A flash of movement across my viewfinder caused me to raise my head and look about.

What I saw caused a prickle of gooseflesh to run down my neck, across my back and down my arms. The hair on the base of my skull tingled erect. A pair of trevally shot past; a brief smear of blue- and yellow-tinged speed. But beyond them, perhaps ten metres (thirty feet) away, a cloud of sea snakes was coming straight at me. I was in the middle of a pack hunt; the ocean transformed from stillness to a maelstrom of seething activity.

The snakes were advancing as a wall, probing into every nook and cranny of the reef, leaving no sanctuary for the myriad small reef fish that hide there. Flushed into the open water, the hapless fish were snatched up by the wolf pack of trevally, snapper, grouper and jack that whirled now like a cyclone though my vision. The snakes were too many to avoid. They swam between my arms and legs, coiled over my neck and head and probed the button-dotted surface of my camera housing. I could taste my adrenalin, hot and iron-like in my mouth.

I found myself holding my breath, wary that my bubbles might cause something to lash out and bite instinctively in the excitement.