Whoops! I forgot to write about how Gerry and I rented snorkel stuff from Snorkel Bob’s in the afternoon of Day 4. We swam around and didn’t see much – just lots of rocks and coral – and I was glad not to see anything.
I have this childhood memory of swimming at a shallow cove in Maui. You could walk really far out and not be in deep water and then there was a sharp drop off into the ocean and I decided to walk out to the end of the cove and putting my face into the water to see if I could see fish. As soon as I dipped my head in I saw thousands of fish staring right back at me. I freaked out and tried to run back to the beach to safety but have you ever tried to run in waist deep water? *laugh* I never recovered from the trauma. 🙂
Snorkeling with fish was a fear I wanted to conquer so I headed out back into the water determined to not let the fish freak me out. Well suddenly a big black fish darted out from behind a rock and I BOOKED it back to the beach. So scared. *laugh*
I spent the rest of my time on the beach watching Gerry swim around.
When he came back he told me about the 15 different kinds of fish he had seen and I was so jealous that we decided to keep the snorkel gear another day. I was determined to get over my fear of fish and try again.
I understand your fear about the fish. I feel the same way, kind of, and that’s why I’d never want to scuba dive or snorkel in B.C. here, because our waters are so vast and dark and we have such creepy (and large) sea creatures here (and by that I mean creepy in the way that coming face to face with a huge octopus or sea lion might creep you out). But in places like Hawaii, it’s so bright there and the water is always so clear that you can see everything around and under you, so no surprises. And for the most part the fish are small and so beautiful-looking, it would be hard to be scared of them (at least for me). I got kind of creeped out only by the squid I saw on one of my last snorkels in the Caribbean, but that was because they were looking at me with their one big eye and not even moving – just simply all staying stagnant in the middle of the water together in formation. And looking at me.