I am startled! It happens every time I put my face in the water, with face mask and snorkel tube. I’m only knee deep or a little more, and the scene is so bright and intimate! No longer hidden by reflection, it’s a scene from a child’s fantasy. The yellows are so yellow, the blues so blue. A damselfish appears, stars gleaming from its sides. I push off gently, keeping my fins quiet. A blue tang sails past. At the base of a big brain coral just by our place, a squirrelfish peeks out. One must navigate between the brain and a spreading elkhorn coral, its tips so sharp and bright they look like they’ve grown overnight.
Virtually every portion of the shoreline of Cayman Brac is like this. Find a place to get in, and the scene opens up for your delectation.
Striking off to the big gorgonian now, where fishes like to play. Glance around — where’s my buddy? Bob my head above the surface. Yes, there’s a fin above the surface as my dive partner goes underwater. We never drift out of each other’s sight. It’s one of our simple safety rules, along with snorkeling into the current, if any, and saving a bit of breath and energy in case we need it for an emergency.
Propelling myself to deeper water I seek the Mountainous Star Coral. It rises from the bottom in fifty feet of water. Will hover above it for a few moments, gathering air and calming my body, then duck-dive to let my legs drive me under and, fin-powered, take a look around. Here, a trumpet fish hangs diagonally in the water column. There, an orange filefish and there too, my buddy dives past waving gaily. I roll to face upwards. There’s the mirrored surface high above. A lazy kick starts my ascent, which speeds up as my lungs expand.
Is this the best snorkeling in the world? Read on … right to the end.

My Coral Garden
In northwest coral gardens Of blue-striped grunt and snapper I look for one called stoplight For nurse shark sleeping quietly A ball of fry we come upon They move apart and in my heart	we frolic with the school and squab of many hue and peer in every cranny to show my Brit companion she dives completely through it she’s partly fish and proved it

In Montserrat, I once dove quite deep. The sand was black, the water clear and the small boat anchor lines were taut with high tide. So I’d be able to measure my depth along the rope when surfacing.
But it was nice down there. No buoyancy at all! I scarcely wanted to leave. I’m not at all suicidal but this was like the blue silence of the depths. I decided to return to the surface, and gave a lazy flip. But I was in no rush.

Fairy Hill, Jamaica
In dreams of times-that-have-been I see Two giant mantas soaring, winging Across my path I brake by hands And stare, and flip by practiced finning
And U-turn back still under to cross Again the under-lip of cave And rise and surface there and catch My breath, my sense and save
This mem-ory and ponder still “Development” at Fairy Hill Hotels on every strand and Cay Throughout the once- wild Caribbee

NB: In my memory’s eye these great fish were huge. Looking them up
today I find that one can weigh 3000 pounds. My sedan weights 2000.

In the Solomon Sea
Two decades later I’m informed Humpback Dolphin is the term For the pod I was adopted by If only briefly on the fly
One was a show-off, or why else Did Big Guy upend himself Vertically, bumping coral head With his own, or was he led to
Dislodge some creature As his menu feature?

Dispela taim long Islan’ Kiriwina, mi ibin hamamas moa. Olsem wanem mi yet, mi bihainem sampela tripela pis oli call ’em Dolphin, long nambis ples long Trobrian’ Islan. Orait, na sem taim mitupela Etna i’save “snorkel long hia, na dispela sinting oli kamap, tasol Etna i’ lusim wara na ranaway liklik. Emi porait liklik but mi, nogat.

And this is the same place where, at low tide, two small children gathering sea lettuce shyly offered us a handful, a memory we will savor forever, like humpback dolphins joining me as I snorkeled in the Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea.

Hmm … why are seashells a bit rare here?
We dredged out all the seashells And canalized for boats Depauperate of seashells now O’er empty sand we float
In other seas I searched for shells And found a great abundance Hundreds of species, thousands of shells In numbers like redundance
My fins spun me ’round coral heads For tritons, zebras, augers Donax on the littoral Tulipa and vases
Milk conch, Rooster tail, Fighting, Prickly cockles too “Man-eating” in the Trobriands And boxes as for jewels
Tulips, helmets, turkey wings Cones, pretty purpuras Tellins, cones, purple shells Performance bravura!
At bottom, all a person has is his integrity And all a country has is its environment

It’s difficult to think of the greatest snorkeling experience here on Cayman Brac. From shore and from boats, in “X” Coral Gardens, a somewhat secret place, where we usually see schools of fish and when lucky see nurse and other sharks.
And other places on the Brac: a daytime view of a clinging crab called a king crab; a huge Permit, was he just overgrown or what; some looming tarpon; diving the wreck of the Prince Frederick, a 19th century wreck and legitimate part of our history — many happy experiences and perhaps the best lie in the future!

MAYBE THE HYPE IS TRUE! PERHAPS CAYMAN BRAC IS REALLY THE BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO SNORKEL
(overall)

You don’t need to be Crocodile Dundee to snorkel here. You don’t need ten thousand bucks or 20 hours of flying. No need for an armed escort, nor an armed guard for your car parked on the road by the sea.
You’re not likely to be hit by a box jellyfish. Sea itch maybe (seasonally) and don’t step on a sea urchin. The food and water are safe and the accountant at your resort is honest.

FOR ME of course it’s the best. I’m 71 and can roll out of bed and snorkel. I’ve done other stuff before — swum the hulks of WW2 landing craft in the south seas. Now I can just snorkel to my heart’s content, like this time, listen:

Teaching a new snorkeler to snorkel-dive

The initial duck-dive is the hard part The so-attentive onlooker (a snorkeler but not a snorkel-diver) Gets so involved that after snorkeling for 40 years

SHE SNORKEL-DIVES FOR THE FIRST TIME And the three of us gambol in the clear water And soft waves watching finny friends below And diving conch and putting them back

Right side up We watch our skin go bronze in the low sun And never want to come ashore Only hunger drives us in

And in this regard (overall experience) Cayman Brac may well be the best place to snorkel in the world!

jwp
20110611