Page 28 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

Small Worlds
T E X T A N D P H O T O S B Y N E D A N D A N N A D e L O A C H The idea comes to me while eating chicken satay.
“These thin sticks used for skewering bite-sized
bits of roasted meat might be just the tools
we’re looking for,” I think as I slowly draw one
of the charcoal-singed slivers of wood between my fingers
following a late dinner.
Just that afternoon my dive guide, Liberty Tukunang,
and I spent several frustrating hours attempting to
photograph a community of shrimp that lives exclusively
within the intertwining branches of tabletop coral. The
shrimp are easy enough to see when viewed from above,
but taking an acceptable photograph of the moving targets
in such a tangle is another matter altogether. Liberty’s
attempts to shoo the coral’s occupants in my direction
sent them ricocheting about the branches like pinballs. Try
as we might, all we had to show for an afternoon’s efforts
were a few blurred images of disappearing tails — not near
the quality we needed to include the species in the marine
identification guide to the Pacific we’ve been working on
for the past three years. Enter the satay sticks.
Early the next morning I catch up with Liberty as he
readies the old green and yellow water taxi we use to travel
back and forth to dive sites in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia.
Huddled in the shade of the cabin I spin my idea. Never one
for words but always quick on the uptake, Liberty simply
nods and slips a pair of the sticks into his wetsuit sleeve.
An hour later we’re kneeling in the sand beside a
Frisbee-sized plate of coral that juts out from a ridge; it’s
home to a pair of orange and white shrimp of the genus
Coralliocaris. With a stick held between the thumb
and first finger of each hand, Liberty leans forward and
begins to herd shrimp like he was born to the job. Even
with his gifted touch it takes half an hour before he
finally coaxes a subject into a corner where I can get a
clear shot. By week’s end the satay-stick trick has helped
us capture the portraits of a dozen new coral-dwelling
26 | WINTER 2013
ENCOUNTERS