Snorkeling in the Caribbean with My Daughter: 30 Years of Bonding

My daughter Kate swims ahead of me.  I follow the splash of her flippers. She’s spotted something and she points the way.  I’m close behind, but I don’t yet see what she sees.  We have our own language when we’re in water.  A sign language that does not happen on land.  We pause. We point.  If it’s an eel, Kate makes a slithery motion with her hands.  For a school of glittering blue fish, it’s a thumb’s up.  If it is something that might bite us, we grab a wrist and swim away.  The water is clear but I’m still not sure what’s she’s tracking.  Then she mimes a breast stroke and I know.  She has a sea turtle in her sights.  At last I spot it too and we swim a respectful distance behind. 

We’ve only just arrived in Bonaire on our most recent multi-generational family vacation and we immediately headed to the sea.  Now we swim behind the turtle in leisurely strokes.  It appears to be an old guy.   Its shell has seen better days.  But it moves in those smooth even strokes that only sea turtles seem to master.  The turtle dips and dives.  It’s hugs the reef as we do but soon it grows weary of us.  It turns and heads out into the depths of the darkest sea.

Bonaire wasn’t on my bucket list, but it was on hers.  To be honest, it wasn’t even on my radar. Aruba and Curacao, sure.  Bonaire seemed like a distant cousin which in some ways it is. But Kate made her case.  Great snorkeling which she knew would be a major draw. And flamingos and donkeys.

Now we were already in the water. The thing about Bonaire, quite frankly, is that you can basically snorkel anywhere. You just put on your gear and go in the water. I had no idea it would be that easy. Our husbands don’t snorkel and our grandkids seem too small so this has always been about us.

The first time we snorkeled together Kate was five and we were on Jamaica.  I had just been deported from Cuba after spending a week under house arrest (very long story but basically I didn’t have the right journalist visa). We were so rattled by the experience that we checked in the Holiday Inn, Montego Bay. I had snorkeled over the years and had gotten certified to dive in Martinique and my husband doesn’t swim so this would the first time I’d go with Kate.

At first she seemed hesitant but I showed her how to put on her mask. I held her up as she put her face in the water and breathed from her snorkel.  A few minutes later, she raised her head and looked at me. I tried to read her expression. Was it fear? Was it joy? And then she spoke. “It’s a wonderful world,” she said.

Over the years we found excuses to vacation near water and to snorkel but not with any regularity. Then, when she was about twelve on the brink of a very surly adolescence I took her off to the Cayman Islands. Kidnapped her, she’d later joke. It was a bribe, really.  A mother’s way of wanting to stay close to my child who I felt was clearly drifting away.

When we got to the “hotel” she couldn’t believe her eyes.  We had a little cabin right on the beach.  We could walk right into the water. On our first attempt at snorkeling Kate was suddenly surrounded by these small black and yellow fish – sergeant majors – these small yellow and black fish – and they were pecking at her.  Kate screamed and panicked and I had to drag her out of the water.  She was hysterical and wouldn’t calm down and then I noticed.  She had a shiny gold bracelet on her wrist.  “They’re attracted to this,” I told her.  “They think it’s a meal. Here, give it to me.” 

I took the bracelet off her wrist and slipped it in my dry bag. Hesitantly she went back into the water, gripping my hand. The fish left her alone and then we swam. We swam out along the reef until we came to the ruins of a sunken ship. As we dived in and out of the shell of the boat, something large swam by us.  It was huge and graceful as it moved so slowly through the water like a dream. Our first sea turtle.  We followed it as it moved through the skeleton of the ship and watched as it disappeared out to sea.

Near the end of her high school years I got an assignment to go to the Galapagos. It was a plum gig – a week in the Galapagos and a week in the Andes.  My husband, Larry, couldn’t get away, and remarkably Kate was excited. Indeed it was an extraordinary journey until Kate  developed a crush on one of the naturalists. I spent most of my evenings chasing her around the ship and managed to have a late-night close encounter with a red-footed boobie that was, quite frankly, extraordinary. It was hard to get her up and out in the morning. I’d come to our cabin, with a tray of coffee and cereal, hoping to rouse her.

One day we quarreled about the late-night shenanigans and the next morning went snorkeling though we were barely speaking. Actually snorkeling is a fairly good activity if you aren’t speaking. 

It wasn’t long before a sea lion spotted us. Or rather spotted Kate.  I’m not sure why it chose her as its playmate but it began frolicking around her, swimming circles that made me a little nervous until she poked her head out of the water and the sea lion did the same and it spat in her face and she spat in its and then the spitting match was on.  Neither of us could stop laughing which is actually pretty difficult with a snorkel in your mouth but we did and the rest of our trip was smooth sailing.

My daughter and I have shared many other watery moments – kayaking in Monterey Bay where a baby otter hitched a ride, bodysurfing off the coast of Mexico and spotting whales in the Bay of Banderas, swimming in a freezing reservoir during Covid. They are all emblazoned in my memory. But it is the snorkeling I recall the most.  Recently I was reading a book to my granddaughter. It was an eyewitness book about fish. I’d forgotten about the inscription that read: To our favorite fish, here’s to years snorkeling in the sea. It was dated 1994. 31 years ago. 

Obviously this snorkeling thing has been going on for a long time.