The Fish You Completely Ignored Until You Became a Diver

Before you start diving, the underwater wish list is fairly predictable.

Turtle.

Shark.

Manta.

Dolphin.

Maybe Nemo.

Understandable.

They’re big. They’re recognizable. They photograph beautifully.

Then you spend enough time underwater and something strange happens.

Suddenly a grown adult is hovering motionless over a rock because there is a tiny sea slug on it.

Someone starts violently shaking a pointer because they found a shrimp approximately the size of your thumbnail.

A frogfish that looks almost exactly like the sponge beside it becomes the highlight of the entire dive.

And heaven help the group if someone spots a particularly nice nudibranch.

Welcome to diving.

One of the nicest things about spending more time underwater is that your idea of what is interesting starts to change.

At first, you’re looking for the obvious things.

Then you start noticing behaviour.

A cleaner shrimp setting up shop.

A goby sharing a burrow with a shrimp.

A tiny crab hiding inside coral.

A fish protecting its eggs.

A creature you have probably swum past fifteen times before someone finally points it out.

The reef becomes less like scenery and more like a neighbourhood.

And the better you get at slowing down and looking, the more crowded that neighbourhood becomes.

This is also why experienced divers sometimes spend twenty minutes covering what looks like approximately six metres of reef.

There is simply too much going on.

So yes, keep hoping for the sharks and turtles.

We will absolutely get excited when they arrive.

But don’t be surprised if, a few years from now, the creature that makes you lose your mind underwater is three centimetres long and looks vaguely like a colourful leaf.

That’s when you know diving has got you.