The world primeval

      So still.
       The mangroves block the breeze. It is so quiet that even dipping my paddle in the water seems too noisy. So we sit still in some forgotten place. Some place where time stands still.
      The water is a looking glass into the fantasy world below. Grasses so straight they look like newspapers run through a paper shredder. Lacey ferns the color of manila envelopes. Sponges like giant vases, or huge Indian pottery or grey monster brains. And coral. Black and spindly. Or round like an underwater orange.
      A little jelly fish dances by doing its flirtatious Can-can.  Lime green fish, smaller than a pencil, flit through the water. And on the bottom, going nowhere, is a horseshoe crab barely distinguishable from the sand.
      We drift around a corner and my companion screams in surprise as a  great blue heron spreads its wings and lifts out of the woody legs of the mangrove. Ahead are three ibis, no four.
      Our paddles disturb the water surface enough that the stationary objects below seem to be moving. Even the shadow of the paddle takes on a watery personality. What's that black floating through the water? A sting ray? No, just a plastic bag which my companion fishes out with her paddle and carries home. We'll leave the mangroves the way they should be.
      Still.