Do Not Disturb

“Mummy, what are they doing?”

I can hear the words spoken now. I can feel the slightly nervous chuckle escape my lips.

And we don’t even have children yet.

Like most I anticipate that talk with our child. Yes, the one about sex. There’s a very probable chance it will take place in the month of June. A time when male nurse sharks can been spotted swimming in synchrony throughout the shallow waters of The Bahamas. The docile shark anxiously awaiting to be engaged in aggressive courtship on the sand flats before retreating with the female to darker waters.

And while this photograph captures the seasonal mating in the Exumas, it’s a scientific observation also witnessed in Long Island. It was upon our departure from scattered caves and arrival to the sand spits snug between Galliot and Hog Cay when Captain Gelbert mentioned that the breeding occurs here every year. Much like then, and now, I think how I’ll navigate explaining the difference between human and fish interaction, and explaining how daddy didn’t drag mummy to deeper water by her pectoral fin before we conceived him or her.