I float in the warm, salty water of the Caribbean Sea. Above me, clear air, blue sky. Beneath me, clear water that appears blue at a distance. The cove is shallow, the bottom pale sand, dark rock, and coral. I recognize brain coral from my field guide, greenish and furrowed in cranial folds and wrinkles, but much bigger than I imagined, each one bigger than a hassock. The fan corals actually fan, back-and-forth with the action of the waves, not stiff like a paper fan, but in a smooth, sinuous fashion like the tail of a fish. The other corals, the branching in filamented ones, move with the water, too, and all this movement surprises me. Though I'd known coral to be a living creature, I expected it to be stiff and brittle, the way it is in museum cases, failing to recognize those frozen-in-time specimens are mere dead husks. The long black spines of urchins bloom among the coral like bundles of slender chopsticks, and flower-like shapes form bouquets, only I don't know enough to say if they're coral polyps or sea anemones.
I know so little about this undersea world that the fish that flash past in singles and pairs and threes and schools, strike me as mythological creatures brought to life. Of course I've seen tropical fish in nature programs and aquariums, but I don't think I truly believed in them until I plunged into the water and swam among them. It's not just their improbable colors in outrageous arrangements of stripes and spots that make them appear otherworldly; it's their nearness. I could, if I wanted, reach out and touch a passing fish. Even the more shy and wary ones hover a few yards away. No binoculars or zoom lenses needed.
Our guide, Juan, points to a crevice in the coral, and I see an electric blue fish sparkle with neon blue spots. Three fish shaped like an iron, white with wine-colored strips, fan past. Schools of pearly fish with blue and yellow markings congregate and disperse. Three enormous club-shaped fish with bulging eyes hover near the sandy bottom. A fish smaller than a grasshopper swims past. Small fish, big fish, fish in every imaginable, and unimaginable, color combination move about on their private, fishy business. I skull my hands, follow the contours of the reef--the swim fins are too bulky and cumbersome to bother with--and take it all in. The water is warm and buoyant; floating is effortless. I've never felt more at peace in my life.
I feel absolutely no fear, but I raise my head now and then to keep track of the location of the guide, our boat, and my companions and to clear water from my snorkel. One of these times I notice big black birds with long, knife-blade wings and long, scissored tails wheel in the sky. Magnificent frigatebirds, one of the birds I'd hoped to see when I came to the Caribbean. I float on my back and watch them until I remember I'm here to see the reef, and I roll back to the underwater world, overwhelmed with abundance.
A ripple of energy runs through the schools of pearly fish with blue and yellow markings, and I realize Juan, hanging from the back of one of the boats anchored in the cove, is feeding them, bits of chum shaken from a net bag. The fish whirl around him, grabbing at bits of food that rain down. I notice pink feet paddling an arm's length away, and I see a brown pelican plunge its enormous mouth-bag into the water. I don't know if it's going for the whole, live fish or for the fish bits, and I'm not sure how I feel having such a large maw grabbing indiscriminately for food so nearby; I tuck my hands well out of the way.
Three sting rays, the largest the size of a card table, the smallest a notebook, join the scrum, flapping along the bottom like living magic carpets, hoovering up the fallen fish food, flipping and turning with amazing agility. When the food runs out, the scrum disperses, and I turn my head to come face-to-face with a sea turtle. It's a small one, maybe the size of two snapping turtles, and it hovers in the water vertically, it's head up, its back legs down. Its black, shoe-button eye looks into mine, and I think I'm going to have a moment of connection, but the turtle turns and paddles away on short, flippery feet as some guy in red trunks chases it with his underwater camera.
Juan leads us back to the boat, gets out to warm up, and tells us we have a half hour to explore on our own. I paddle back toward the reef, noticing now that what look like rocks might once have been coral, and that where the coral does grow, chunks are broken off here and there, and that there's a greenish haze of algae over the whole thing. Maybe that's normal in a shallow reef. I don't know enough to know, but I do know it doesn't look as pristine as the reefs in nature programs. And though Juan told us to keep our feet up so we wouldn't hurt ourselves, he didn't mention not hurting the coral. The dude chasing the sea turtle was just one of dozens of obnoxious tourists who no doubt visit the reef every day. And some of the fish who were there only came because they were fed.
I skull along the edge of the reef, taking in the magical colors and shapes, the overwhelming feeling of peace, and wondering how I reconcile that one of the most peaceful, spectacular nature experiences of my life has also a somewhat contrived expedition to a diminished seascape.
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