Snorkeling in the Caribbean by Cem Erciyes (10 years old)

It  was a nice and windy day in Bonaire. I and my family spent our vacation in Bonaire in last July,  which is a small island in the  Caribbean Sea.

It was  the second week of our holiday. A nice Monday  for night and day snorkeling. Because it was not raining and the sea was so clear and calm. Plus,  I  was just  getting ready for day snorkeling. I put my mask, flippers and snorkel on. Then  I waited my dad to get ready.  He was a bit slow. It took about 20 minutes.

First I jumped into the water. Then my dad jumped and  made a big splash. He got everybody on the pier  wet. The water was pretty cool.  The moment I was in  the water, I saw lots of fish. Under the water was so colorful and full of life. I wanted to get a closer look. So I dove. I was surrounded by a school of fish. But this time, I made a mistake. I accidentally touched a piece of carol. The corals are very sharp like a knife and many of them are poisonous. In an instant,  my leg started to hurt in pain. My dad quickly came to the rescue and took me up to the surface.

"Cem, you wait here, I will get your mom "my dad said.

After a while, my mom came and helped  me out of the water.

"Are you OK, Cem ?" my mom asked.

I replied "Yeah"

We washed my injured leg with vinegar. Then the pain suddenly stopped. I felt better now.

All the afternoon, I took some rest but I have no patience  to do night snorkeling. My leg was better now and I was ready for night snorkeling.

After dinner, I asked my Dad ''let's  go night snorkeling'' 

He  said ''let's do it''

I got very excited.  Because I had never done night snorkeling before. Once again, I got ready. But this time in the dark. I jumped into the water.  The sea was colder and it was so dark. I could not see anything. 

I shouted to my dad " Hey, Dad! Pass me the flashlight."

When I turned on my flash light, I noticed that there were lots of fish which they were hiding behind the rocks. Because they knew that a predator was near by. Then I saw something moving in the shadows.

Was it a shark? No… It was a tarpon hunting for prey. Tarpon is a very big grey fish which comes out at night for hunting. Its eyes were glowing in the dark. First time, I saw the Tarpon, I started to shiver with fear. I thought a Tarpon was as dangerous as a shark. But my Dad said,  it was harmless.

Our flash light helped it to find its prey. It was hunting little fish. Now that I knew the tarpon was  harmless, I wasn't afraid at all. So we watched it for a while and enjoyed  the sea. 

The more we stayed in the water, it  was getting colder. So we decided to get out. We swam back  to the ladder. On the way back, we saw a  huge crab and   many glowing planktons. When we came to the ladder,  Dad asked me to turn off our flash lights. We did so and started to splash in the water. ''Oh my God'' the water was sparkling with little shiny  light bubbles. It was actually hundreds of silver mackarels around us. It was really cool.  

We climbed up the ladder and took off our gear. I said to myself ''what an awesome day" I had seen so many new creatures that I never knew before.  This was the best day of my life. I had so much fun with my family. I will miss Bonaire and look forward to go  there again.