At the southern tip of farkalawa Atoll, a 35-mile-
The long rectangular coral of French polynisia, a narrow passage through the Great Barrier Reef.
Every year in June, thousands of camo people gather in this channel, the size of two or three football fields, to breed the next generation.
Every six hours there is a strong tide flowing through the lagoon, filling the lagoon and emptying it.
The 2 feet-foot-long grouse is not alone: hundreds of gray reef sharks are also gathered to follow them.
Like other reef fish, female grou fish spend up to a few days at the spawn site.
However, for some reason, the male who lived a lonely life most of the year, spent a few weeks squeezing in this dangerous place until eventually a large number of fish spawn at a time, release the cloud of eggs and sperm into the water.
Locals tell us this is the case when the full moon.
Over the past four years, my team and I have been trying to record and understand this amazing mystery.
For a total of 21 weeks, we had about 3,000 diver hours diving in all diver and entered 115 hoursfoot-deep channel.
To date, 2014, the first accurate count produced by marine biologists John Mourier and Anthony Guilbert: There are about 170 million channels for grouper 700 shark with gray fins. (
The fish here are protected by the biosphere reserve. )
I finished 24 in a row that year-
A technical feat that requires the support of the entire team.
What is the meaning of creating a record.
The point is to observe fish like biologists observe animals on land, which is uninterrupted for a long time.
At dusk the first night, I watched the shellfish and the mollusks come out of the internal organs of the cold storage area and then retreat under my flash.
I watched the camouflage shoes blacked out their skin and went back to sleep in the gap.
I watched the sharks live as if they were waiting for this moment.
They will swim lazily during the day. For them, the sober whining is too fast.
Now, after nightfall, hundreds of sharks flocked along the bottom of the sea.
I realized I underestimated their speed and the water was electric for them.
Their excitement is disturbing: due to the gas mixture I breathe for these 24 hours
An hour of diving, I can't get up safely when I want it.
I had to stay with the shark.
In the years since then, I have overcome my fears.
It has turned the excitement of being located-learning the excitement of adventure, no cage or chain mail set, no shark billies even, into a huge shark bag.
This is one thing we found at Fakarava: sharks hunt in droves, a bit like wolves, but not very cooperative.
A shark is too clumsy to catch a sleepy stone spot.
A pack of fish is more likely to take the fish out of the hiding place.
Then they took it apart.
The scene saw that the attack was a frenzy that exploded in front of us.
Until then, thanks to a special camera operated by Yanick Gentil that takes thousands of images per second, we were able to watch slow-moving sharks and appreciate their efficiency and accuracy.
For sharks, we humans are obstacles, not targets.
They keep approaching us when we dive at night;
Slight movement or light attracts them.
Sometimes they hit us hard.
Sometimes we catch the shark's tail and throw it on the back, causing a trance to calm it down.
But since approaching them, I'm only worried that they might bite me when I feel a sudden tingling in the back of my thigh.
My hand found tears in my wet clothes;
I can see the blood on the wound, and then I need four stitches.
Fortunately, two cameras shot the scene: The shark itself is not, but the scalpel --
Like a big Fishbone that cuts my skin off.
The shark shook violently with fish in his mouth.
In the weeks when the fish had gathered in Fakarava, the gray reef sharks swallowed up hundreds, perhaps thousands.
They hurt more.
The next morning after my overnight dive, when the songchickens started to stir, I took pictures of a group of survivors.
The wound is serious: the fins are torn and the skin is torn off.
But even in this state of regret, the grou does not seem to back down.
Men challenge each other over and over again, face-to-
In the face, hysterical struggle for the reproductive instinct of Domino's slaves.
Last year, in our most recent adventure, we finally got a good idea of what it all means.
On the day of spawning, the whole ecosystem changed: the water was filled with thousands of sardinelike fusi, which felt something was happening.
Female grouse, a swollen belly of an egg, resting in camouflage colors on or near the sea floor.
The Gray Man looks from it.
Every once in a while, a man goes down to March and pushes stle to a woman.
He bit her on the stomach, probably for a Labor rush.
It suddenly started: chaos.
A dozen grouse bands shoot up around us like fireworks.
Each band consists of many men pursuing single women.
The Sharks hardly succeeded in fighting;
The grouper is too fast.
Personal sex lasts for less than a second and we can hardly see it, much less understand what's going on.
Barracuda is blocking our sight, and as soon as they appear they rush in and swallow flocks of spotted eggs and semen.
When powerful currents bring the remaining cells to the sea, they are randomly mixed.
In less than an hour, we can't help but ask, what is the use of this?
For a male grouper, what to use to fight the other male fish around, there is a danger of being torn up by a shark every night, if in the end you don't get a female fish, do you know that your sperm is fertilized her egg?
This seems to be a complete waste of energy that nature normally hates.
Gentil again at the right place at the right time.
His camera caught it.
The second act of a couple
In slow motion, everything becomes clear: Men who acquire the rights closest to women begin breeding with her.
He pressed his body on her as long as he could.
The other men were already with the couple;
There is no exclusivity here.
Dominant male hard
After four weeks of intense fighting, the prize was awarded only to become the first person to transmit genes.
The locals are right: it all happens before the full moon and dawn. On my 24-
Before spawning that year, I dive for hours and have time to appreciate the dawn, watching the dim blue light gradually penetrate from above into the dark depths, where I and the sleepy Pine
At that moment, I heard the whales singing, about a few miles away.
This reminds me of the bell of the church.
I don't know if you can get goose bumps under a thick wet suit, but it feels like me.
I don't know who the whales charge.
But I know we will be back in farkarawa on June.