Swimming with the fishes

We visited Folkstone today, the public park on the west side of the island that rents snorkeling gear and has quiet waters. Our first swim out, I saw four fish and they weren’t very exciting. We walked down the beach a bit and tried a different spot. No luck. Then our third time out, we hit the jackpot. So many fish, so many colors, so many shapes and sizes. I went out twice more, resting and warming up in between swims. Once, a big wave knocked me around and I scraped both shins and a knee on the coral. Both Linda and I were bleeding upon our return to the beach but now, back in the apartment, they are minor.

A couple of my favorite were the (these are my made up names) “matchy matchy” fish, who look just like the Caribbean; turquoise and blue. The fish that I would call periwinkle in color. They seemed fearless, swimming within arms reach of me, sometimes coming at me head on, almost playing chicken. The fish I started to think of as the fashionista of the sea; bug gut green head with a pink edged body filled in with a white polka dot pattern. The fish that looked all black (and sometimes had a yellow tail) also had iridescent purple dots on its body when the light was just right. And near the shore thousands of almost clear fish swimming in a school as far as I could see both directions.

What a world there is just beneath the surface! If this is what swimming could be like, I would swim all the time.

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