I also had to write this during summer camp. :)

Hanauma Bay

Do you believe that anyone’s life can change in just one minute? Whether they realize it or not, they’ll have a life-changing experience, sooner or later. Sometimes, it will exchange them for a pessimist, but most of the time, it will help them turn over a new leaf. Life-changing experiences can and will give you “all or nothing”. My dim opinion of natural beauty vanished one warm summer day.
Last summer, I stepped onto the beach of Hanauma Bay, Hawaii, and saw hundreds of people in colorful swimsuits lying around on towels underneath big umbrellas. I didn’t get the point of umbrellas if they had a bottle of tanning lotion in one hand and oversized sunglasses in the other. Small children built lopsided sandcastles a little too close to the water and went crying to their parents. Kids my age unwillingly followed tour guides into the clear crystal water with snorkels on their faces. As I put on my brand new orange snorkel, I hesitantly followed my dad to the waves, which lapped at my feet like a dog licking its bone. We waded into the lukewarm water, until I could taste a little bit of salt water on my lips. I stood on a rough coral head, and suddenly saw a vibrant yellow tang circling my feet! I turned around, and a few yellow butterflyfish were munching on coral! A surgeon fish had just popped out of a tiny crevice! Blennies poked their round heads out of their holes to greet me, and they waved at me while I was passing by. I paddled myself left, but that was a mistake. A school of multicolored goat fish bombarded me! It felt like soft little pillows hurled at me. I watched my step as I looked down at a delicate orange striped clown fish climbing into an anemone that was as pink as a cherry blossom. I had never felt so close to nature before! I felt as free as a fish, with no cares, and a whole underwater world to explore! The noise gradually faded away, and all that I noticed was the splendor of the fish: red spots, orange stripes, yellow tails, green fins, blue bodies, purple blotches, and white bellies. Without them, life in the ocean would be nothing more than a drab, gray landscape of rocks and coral.
This experience helped me look at nature through new eyes. One thing I learned was that not all beauty comes in the form of jewelry stores and fashion magazines. Nature holds the most beauty, and always will, no matter what. I ended my loathing of natural beauty in a little bay. Through this experience, I discovered that the true meaning of life was to love every single moment of it, and to enjoy the real sense of beauty. But most of all, it helped me gain consciousness of all the natural beauty around me that I would have overlooked otherwise.