“Really? How many times have you gotten yourself bitten or spiked on this trip so far?”
“Oh, so youdoremember the beach?” I sneer. “That’s funny, I could have sworn you had no idea who I was.”
“Stella,” he practically growls, and I feel something switch on south of my stomach that I immediately try and tamp down. “I told you, I was caught off guard. I already tried to apologize?—“
“Thatwas your apology?” I balk. “You need to go back to finishing school.”
For some reason, thisreallyraises his hackles.
“I’m sorry, princess. What would you have preferred? A signed letter?”
“Hi,” I mock humorlessly, my best attempt at a New Zealand accent sounding more like Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I’m Captain Caleb. I save tourists on the beach to make me feel better about myself and then completely ignore them when they’re no longer convenient. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“You could have told me you were on a yacht trip with your family,” he growls.
“Andyoucould have told me you were the captain! Save it, Caleb,” I interrupt him. “Let’s just agree not to throttle each other and call it a day. At least with a snorkel in our mouths, we won’t have to hear each other talk.”
The paddle over to the reef doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes, but Caleb makes sure it feels like a lifetime. I watch his fists clench harder across his paddle as I purposefully drag mine against the water so he has to work harder to move us forward. He darts a look back at me when he realizes what I’m doing and I just smile sweetly as I dip my hands deeper into the sea, spraying us both. The water’s turned from navy to sea-glass teal, and I can already see dozens of fish darting below us. Choosing a spot just off the shelf, Caleb instructs each of us to drop the small anchors off the front of our kayaks.
“Alright, everyone, rule number one today is to use the buddy system,” Caleb says. “Make sure you can see your partner at all times. Jim’s got eyes on us from the boat, so if you’re in trouble, just wave your hands.”
“What’s over there?” Steven asks, pointing to a rocky point at the west edge of the reef.
“I’d keep to the area between the rocks and the south edge, if I were you,” Caleb tells him. “Too deep to see anything past the point. Unless you want to do some free diving.”
“We’ll stick to the beginner section, I think,” Harry says, glancing at his marshmallow of a bride-to-be.
“Also, it’s very important that you don’t touch anything,” Caleb instructs. “Even your fins can damage the coral if you’re not careful. Anddon’tpick up any of the shells. Some of them are home to poisonous critters that will dart out and jab you.”
“What is this, Jurassic Park?” Matthew asks, disgusted.
Caleb looks right at me as he says, “Just don’t pick anything up and you’ll be fine.”
As far as I can tell, Caleb thinks that just because I didn’t go to prep school, I’m some wild, grubby banshee. I certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint him.
So before he can feed me any more condescending instructions, I pull my mask over my eyes and throw my flippered feet over the side of the kayak.
“Don’t try to keep up,” I quip before I plunge into the warm water.
Though I’m only a foot beneath the surface, I’m instantly transported to another world. The reef around me ripples with iridescent fish and colorful coral like a scene from Finding Nemo. I hold my breath and dive down to the bottom, where a school of green and purple parrotfish munch on algae like magical cattle. I can hear their beaked mouths scraping against the coral, the sounds amplified by the watery world around us. My hair undulates like sea grass as the gentle waves roll across the surface.
It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
A flash of skin cuts through my vision, and I watch as Caleb jets through a school of tiny yellow fish towards a steep drop into the blue. He disappears over the lip of the reef, his body slick and fast as a harbor seal, and emerges a few seconds later with a starfish in his hand that is so blue, I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen the color before. I smile at him beneath my snorkel mask, then remember who it is and turn back to the reef.
We stay down there for what feels like hours, completely lost in the magic of the underwater paradise. I even come face to face with a ray whose wingspan is wider than my arms. But closer to shore, I begin to notice that some of the coral is bone white: leached of the color that blooms through the rest of the reef. There are fewer fish here, and those that remain are small and plain colored. I signal to Caleb and pop my head above water.
“What’s up with the coral?” I ask over the gentle waves. “Is it dead?”
“It’s bleached,” he tells me. “Coral is colorful because of the algae that lives inside it. But when the water gets too warm, it loses its algae and turns white.”
“Does it come back?” I ask. Caleb shakes his head.
“Not usually. It’s due to climate change. Pollution, run-off, rising temperatures… We’ve lost almost 20% of the world’s coral in the last ten years.”
“That’s terrible,” I say, thinking of my conversation with Joanna at Cloud Nine. She said she worked at an ocean conservation center. I wonder if this is part of her work there.
“It’s a tragedy,” Caleb agrees, then pushes himself back towards the kayak.
