Snorkeling in the Keys

Rachelle Robinson
Narrative

As the boat comes to a stop, I sit up to look around. There is nothing but the blue ocean surrounding me. I stand up and slowly unwrap my blue and white towel from around me. It was protecting my sunburn that makes me look like a lobster after it’s been over cooked. It seemed like I’d been in the sun for ages, just sitting and making myself a victim of skin cancer by the minute. We just got to the Keys but it feels like we have been here forever. The hot sun beats down on my face, and I grab my snorkel and goggles and start to put them on. A slight breeze blows past me, making the salty smell stronger than before. I grab a pair of flippers and put them on, they make my feet look outrageously huge, like a duck’s. I hear the small ocean waves softly hitting up against the edge of the boat, like a faint clapping when the audience has gotten bored. I put my hair back into a ponytail and follow my mom into the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean. The water is warm, like old bath water, feeling nothing like the icy cold water in New Hampshire.

I plunge into the water and start swimming. I don’t move much; I just kind of let the waves carry my sun fried body off into no where, like a toy boat in a stream after it’s been raining. The ocean floor is covered in vibrant colored coral, and the fish are all the colors of the rainbow, their scales sparkling in the rain and reflecting off the sun. It doesn’t seem real, how could anything possibly be this beautiful? It’s like a fairy tale that I dreamed about as a young kid. As I swim further and further out into the ocean I can see more and more fish. I take a deep breath and dive down to the bottom of the white, sandy ocean floor and swim around. I come face to face with two black and yellow angelfish. They are perhaps the most beautiful things I have ever seen. They are spotted yellow, like two Dalmatian puppies that were born with the wrong colors. I move my hand and they quickly swim away as if they don’t want to be caught and are playing a game of tag, or hide and go seek. Struggling for air, I quickly swim back up to the surface. As I go, I can see the sun shining down on me through the clear blue water, looking like a sea full of diamonds, only I wasn’t looking down at them, I was stuck lying under them. I finally reach the surface and fill my lungs with the sea salty air that you can’t smell in Vermont, and I am grateful for every breath of it.

I look around and see the large white boat with the words, Key West’s Best Snorkeling and Scuba Diving, painted in navy blue across the side. I start to swim back to the boat, feeling happier than I’d felt all vacation. I slowly pull myself back up onto the boat and take off my snorkeling gear. I watch as other happy swimmers get on the boat, laughing and talking in amazement about what they had seen, and bragging about how far out they went. I sit back down in the same seat I was in when I got on the boat, and wrap my nice dry towel around my cold, wet body. I sit and wait for my parents and brothers, looking out at the ocean. The whole time thinking about all of the little sea creatures that live in this gigantic fish bowl. With the sun warming me and the boat rocking like a baby’s cradle, I soon drift off into a light sleep. The waves hitting up against the boat are a lullaby, slowly taking me away and the slight breeze blowing in my ear makes me wish I could stay in this one spot, in this one fairy tale land forever.