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“Amazing, right?”

I spit out the snorkel gear. “How crazy is that? It’s, like… right there!”

He nods. “I see them out here all the time.”

I gape at him, almost as stunned by the sighting of the sea turtle as I am to realize that, to some people, that’s a common occurrence.

I’m still holding on to him, like he’s a life raft keeping me afloat. I’m surprised that he hasn’t shaken me off.

Licking the salt from my lips, I uncurl my hands and lower my feet back into the sand below. The current has pulled us out farther and the surface is nearly to my sternum now. We’re just two goggled heads smiling at each other like loons.

“It still blows my mind,” says Quint. “When you’re looking at the water from up here, you’d never know.” I look down, and he’s right. The water is clear—at least I always thought of it as clear—but I can only see the vague murky shapes of our bodies. There’s none of the clarity and brilliance that was so striking underneath.

We duck our heads under again. The sea turtle has moved a few feet away, but it’s still there, loitering on the ocean floor. I see Quint pull something from a pocket in his swim trunks, like a phone, but bigger. Chunkier. A phone wearing battle armor.

I watch as he dives deeper, getting so close to the turtle I actually become a little worried for him. He swims around a few times and I realize he’s taking pictures. The turtle ignores him. I’m beginning to think that Quint will pass out if he holds his breath any longer, when the turtle turns, shockingly quick and graceful, and swims straight for me. I startle and lift up my legs, giving it a wide berth. It passes underneath me and continues on its way toward the shallows.

Quint and I both pop up again. He’s panting, his hair plastered to his face. It takes him a few seconds to drain the seawater from his snorkel tube, but he’s grinning the whole time.

“Is that a camera?” I ask.

“Naw, just my phone,” he answers, holding it up. It looks like a swanky gadget out of one of Jude’s favorite sci-fi movies. “My mom got me a waterproof case for my birthday. I’m saving up for a wider lens that’ll work with it, but it’s good enough for now. So? What did you think of your first real wildlife sighting?”

I consider this. I’ve seen sea turtles at the zoo, but seeing one here, so close to me, was exhilarating.

“Is there more?” I ask.

He laughs. “Let’s find out.”

I had expected our snorkeling experiment to last fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, but Quint and I end up being in the water for more than two hours. By the time we finally come ashore, my fingers have pruned, I have a cut on my ankle from a vicious rock, and I feel like I’ve just journeyed to an alien planet and returned to tell the tale.

Quint knew all the best places to go. He took me to some rocky outcrops and pointed out underground gardens of seaweed and kelp. We saw so many fish, my mind is dizzy trying to remember them all. A kaleidoscope of colors, darting in and out of the rocks, swooping around my knees, shimmering like gemstones. For a grand finale, which I suspect Quint had been planning all along, we swam farther up-shore, to a cropping of large rocks that couldn’t be seen from any public beaches. The rocks were crowded with harbor seals, whooping and barking and lazing in the afternoon sun.

I have lived here my whole life. How did I not know this was here, only a few miles from my house?

I’ve forgotten all about my previous self-consciousness as Quint and I make the trek back up the beach. The tide has gone out and the walk to our towels feels endless. Sand clings to the soles of my feet. Quint keeps glancing over at me, grinning, almost secretive.

“So?” he says as I wrap one of the beach towels around my body.

“That was…” I struggle for words. I’m suddenly dying of thirst, and I can feel a sunburn on my back, but it all pales beside the afternoon I’ve had.

“I know,” says Quint, saving me from having to find adequate descriptors. “But here comes the million-dollar question.” The way he says it, I feel like this whole afternoon has been a buildup to his next words.

Instantly guarded, I meet his gaze. There are deep red lines around his eyes, a perfect silhouette of his goggles. I probably look just as silly. My hair is frizzing around my face as it starts to dry out. But after the day we’ve had, none of that seems to matter.

Quint gives me a knowing look, bordering on smug. “Is it worth saving?”

I go still.

Suddenly, it makes sense.

Because no one is going to give us money if they don’t know why it’s important.

I remember him saying that, but it didn’t really sink in until now. I feel a stronger connection to our little stretch of ocean now than I ever have in my life. The magical schools of fish, the shells that shimmer along the ocean floor, the sea turtles. I swam with flipping sea turtles!

And suddenly, I care.

Is it worth saving? Is it worth protecting?