Close encounters with a stingray, barracuda sighti
During my first dive, I must have seen a thousand things that I’ve never seen before.
Life was abundant, and even the most minuscule algae fascinated me. One type looked like hundreds of ends of tiny dark green trumpets, protruding from moss that was growing on rocks lying on the seabed.
I looked closer, and had to try and touch it. To my great surprise, it vanished! It somehow detected my presence, and its defence mechanism was to close its conelike end and retreat into the small space in the moss it grows from.
This happened in a fraction of a second, too fast for the naked eye to notice details. You could be looking at a moss-covered rock with specs of green all over it but on closer inspection, the specs disappear before your eyes!
Looking again to Camacho’s Colombia Patria de Très Mare, in actual fact these organisms are not cone-shaped, but tiny tubes of lime sand give this appearance. They stretch their gills to attract food particles floating in the water. The featherlike gills detect any movement near them, and rapidly retract when they sense danger.
Tropical fish are plentiful as well, and among them, parrotfish are a common sight. The 1999 World Book Encyclopedia gives the following description of the parrotfish:
Parrotfish is the name of a group of about 75 species of fish that live around coral reefs in tropical and subtropical seas. They get their name from their unusual front teeth, which resemble a parrot’s beak.
Parrotfish range in size from 4 inches (10 centimeters) to more than 4 feet (1.2 meters). They have thick bodies covered with large, thick scales. Most parrotfish are brightly colored, and most change color during their lifetime. In some species, a fish born female will later become a male.
Parrotfish feed mostly on algae, which they scrape off rocks and corals with their strong teeth. Many parrotfish feed on sea grasses around coral reefs, often grazing in large schools. The queen parrotfish, which lives in tropical parts of the western Atlantic, sometimes grazes in groups of three or four females and one male. Parrotfish eat during the day and rest at night. Many species of parrotfish form a thin, transparent, cocoonlike covering around themselves at night and rest in it until daylight.
Scientific classification. Parrotfish are in the family Scaridae. The scientific name for the queen parrotfish is Scarus vetula.
Families of trumpet fish could be seen occasionally. These are odd creatures that are long, like freshwater pike, but have extended, bugle-shaped mouths. I was instantly reminded of something from Down by Jim Long’s Stage, which my parents read to me when I was a child.
These are just a few of the things I saw on that first dive, but the best was still ahead.
We changed sites for the second dive, and went down to about 50 feet, watching and exploring the aquatic environment surrounding us. We swam along a wall at that depth, but it seemed to have no bottom. "What is down there?" I asked myself.
We completed the dive, and were heading back to the beach when the dive master began talking about a cave not too far away, and 80 feet below the surface.
The entry and depth, he said, made it a difficult dive; due to strong surface currents, divers have to jump out of the boat and descend immediately. The place you go down is in a small canal, so hesitation could result on you being washed up on sharp rocks.
The dive master didn’t seem like he was sure about taking us, because of our lack of dive experience, but that was probably part of his sales pitch. We were aware of that, and he said he would drop by the hostel later, to see if he could arrange things and if we decided to go.
As it happened, I had planned to meet another friend named Kevin at the hostel that night, who was teaching in Barrinquilla. I had originally met him in Pusan, Korea, where he was my roommate.
While waiting for Kevin to show up, Corey and I talked to the dive master at the hostel. Kevin is also a certified diver, and I was wondering if he’d be up for the cave dive early the next morning. Kevin arrived, and said he was definitely up for it. The place sounded too surreal to pass up.
The three of us dragged ourselves out of bed, and the guide was waiting for us outside the room. We got ready drearily, and I didn’t feel as keen about the day, since I was sore and tired from yesterday’s two dives.
We managed to get ready though, and we were off at 6 a.m. The site was further from where we previously dove, so the boat trip alone took over an hour, adding to the suspense, as I was still waking up.
On the way, dolphins jumped near the boat, and pelicans looking for breakfast flew low above the sea. We also saw a barracuda – which I hoped wasn’t looking for breakfast.
Read all three parts of the adventure!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three