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Near Malapascua, a dive site called Lighthouse Reef
became famous for its tiny mandarinfish. Spectacularly
colorful mandarinfish hide among the coral rubble
and wait until after dark to briefly swim their courtship
dance a few feet off the bottom. Any white light will
keep them in hiding.
Some years ago, my guide took me there, and I
waited in the pitch black of night, watching in the pool
of red light beaming from my strobes' modeling lamps.
(Like other marine life, they don't see red light.) After
an hour of patiently waiting, two little mandarinfish
appeared. I leaned forward with my macro camera to
capture their dance and collided with the heads of half
a dozen other divers who, unbeknown to me, had joined
me in the darkness and were also using my pool of red
light....
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