Snorkeling With Jesus...

The islanders stood waiting on the dock, their ivory smiles gleaming in the morning sunlight.  Just behind them the mast of their boat waved randomly in the tropical breezes, the sails not yet raised.  Their catamaran looked old and experienced, its white hull wrinkled with cracking paint, but against the cerulean blue waters it stood proud and inviting.  A couple of seabirds flashed by us, squawking an aviary welcome to the sea.  We would sail today. 

My family of four had planned this trip long ago and to give my parents a taste of what our visits to this region were like, we had invited them to join us for a few days.  Thrilled to share this experience with them but a little apprehensive about whether they could handle the physical requirements of a sail and snorkel excursion, we had planned ahead.  For Christmas three months before we had given Nana and Papa presents to help them appreciate the trip and to prepare them for what was to come.  A couple of T-shirts, a bottle of rum, some sunglasses, a video, and a coffee table book about the Caribbean would help, we thought; but the main gifts were a complete snorkel set for each of them.  Fins, snorkel and mask would help them experience for their first time what I had first seen when I was thirty-six years old and took my family on a Bahamas excursion. 

Each of us had shouted with joy as we feasted our eyes on the peaceful underwater world for the first time.  The gentle currents of the clear sapphire water massaged our warm skin while we drifted serenely just below the surface, weightless in this aquatic jewel, like astronauts floating in a foreign universe. We were astounded by the unbelievable variety of colors. Fish darted among majestic stands of radiant coral.  Shades of red, orange and yellow coral glistened against the sugar white sand, surrounded by azure and cobalt water.  “Look, Dad!” the kids took turns mumbling, the snorkels in their little mouths muffling their glee.  We shared smiles and winks while pointing at every new friend we met, each taking its turn to swim out from a safe retreat and peek at us.  “Welcome, stranger!  Where have you been?  Come swim with us!” they seemed to say.  Fearless, we had confidently followed them where no man had gone before.  Or at least that’s how it felt.

Now it was Nana and Papa’s turn.  With their gear in their bags and some trepidation in their hearts, they boarded the boat, and our friendly crew set sail.  Reviewing our preparations as we neared our destination, my own anxiety began to swell like the waves rolling past us.  Our crew didn’t speak English. My mom had never learned to swim.  My dad was a cardiac patient.  What had seemed like a good idea at the time now felt like something our friends would be reading about in the newspaper tomorrow.   Headline: Tragedy Strikes American Family In Islands!  

Nana, we learned, had prepared for this day by once taking her snorkel set to the local YMCA where holding onto the edge of the pool she had put the snorkel on and practiced breathing and kicking.  Though none of us could say for sure we had actually ever seen Nana put her face in the water in over three decades of knowing her, this was a bit of reassurance.  First rule of snorkeling: Be sure to breathe.  Good.  And I reminded myself that saltwater is more buoyant so it is unlikely she would sink.

As I turned to Papa to help him with his gear, I discovered with horror that his snorkel set was still in its original packing, its price tag dangling from it like Minnie Pearl’s hat.  Ignoring the second rule of snorkeling, which is to always look cool, my dad, never the planner, began to break open his gift from three months ago.  Our crew babbled in Creole fervently, their dark faces lighting up at the sight of red Christmas ribbons, receipts, and a plastic WalMart bag strewn on the deck of their boat.

Exchanging concerned glances with Toni, I took charge.  Assigning Toni to Nana, I volunteered to escort Papa.  “Jenna and Will, you are on your own.”  They nodded, relief spreading across their faces as visions of being dragged into the abyss by their drowning grandparents vanished.  The natives anchored the boat and whispering something about “current”, which in English means “current”, they pointed in the direction of the reef.  Experienced snorkelers and strong swimmers, Jenna and Will leaped in.  “Dad, the current’s pretty strong here.” Jenna reported as they briskly drifted past the anchor line and toward the reef, then swimming back to us, drifted over the reef again, giggling and making funny poses as they glided by.

Toni and Nana entered next, using the ladder and without looking back began to explore the world below. Nana’s severe splashing and excited voice echoed across the Caribbean Sea as she discovered the beautiful world below us.  “I see a fish!”  “Way to go, Nana!” cheered the kids as they coasted by in tandem again and again, satisfied that she could see what they had been amazed by many years ago.

Papa’s turn.  As we struggled down the ladder I tried not to notice our Creole crew now assuming positions at the edge of the boat’s deck.  Each held a large orange lifesaver attached to a lifeline, while our captain clasped hands in prayer and gazed up to heaven.  “All hands on deck!” I am sure I understood him command, as we slid into the water.  I ignored the third rule of snorkeling, which is to never touch anything, and put my hand on my dad’s wet butt.  And pushed. 

The current immediately caught Dad’s billowing swimsuit and yellow lifejacket, driving him away from the rest of our family members and while they floated in peace and enjoyed each other’s accounts of what they had seen, I fought to push him back toward them.  His flailing arms and legs helpless against the sea’s wind and waves, my dog-paddling dad fought to work his never used fins and tried heroically to peer through his mask at the reef below.  “I can’t see anything” he complained, lifting his head to look at me.  His new mask, slightly askew on his face, was half full of seawater.  Or was it half empty?  And it was completely fogged, but the price tag was miraculously still attached.  Fixing his mask but now totally downstream, I abandoned all hope for him seeing any fish, and began to propel my out of breath and distressed dad back to the boat.  Vigorously kicking with my fins and both my hands now unabashedly on his butt, I managed to steer him back to the ladder and up to the safety of the deck, to the applause and relief of our chattering crew.

“Did you see anything?“ I asked, exhausted.

“I saw a bunch of fish!”  Will interrupted.

“It was beautiful! I saw schools of little fish!”  Nana gasped proudly.
 

And Papa answered, panting, like a fish out of water. “ I saw Jesus”.