Each torch makes a patch on the reef wall, so while it's hard to see the others, it's easy to tell where they are. The day shift of the reef is over. The great clouds of yellow black and white banner angelfish, brilliant blue fusiliers, yellow tangs and smart surgeonfish are gone. Some can be seen dozing in holes in the reef, the parrotfish surrounded by a transparent bubble of mucus which hides them from predators, the mouths gaping slightly to reveal little white teeth, fused together like bony gums. In a big hole, a huge Napoleon wrasse stirs slightly in its sleep, perhaps dreaming fishy dreams.
Some creatures work double shifts.
The turtles still doze on ledges, or flap lazily past, oblivious of us. An expressionless reptilian eye peers at me from a few centimetres away. Disturbingly, it has no pupil. The effect is slightly Mafioso, like curved mirror sunglasses. The lumphead wrasse are still there, large blue-green fish a metre or more long, with strange, deformed pinkish bumps on their heads.