F: An Ode to the Underwater World (Boring for Experienced Divers)

Snorkeling fulfilled a dream for me. I always wanted to see "the colorful fish". I didn't imagine this world of corals and fish to be so diverse! It was fantastic.

There are so many different corals! Some look like cacti, with tube-shaped or flat arms, and many forms of branching corals that resemble inverted tree roots. Lump-like corals with completely different surfaces, such as a thousand small funnels or a brain-like pattern. One snow-white coral looked like a spherical (giant) snowflake. But there are also those that sway like a net-like cabbage leaf with the waves, and those that consist of tiny hairs like a mold. A good portion of the colors is rather unimpressive, ranging from brownish to beige, greenish, and grayish. But all other colors are not sparse at all! Many are between light green and yellow, some shine in neon colors, snow white, or violet. I also saw brightly light blue, orange-rust red, and pinkish ones.

And then the fish! Not even a children's craft table could come up with a pattern that nature hasn't already thought of. It has everything! Yellow-white, black-white, light green-orange, longitudinally and transversely striped with differently colored fins, edges, and bellies, and in all imaginable shapes. In the evening, we always tried to count all the fish we saw - no chance! Simon's favorite fish is bright orange with a dark purple back, mine is very dark blue or black with bright shiny dots and a yellow fin. One has a blue head, a black-white striped chest, and a yellow hind part, another looks exactly like a zebra's skin, and yet another is greenish with regular dark dots. The surgeonfish shimmer blue in the light as if they were fluorescent. We saw trunkfish and others with equally unexplainably funny shapes or heads. I saw the rainbow fish, which apparently is called the parrotfish. We also discovered a large lobster, an eel, and a huge pufferfish.

I found it amazing how close the fish would come to you, and when a whole school swims past you or under you, you can't help but be amazed. It was especially incredible when we came across a school of sardines on a remote beach - thousands of silvery fish all around us!

It feels like a completely different world that someone forgot to tell me about!