The water is clear today, so I walk to Pandy beach with my prescription snorkel mask, which has turned out to be an excellent investment. At the water’s edge, I wet the mask then spit into it to prevent fogging. I pull the rubber straps over my head. It suctions to my face. My teeth hold the snorkel mouthpiece with jaw muscles slightly sore from yesterday’s snorkeling. I lean into the waves.
Facedown, I become aquatic. The cool water wraps around me. I inhale through the tube, adding buoyancy, and float like a starfish over rocks and coral. Along the coral, the first to greet me are dusky damselfish, small brown roundish fish as abundant as sparrows. Then I might see sergeant majors—another damselfish but light-colored, with five black vertical stripes and a splash of yellow across the back. Also common, but they look like they feel important.
A yellow-tailed parrotfish swims past me, longer and chunkier than the damselfish. Each of its scales is outlined, covering it with a prominent diamond pattern of warm browns. It wriggles into a crack between coral. Down below, I see a Northern ocean surgeon—a wide fish, smoothly pale, edged in blue with a black line curving up the cheek. I hold my breath and dive. A whitish fish with a horizontal yellow stripe hovers low near the sand. It flips two long barbels down from its chin and scrubbles in the sand for tiny invertebrates to eat, which is how I know it’s a yellow goatfish.
I surface, blowing out my snorkel, keeping my face underwater. There goes a small group of French grunts, fine yellow and blue stripes swirling across their sides. There is a bluehead wrasse, thin and decorated in colorblocks of blue, black-and-white, then green. There is a slippery dick wrasse, patterned in green and pink and two horizontal full-length stripes. There is a banded butterflyfish, a showy fish even just in its black-and-white stripes. Each fish rivets me. The rest of the island recedes.
We actually saw a lot of the island over the past week. Andrew’s parents and his sister’s family visited, bringing memories of Grenada with them. His parents lived here in the late 1970’s; it’s where Andrew was born. We rented cars and drove one day up the West coast to where they lived in Gouyave. Another day, we drove up the East coast to Sauteurs, where they returned for a summer when Andrew was nine years old. They held up the lens of their experiences as we explored, and we made new memories at Hog Island, St. George’s, Diamond Chocolate Factory, La Sagesse Beach, Belmont Estate, and Bathway Beach. Each place, a story layered on stories.
Right now, though, there is no other place but these crevices, this many-textured coral. I float here. My arms move gently. It is quiet. The fish go about their business. I do not ever need to surface.
To my delight, I spot a juvenile yellowtail damselfish wiggling close to the coral. Less than two inches, these babies are black covered in iridescent blue dots. It looks like they are lit from within—little Lite-Brite toys—because each spot glows. They are radiant. I watch until it ducks out of sight.
Another favorite swims by just before I turn for shore. From the top, I see a short horn protruding above each big eye. The fish would look stern if not for its pointy-face, smoochy lips. From head-on, this fish is a triangle. It is white, covered in the brown, reticulated pattern that gives it the name honeycomb cowfish. The wide-based body tapers into a skinny tail that fans at the end. It looks like it was designed by a committee. This honeycomb cowfish is just larger than a regulation American football, and a smaller one swims behind it. I follow until they seem to melt away into deeper water.
Then I raise my head. I look for the sea almond tree with a particular branch swooping to the side, and I swim towards it. If I align myself just beyond the tip of that branch, I have a clear path through rocks and coral. I watch underwater until I see the black sand rippling towards the beach, then I plant my feet. The waves push me onto the pebbled sand. Around my cheeks are creases from the snorkel mask. The snorkeling, the fish, the stories, and the people have all left lingering impressions.
