Spawning red snapper

Today we got up before dawn @ 5am to get ready to be on the dive site and be ready to go in the water just after sun rise. We hoped to see a quite rare occurrence of the red snapper fish spawning which they do a few days before full moon which creates the right tides and water flows so that the fish know the fertilised eggs will be distributed.
So after some hunting we entered the correct spot and found a small ball of fish which I thought was special.

Little did I know as we witnessed a parade line of snappers whisking their way along the seabed to join this developing group, like ants to a nest.

Within 20mins there were thousands and thousands of fish in a mighty moving mass and you could feel their energy and excitement.

The guide leading us to the point where eventually the males rubbing against the females burst out of the group to the surface and explode in a mass of eggs and sperm turning the whole area cloudy

Eventually out of bottom time, and then air we had to rise up and finish the dive.

My pictures don’t do it justice as the low light levels means the camera struggles.

A very special dive to witness something so spectacular in nature it was a privilege to be able to see it