A school of rays riding a wave

[mnhtnbb]

9. My husband and I went snorkeling once on Martinique

right from the beach. Beautiful, calm water, flat sandy bottom with a bit of sea grass and shallow for about 20 yards or so until it started to deepen. It was a great snorkel.

Coming in, I noticed when we hit the grassy area that the bottom had all these little bumps. Looking closer, I realized the bottom was covered with rays that had burrowed under the sand. We swam all the way in--not standing up--until our abdomens were practically touching the sand, before we walked out without removing our fins. There must have been hundreds of rays under the sand.

That was the scariest snorkel I've ever had and it was the last time I let my husband talk me into snorkeling from a deserted, unknown beach.

Some years later, there was the time he and his friend who was staying with us at a secluded house on Little Cayman decided to go out early one morning to see if they could catch some lobsters. (They wanted to relive the old days from Med school when they'd drive down to Mexico from L.A. and catch lobsters. ) When they came out of the water, they were both white as ghosts. Turned out a couple of sharks had been out hunting breakfast along with them. Dawn and dusk, stay out of the water. Don't dive areas you don't know.

The lobsters were yummy!