With Neptune, Poseidon andMother Nature

In this paradise, be prepared to tango with your surroundings

and need to rely on your senses.

A week aftermy snorkeling trip I listened as a friend, a frequent beachgoer, recalled his most memorable underwater experience. “I swam and swam, going further and further out into the ocean while admiring the schools of fish that appeared in every color, shape and iridescence that I could possibly imagine. Even the sea around me changed its hue— from aquamarine to peacock blue and then to sapphire.

“But then suddenly, as if I had unwisely stepped inside some invisible door leading to the secret chamber of Poseidon, the sounds and sights receded. Instead, a much darker color reigned, color that absorbed and dissolved every shaft of sunlight. That’s the real underwater world: cold, strange and sealed-off. It’s not a world that gives one the feeling that you can come or go at will. “I was scared.” Indeed, caution does come, and often when you least expect it. Another member of the hotel staff, an Indian whose hometown is just two hours away from theMaldives, recalled for me his experience wandering alone on the island late one night.

“I was suddenly struck by fear and I didn’t know why,” Reji Sebastian said. “I heard the rustling sound of banana tree leaves and toldmyself that I had better go back to the hotel.”

Every year, people, especially city dwellers, come from all over the world this paradise to escape their fellow homo sapiens and to be close to nature. Yet how many of them are really ready to be alone with it, knowing that to be integral to nature means subjecting oneself completely to its dictates?

Hundreds of millions of years ago, when sea creatures crawled on to land with fins that would eventually become legs, they never went back. When apes learned to walk upright, they traded forever their speed of running for broader vision; and when man built houses to keep the rain and snow outside, he chose to keep nature at his doorstep.

Aglimpse through the window is beautiful, just as venturing outside is bound to bring its excitement, and no one is going to demolish the house.

Onmy last night inMaldives I lowered the curtain, snuggled up in bed and slept tight.