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The veryhandsomeignorant dork pulling off his T-shirt. He’s tanner every day I see him, and has a dark smattering of chest hair across a muscled torso that I do my very best to avoid looking at.
Our guide anchors around a buoy and helps us grab our gear. He’ll join us in the water, he says, and starts telling us all about the shipwreck we’re going to be snorkeling on.
Phillip gives me a triumphant look, his goggles in his hands.I’ll get all the info anyway,his dark-blue eyes say.
I try to narrow my eyes back at him, but I doubt he can see a thing through the thick plastic of my snorkel mask.
The water is lukewarm and soft against my skin, and so clear I can easily see the sandy bottom several feet below.
Together with the tour guide, we swim toward a large, dark shadow in the water. It’s only a little scary, but once I can look beneath the surface, my fear becomes wonder again. Just like it did the last time, with the turtles.
There’s an entire world beneath the surface.
The shipwreck is home to a coral reef now. The boat itself is still clearly visible, resting against the sandy ocean floor as if it’s just sleeping. But in its slumber, it’s been taken over by the ocean itself, covered in coral and seaweed. I spot a school of bright yellow fish emerging out of a porthole. At the far end of the wreck, a lone sea turtle feasts on some seafood growing off the ship’s bow.
I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. It’s like looking at magic. We’re not alone at the shipwreck, but the other group of tourists from a chartered cruise keep to the other side. The ocean is large enough for us all.
Something big passes under me. I flinch on instinct before I recognize the person. Phillip. He’s swum beneath the surface and is holding something out in my direction.
Is that a…?
We both surface.
“What’s that?” I ask, treading water.
“It’s an action camera,” he says.
“Did you take a picture of me?”
“Yeah.” He hands it to me above the surface. The thing is tiny, with a string that goes around my wrist. “Press the right button… there, yes.”
I stare at him across the softly undulating waves. “I canborrowit?”
“Yeah. There’s a turtle down there. Take some pictures for your class back home.”
Delight swells up inside me, and I grin at him. “You don’t trust my cheap underwater camera, do you?”
“Not one bit,” he says.
A loud shriek echoes across the waves. We both turn towards the frantic splashing. In the distant turquoise waves, a man is flailing. His head dips beneath the surface before emerging again, spluttering and yelling. The closest tourist boat is another hundred feet away. He must have come from there.
“Phillip,” I call. “What—? Oh God.”
Phillip’s eyes are trained on the man. When the distressed man resurfaces another time, panic clear in his ragged breaths, Phillip tears off his mask and tosses it in my direction.
Then, he sets off, cutting through the water in a crawl.
I scramble to catch his snorkel before it slips beneath the surface and watch Phillip’s rapid advance. I pegged him as a competent swimmer in the pool that night, but it’s nothing to what he’s doing now.
He’s halfway to the panicking snorkeler before the tour guide from the other boat reacts.
I swim closer, but while I can breaststroke with the best of them, it’s no championship crawl. I watch as the man dips below the surface again. Phillip doesn’t stop. He barely even looks up. He just parts the water like he’s made for it.
Phillip reaches the flailing tourist before anyone else. He twists smoothly in the water and shifts into a rescue, holding the man up by his elbows.
“Wow,” I whisper, watching him swim them both back to the other snorkeling cruise.
Ten minutes later, we’re both back on our boat. In the distance, we can see the commotion on the other boat’s deck. I can just about make out the man Phillip helped on the deck, sitting down with a towel around his shoulders.
