Mauritius Island boasts one of the very few and indisputably breathtaking underwater waterfalls in our world. One glance is all it takes to see why.
I’ve looked it up on a number of sights because they call the waterfall an “illusion.” As a professed wordsmith, I find this description a little funny. While a scientific and technical description of the phenomenon explains that the reefs look like a waterfall only because sand is falling from one level of the ocean to another, that begs the question of what a waterfall really is: is it water falling from one given point all the way to a lower point considered its logical destination … or is it water falling only a portion of that same distance all by itself?
Why the distinction? The sand is falling both because of gravitational pulls and because of quickly dropping temperatures and because of ocean currents. Water molecules make the same movements as the sand – they just don’t make the entire journey – and while one droplet may not make the entire journey from one place to another, it “falls” a portion of the distance. In other words, surely some water molecules make part of the path down the “underwater waterfall” along with the sand. Can’t falling water be properly called a waterfall without calling it an illusion just because it doesn’t make the entire journey?
Regardless of the word plays, semantics, and technical explanations, the site surely qualifies as one of nature’s more wondrous places to contemplate and consider. It almost inspires me to write a story … but it would probably require mermaids and I’m just not all that interested in mermaid stories!
The image comes from the Virtual Travelers and you can see it in greater detail on google maps.
