In.   Out.   In.   Out.
Breathe.
Through your mouth,
Not your nose,
Practise the pattern.

Put on your flippers,
Your mask and your life vest.
Climb down the ladder
Or jump off the edge
To the cold and unknown depths.

“Don’t be frightened of the statues,”
The crew warns from their safety on board.
“They were dumped here by an artist
After a hurricane ruined the reef.”
Old metal statues now homes to little fish.

“I see a turtle!”
Someone screams from my left.
“Hold my hand?” I ask my best friend.
We glide our way over, our bodies bobbing
up down up down up down in the sea

It was smaller than I expected
The turtle beneath me
My friend and I move on.
I tug on my friends hand,
at the sight of a tiny squid.

It’s slinking itself through the water
We observe as it
Bobs up down up down up.
It’s clear, little body makes it hard to find,
Only visible when this sun makes it glisten.

The statues we were warned of
Come into view:
A circle of children holding hands,
A figure at a desk with a typewriter,
A man on a bicycle.
Aquatic life darts in out in out between the statues.

Making our way back to the caravan,
I don’t feel so frightened anymore.
I take my final glances around the
foreign world beneath me,
Doing my best to not disrupt and simply          float.