The Big Wave
On last month’s favourite dive, Hama had a close encounter with a very curious character.
It was during the second dive of the day. Lynnie was down-under as divemaster, Hama on the surface as skipper.
After the divers descended, Hama moved the boat off shore to watch the diver’s bubbles from a respectable distance. Just as he stopped the engine, he saw a big fin and a shadow amongst the bubbles. His immediate thought was: “whaleshark” but it was too skinny and small. Sunfish???
Ordinarily the sunfish are shy and aloof, not easy to observe closely. As she approached the boat, Hama was sure she would just swim away, but instead she circled the boat, curious.
Hama, encouraged by this bold behaviour, slid quietly into the water to get a closer look. The sunfish tentatively came to investigate, swimming to within 1m from Hama, before swimming off. Again and again she repeated this dance.
Hama was beside himself with joy to get such a chance with this secretive creature and began to try different ways to attract the sunfish’s attention, such as:
1. Tapping surface with hand
2. Moving hands side to side
3. Screaming underwater
Number three was the clear winner. Hama’s underwater vocal talents seemed to be very interesting for our happy sunfish. Each time he screamed the sunfish would look at Hama, turn around and swim in his direction. They played this game together for another 30mins, when Hama realised he had drifted a little away from divers’ bubbles and had to climb aboard and catch up. The sunfish continued to circle the boat as Hama started the engine.
As he cruised off, he looked behind to see the sunfish had raised one fin out of the water, and was flipping it left and right (just like a big wave). So Hama waved back and reluctantly said goodbye.
Once the diver’s had surfaced they returned to the sunfish’s playground but she was nowhere to be found.
Hama has been diving here on Christmas Island for the last 13 years and has seen 2 or 3 sunfish per year but NEVER before has he spent this much ‘quality’ time with them. A magical experience made possible by the low –level human presence in our marine environment.