Chapter 8
Urgency overtakes our small boat when Aaron starts instructing Miguel and Vanessa where to drop anchor. Suddenly, the three of them all seem to be yelling, while the rest of us stare at them, open-mouthed. They move in unison, calling out commands I don’t understand, and gently our boat lurches to a stop. Waves rock us gently up and down.
We stopped seeing other boats about a half-hour ago. Now I can barely make out specks on the horizon, it’s just us and the open ocean. Millie will be happy to hear they really do deliver on their promise and get to the most remote reef entry points possible. As soon as the anchor is dropped, Aaron plops happily back into his chair, and Vanessa starts rolling up the sails, barking at everyone to start preparing for our first dive. Miguel has given me a very comprehensive briefing on the equipment, and I’m feeling infinitely more confident than I did when we set sail.
I go below deck to change, which turns into a flexibility challenge, given how little room I have in our cabin to wrangle my clothes off and my suit on. Hugh’s stuff isn’t on a bunk bed yet, and I wonder if he decided he would get more rest sleeping under the stars. I pop on my bikini, which is a collection of simple black triangles that cover me up as much as a bikini can. I wonder if I should have brought a one-piece instead, but as soon as I see Pippa and Natalie my worry fades. Pippa’s in a flowery bikini with a stylish square neck and high-waisted bottoms. I make a mental note to ask her where she got it. She’s also sporting a cute straw hat. Natalie’s in a strappy one-piece that criss-crosses across her chest and around her waist, pulling her in and pushing her up in all the right places. I stare at her, wondering how on earth she managed to get that on in the tiny cabins we have to change in.
‘She’s like Harry Houdini,’ I imagine quipping to Millie. I’m desperately trying to remember everything that happens so that I can tell her when I return, even jotting some notes down in the journal she left with me, but I already know I’ll forget things. I can’t wait to tell her Hugh Harris was on the boat. I don’t know if she’ll be mad or manically happy – probably both, and probably dependent on whether or not I spot the butterfly wrasse.
Soon, the boys have changed into suits as well and, as much as I don’t want to admit it, Hugh’s forearm was a pretty good indicator of what the rest of him looks like. I try not to stare as he rubs sunscreen on his face. His abs ripple as he maintains his balance on the rocking boat. He’s strong. All over. Like a vegan who does an Iron Man every year. He’s sporting a deep tan, which I still find incredibly annoying. Why did I have to come to Australia’s summer during Ohio’s winter?
‘Sunscreen’s over here!’ Vanessa yells, pointing to a bag full of bottles of sunscreen she’s carried up to the captain’s room. Hugh looks up towards Vanessa and catches my eye. He looks at the bottle in my hand and smirks. I wince at the memory of trying to slather it over my shoulders myself. Thankfully, Pippa is nearby to help me cover my back.
‘I saw you talking to Miguel,’ she says, while she rubs on sunscreen. ‘He’s cute!’
I laugh. Pippa reminds me of Millie, always on the lookout for something fun to talk about.
‘He is cute,’ I admit. ‘But being nice is his job. And, anyways, I’m here for work,’ I say definitively, hoping if I say it enough times out loud, it’ll crystallise in my brain. The only thing I am here for is the butterfly wrasse.
Andrew asks Pippa for help before she can say anything else, and I take the opportunity to duck downstairs for a moment of peace.
I need to reset my focus before our first dive. I squeeze past the tiny kitchen and the table that is bolted to the floor. I make my way down the narrow hallway, almost bumping my head on the ceiling. Hugh’s bag is now resting on a lower mattress. It’s a sleek navy duffel bag. I resist the urge to peek inside it, and instead, grab for my phone.
I stare at the screen blankly, thinking about my sister. If she was here she would be making a joke, probably one at Derek’s expense, and her laughter would ease my nerves. I scroll through my camera roll to find a selfie she sent me right after she dropped me off at the airport. She’s giving the camera a thumbs-up, beaming. I try to channel her positive energy.
I open the book of notes she gave me quickly and review what she’s written down about Treasure Cove, our first dive sight. The last sighting of the butterfly wrasse was in 2017, on the west side of the reef.
‘Have fun!’ she’d written in big letters. ‘It’s your first dive! ENJOY IT. And don’t use up your oxygen too quickly, then they’ll know you’re a rookie ;)’
A sharp knock on the door startles me so much that I drop the notebook.
‘I’m busy,’ I call out, picking up the notebook and shoving it back into my backpack as fast as I can.
‘It’s me,’ Hugh says loudly. Then he coughs. ‘Hugh.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Come in,’ I say, crossing my arms across my chest. ‘I was just leaving.’
‘Great.’ Hugh sighs, stepping inside.
I turn to leave, but Hugh has blocked the exit. He’s bending over his duffel bag, clearly looking for something. A wave gently rocks the cabin and the muscles on his back tighten as he steadies himself. A pair of plaid boxers spill out as he searches for whatever he’s looking for and he stuffs them back in with such haste that I can’t help but smile. He keeps pulling out clothes and setting them on the bed. The room starts to fill with his smell as he unpacks, woodsy and grassy, and I take a deep whiff of it, relishing a chance to not smell saltwater, mildew, or sunscreen.
It’s the first time we’ve been in our room at the same time, and the standing room is so small that we’re practically touching. I shamelessly let my gaze linger on his butt, which I hate to admit is really nice. The temperature in the room feels like it’s risen five degrees in two minutes. Somehow, Hugh is blocking my way for the third time in the past hour. I’m totally stuck as I wait for him to finish whatever he’s doing, but I realise that I don’t really mind.
‘Don’t you have somewhere to be?’ he mumbles.
‘Well, I can’t really get by you, can I?’ I motion towards the door, which he has completely blocked with his body.
‘Aha!’ Hugh says, pulling out a small bottle of eye drops. He stands up, the crown of his head grazing the ceiling, and I watch his six-pack ripple.
I feel out of breath, even though all I’ve been doing is standing.
He runs a hand through his hair. ‘You said you had somewhere to be? Or, don’t tell me, I’m in your way again?’
There is nothing more annoying than someone who knows how good-looking they are. ‘Classic,’ I manage to murmur, glancing as his eye drops. ‘It must stink to need so many things to help you get used to being on the water.’
Hugh glares at me with venom. ‘Saltwater irritates my eyes.’
‘You irritate my eyes,’ I say, before pointedly scooting around him to leave the room.
I turn to see how my retort landed as I step out into the narrow hallway and catch Hugh’s eyes glued to my backside. He looks up and our eyes meet. Two can play this game , I think, before swaying my hips ever so slightly. Hugh’s eyes dart back to my waist. Electricity zaps through my body.
I turn and walk back down the hallway towards the steps upstairs. Halfway up the ladder, an ocean breeze ruffles my hair. I resolve to put Hugh, and his woodsy-smelling, strong-gluted, aquamarine-eyed body out of my mind. I’m here for one thing only.
When I come back on deck, Vanessa is handing out stinger suits, which we are wearing instead of wetsuits because the water is warm and there’s jellyfish. I’ve never been so thankful to squeeze myself into tight-fitting Lycra. I feel both protected from the sun and from comparison to Natalie and Pippa. Before I know it, they’re lining us up to assign buddies.
I realise too late that the couples are buddied up together and that means I’ll be left with Hugh. My eyes flicker to his face and, as if he could feel my gaze, his eyes immediately flick up, meeting mine. My stomach twists in what must be nerves. I don’t know how much longer I can pretend I don’t have a clue who he is, and buddying up for dives won’t help me do it.
Hugh’s mouth opens,- and I find myself terrified of what he’s about to say. Will he finally admit he knows who I am? Say he’s already going to be spending enough time with me in our room and he wants a different partner?
Thankfully, before he says anything, Miguel steps in and says, ‘I’ll take Millie for the first dive.’ I smile at him, and catch Pippa trying to hide her grin. Miguel offering to be my buddy leaves Hugh with Vanessa. Hugh’s mouth closes and falls back into a line. I feel so grateful to Miguel that I feel weak in the knees, which I try to convey to him in a s-mile, but I think I smile too big, because Miguel looks at me like I’m insane.
As soon as Miguel turns his gaze elsewhere, Pippa catches my eye and winks at me. ‘Oh stop,’ I whisper, elbowing her gently. Neither of us can stop grinning. We’re giddy with excitement, or nerves, I can’t tell which.
Miguel and Vanessa run through the equipment with the entire group, passing it out as they quickly refresh everyone’s memory. Everyone has their own buoyancy control device (BCD), which is a fancy, industrial grade life jacket, a weight belt, an oxygen tank, a regulator that you breathe in and out of, plus an emergency regulator in case the primary one breaks. We all have little computers that help measure how slow we need to ascend and descend, and gauges that tell us how much air we have.
I sit down at my assigned station. The crew has given us each a number and I have number six. Andrew on one side of me with number five and Hugh is on the other at station number seven. Hugh and Andrew slip their BCDs on easily, immediately starting to tug at their straps. Mine won’t unclip though, so I can’t get it on. Hugh raises his eyebrows at me but makes no move to help me out.
‘Ugh,’ I cry in frustration, after tugging at my buckle for the tenth time.
‘Here,’ Andrew says, leaning over, ‘want me to try?’
I nod.
He unclips it in one go.
‘Figures,’ I mutter.
Andrew laughs. ‘I’m sure you loosened it.’ He flashes me a smile that instantly puts me at ease.
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ He smiles at me before turning his attention back to his equipment.
After I notch a weight belt around my hips to help me achieve a neutral buoyancy in the water, Miguel and I check each other’s set-up, as buddies are supposed to do. Miguel’s movements are steady and confident as he runs through the checklist. We each have enough air in our tank – about 200 PSI. Our BCDs work, inflating and deflating through a little hose with a red button, which will sink us down underwater and provide a flotation device in case we need it. We’re sitting so close that for the first time, I notice that Miguel’s eyes are flecked with gold. A lock of hair falls forward, escaping from behind his ear, and he tucks it back with a flourish before confirming that our regulators work. We take a test breath, our inhales and exhales sounding like Darth Vader. We check each other’s clips to make sure we’re safely secured into our life vests, and then we’re ready to take the plunge into the water.
‘You got this.’ Miguel smiles at me encouragingly. ‘I’ll be next to you the whole time.’
‘Thanks.’ I meet his eyes, and they are so bright and full of confidence that I glance away, wondering if he’ll see right through me and realise just how anxious I am.
We are all clustered on the front of the boat with our gear assembled. I take a sideways glance at Hugh, who is buddy-checking Vanessa, taking his time checking every buckle on her life jacket. Suddenly, I’m itching to get in the water, to beat him into the waves. Miguel is helping Derek though, so I am forced to wait on the aluminium bench and watch Hugh and Vanessa step into the ocean. I don’t even want to know how happy Hugh is that he’s beating me into the water. I swear I see a triumphant smile peek out at me from beneath his mask before he takes the plunge.
Andrew elbows me in the side. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks me, beaming.
‘I’m excited,’ I respond, not wanting to acknowledge that my primary feeling is anxiety. I’m worried I’ll use up my air too fast, which Millie says is the number one way to spot a novice. And I’m worried I won’t find the fish.
‘Me too!’ Andrew hoots. ‘I cannot believe we get to do this – it’s going to be brilliant!’ He fist pumps the air and Pippa cackles.
‘You are so embarrassing,’ she says playfully, rolling her eyes.
But Andrew’s energy is infectious. I can already feel my nerves loosening a bit. ‘This is gonna be fun,’ I agree.
Once Miguel is ready, I walk up to the break in the railing where we’re supposed to take a giant step in. I hear Derek behind me walking Natalie through his camera set-up for the second time.
‘Always keep your eyes on me,’ Miguel instructs, ‘and remember what I taught you.’ He goes through the hand signals. ‘A fist over the head means OK. Use your fingers to communicate your PSI number so we know how much air you have left. And enter the water feet first, none of those flopping in backwards, head-first entries unless the water is completely calm.’
I nod and make the OK sign with my hand. Like I would try to backflip into the water with an oxygen tank strapped to my back. Feet first is good. Feet first is comfortable.
But as soon as I think it, I feel a twinge in my gut. Feet first is comfortable, but I don’t know if comfortable is what I want anymore. Maybe, I think, by the end of the trip I’ll have learned the head-first entry, the one with the backflip.
‘One hand on your mask, another on your regulator,’ Miguel instructs, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Now take a big step, feet first.’
I do as instructed and lift my foot, which is burdened by a massive flipper, up and off the edge of the boat. Slowly and all at once, I step into the water.
Boom. Water rushes into my ears and around my face. I breathe into my regulator, and even though I shouldn’t be, I’m surprised when it works, supplying oxygen even when I’m face down in the water. My BCD is inflated, so I pop right up to the surface and swim away from the side of the boat. I give Miguel the OK sign by bopping my head with my fist. Hugh and Vanessa are bobbing up and down a couple of feet away from me.
‘You good?’ he asks, his tone more perfunctory than caring. His regulator is out of his mouth, so I take mine out to respond.
‘Yep.’ I take a deep breath and plunge my face into the water. It’s mild, only a little cold, and crystal clear. I can see all the way to the sandy bottom. I can’t contain my excitement. I pop my head back up, grinning. Being in the water is ten times better than being confined to the boat. I take a minute to let my eyes skim over the top of the ocean, really letting it sink in that there is no one in sight, it is just our small group floating in the largest reef ecosystem in the world.
Hugh is beaming too. For the first time since I met him, he seems fully consumed by a true emotion. He’s not pivoting from sarcastic to sincere or from helpful to asinine, instead he’s full of pure joy.
It takes a minute for everyone else to jump in. Derek is last because he had to make sure his camera was set up correctly, and by the time he’s in, we’re all antsy to descend. We grab a mooring line, which stretches from a nearby buoy all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and deflate our BCDs. Slowly, we sink from the surface to the ocean floor, popping our ears along the way. We move hand over hand down the mooring line, and with each foot we descend, the ocean seems to get quieter. The only sound I can hear is my own breathing in my regulator. I’m in heaven.
Everyone takes their time adjusting their buoyancy. I have to inflate my BCD a little to counteract the weight belt, and soon I’m hovering about two feet off the ground. I kick my fins back and forth to keep myself steady. Andrew has a hard time figuring out his buoyancy and keeps floating up too fast, which prompts Vanessa to point at him and jerk her thumb downwards in a ‘get down here now’ manner. Andrew proceeds to sink and float like a yo-yo. I fight off laughter at Andrew’s blissful ignorance that Vanessa is extremely frustrated.
Thankfully, he seems to find the humour in his own difficulty, at one point throwing his hands over his head in a surrender gesture. Once Andrew is closer to the bottom, we start kicking towards the reef. Vanessa leads the way, and I stay near the back of the pack with Miguel. I’m grateful our swim towards the reef is gradual because I’m already so overwhelmed, I feel like I could cry.
The bottom of the ocean is pristine white sand littered with sea cucumbers. They look like giant slugs, but the closer I look, the more I realise they’re kind of pretty. Some have horns all over their sides, some are purple, some are green and some are spotted. We can see the reef looming in the distance. It’s massive. I’ve only scuba-dived in Florida and the scale of this reef compared to the Florida Keys is blowing my mind. It reaches from the ocean floor almost to the top of the water. It must be thirty feet high. I’m in awe.
When we reach it, we swim around the wall slowly. There’s coral everywhere. Mushroom, staghorn, bottlebrush and brain. Some of the staghorn coral is a brilliant, electric blue. I’m so overwhelmed by it that I pause to stare, and Miguel has to nudge me to keep up with the group. Vanessa shows everyone a type of coral that retracts its bright purple petals when she claps her hands in front of it. It looks like a magical underwater show made just for us, and I’m thrilled.
There are bright yellow, pale pink and neon shades of green. It feels like every surface is a different type of coral. My brain can’t make sense of the amount of texture it’s trying to take in – some corals are soft and spongy, some are spiked, some have sprouted circular orbs that dangle on the edge of what looks like tentacles. There are shelves of coral that look like interlocking spiderwebs. There are forests of coral whose branches look like dozens of trees. There are rolling fields of coral that look like swaying sea grass.
We swim over a giant clam that’s as long as my body. It’s cracked open, and I can see the water slowly pumping in and out of its purple membrane. We pass an anemone, and two orange-striped clownfish guard it. Miguel sticks his finger towards the anemone and one of the fish swims at Miguel with what looks like anger. I giggle, releasing bubbles that float up towards the surface.
We continue swimming in a giant circle. Derek is looking at everything through his camera, which I feel must take away from the experience. I see Hugh give Derek a couple of looks and wonder if he’s thinking the same thing. Andrew and Pippa are excitedly pointing things out to one another, their hands flailing in all directions as they take everything in.
We stop at another giant wall, comprised of all different types of corals, and everyone seems to find something different to focus on. For the first time, I force myself to look at the fish and the coral. I am overwhelmed in the best way. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this.
I pull out my camera and look for the butterfly wrasse, which frequent staghorn coral. I try to stay as motionless as possible, and I watch as fish dart around me. There are tiny butterfly fish that have yellow stripes down their backs and flit around so gracefully it seems like they are dancing. There are angelfish, swishing their broad dark blue bodies, cardinal fish and cod. I see my personal favourite – the humbug damselfish – which is black and white striped, half-heart shaped, and ridiculously cute. Plus, who doesn’t love a fish named humbug?
I don’t spot any butterfly wrasse. They’re distinguishable from other types of wrasse because of an extra fin they have on their underbelly, which helps levitate them just off the coral, so that they can feed off the coral’s mucus. They are purple, with a yellow stripe down their back. And Millie said they are small and fast. I try not to get in my head about not seeing one. After all, it’s only the first dive. And they might not even exist.
I manoeuvre myself in a circle to check out what the other divers are looking at, and as I turn around, I bump into Hugh. He has been hovering right behind me. He recovers his balance faster than I do. I make a mental note to tell him that he needs to stop getting in my way.
I move my hands in front of me frantically like I’m a bad synchronised swimmer until I regain my balance. If he was trailing me to spy on my diving quality, I’m not doing a good job of proving that I’m the marine biologist I say I am. I’m glad he can’t see me blush. Despite the chill in the water, I feel heat radiate through my body.
I swim by Miguel’s side as we slowly turn around, heading back towards the boat. On our way, we interrupt a school of blue tang surgeonfish (better known as Dory in Finding Nemo ). They flash their fins in a vivid cloud of bright blue and yellow. I notice that Hugh’s regulator isn’t spouting bubbles anymore and I wonder if he’s holding his breath too. There is an incredible magic to the ocean. I’m not ready for this dive to be over. It seems like everyone feels the same way because we’re swimming back slowly, drinking in every coral we pass and every flutter of fin that passes us.
I don’t see a butterfly wrasse, but the dive doesn’t feel like a loss. I’m proud of myself for how many fish species I recognised and how much I remembered about the different types of coral. Maybe everyone will believe I’m a marine biologist after all. Maybe Millie was right, this will be more fun than India. I grab onto the mooring line and deflate my jacket in preparation for the slow ascent. The last thing I want to do is leave the water.