The Coral Reef at San Blas

I can never get over the wonder of the moment when you enter the water and find your face beneath the diamond-bright surface of a tropical sea. The mask is like a magic door, whose openings smoothes out the ruffles and pleats of the water, and you slide effortlessly through a fairyland of unimaginable beauty. At first we drifted over the golden sand, patterned with its bright, ever-moving chain mail created by the brilliant sun, and saw the stingrays like strange, mottled frying-pans glide out of our way.