Snorkeling, for the uninitiated, can be an incredibly overwhelming experience. Setting aside the obvious and terrifying novelty of undersea creatures and the elaborate living structures in which they reside, the sense of floating aimlessly over an uncaring universe, breathing through your mouth while underwater, and the ever-present possibility of meeting sharks, there is also the eternal strangeness of moving in the vertical plane, like a picture of oneself projected on a screen. When I first did it, I nearly puked.
Nonetheless, here in what is arguably the best place in the world to snorkel, in the “triangle of corals”, it seemed like a risk worth taking to drag Kina along for the ride—literally, in this case, as our guide had procured a life ring to supplement her life vest and three attentive life humans, into which we plopped Kina for the journey of a lifetime.
Within four minutes, she was over it. For a while, I tried to calm her down, as we passed, weeping, over countless sea turtles and brilliant blue starfish. I perched her on top of the ring on her stomach—not good. I removed her mask—not enough. I held her hand—insufficient. Our guides propelled themselves dutifully through the reef, as Laurea and I took turns appreciating an absurdly vast forest of corals and comforting our daughter.
