THEGREATREEF 271 



Only by quickly dropping to my knees and grasping a lav- 

 ender sea fan was I able to maintain my position. I hung diz- 

 zily on the edge of the canyon until on the return swing I 

 let go and was swept well away from the edge. Twice I re- 

 peated this process. Then I was certain that I would not roll 

 over so I stood erect and gave myself up to the surges. Like 

 a dancer in a slow motion picture I found myself able to 

 give a little hop, drift airily for ten feet, land gently, poise 

 for a second, and hop back exactly to my original position. 

 In a little while I became accustomed to these aerial, or 

 "waterial," excursions and had opportunity to look about. 



To see the surf upside down was startling enough, but the 

 scene that stretched before me held me speechless in wonder. 

 Against a background of pale cerulean blue was a fantastic 

 forest of yellow coral trees that reached leafless branches in 

 indescribable confusion toward the surface. Row upon row 

 extended into the intangible distance. In between the great 

 trunks were dark caves and open blue patches with other trees 

 beyond. This was a forest that would have done credit to 

 the most imaginative fairy tale. I was reminded of the woods 

 in which Snow White found herself while fleeinor from the 

 wicked Queen. And between the trunks of these nightmarish 

 yellow trees of coral was filing a host of fishes of all the colors 

 of the rainbow. Brilliant yellows and azures, vermilions and 

 emerald greens, burnished silvers, purples and lavenders, iri- 

 descent pinks and mauves, all combined into a melee of un- 

 believable color. It was as though some artist, gone mad, had 

 prodigally spattered a picture of some wonderful fairyland 

 with his most intense pigments and then suddenly endowed 

 that picture with life. Only no artist, however mad, could 

 conceive or execute so variegated a pattern. Since this dive 

 I have been undersea half a hundred times in the shadow of 

 this same reef and each time my feeling is one of great awe. 



