The Race to Explore the Ocean’s Twilight Zone
When you go to the “deep end” of the ocean, I’d always been told, don’t fight the undertow or it’ll drag you down. You have to let it sweep you until you can float past it. That’s where you’ll find the best places to snorkel.
This was the Caribbean, where I grew up, and where I first ventured past where the waves begin to form, to that place we call the deep end. Outfitted with my bright blue flippers and a snorkel, I listened to the whisper and rhythm of everything around me. Through my foggy goggles, I could spot colorful parrot fish and schools of yellow French grunt, especially if I swam closer to the reefs.
Once I came across a creature so unexpected, so alien-like; the kind of thing I imagined you’d find only in the deep. It had to be a squid. Two of them, swaying gently underneath the surface, about 8 inches long, with perfectly round, almost cartoonishly googly eyes on either side of their narrow heads. They reminded me of other monocular animals, of birds that turn sideways to
