“So… What now?” I can feel the current is much slower here.
“Woahhh… Chill… You don’t have to be so salty. We are in THE GREAT BARRIER REEF!” Watari threw his gaze to the colorful place down there. “We can be the waves up there or relax and flow between the reefs. We can head to the deep sea as well,” he continued.
“Is it really fun?” I don’t get the idea of waves and the fun of going to the deep sea.
“I know we’re seawater but you don’t need to be that salty,” He pushed me closer to the reefs. You should look at your own expression when we pass those currents. The South Pacific. The cold current in Peru. The South Equatorial. And the last current that we used here The warm Eastern Australia current. He’s not actually saying that. His face did.
I don’t see any ices here. I never see this many colors in my cycle. Pink. Orange. Red. Yellow. Green. Purple. Purplish green. Greenish purple. Amazing.
The really small stones called sands. They are mostly gray, cream, and yellow. I wonder if the place is brighter because of them. The sand exists until it reaches the ‘land’, a place without water at all. Up there. That means I couldn’t go there.
Oh oh… And there are plants too down there. Waving around. I thought they are jellyfishes who were stuck to the ground but apparently, they’re different creatures, according to Watari.
“So, what about the big stone? Is that a creature too?” I accidentally hit this huge stone in front of me.
“The hard part is a coral reef. I don’t remember the name of the softer part… Let’s call ’em sea plant,” He pushed around the sea plant as he mentioned it. Even Watari has trouble remembering the name. No wonder I almost forgot what sand is.
But I think I would never forget the crabs. The weird red sideways walking creature. They don’t float and just stay down there.
I tried to count how many different creatures they have, based on color and shape differences. I’ve lost my count on 300s. I think we only have 10 in the Antarctic. I wonder if Watari knew the number of the creature types here.
This part is weird. It should be called coral reefs but they’re not colorful at all. “Watari, what’s with the white stuff here? It looked like the coral reefs back there,” I came to his side. He doesn’t seem too happy seeing it. “It’s bleaching,” a surfer sweat beside me break the silence.
Photo by Kristin Hoel on Unsplash