined the camera up to take another shot, he made a sudden shout and threw it at me. I leapt and then giggled through my regulator.  Attacked by a sea cucumber! Over time I would see many types in different places.  Feeding en masse at night, they really are the oddest creatures, and more than a little creepy.

The guide signaled “LOOK” and then pointed to the edge of the reef wall. Two Napoleons were following us, but kept their distance.  While it was disappointing that they didn't come any closer, I was still pleased to have seen them. It made me feel good to know they were still about in the oceans. Maybe next time I would get a photograph.

We passed both lemon sharks and black tip reefies.  At 5m length, the lemon sharks were the largest “bitey” sharks I had seen to date.  

The sharks circled slowly nearby and I was struck by their grace and agility.  None of the nearby fish seemed bothered by the presence of the sharks. The dive guide took my camera and took a photo of me  signing “SHARK”.

Well I tried to photograph a range of reef fish, but they were so quick!  The fire dart fish were very pretty with their rose and white markings, doing their odd vertical dance in pairs and occasionally threesomes. But the moment I brought out my camera,  away they darted.  

Next I tried  to get the black and white humbug damsels and peacock damsels that hovered above the coral heads.  The moment I exhaled bubbles through my regulator, the fish fled into the branches of the coral in pure terror. I had to settle for a distance shot that did their blue neon iridescence no justice.

Frustrated, I decided to focus on slow moving, bottom dwelling, sedentary fish such as the hawkfish, which has no swim bladder. A majestic, slow moving lionfish would have made a stunning photo with all those venous spines except for the fact that it was nestled safely under ledge that I just couldn’t poke my chunky camera into. As a sit and wait predator, this lizardfish was a more obliging, albeit boring subject.

Remembering my non-diving partner, I switched the camera to video mode to capture some of the fishy action.  The guide signaled me over to a ledge and brought out his torch highlighted the turtle dozing in the shadow of the ledge. While I found turtles a bit boring, I wanted to acknowledge the guide's efforts to find interesting subjects for me, so I switched the camera back to stills, let the flash warm up, and then took the shot.  The flash went off, bright across the clear water. 

An air bubble trapped between the red filter and the camera lens resulted in the washed out bleed in the photo

It was then that I realized that the turtle had company.

Out swam a moray eel of impossible dimensions, heading straight for me!  Dark green-yellow, its girth was bigger than my thigh and almost as long as my body.  Snake-like, it glided  through the water towards my camera, and in reaching the lens, butted against it repeatedly, fascinated by its reflection in the glass. 

At that moment all my moray eel facts came back to me all at once: that they are highly inquisitive, that their backward-pointing teeth held onto prey the same way as a fish hook, and that morays wrap their body around their prey, take a bite, and wrench their head away, tearing flesh off in the process.

This encounter was in equal measures cool and terrifying:
unfortunately my camera wasn't recording

The guide signaled for me to put the camera behind my back, away from the moray's sight. We backed away slowly, my heart pounding loudly in my chest. I couldn't tell you what, if anything, I saw on the rest of the dive.

During the  short boat ride back, I calmed my nerves and contemplated the legend of Mo'orea. Although Mo'orea's drowned body had washed ashore, perhaps his lived on beneath the waves in the form of this giant green moray.

Had my experience with Mo'orea been an act of aggression or curiousity (making up for lost time from his abandonment?) I will never know, but will leave you to draw your own conclusions based on the two videos below which highlight the range of moray eel behaviour.

Giant green moray eats shark

Valerie Taylor Befriends a Spotted Moray