Features
The Pearl Banks
by Rex I. De Silva
Ah what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends
All my dreams come back to me
H.W. Longfellow(The secret of the sea)
Since my early teens I have been fascinated by the jungle and the sea although I have never been able to decide which attracted me more. A few classmates and I would occasionally “escape” from school to dive on the sandstone reef off Colombo and spear spiny lobsters, which we would sell to raise ticket money for the latest cowboy movie. This grew into a lifelong passion, which led to my becoming a professional diver and ardent underwater naturalist.
Pearl banks by road
In April 1967 a company exporting chank shells assigned Rodney Jonklaas, the renowned diver, to visit the Pearl Banks and report on the feasibility of equipping the chank divers with modern self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA). At the time they used to free-dive, holding their breath. Rodney invited another professional diver Trevor Ferdinands and me to join him on a 10-day expedition.
The Pearl Banks lie off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka in the Gulf of Mannar. The reefs and banks are widely dispersed and in the limited time available we intended to explore only a few of those lying between Arippu in the north and Kudremalai Point in the south. The diving grounds are generally from 12 to 15 km off the coast and consist of several relatively flat reefs, banks and extensive sea-grass beds over which the sea is fairly shallow. The deepest areas are around 18-20 metres from the surface, but on average the sea is considerably shallower. A great pearl fishery was conducted several decades earlier. In its place a vigorous chank shell fishery had developed.
Chanks are large thick-shelled gastropod molluscs, which were very common on the Pearl Banks and adjacent areas. The shells were exported to India where they were used fora variety of purposes. When viewed ventrally with spire upwards, the aperture of a normal chank shell is on the right. On rare occasions a shell will be found with its aperture on the opposite side. Such a shell is referred to as a sinistral or “left- handed” chank, but is best known by its Tamil name, vallampuri. Being rare, such a shell is valuable and much sought after.
We travelled in Rodney’s Volkswagen van and passed through Negombo, Chilaw, Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Medawachchiya, Mankulam and Murunkan. From thence, we turned south-west to Silavatturai, and then south over a badly surfaced road to Kondaichchi and Marichchukkaddai. A few kilometres further on, we reached our base camp, which was on the sea-beach at Mullikulam by the northern bank of the Modaragam Aru (river), which at that time marked the northern boundary of the Wilpattu National Park.
Our journey had its ups and downs. We stopped at crystal-clear streams for “river baths” and snacks. The van broke down in an isolated area where, despite our ineptitude as mechanics, it was restarted.
Trevor was an expert diver and underwater hunter (spear-fisherman). It was said that he even thought like a fish! He was friendly and easy-going but inclined to be quiet. Rodney, in contrast, was an ebullient personality. A biology graduate of the University of Ceylon, he was a true renaissance man with a deep knowledge of a range of subjects. He was a pioneer diver, spear-fisherman, underwater photographer and an authority on Sri Lanka’s marine life. He was a raconteur par excellence, and his repertoire of jokes, limericks and “rugby songs” was almost as legendary as his diving prowess; hence travelling with him was always entertaining.
The camp
Our camp at Mullikulam was primitive. It consisted of four thatched (cadjan-roofed) huts on the beach, one of which was assigned to us. The others were occupied by the chank divers and boat crew. We had brought ample supplies of drinking water from Colombo, which was fortunate as it turned out. There was a well a hundred metres inland, but we only used it for bathing as, despite a protective wall, it was occupied by numerous frogs. Frogs were our constant companions. Tree-frogs lived in the thatched roof and walls of our hut. They had the unpleasant habit of jumping (or falling) on us while we were asleep. More disconcerting was the fact that when they leapt off they would often leave a smear of liquid on our bodies. We soon learnt to cover ourselves from head to toe.
The day’s catch of shell was spread out on the beach to rot. Chanks in various stages of decomposition gave rise to an all-pervading and overpowering stench, which we never got used to.
The divers
We would leave for the Pearl Banks at dawn and return late afternoon. The diesel-powered diving boat was large and seaworthy. Most of the divers were Muslims with a few Tamils. They were well-built, tough and hardy individuals. The camaraderie, which develops among those who do hard and dangerous work together, was very evident. We were told that a few Sinhalese dived as well, but that they had returned to their homes for the Sinhala New Year. The day’s proceedings began with one of the older members of the crew facing Mecca and leading prayers.
It took us a few hours to reach the diving grounds where the anchor was dropped and diving would begin in earnest. All the divers used face-masks, a device which did not exist during the old pearl fisheries. A few had swim fins as well, but the majority did without them. The diving ability of these men was exceptional. I watched one of the older divers, probably in his fifties, go down 15 metres and stay underwater for well over a minute.
The best of these divers was a young Tamil. He was broad-shouldered, curly-haired and burnt black by the fierce sun. His pleasant demeanour made him everyone’s favourite. Rodney nicknamed him “Horst” after a popular movie star of the era. There was no depth that Horst could not reach, and he could stay down a long time on a single breath of air.
One morning Horst discovered a large sting-ray weighing well over 50 kg. It was lying partly buried in the sand at a depth of 15 metres. Horst took with him a yotha (handline) and diving down, without disturbing the ray hooked it in a spiracle (an opening behind the eye). At this the ray came to life and there began a titanic struggle between man and fish. We moved in to help but Horst motioned us back, and after a strenuous battle, during which he had to avoid the six-inch serrated dagger-like poisonous sting on its tail, he wrestled the ray to the surface and into the boat. Both Trevor and I had to surface for air at least once before the battle ended, and we were only spectators; but Horst did it on a single lungful of air.
Once in the boat the dying ray, which was a female, aborted two translucent foetuses each smaller than my palm. Although we had each speared our share of fish during our diving careers, we shared a moment of sadness for the dying mother, but of course we were only witnessing the harsh law of nature, which is survival of the fittest.
We had brought several SCUBA units with us, but lacking a compressor, had no way of refilling the empty air cylinders. This was not a serious problem as we were all excellent free-divers and therefore saved our air-tanks for the deeper and longer dives. We also followed the unwritten divers’ code and never used SCUBA for spearfishing.
Pearl oysters are bivalve molluscs, only a very few of which form pearls. When an inclusion such as a grain of sand gets lodged between the mantle and shell, the oyster reacts by encapsulating the object with a nacreous coating, thus forming a pearl. We saw relatively few pearl oysters during our stay, but then we were not really looking for them.
We did observe that the large, grapefruit-sized Ramose Murex sea-shells bore exceptionally long and thick spines. I speculated that they could be a different species. Rodney as usual had a ready explanation. In other waters triggerfish feed off the spines but as the Pearl Banks harbour very few of these fish, the Murex are able to grow their spines unmolested.
Sea snakes
We saw several species of sea snakes all of which are venomous, although most are usually non-aggressive. Sea snakes are air-breathers and while many species are able to dive to considerable depths, they must return to the surface periodically for air. These snakes often got entangled in fishing nets and it amazed us to watch the local fishermen extricate them by hand, and then almost casually toss them back into the sea.
We saw several yellow-lipped sea kraits, a form which can survive on dry land, and beaked sea snakes. We also saw many individuals of Hydrophis, which are banded snakes with thick bodies and relatively small heads. Most interesting, though, was the small-headed sea snake which has a heavy body, long thin neck and tiny head; an adaptation for securing prey in small crevices in the reef. Once as we were surfacing from a dive, Rodney pointed towards our boat where a fairly large sea snake (probably a beaked sea snake) swam purposefully up to the anchor-line and struck at it repeatedly, then backtracked a short distance and repeated the performance. Even Rodney had no explanation for this strange behaviour.
Rare sightings
It was on one of the shallower banks that we saw a dugong. This is the marine mammal which supposedly gave rise among seamen to legends of mermaids. As Rodney aptly put it, one would have to be at sea for a very long time to mistake the harmless but unattractive dugong fora beautiful maiden. The dugong is herbivorous, feeding mainly on sea grasses and weeds. They have been hunted for their flesh to the point of extinction in Sri Lankan waters, although from time to time one hears of sightings. It is very doubtful that many dugongs remain in the Gulf of Mannar. Unfortunately we had a long way to go and I had to be satisfied with a view from the boat: I longed to join it in the water. This was the only dugong I ever saw.
One morning on our way to the diving grounds, we passed a large swordfish swimming slowly at the surface with its fins standing out of the water. The fish did not appear alarmed by our boat which passed quite close to it. The long bill or sword was visible in the clear water. I wished I could have viewed it underwater, but chank fishing took precedence over all else.
From the boat we once saw an amorphous dark mass in the water. As it was moving in our direction we dived in to determine its nature. It turned out to be an enormous shoal of golden jacks, each weighing five to 10 kg. We hung on the anchor-line and watched in amazement as the fish slowly passed by. This was the largest school of fish that any of us had seen. Even the chank divers were impressed by the sight and admitted that none of them had ever seen such a large school before. The fish took at least 15 minutes to pass us by, and stragglers continued to appear for sometime after. As might be imagined this gave material for much discussion over dinner.
(Excerpted from Jungle Journeys in
Sri Lanka: Experiences and encounters
compiled by CG Uragoda)
(to be continued next week)