A group of subadult painted sweetlips (Diagramma pictum) — the adult color is basically gray — on the drop off just south of a pass in the barrier reef. Sweetlips are known, collectively, as 'grunts' in the Atlantic, after the noises that they produce. ( Milinat Pass, Madang)
A midnight snapper (Macolor macularis) on a bommie's steep reef slope. These large snappers are quite common at some sites. (South Ema, Kimbe Bay)
A midnight snapper hunkered down inside a good-sized barrel-sponge. Whether looking for protection from predators (everybody needs an undisturbed rest now and then) or a predatory ambush opportunity, it found a great hiding place. (South Ema Reef, Kimbe Bay)
A group of midnight snappers often aggregated at one particular coral crag on this point where the steep oceanside outer reef forms a huge, steep-sided ridge that extends to great depth. At this point I often found myself involuntarily rotating as an eddy caught me on its periphery — when I let myself go my body was turned by the eddy so that my feet and legs were where my head had been a few seconds earlier and I was turned back in the direction from which I'd just come. If I moved past this eddy-point I was usually slammed by one of the strongest currents that I've yet encountered underwater, the kind that makes the mask vibrate, exhaled bubbles stream quickly downslope (to add to the fun, this current was a 'downcurrent' that flowed down the underwater ridge and out to sea), and that turns every inch of forward progress into the physical-exertion equivalent of a marathon. My awareness of the futility of even trying to fight the current — even while grasping (dead) coral handholds — was heightened by inevitably looking seaward to see a shark, turtle, or other animal happily sitting up there in the current. (Barracuda Point, Madang)
An elegant sailfin snapper (Symphorichthys spilurus) trailing its long fin filaments behind it as it moves about over the deep sand alee of a lagoonal island. (Wongat Island, Madang)
Blue fusiliers (Caesio lunaris) and pyramid butterflyfish (Hemitaurichthys polylepis) fill the water column at the upcurrent end of an oceanic platform reef. (May Reef, Kimbe Bay)