I am not a snorkeler, nor do I make photographs in or under the water. However this ray glided past my Zodiac raft, just below the surface of a clear water mangrove lagoon, enabling me to photograph it from my high and dry vantage point. I noticed that a golden leaf was floating on the surface of the water, shaped very much like the ray itself. I waited until the leaf drifted over the ray and made this photograph, which contrasts green and blue colors to the gilded leaf, and echoes the life cycle of nature as well.