AFTER each dive, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, we conducted snorkel surveys in the shallows, and most often come in close contact with the dreaded titan triggerfish (Balistoides viridescens).
Territorial, aggressive and vicious, they usually nest on the sandy bottom near staghorn and table corals. They will do anything within their power to engage in a face off with divers who are 20 times their size to protect their nest. The extent of their territory takes the shape of a cone from the nest toward the surface. Their weapon of choice—a small but strong- jawed mouth with teeth adapted for crushing shells. Getting devoured by a triggerfish is as remote as encountering sharks in a tornado, but they do usually go for your exposed finger or ear. Capable of traveling in short bursts of speed, they assail trespassers and draw blood. By the way, blood is green when viewed underwater. When light goes through water, water absorbs the colors of the spectrum of sunlight, the first visible color that is absorbed is red. If you go deeper and turn off your dive light, you will only see blues and purples. Turn your light on and its like IMAX on steroids, minus the popcorn.
Most of our dives were “decompression dives” which required us to perform “safety stops” at four and a half to five meters for three to five minutes. The procedure allows a diver to give off gas nitrogen in the body to prevent decompression sickness. It was during one of these stops that I was able to observe from above, the largest predators in the reef.
Tubbatha has at least 13 species of sharks. Never in my life had I experienced so many sightings, long before our seventh day on the reefs, swimming with sharks became the new normal. On our second day in Tubbataha, the term “shark garage” was coined. Underwater photos were shared showing overhangs in the sand—openings of small caves or cracks—dimly lit by diffused sunlight from the surface. Often crammed in these cubby holes were three to five or more sharks that look like SUVs with tails and fins parked on top of each other in a garage. Caudal fins (tails) of stingrays were also visible. Sharks and stingrays are both elasmobranchs and are very closely related.
Performing a safety stop after a breathtaking dive is, for me, far from boring. Watching the state of affairs in all directions, while hovering a few feet below the surface is like watching fireworks when the clock turns twelve on New Year’s Eve, from our 16th floor condo in Cebu City. It was not a lucky day for a juvenile squid that was bearing towards my direction when a two-foot snapper swooped in and swallowed it whole. Three curious barracudas, a meter each in length, swam by and headed towards one of the divers who had her camera ready.
Seven diving days in the middle of the Sulu Sea was an experience of a lifetime, as I got to see lots of sharks, sea turtles, massive schools of jacks, log-sized moray eels, manta rays as huge as Volkswagens, numerous species of some of the worlds most colorful butterflyfishes, and glowing nudibranchs. Diving and collecting data on the reefs of Tubbataha, after all, is not a perilous job.
Tubbataha Reef is a “No Take Zone.” It was declared by Unesco as a World Heritage Site in 1993. President Corazon Aquino signed Proclamation no. 306 establishing Tubbataha Reefs as a National Marine Park with an area of 332 square kilometres (82,000 acres) in 1988. All these statutes provide that all forms of fishing are strictly prohibited within the Protected Area. Blast fishing and poaching was rampant in the past when regulations were not yet implemented.
Saluting the rangers
Someone wrote that Tubbataha’s isolation has provided for its protection, but for illegal fishers with big fishing boats equipped with sonar and GPS, distance is not an issue. So, who keeps watch? A composite team – chosen members of the Tubbataha Management Office, LGU, PNP, Navy and Coastguard - is assigned to guard the reefs in two- month shifts. They are the Marine Park Rangers. Their ranger station is a bunker- shaped concrete structure-on-stilts built on the North Atoll. It sits on a gorgeous sandbar with the most perfect sunset that I have ever seen. A supply ship comes on scheduled dates to deliver food, water, gasoline (for their patrol boat) and letters from their families. The whole Tubbataha area is off the grid and without cellular phone signal, communication is channelled through a satellite phone.
On the afternoon of our sixth diving day, we paid the rangers a visit. Our live-aboard dive boat was tied up to a mooring buoy (dropping anchor is strictly prohibited) and all members of the expedition hopped on to speed boats and beached the sand bars. The rangers lined up on the terrace of their bunker like snappy tin soldiers welcoming us with hand salutes, wearing wide smiles on sun burnt faces. The boat crew prepared a lovely dinner spread out on tables on the sand. It was a moonless night and shooting stars were a common sight. The blackness of the water was often disturbed when a fish broke the surface to escape from predators, producing bluish hues of light as they splashed – #bioluminescence.
The horizon was totally black. There was neither light from a trawler because fishing was not allowed, nor a single beacon from cargo or passenger vessels because navigation lanes were out of the way. Sometimes, it feels good to live in isolation.
Nitrogen narcosis or “rapture of the deep” occurs during deep dives (over 80 feet) when nitrogen in your blood becomes narcotic due to high pressure. Divers lose their physical ability, thought and proper judgement. These are circumstances that can easily be avoided with proper training, safety precautions and focus.
The word rapture, on the other hand, has a list of synonyms, mental conditions, that no one can steer clear from while diving in Tubbataha: rhapsody, ecstasy, bliss, eagerness, enthusiasm, great joy. Tata Osorio