Pluck a starfish from the living ocean, and hold it like a rock in your hand; waves lap the boat and ripples blink at you in procession, but the starfish-- neither fish nor star-- is still and silent like the night sky. Return him and the ocean´s clear eye twinkles to you: a subtle reminder that, we too, once called the ocean home.
The sun broke up the grey sky just as we arrived for snorkeling, illuminating the cystal clear water and giving its inhabitants a graceful shimmer. And so of course the first fish you see, so obviously large and uncrowded between docks behind the restaurant, would be a barricuda. Honestly, the name evokes more than the image, because I would have called him a sturgeon or needlefish and jumped in right there for a closer look.
Thankfully, other passengers on the boat were suitably impressed to point him out before I made a meal of myself. Later, the barricuda would leave his sunning spot, the only piece of ocean in sight empty of fish, and come to the front of the dock where a school of some typical carib fish was ripping meat off a drowned crab. Staring intently through the magnifying snorkel mask, I heard children screaming above water on the restaurant platform. ¨Cuidado! Cuidado! Barricuda!¨
No fight or flight--a puzzled look towards the children then a long look underwater. Nothing. More screams, another puzzled look, step closer, look again under water: barricuda fills up your whole field of vision. Quietly panic so as not to embarass yourself and step behind another snorkeller. No need to get away, just get further away than someone else. The barricuda, apparently bored or untempted by gringo sushi, returns to his sunspot. Leaving us free to explore the reef, marvel at the brain coral, herd schools of fish, and pass under the shadowy docks unhindered, driven by a nervous curiosity.
Zissou would be proud.
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