Right now, I can tell it’s frizzing around my face, so I tie it behind my neck while I eat. Just as I start to dig in, Hugh appears from the side of the boat.

‘Do you mind? The captain’s room is discussing the royal drama.’ Hugh rolls his eyes.

I pat the seat next to me, inviting Hugh to sit down.

‘Like British royal family drama?’ I clarify.

Hugh nods. ‘If I hear another word about it, I swear I’ll feed myself to a shark.’

‘OK,’ I agree, laughing, ‘no royal talk. But I don’t want any shark talk either.’

‘Done.’ Hugh sighs, relaxing into a seat next to me. He places an Oreo on my plate. My eyes widen in surprise. ‘I saw you eyeing them.’ He shrugs. He has one on his plate too.

Both of us are silent as we tuck in hungrily. Scuba-diving is more of a workout than I anticipated. It’s been a long time since I was so ravenous. After a couple of minutes, we both slow down and exchange smiles.

‘The food is way better than I expected,’ Hugh says happily.

‘Me too. I thought all we were going to have was lunchables.’

‘Lunchables?’ Hugh asks, cocking his head at me.

I laugh and explain the concept of pre-packaged slices of meat and cheese and some sort of cracker. Hugh listens, his mouth grimacing in disgust.

‘They’re actually not so bad,’ I say, defending myself. ‘My mom used to get them for Mi—’ I pause in panic right before I was about to say ‘Millie and me’. ‘My mom used to get them for my school lunch,’ I say, forcing out the first word I can think of that starts with a ‘m’ sound.

Hugh seems satisfied with the explanation, but then starts asking me a lot of questions about my upbringing. It’s fun to feel like he thinks I’m interesting, but growing up in the suburbs of Ohio isn’t exactly riveting, which makes answering his deluge of questions difficult. He’s shocked that classrooms only taught American history until high school, and he’s surprised they trusted our parents to pack our lunches, especially considering what my mother was sending us to school with. ‘No fruit or vegetables!’ Hugh keeps lamenting. ‘Not even an apple!’

Eventually, he lets up, and both of us head downstairs into the cabin to load up our plates with seconds.

We settle back into our seats, staring down plates of quinoa, pineapple salsa and a delicious mix of cauliflower and farro. I pick up my camera and look at the only two photos that may contain the tail end or the face of a butterfly wrasse.

‘What’s that?’ Hugh grunts through a mouthful of salad.

‘You don’t want to know,’ I tease, holding the camera out of his reach.

‘Did you see one?’ He grabs at the camera, his previous decorum gone.