Beneath a floating inflatable climbing pyramid are fish silhouetted against the sun. Shadows of larger sunfish and bass sit lazily in the shade looking over with curiosity. An enormous school of sunfish guppies skirts the edge, you can run your hand through it. Tiny, nearly translucent, a darker spot in their lower chest, just behind the fins going towards their tails. Heart and lungs?
I swirled away closer to the shallows, where the underwater vegetation becomes thicker and more forest-like. Sitting near the bottom, perfectly still and well camouflaged sits a small pike, maybe 5 or 6 inches long. Green with corrugated stripes. Perfectly still waiting in ambush. Eyeing me with suspicion as I stop to look. But none the less jerking up in a hockey stick move to intercept one of the guppies wandering in the area. Too fast to see almost, un-natural speed for what one would expect in water. It's unclear if he caught anything, but I thought I saw a gulp.
Onward, parallel to the shore and near some boats docked on the side. Another pike and numerous small guppies, bass by the looks of the small stripe on their side. The larger guppies seem to be aware of this new pike and sidle up alongside him, seemingly unalarmed, knowing where he is.
Medium sized sunfish guppies an inch or two long start to come up and examine me. After a minute of sitting still they come right up to my mask, only a half a foot away. Trying to figure me out. How many men with mask, snorkel and fins have they seen? Do I look to them like some fish from the deeps of the lake? Or more like an astronaut?
To peer into this world is to catch a glimpse through all seeing eyes. To become privy to some small part of the infinite. A microcosm, no less or greater than human society or the internet or whatever is happening on the surface of a planet orbiting the star Trappist-1.