Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

Oh, fright of frights and sight of sights! Goblin shapes with scales and eyes swim the depths and materialize.

But only if I dunk my head under water, which I totally did!

The Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks team returned to Fiji, which meant that you may have noticed a blast of blog posts and then nothing for several weeks. I’m still alive.

In a horrifying twist of events, I drank a beer at lunch during my stay on the Yasawa Islands and ended up in the ocean with goggles strapped to my face. In any case, when I placed my face in the water, Nate told me to blow bubbles through my nose. The resulting bubbles were so annoying and distracting, in my opinion, that I just stopped doing that. I found that not breathing at all—and not using a snorkel—made the experience so much better. I’d rather hold my breath. Literally. Underwater sight-seeing with goggles, in my case, encouraged me to hold my breath longer, so I could see more stuff. Maybe someday I’ll put weights in a discreet part of my bathing suit to help me stay down longer. I’ll just need more practice—and probably two more beers.

Here’s what I saw: all kinds of coral and colorful fish (except the stingray in the feature photo. That was taken by Alex, who saw a lot more stuff than I did.). The fish didn’t exactly greet me. They stared at me like I was some kind of mobile zoo exhibit for them. It gave me the willies. Then, there were the shadows. I’m not sure what they were or where they came from, but I assumed they were sharks. (They were not. If I were to see sharks (which I didn’t), they would have been tiny reef sharks that are super skittish and may or may not be vegetarians according to Nate.) Still, shadows of any sort are unsettling. I lasted a total of one hour, which is pretty impressive for me.

Secretly, I was hoping to see a shark. A tiny one. A very, very tiny one. It’s highly possible that one or two or more saw me and went home to their cave and drew a picture of me for friends and family to laugh at. I don’t even want to think about that.

Maybe night snorkeling sans snorkel is in my future. I’ll be swimming past the haunted seaweed forest, watching mantas roast zooplankton by the fire and tell ghost-fish stories while reef tips in Scream masks pop out from behind deflated blowfish, demanding I tell them the name of my favorite scary movie. Spoiler alert: It’s Jaws.

Your Turn: What’s the scariest thing you’ve dared yourself to do this year?