Bliss. I think that's the best word to describe our feelings. Nature surprised us again, and made us fall in love with her more deeply.

We dived at 100 feet on the unexplored Western terrace of Kingman. This was our first day of exploration without data collection. From the boat we could see small light patches of sand. These were the only parts of the bottom that were not covered by live coral. As we were descending we saw what looked like clouds of colorful mosquitoes buzzing frantically over the reef. They were fusiliers: blue and yellow; purple, silver and black. Sharks joined the scene within a minute; a couple, five, ten, and finally 25. Red snappers, which always want to be part of the action, joined the sharks by the dozens. As far as we know, these fishes had never seen humans before. I guess they could be called naive fish.

We swam to the edge of the terrace, where the reef drops off almost vertically to the dark blue depths. We settled on that privileged balcony and watched the sharks circle us like spring swallows. They came closer while we held our breadth, and swam away at the first sight of our bubbles. We stayed there playing this game of Tom and Jerry for 15 minutes, then started to slowly swim to shallower depths.

The sharks, fusiliers, red snappers, and a total of 90 species of reef fishes-Ed and Alan cannot dive without conducting a fish census-followed us until we left the water. On our safety stop, a giant manta ray swam a few feet below us.

On the zodiac, there was nothing but smiles and sparkly eyes. We could not contain our happiness. There was no wind, the sea was smooth, and only a long swell reminded us we were in one of the most exposed places in the central Pacific.

On our way back to the Searcher, a dozen bottlenose dolphins joined us for the ride, while a couple of spinner dolphins did their best somersaults under the setting sun. I felt extremely fortunate.

Nobody can experience a pristine ecosystem and not feel the awe and wonder of nature. Experiencing Kingman is like resuscitating the little child we all still have inside. I only hope our scientific findings and photographs can reach many people. We need as many enthusiastic children as possible to help us save the few last gems left in our seas.

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