Coco's Lucky Escape

• Sophia Katsanevakis, Grade 5, Canberra Girls Grammar School - Junior School
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

I'm swimming through the reef it's bright, it's colourful and the coral is dancing in time with the current of the ocean. Fish darted past me in a hurry to find breakfast. They were swimming so fast I could only recognise the saddleback butterflyfish and the rock beauty angelfish.
I am hungry. I slowly glide through the water hoping to find some food. Finally I swim towards a bloom of moon jellyfish. I was so hungry and I gobbled them up so fast I thought I was one of the darting fish. Mmmmmm that was delicious I am so full.
I was tired of being in the same reef, so I decided to go on a new adventure to another reef. I wanted to find new types of jellyfish and sponges to eat.
On my way to the new reef there were lots of fish gilding past me like; livebearers, killifish and discus. It was a long swim so I didn't have enough time to eat lunch. Later that afternoon I arrived at the new reef. The water was warmer at this new reef, the colours were brighter; and the fish had more colour. My favourite was the Juvenile Emperor Angelfish. After searching the reef I found a bloom of bluebottle jellyfish. They were very tasty especially because I hadn't had lunch and it had been a very long time since I had eaten bluebottle jellyfish.
After a good night’s sleep I felt excited and energetic for a day of exploring more of the new reef. As I was exploring the new reef I bumped into another hawksbill turtle. Her name was Coffee. I told her my name was Coco, and we both realised we were doing the same thing, exploring the reef.
We glided through the gentle current together stopping along the way, searching through the different types of coral and playing tips. We were having so much fun playing together; that we couldn't see what was ahead of us. All of a sudden we both came to a stop. We were stuck in something! We tried to escape, but we couldn't because our fins were wrapped in big strings.
I was so scared. I tried to escape but the strings got tighter. Coffee tried to calm me down but all I wanted to do is escape. After a while we were lifted to the top of the water. As we looked up we saw these strange animals with arms and legs looking down at us, standing in something floating above the water. They looked down and tried to touch us, but I kicked in fright. Coffee told me to stay still. The strange animals helped us escape. We were free to roam the ocean again.
Later I realised that we were trapped in a net. We find it very hard to see nets as they are small, thin and not very colourful.
This is one of the reasons why the hawksbill turtle is critically endangered.