REEF EUPHORIA

Enveloped in crystalline blue, plumes of bubbles drifted upwards like diamonds as I descended beneath the surface. My hair fanned out around me, curling with the current as I sank further and further down. The reef below me sparkled with life, a mirage of colours dancing in the scattered sunlight. Shoals of silver fish skimmed past me, their tails flicking and catching the light like shards of glass. In the distance, the reef crest broke into a soft indigo smudge, fading into the shadowy depths beyond.

I breathed slowly, taking it all in. Crowds of damselfish scattered across a kingdom of branching coral, where angelfish and Moorish idols grazed at the fringes of algae carpeting the seabed.

Rainbow parrotfish flew across the corals like birds over a forest, snapping their beaks and scattering the smaller fish around them. I flowed with the water, natural, fluid, and let it guide me over the vast expanse of natural riches beneath me. The pastel heads of soft corals blossomed in between the smooth golden mounds of Porites, where yellow trumpetfish slid between the crevices like rods of gold. Peacock shrimp raised their tails as I passed by, as midnight snappers and lyretail groupers sailed across the forests of Acropora, staring with glassy eyes.



















Closer to the shore, the reef diminished into plains of rippled white sand, dotted with starfish and leading onto vast meadows of dancing green seagrass. Triggerfish and surgeonfish weaved through the fronds, causing plumes of sand to spiral towards the surface before floating like dust to the seabed once more. A green sea turtle lay peacefully in her pasture, wise eyes closed in rest from her feeding. The unique pattern of scales across her face allowed me to identify her as the older female that could reliably be found living out her days in this meadow. A lazy, dreamy life.

I left her to her slumber and moved towards deeper waters. The temperature dropped steadily as the reef fell away below me, engulfed in a cloud of inky blue. Glowing anemones, guarded viciously by their clownfish tenants, dissipated under clouds of butterfly fish, chasing and scattering across the blue. I drifted at the surface, as silver needlefish flanked my sides, eyeing me suspiciously before shooting away like fired torpedoes. Below, the outline of green coral plates lined the seafloor, housing shimmers of juvenile fish from the dangers of deeper waters. A hawksbill turtle glided past
me, slow and graceful, disappearing as fast as it appeared. Waves lapped over my back, cooling the skin and turning it a glossy shade of bronze.

There is something magical about immersing yourself in the underwater world. Everything is clear, and fresh, and peaceful, vibrant with life and the constant of change. It provides a freedom that can’t be found anywhere else, a feeling of awe that lifts the worries of everyday life from your shoulders and grants you as a weightless observer, in someone else’s world, for a tiny snippet of time. I will never forget the feeling that took me by the hands and pulled me under the first time I dived on a reef in Indonesia. The feeling grips me every time I get in the water, and keeps me returning to the sea again and again.

The first time I slipped beneath the waves into the glistening realm of a coral reef is a moment I will never forget.

Gliding over the reef structures off the shores of Gili Air, Indonesia, is one of my most treasured memories.