View From Below
The last time we were at Steps Beach, we went snorkeling. This is the best snorkeling I’ve had on mainland Puerto Rico - the actual best on the island was on the atolls off the coast of Culebra. There is a great reef that breaks against the rocks that divide the beach form the ocean which makes for some great feeding for little creatures, and great viewing for us.
As I swam, I got caught in a school of fish, dozens of them. It felt like floating in Gold Schlauger, with these perfectly leaf-shaped animals bobbling into and around the waves. What I love best about snorkeling isn’t actually seeing underwater, it’s feeling underwater, sucking into the world, bobbling just like the fish do. As my little gold-spec fish shook with the currents, so did I. We created a counter-temps rhythm to each other, a bounce-push staccato that brushed us into and over and through each other. I love listening underwater, to the sound of water rushing through stones and crashing over rough chunks of coral, but especially, to the sound of parrot fish nibbling, chomping, on the pieces of coral, a sound like baby teeth biting on apples.
The world under the water is so stunning, so alien, that it is hard not to sermonize as I get to the next part: next to all the fish, the coral, the crashing of the waves, there were pieces of plastic cup stuck on the branches of the fan coral, there were beer cans, there was even a blanket of some kind. Trash. There is no way the people who put that trash there have ever looked under the water, they have never been caught up in a school of fish. People who have been rocked like that could never leave plastic cups.
I hope that you all have a chance to be the people under the water, before the people above it ruin it for all of us.
As I swam, I got caught in a school of fish, dozens of them. It felt like floating in Gold Schlauger, with these perfectly leaf-shaped animals bobbling into and around the waves. What I love best about snorkeling isn’t actually seeing underwater, it’s feeling underwater, sucking into the world, bobbling just like the fish do. As my little gold-spec fish shook with the currents, so did I. We created a counter-temps rhythm to each other, a bounce-push staccato that brushed us into and over and through each other. I love listening underwater, to the sound of water rushing through stones and crashing over rough chunks of coral, but especially, to the sound of parrot fish nibbling, chomping, on the pieces of coral, a sound like baby teeth biting on apples.
The world under the water is so stunning, so alien, that it is hard not to sermonize as I get to the next part: next to all the fish, the coral, the crashing of the waves, there were pieces of plastic cup stuck on the branches of the fan coral, there were beer cans, there was even a blanket of some kind. Trash. There is no way the people who put that trash there have ever looked under the water, they have never been caught up in a school of fish. People who have been rocked like that could never leave plastic cups.
I hope that you all have a chance to be the people under the water, before the people above it ruin it for all of us.