Carrie Bow Cay

When I read this excerpt in Waiting for Aphrodite, the imagery captivated me. The author, Sue Hubbell, has a yearning to learn more about sponges. One animal that has been easily mistaken as a plant. She visits one of the few spongolisist in the world, Klaus Ruetzler, who works at the Smithsonian. He is also director of the Smithsonian's Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program, which has a research station at Carrie Bow Cay, an island off the coast of Belize. She was extended the invitation to visit him there and describes one of their outings.

Photo: National Geographic

Klaus, tanned, dressed only in bathing trunks, looked incredibly fit for his sixty years. He proposed that we snorkel out to a nearby reef so I could see not only his kingdom by the sea but the one under it, too. I had never snorkeled and was an indifferent swimmer, but I strapped on my freshly acquired mask and flippers and plunged in behind him. He turned into a merman and rapidly disappeared from my view. Eventually I caught up with him, but I was out of breath from the effort. Klaus dove down into the passages among the corals, being careful not to touch or harm them, and pointed out the sights. I watched, aghast, as bubbles of air floated up from the end of his snorkel underwater. I was trying to keep the water out of mine and it above water. I am no mermaid.

This first effort and a more leisurely underwater visit to another reef a few days later made me realize that the world underwater is the most foreign place I have ever visited. I'd seen pictures, of course, but pictures are static. Nothing had quite prepared me for the animality of this world or so challenged my notion of landscape. The rocks are animals. The trees are animals. The flowers are animals. Animals, all waving tentacles, pulsing and swaying as water moves through and around them. The meadows are algae in forms as varied as any prairie meadow. Bright fish are the spring warblers, and even more avian are the rays, flapping like birds or prey. Everything was in motion, going about the business of living, and I was a timid, craven  stranger. Klaus, darting about, taking delight in all, looked suspiciously at home. He took pity on my ineptitude and offered me a supporting hand, but I was overcome, not tired. We swam back to land.