Page 67 of Head First
The group gets ready in record time.
‘This will be our longest dive,’ Vanessa announces. We all smile at each other, giddy with the prospect of the best dive of the trip. Nobody acknowledges that it’s also our last.
Derek is lugging around his camera again. Andrew is practically shaking with excitement. Miguel is keeping his distance from Hugh, who managed to rouse himself from sleep and put on his stinger suit in time for Vanessa’s briefing about the reef. When he climbed onto deck, Aaron clapped him on the back, congratulating him for ‘sticking out a rough go last night’.
Pippa had glued herself to my side as soon as she woke up, waiting until we were drinking coffee alone on the deck to ask me if I had told Hugh.
‘Did you see him last night?’ I asked her. ‘How was I supposed to tell him that while he was half delirious?’
‘I didn’t know if you told him when you two were off on your own!’ she retorted.
‘We were . . . busy.’
‘Ooo!’ Pippa hooted. ‘I want all of those details. And tell him today! Then invite him on the waterfall tour with us. It’ll be so fun. But I don’t want any drama.’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal.’
Hugh and I sit down to strap in and perform our buddy checks next to Andrew and Pippa, who are chatting excitedly about the last items on their list they want to see – Andrew wants to see a glow worm, and Pippa wants to see an octopus since she missed one on our night dive.
We strap into our BCDs and perform our buddy checks. Yesterday feels like a lifetime ago, but every time Hugh touches me, I feel like I’m back in that moment, our lips inches apart, his breath tickling my cheeks. We make eye contact. His eyes are a peaceful blue today, a mix between aqua and the turquoise of the sky, like the deeper parts of the ocean.
‘You guys seem like you’re getting excited,’ Pippa says innocently. I can hear her trying to hide the laughter in her voice.
‘Yep,’ I say, casting my eyes down at the floor of the boat and trying to hide the flush in my cheeks.
‘Millie’s gonna find that fish she’s been looking for,’ Pippa says, ‘I can feel it.’
I groan.
When we hit the railing for our last entry, Hugh slips in backwards. I take a deep breath, staring at the ocean waves roiling beneath the boat, and follow, entering the same way Hugh did, head first.
My nerves only grow as we begin our descent. We go hand-over-hand down the mooring line and congregate at the bottom. There is a buzz of energy around our group this morning. A school of sweetlips fish lazily swim by us. Their mouths and tails are bright yellow, their bodies black and white striped. They are striking, and we all stop to stare. Vanessa taps her carabiner on her oxygen tank and forces us to move along.
‘A lot to cover today,’ she had told us on deck. ‘No dawdling.’
We dutifully follow her, our fearless leader, towards the reef. The sweetlips fish disappear in our wake. We swim over another giant clam, ringed in neon purple barnacles. Colourful fish are hovering above it. One of them is purple. There is a yellow stripe down its back. Before I can see if it has an extra fin on its underbelly, it twitches its tail and swims away. I want to believe it was a butterfly wrasse, but I can’t be sure.
The further we swim the more my anxiety rises. My breathing is picking up. I check my PSI. I’m taking in more oxygen than usual, unable to regulate my intake with my nerves spiking. Hugh notices, reaching for my hand, letting his fingertips brush mine.
I take out my digital camera and hold it in one hand, trying to manifest a butterfly wrasse appearing. Hugh notices and our eyes meet. He flashes me a thumbs-up. I try to ignore the fact that if I find these fish, he’ll lose his promotion and his publication opportunity.
We follow Vanessa towards a looming coral structure. It’s the most colourful one we’ve passed so far. The ocean floor is dotted with blues, pinks, purples and yellows. There are huge cracks and crevices with fish teeming in and out of them. I see the telltale flash of brown spots — a pufferfish darting between the rocks. I struggle to remain optimistic and enjoy the dive – it’s one of the best we’ve been on, but I don’t feel that familiar tug of excitement as the group passes over a brain coral with a large crab scuttling over the top.
Someone in the group spots a moray eel. I see a flash of its large dark-green mouth and I back up, away from the hole it’s hiding in. Moray eels are dangerous. Their jaws are extremely strong. But their long sleek forest-green bodies are also hypnotically beautiful. Derek hovers to take a picture. We see another crab scuttle across the rock, claws waving in the air.
I station myself next to staghorn coral, camera out, and wait. I feel like every cell of my body is hoping. Familiar worries surface in my brain, that I’m not good enough, qualified enough to successfully do this for my sister. That I’m a fraud and a liar. I look over at Hugh, who is just as intently searching for the fish, and I feel guilt tug in my chest.
How will I come back empty-handed to Millie? How will I face myself, a failure, returning home to a job I hate?
I feel the commotion of the others swimming behind me. Miguel calls over the group to show them something else. I remain right where I am.
Time ticks by. I stare at the coral, wondering if I would have a better chance if I swam around it or stayed put. Hugh is swimming in gentle circles around the coral I’m hovering over, every now and then taking an interest in something else. I hear the clang of Vanessa’s carabiner.This can’t be it.The trip can’t be over.
Tears sting my eyes as I turn to swim away, accepting defeat. I’m making my way to Vanessa when I realise I forgot to make sure Hugh was behind me.
I turn around to see Hugh hovering, motionless, in the spot I had just vacated. His attention is snapped to something, but I can’t quite make out what it is. My heart starts beating faster.
I kick towards Hugh slowly, barely breathing. About two feet underneath his nose are three fish, little, no bigger than my palm. Bright, fluorescent purple, almost magenta. There is a yellow stripe down their backs. I’m terrified to look, but I cast my gaze towards their underbellies. Sure enough, there is a tiny fin moving back and forth, helping keep the fish stationary.
