By her example, she has been teaching me a different sort of scuba than I have been used to pursuing. It’s called macro-diving, looking for the sea’s smallest and most fascinating inhabitants rather than moving more quickly and hoping for sharks and manta rays. Danielle has been diving for only four years but her skills are very impressive. She is 14 years old.

We are at twenty-five metres diving just off Mataking Island which lies to the east of Malaysian Borneo.

Never before had I seen such schools of small Eel Catfish swimming frantically to stay together in the current. At one point we stopped to admire two Ribbon Moray Eels occupying the same den, the younger one a royal blue with yellow outlining and the older one black. They threatened with their tiny yawning mouths. Later we saw a Banded Snake Eel.

Perhaps saddest on this dive was the half-kilometre or so of absolutely dead, shattered coral. Nothing lived in the stretch. There were no turtles, no fish, no crustaceans, no sea slugs… nothing. The reef had been the victim of dynamite fishing by either local or Philpino fishermen. The practice is to lob sticks of dynamite into the water and reap the vast harvest of stunned and dead fish floating on the surface. It’s certainly an effective way to get a lot of fish quickly, but it destroys an environment which will take at least a half a century to re-establish itself.

It is she who sees the brilliantly beautiful sea slugs, or nudibranch, crawling slowly across the colourful coral. It’s an interesting and very relaxing way to dive, probably a better way to dive. In so many ways it’s the sea’s smallest inhabitants upon which the whole ecosystem is built. 

And the various ways that they have learned to survive in a pretty hostile environment are fascinating. Back on land, I take a moment to mention this to her. My reward is a big grin. Danielle knew this all along.
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The following are the previous articles David wrote for the magazine: