‘Nice couple, de two ah yuh,’ Richie said.

‘Thanks,’ Fari replied, offhand. They heard it regularly, tried not to pay it much mind. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready. One, two, three …’

They pushed backwards into the water.

Her favourite part. Contact, suddenness. A crash, scattering water. Sharp brine on her lips. The commanding lap of each wave. The heat of her wetsuit meeting cool sea, bright sun pressing the back of her skull like a bully. A strained cry of hopeful birds, the promise of immersion. They paddled from the boat until she gave Fari the thumbs down. He nodded and they exhaled together, releasing air, descending. Cold enveloped her. Silence, apart from the rush of her breath and a fizzing shoal of tiny bubbles. She could see into the immediate distance without pain, unclearly perhaps, but the loss of the sting in her head and temples was worth it. Adjusting her BCD, the gradients of blue became darker, Fari’s slim, blurred form lost solidity. When she looked up, it was to see his splayed silhouette, a cut-out shadow above. Heat grew weak. Stillness wrapped her body. White sand appeared below.

She jerked in shock, her reaction loud in her ears. They should have been seeing schools of confetti-bright fish, fields of coral and tubular polyps. Larger fish nibbling slow-waving fronds only to dart away from sudden invasion. The bed had the barren appearance of an underwater desert, undulating and vast. She twisted her neck up towards Fari, framed by sun. Had the reef died? Ray continued descending feather-slow until she was floating above ripples of bare sand. Fari joined her moments later, arms open. They hung side by side, frowning into dim light. He shrugged, his wide eyes pulled tight by the visor. Slim fish wriggled through the plumes of their rising bubbles. There was no reef. The bed was bare in all directions.

She was disappointed, not surprised. Richie had been merely adequate as a guide, taking them to a series of artificial reefs and wrecks, no real outstanding sites. They bobbed on underwater currents, unsure. Ray pointed into open water and Fari gave thumbs up. Hand in hand they swam, heads raised to search the distant haze, intent on the blurred horizon.

A firm push of warm water, an updraft knocking them upright. The seabed vanished, only thick darkness below. They started to rise quicker than was safe, probing sunlight finding them. Ray’s hand slipped from Fari’s. She barked alarm, bubbles exploding, let him go to adjust her buoyancy, trusting him to do likewise, kicking as she plunged. Guiding herself backwards to the stark demarcation of sand, she lowered, exhaling a relieved cloud as her fin touched the seabed, Fari floating beside her.