The Man Who Dives 17 Metres Every Day to Visit a Fish Who Waits for Him

For thirty years, an old man has lowered himself into the cold water off Tateyama Bay, sunk to the seabed, knocked twice on a piece of metal — and waited. And every single time, the same fish swims out of the blue to meet him.

His name is Hiroyuki Arakawa. He's 79 now, and he's spent most of his life underwater. His job is a strange and beautiful one: he is the caretaker of a Shinto shrine that sits on the ocean floor — a torii gate standing about 17 metres beneath the surface, one of the only shrines of its kind in the world.

Three decades ago, while the shrine gate was still being built, he noticed something lying near it. An Asian sheepshead wrasse — a large fish with a strange, bulbous head — rested by the gate. She was injured. She had stopped eating and couldn't catch her own food. Most people would have swum past. Arakawa didn't. He didn't know it yet, but he had just met the friend of his life.

He fed her by hand. Crabs, every day, for about ten days, until she was strong again. He named her Yoriko. And she never left.

Now she knows him. She comes at the sound of his knock. He holds her. He kisses her on the head — and he says he's the only person she will ever allow to do it. She nips at him in between, then settles into his hands like she belongs there.

Here's the part that stops people short: this isn't sentiment or imagination. Research from Oxford has shown that fish can recognise individual human faces — which makes what Arakawa describes a little less impossible than it sounds.

And when he's asked to explain the bond, he doesn't reach for anything grand. He says they understand each other. Not that they talk. It just happened, naturally, over the years. He believes she remembers what he did — that she knows he saved her when she was hurt and helpless.

Thirty years. Two knocks on metal. One fish who still comes.

They just understand each other.