Position: 11:59.2N 61:47W

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a tiny island off the south coast of Grenada called Glover Island. Glover Island used to be a whaling station. Now it’s just an empty rock, a few trees, tall cacti like counting fingers. We went so Jack could take Lulu on her second to last training dive. We pulled up on a Sunday morning when no one one else was around, dropped Quest’s anchor. While the divers were putting their dive gear together and Delph and Fin went back downstairs to continue chillaxing, I put on my mask and snorkel to check the anchor. Normally I like this job. We were sitting on sand and small stones and black spiny urchins covered the sand like a half-enthusiastic carpet. I started swimming forward, past Quest’s dark blue hull onto the anchor which would be another thirty or so metres away when I stopped. And shivered. There was nothing around; no fish, no reef, no sign of life. But I didn’t feel alone. 

I suppose there’s something to be said for swimming every day in the sea. When you stare into particle-flecked, watery space without there being a sharp end to it like there is on land, you don’t tend get the willies so much. We’d just come back from Trinidad though and if you swam in the waters near the marina with its dead fish, rainbow surface and interesting brown shapes constantly floating past, you’d probably need to be quarantined. I reminded myself of this as I reached Quest’s pointy bow, tried to get my heart to slow down. I could hear it in my ears, pounding like an alarm. I tried to give myself the usual internal telling off; if you’re too scared to swim here, you might as well go home, stop being so silly! My heart didn’t want to know though, it might as well have been blaring out of a speaker. Pounding hearts are not so good when you’re the only person, or possibly the only living creature flapping about in the water for some miles around. Halfway to the anchor, my imagination caught up with my heart. Big grey shapes in the gloom, even tiger-striped ones. Pointy noses and haunted black eyes. ‘Did you see the anchor? Is it bedded in?’ Jack asked the usual questions as I hauled myself out of Quest like a rocket. I nodded, remembering the distant anchor shape. That’s as close as I got. 

It’s not the first time I’ve felt like I was being watched in the sea. We used to get it in Australia, the hairs on your neck forming a crew-cut as you argued with yourself. 'There’s nothing there, keep your cool, keep your cool!’ you’d say as you made your way around the giant kelp. Later that day, after the two divers came back, training dive complete, dive gear happily protecting them from the willies, Jack and I left the girls and Fin and went to snorkel just off the island’s shore. We discovered that where the island has sunk into the sea, there are rocks around and reef fish mill around in the sheltered spaces. This was better. Then Jack pointed to a long metal shape and mouthed the word, ‘shipwreck’ and suddenly I saw man-made bits everywhere. Metal riveted strips and cogs and a reef-encrusted box jammed into the rocks. Of course, ships worked this place hauling out whale carcasses. Some of them had even succumbed to the sea. Our breath whistling through our snorkels, we looked up at Quest and swam back, a little relieved. I get it, sure people had to make a living. Easy for us to say nowadays with our solar panels and low-voltage lighting. Still, the place felt…. well, it felt ghostly. 

A couple of days ago, I met a diver. She’d dived Glover Island not long ago. ‘There’s tons of sharks around Glover Island!’ she gushed. Right.