Gozo Island, a natural fortress where angry, frothy surf crashes against sheer cliffs. Here, the sea's energy is not spent by tumbling across a beach, rather it is repelled like a reviled enemy, the swell rebounds and creates a choppy and confused sea.
In a Zodiac I can feel the ocean's rage, its dangerous, unpredictable power. I roll backwards, out of the air and into the water. As the sea closes above me the yellow sun becomes a white ghost and there is sudden peace, a gentle side-to-side motion, not unlike being rocked in a cradle. Now the ocean no longer seems angry, but more like a parent and I like the child enveloped within my mother's breasts and arms. But I'm not here to be soothed and suckled!
I look down and begin to fall through hundreds of damselfish; they are startled, but only for a moment, by my unexpected appearance. The lights of the video camera trace a swath of color across the wall, red, yellow, orange, and blue. I'm still falling, twenty, forty, sixty, and finally eighty-six feet. I become neutrally buoyant like the fish with which I soar, all the while looking for interesting subjects. There, just ahead, a loose group of creatures making sharp strikes at rocks, they're about a foot long and a bit on the chunky side. Some are pale, while most of the others are smaller and dark. I know these animals; they are European parrotfish, always a pleasant surprise in these non-tropical waters. They get their name from their fused teeth that form a massive beak-like structure, perfect for scrapping algae from hard rock or coral.
Related to wrasse, they too swim or fly by the rapid motion of their pectoral fins. They move like birds with ridiculously small wings. Slowly I follow them; they are a bit shy and elusive. I need to bring them into my lights, for at this depth Nature is stingy with Her colors. But now, there! One flies close by and suddenly black is red and a pale spot is a golden blaze.
Like other parrotfishes around the world, the sexes are of different patterns, one is drab and plain and the other gorgeous in its brilliance. In almost every species of parrotfish it is the male who struts, but the lady in the photo is no Plain Jane. Indeed, unlike all other parrotfishes, it is the female of this species who is beautiful!
