We adjust our masks, popping snorkels into our mouths like awkward plastic pacifiers. Reece gives me a thumbs-up. I return the gesture and take a deep breath.
We dive.
The world transforms.
The bright, chaotic boat noises vanish, replaced by a peaceful, liquid silence. The only sounds are the gentle hum of the ocean, the occasional whoosh of a fellow snorkeler kicking past, and the stream of tiny bubbles floating toward the surface.
It’s fucking magic.
The water is warm, enveloping us in liquid silk, a welcome contrast to the cooler air we’ll feel when we surface. I tilt my head, watching beams of sunlight pierce through the translucent blue and illuminate the coral reef below.
Reece’s fingers stay tangled with mine, his grip firm, as if he doesn’t want to lose me in the vastness of the ocean. I lift the camera, getting my first underwater shots.
My calf tickles—the gentle brush of a fish swimming past, too curious or too confident to be bothered by our intrusion into its world. I turn the camera in time to capture a yellow tail darting away, its body a perfect slice of sunshine against the blue backdrop.
Before I realize what’s happening, we’re in the middle of a school of fish.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of gleaming silver bodies with electric-orange racing stripes pulse around us, parting ever so slightly before reuniting behind us.
My mind races with the thrill of documenting something so wild and unpredictable. When I glance at Reece, his eyes are filled with wonder behind his mask. In this moment, he’s not YouTube royalty or my complicated boss-turned-lover—he’s just a man, utterly captivated by the world’s beauty. It stirs an emotion deep within me, an unfamiliar feeling that I’m not prepared to dissect.
We kick forward, gliding over a forest of vibrant coral—a neon city pulsing with life. Beneath us, schools of tiny, iridescent fish flicker in and out of sight, vanishing between the coral’s jagged ridges.
Reece jerks his hand from mine, pointing frantically at a creature beneath a rock. He motions for the camera, his expression shifting to that boyish excitement that makes him look sixteen instead of twenty-eight. I pass him the GoPro, watching as he dives deeper with powerful kicks that showcase every muscle in his thighs and calves—anatomy I’ve become intimately familiar with these past few days but still haven’t tired of admiring.
The eel gets a sense of this absolute menace invading its personal space and vanishes into the coral.
Then, Reece is a torpedo shooting to the surface. I follow, breaking into the cool breeze, dragging the snorkel from my mouth.
“I saw it! I fucking saw its teeth!” he says, gasping for air. “There was a massive moray eel back there! It was horror-movie huge! It opened its mouth right when I got close, and I swear to God, Cam, it had a second set of jaws inside. Like that movieAlien!”
“Did you get a close-up?”
“Hell yeah! Here, I’ll do some underwater reactions for the video.”
He takes a deep breath and dives back under, leaving me to follow with the camera, lining up the shot.
What unfolds is the most hilarious underwater performance I’ve ever seen. He strikes a bodybuilder pose, flexing his biceps while puffing his cheeks out like a pufferfish. He slow-motion runs as if he’s auditioning for an underwaterBaywatchreboot. But the grand finale is his attempt at an underwater somersault, which goes so hilariously wrong that bubbles explode from his snorkel.
This playful, goofy side of Reece—the side that’ll do anything to make me smile—is my new addiction.
We surface together, gasping and laughing, the sun hot on our faces, and everything feels perfectly, ridiculously right.
I freeze.
“What? What? Do I have a jellyfish on my face?”
“TURTLE!”
He spins around, and there it is—a massive green sea turtle, gliding past us as if it owns the place.
“Quick, go! I’ll film it.”
Reece grabs the GoPro, flipping it on and following as I dive down. The turtle moves slowly, unbothered, its shell catching the sunlight filtering through the waves.
I swim closer, hovering just beside it, turning slightly, posing like a full-on tourist. I’m so close I could reach out and touch it(I won’t. I don’t need Mother Nature smiting me today).The turtle acknowledges my presence with a slight turn of its head, its eyes meeting mine for a brief moment that feels profoundly spiritual before it continues its unhurried exploration, gliding away into the blue distance.
I’m still staring, transfixed by the encounter, when Reece’s hand finds mine. He pulls me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist as we drift in the underwater silence. Through our masks, our eyes meet in a moment of shared wonder.
