Swimming with the Fishes

I had been snorkeling many years ago.  We were staying at a Bed and Breakfast in Hawaii, and while Clif had to go to work meetings all day, I got to play.  Another couple at the B&B offered to take me snorkeling with them and I had a wonderful time swimming a short ways out from the shore and seeing giant sea turtles and colorful fish.

So when Bethany suggested that we go snorkeling with her friend Katy for my last full day in Guadeloupe, I was excited to re-create the experience.  But much had changed for me in the last 16-or-so years since I last swam with the fishes.  I have developed a fear of heights, especially when there isn't solid ground under my feet.  This particular excursion started in a glass-bottom boat.  They took us over to the Jacques Cousteau Reserve on Pigeon Island and let us sit on benches while we looked through glass windows at the sea life and divers below us.  It was magical.  But I also began to get that queasy feeling in my stomach from looking down.  There was a moment of panic - maybe I should go back to the upper deck, maybe I should close my eyes, maybe I shouldn't have come (and paid good money) for this experience.  My competing emotions were utter joy at the hidden world I was seeing for the first time and sheer panic.  I decided to let joy win.  It was a quick pep talk, "You traveled all this way...you'll likely never be here again...who knows if you'll ever get an experience like this again...you already paid for it, so enjoy it..."  What helped most is hearing Bethany beside me on the bench, full of her own delight at the underwater beauty.

But then the boat stopped and it was time for us to get out (if we wanted) and go snorkeling.  I remembered that it took a while to get the hang of breathing through your mouth when you snorkel.  When you first put the mask on, you can panic that you can't breathe through your nose.  It takes some coordination and mind-over-matter to breathe exclusively through your mouth.  My particular mask needed some adjustment but I didn't realize it until I was in the water.  And here's the thing - I'm a decent swimmer who can handle being in deep water.  But I'm usually in swimming-pool-deep water, with shallow water very nearby.  It is a different thing altogether to be in VERY deep water and realize that I don't have a flotation device.  So I'm trying to tread water and adjust my mask and the panic returns, "What are you doing?  You can't concentrate on two things at once!"  I had to get back on the boat to adjust my mask correctly. And by that time I was starting to think, "I've already seen what's under there through the glass bottom on the boat.  In fact, I could go back down to the glass bottom right now and just look at everything and everyone else snorkeling."  You know what convinced me in the end?  I had ordered a special prescription lens snorkel mask for this trip so I could actually see the fish without my glasses.  I had paid good money and carried that mask all the way to Guadeloupe and the next day I would be returning home.  If I was ever going to use this special mask, today might be the only day.

So I put it back on and jumped off the boat.  I stuck my face in the water and saw beautiful things, wonderful things.  They weren't distorted by the glass on the boat.  They were clear and right in front of me.  It took a few minutes to find my rhythm - breathe through my mouth, tread and float and try not to run into another person, look around, and relax.  Eventually I found it, that place of peace and delight.  My heart was so full of the wonder of God's creation.  So many things to see that I had never seen before!  At one point, a whole school of large blue and yellow fish swam right in front of me.  I could have touched them. I laughed out loud, which is kind of hard to do with a breathing tube in your mouth.  After they passed by, I lifted my head out of the water and I heard another person laughing, too.  My daughter Bethany was just a few feet way and was laughing at the same school of fish.

There were still some moments of panic if I got too far away from the boat.  But I calmed myself and started swimming in that direction.  After the 30 minutes of snorkeling, we got back on the boat and celebrated with rum punch.

I came really close to missing it, to allowing myself to miss it.  I almost talked myself out of that once-in-a-lifetime experience.  I almost let fear of the unknown ruin what was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  So I really felt like celebrating with that rum punch!

But I also wondered, what other things have I missed because I let fear win?  What else might I have seen and done if I'd just "jumped off the boat"?  I'm glad that this was one time I let joy win.