Hues of Blue | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Hues of Blue | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jason Elliotson
10/15/09
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I stared straight up, trying to take in as much of the brilliant azure dome above me. There wasn’t a cloud anywhere. ‘Amazing’, I thought as a strong steady wind and the deep rolling of ocean swells kept me off balance. ‘So much water above, and so much water below.’ I tracked the sky down to the horizon where atmospheric water met liquid water imperceptibly. Somewhere out there in that cerulean fusion sea and sky differentiated, but I couldn’t tell where. It was an eery but very gratifying thing to be surrounded by so much water.

The horizon that I couldn’t see anyway completely disappeared as a wall of cobalt seemed to rise up in front of me. We were in the trough of a great swell and suddenly the world seemed very small. I half-expected an echo to shout back as I whooped at the sight. I looked down at my normal blue wetsuit and then to the dive captain.

“We still goin’?” I shouted into the wind.

He grinned as he strapped up his gun-metal blue oxygen tank. “Get your gear on, folks!”

I was the first to go. As I fell backward into the vast ultramarine, I opened my eyes. Still holding my facemask in place, I looked through my fingers toward the surface. Bubbles upon bubbles scurried away from me through the sunlit turquoise water between me and the air into which they sought release. I swung myself around and began to fin myself deeper into this aquamarine underworld with smooth strokes.

I could see the reef we would explore. From my vantage point, peering through the deepening cyanic gloom, it was only a perse-coloured mass stretching out to the left and right, before me and behind me. As I moved closer, the water seemed to clear, settling into a strong deep ultramarine colour. The reef came so vividly into view it took my breath away. The rock of the reef was a deep Copenhagen. The sand on the ocean floor was periwinkle and saxe. A royal blue starfish moved slowly amongst some coral, and beautiful peacock coral polyps stretched their finger-like tentacles out into the blue, sifting food particles from the light current. Electric blue tangs flashed to and fro in a school, and I noticed a teal-blue moray picking his way through the cracks and crevices in the reef.
I was completely engrossed in this peaceful gentian world when I suddenly noticed that many of the little fishes dancing so happily here and there had disappeared. My eyes found a long, lithe shape gliding easily in out of the midnight dark of the open water. The shark’s appearance didn’t concern me, but the vast navy darkness of the open ocean caused me to still my thoughts and reflect.

As I peered into the deep unknown, I thought about the vastness and depth of the Creator. I thought of the blue threads on the hems of the priestly garments of Old Testament Israel, and the blue cloths that covered the ark of the covenant when it was moved. Here I was, clothed in blue, the colour of royalty – His colour - and my breath caught.

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