Sharp rocks protrude precariously in every which direction, making each step awkward and clumsy. We step slowly, carefully, aware that the ground is either spiky or smoothly slick. A tumble in this place would cut and scrape.
A coconut crab scuttles three quick steps off the edge of a mushroom shaped rock and does a clawed breast-stroke till safely in its shadow.
Then we came upon an eel, grey and snake-like. Its head was deep inside the cleft of a rock, hunting for food. As we splashed towards it, our water shoes’ rubber soles protecting our feet from the rocks, the eel pulled its head out slowly and then stared at us suspiciously. We were standing but a few feet away.
After sizing up the situation, the eel decided it was cornered. It sprang at Ali and she leapt as high as possible with our unsure, rock-riddled footing. Despite Ali’s yelp, the eel was more afraid. In the shallows, the eel writhed a zig zag swim, making a sound like
whoosh whoosh whoosh!
I freed my breath because it had been caught in my throat. We kept walking. I silently marvelled at how far Ali had come, since she had never even liked camping before.
The water was beginning to rise. Waves began to tickle our ankles. It was like the land was tipping towards the lagoon and the ocean water started to seep in.
Picture a pan three-quarters filled with water. But imagine that the pan is sitting in a sink, itself filled with water, but just below the edge of the pan: two separate bodies of water. If I should pour more water into the sink, however, the sink water would overcome the pan edge and fill it completely, creating a single body of water.
Now imagine that the ocean is the sink and the pan’s edge is islands surrounding the lagoon. The space between islands becomes land at the low tide as the water recedes. But at the high tide the water from the ocean flows over the space between the islands.
An atoll is a strange place.
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