Dawn Diving, A Whole New Experience

The water over the reef is opaque and quiet. Only the movements of a few nocturnal fish catch your eye. A squirrelfish hovers above its coral home and a few companion bigeyes appear together in the distance. More squirrelfish arrive from their night feeding activities, seeking their familiar daytime hiding places. Schools of bigeye increase in number and, as the first angled rays penetrate the water, promising a sunrise, they mill about, then descend into their caves and holes in unison. Red cardinalfish, some with stomachs full of night plankton and others with meals of shrimp and small invertebrates to digest, go to bed. The sun is not yet up.

A brief stillness follows the disappearance of the night fish. The reef seems deserted. As the light expands, a few butterfly fish emerge, moving slowly, their pale night coloration gradually brightening. A puffer, still sleeping, is visible against a coral shelf. Early rising territorial damselfishes begin defending their small domains. Small schoolers, chromis, and anthias begin fluttering while still nestled in their branching finger-coral shelters, each colony slowly rising as a group to form territorial swarms above their homes. A triggerfish swims above its nest. The parrotfish casts off its diaphanous mucus cocoon that snags on a coral outcrop as he swims away. On a small outer ledge, a hawkfish takes up its sedentary, carnivorous watch. Nearby, anxious looking clownfish poke their noses out from an anemone’s tentacles. With sunlight now streaming onto the reef, the awakening becomes too rapid to follow as clouds of fish move off over the drop-off and the reef inhabitants begin their day, sparkling in the bright-light sensations of color and pattern familiar to the daytime snorkeler or diver.

A few fishes begin their day waiting in line. At a cleaning station, several customers—a bicolored angelfish, tiger grouper, and small parrotfish—have gathered even before the cleaning wrasses open up shop. Eventually, enough bright light assured, the slender wrasses slide out of their coral holes and stretch, taking their time before beginning their cleaning duties. Once the wrasses are up and about, the reef day has officially begun.

If you haven’t experienced a dive at dawn to witness this astonishing transformation of the reef and its inhabitants, you owe it to yourself to get up really early one day and do it. Similar progressions, orderly and predictable, occur in the changeover from nocturnal to daytime activities on reefs everywhere.

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