Under the Surface

The cool, gray morning had unfolded itself into a golden day, and I was perched on the back of the catamaran, feeling rather trim, dapper, and expeditious in a smart navy one-piece with tiny white polka dots and a halter top. I had chosen to ignore the facts that my skin was surely scorching already, and that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I squinted joyfully across the surface of water so improbably turquoise that it was hard to recognize as part of the same Atlantic whose more northern tongues had lapped darkly at the rocky coasts of the northeastern U.S. and whose chilly bite had nipped my childhood toes. I had left one of my first bastions of real independence (a job! an apartment! a subway to ride! rent to pay!) to come to the Bahamas with my family on a beastly and overwrought cruise ship, the motion, colors, and over-the-top saccharine celebration of which had made me sick, but now, on a smaller, realer boat off the coast of Nassau, I did not need Dramamine for the first time in days.

The catamaran looked like a overinflated child's toy with its yellow paint job and safety nets as it cut through the bay to deeper waters, away from the American chain restaurants and resorts, the British offshore banks, the daiquiri stands, duty-free souvenir shops and tented flea markets, away from the imperialism that littered the shore. My younger sister sipped a juice box given to her by a winsome, grinning member of the crew, and my parents chatted with a knot of friendly, somewhat tipsy, Canadian teachers on vacation as we all buckled and tightened the straps of our slablike orange safety vests. Our guide, Ronald, stood facing us at the tip of the stern, explaining to my family (and the several other families I was trying to ignore) how to stay safe while snorkeling and how to ease our foreign bodies into the Caribbean. The he ignored his own advice, smiled a dazzlingly bright smile, and dove backward off the boat into the ocean. When he surfaced, wetsuit shining, and swam lithely back to us, he flipped himself onto the deck in one smooth motion. The catamaran shuddered to a halt, an anchor dropped, and Ronald helped the group of us ignorant visitors to slide into the ocean, giving us the equipment to believe, briefly, that we could breathe under water.

Ronald had told us the water was cold today, but to my bare arms and legs the sea felt like bathwater, only more refreshing. I flapped my borrowed rubber flippers and scooted my body through the water, away from the cluster of bobbing heads and chests entreating one another and their smaller children to "look at that!" I wanted to look by myself, without all the elbows and knees in the way. I fitted the plastic mouthpiece between my lips and gums and reminded myself not to breathe through my nose. I put my face below the surface, and everything was clear and blue in every direction.

Then suddenly, an entire world shimmered into focus and instantly to life. Fish swarmed and crisscrossed in impossibly choreographed rows and ranks, each type knowing who to follow, where to go. Different schools darted by of different sizes, leaving room between each other as they sped or floated in opposite directions, or the same way at different depths. Large orange-striped fish meshed with groups of tiny silver-blue ones as their caravans made an X and then slid through each other and apart. Where do fish have to go? I released air from my vest so I could submerge myself deeper. The only fish I'd seen before were either dead in a grocery case, trapped in an aquarium or fishbowl, or had been sad brown minnows, which everyone knows are barely fish at all. These fish were so bright, so fast, so effortless, so perfectly crafted for their environment. They were unafraid, but gave me wary and sarcastic glances with their tiny disk-like eyes as they dove, synchronized, deeper into the sea. I tried to dive after them, but I could only flap my flippers and sputter as water filled my snorkel. Snorkel -- what a word! So unlike the ocean.

I couldn't hear anything, just a blissful watery white-noise better than silence, punctuated by my own breathing, which was deep with wonder. It was so peaceful that I tried to think of ways to stay down here forever. I reached out my hand to see if I could touch a passing fish, just lightly: a large bright blue and red one with a roundish flat body, pursed lips, and many fins that trailed behind it. As I looked at it, a strange, pale, lumpy object entered my view. It took a moment of staring at this misshapen thing before I realized it was my own hand. How awful, how puffy, how clumsy and out of place it was! How out of place I was! I pulled my head out of the water, unsure how long I'd been under. My fingers had raisined at the tips, and the currents had pushed me even further from the group of other tourists. I swam back toward them and the catamaran, where I saw people hoisting themselves back up the ladder. I surfaced as I approached the outlying snorkelers (a flipper-kick to the shoulder by a swimming child had startled me), and one of the tanned American fathers called to me with concern, "Hey little girl, where's your family?" I was twenty, and didn't answer, and swam away.

On the catamaran, drying saltily in the wind and the sun, I traded sighting stories with my parents and sister.
Did you see the starfish? We found a baby turtle. Annie saw a seahorse!
We felt good, peaceful, high on a small sense of adventure. Back at the small dock between a market and a bar-and-grill, all of us disembarked. There were winks and smiles and flirts from Ronald and the rest of the crew as they helped us off, and tips were slipped discreetly into their hands. My family split apart from the other families, and went for lunch. My father asked a local woman working in the market where she'd gotten the styrofoam container of incredible-smelling food she was eating. She told us there was a McDonald's, but my father said no, we want what you have. Finally she smiled and gave us directions to a small storefront with a few formica tables and a bulletproof-glassed ordering window. We ordered plates of rice and peas, chicken curry, and red plastic baskets of fresh seafood. I ate conch, taken out of the blue water and out of its famous shell, fried and spiced.

It tasted like the ocean. It was delicious.