Surgeon fish secret to Tubbataha’s recovery

By a coral-coated wall at Tubbataha’s South Atoll, our dive team heaves against the current, resisting the urge to zoom off into open water—where hungry hammerheads await.

Having spent two hours counting fish, Tubbataha Marine Park Rangers Seconds Conales, Manny Bundal, Jeffrey David and I are trying to retrieve two 100-meter transect lines. Forming a pulsating cloud of colored confetti around us is an immense shoal of reef fish. Thousands strong, the mass moves as a single entity and seems to be having no trouble with the current.