The sun-darkened, roughly shaven man approached us followed by the blond, curly-haired behemoth, both grinning widely and clothed in slick, black wetsuits. We sat on the bench aligned with the oxygen tanks behind us. Our scuba instructors deftly strapped them to our backs and handed over our face masks as we struggled into our rubbery, squeaky flippers. The group of us waddled down to the water's edge and, making sure that our 'Darth Vader' ventilators were firmly between our teeth, the instructors slapped us on the back and pushed us into the water. The world of sky and sun and limits disappeared as I was dragged beneath the water's surface by the shaggy-haired Aussie. Metre by metre we descended into the world below. Arms linked with our instructors we kicked forward gently and before us in the murky water, appeared a giant sea turtle, knarly-shelled and rough-skinned, but graceful as he meandered across our path. We shifted to face down and looked upon partially beached reef. We kicked forward and the reef in front of us seemed to spring into life with unknown creatures of the deep. One of our instructors pointed at the sandy bottom. Barely visible, we saw the gray stingray shake the sand from her back and glide smoothly away, gently ruffling her wings in the current. We knelt on the bottom and our roughtly-cut guide reached out and plucked a large marble off the reef. He magicked the black and grey sphere from one hand to another before passing it off to us. He pointed down. Beneath the reef lounged a small, brown sand shark the length of a door. It stared languidly back at us as if we were no more important than the fish gunk surely left in his teeth by his latest meal.
The blond, dude-like bloke tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to follow. I let go of the others for the first time and felt a vast sense of loss. I was no longer grounded by the weight of other people. For the first time, I was swimming very much alone. Letting the ever-present vastness of the ocean fill be, I blinked a couple times and then, with a great kick, went in pursuit of my new guide. He waved me on with a 'Rock On' sign and reached into the reef, gently tugging at the orange and yellow anemones' bulbous tentacle-like fingers. My had followed. Intrigued by the slimy bubblesque consistency of the plant leaves, I looked closer. Blondie reached behind me and pushed me down by my pack and as the tentacles of the anemone swayed in the current, centemetres from my nose, the tiniest of all clown fish peered out at me like a shy child peering from behind their mother's knee. I felt a tug from behind as the gentle giant pulled me up from behind and we drifted away from the anemone. We kicked along further and I looked up from the bright and cheerful colours of the reef in time to see a roughly-hewn grey rock open its eyes and swim lazily past. Again, I felt tugging at my straps as my instructor pulled be back into the reef. This time, it was covered in marble-sized fluff balls of pink, blue, and purple hue. He reached his hand out toward one of the poufs and in an instant, it disappeared into tiny hole as if the lightly feathered peas had never existed. I reached out all five fingers and an entire section disappeared.
We puttered along touching bits of the reef as we went and slowly allowed ourselves to drift upwards. As the reef began to disappear from view we were met by serving platter-sized flat fish with brightly-coloured scales and tiny beady eyes. As we floated higher through the fish, the water began to rock and shake. We burst through the filmy surface and the silence of the deep dissipated. The crash of waves against the boat and the yelling of people returned. The peace was gone.
