Sam checked his dive watch. He always wore it on his left wrist, a trusty companion that was always with him. It read 100 feet. Then at the dive tank, which was at — 210 bar. His mind rapidly made the calculations, as only someone who has spent a life time diving could — somewhere in the vicinity of 15 minutes.
Either way, he needed to return to a lesser depth if he was going to remain submerged long enough to escape his enemy.
Whoever he is?
The air was still hissing out of the end of the low pressure hose, which normally would be attached to a buoyancy control device, known as a BCD. He needed to get down to the wreckage and find one quickly, or his 15 minutes would drop to 5 minutes very soon.
Fortunately, the ship landed the way she had sunk — keel down. Eerily, Sam noted that her sails were still up, and she was standing upright on the seabed, looking as though she had continued sailing on the bottom of the sea.
He struggled through the wreckage to get to the center cockpit.
His eyes stung as they tried to orient himself in the dark, murky water. He couldn’t see much at all; but there, right in front of him, about twenty feet away, he could just make out the faint red glow of the navigational instruments behind the helm.
He reached the helm and then felt around for a plastic compartment on his left — no, it’s not in there. Then he felt for the one to the right of him. It opened easily. The BCD began to float. Sam’s fast reflexes managed to catch it before it disappeared toward the surface.
Next, he continued to feel his way along, until his hands finally grasped the glassy frame of his dive mask.
He pulled it over his head, then placed his hand over the top half of the mask, as he leaned forward and exhaled to clear the mask of water, so that he could once again see.
He checked his watch.
The little symbol of a frog could be seen swimming on its face. Next to it was the number 07:28 indicating that he had now been underwater for almost seven and a half minutes, and was now at a depth of 91 feet. The NDT reading, short for No Decompress Time, was eight minutes.
His eyes quickly glanced at the console.
It now showed that only seventy bars worth of air remained in the tank. Where had he miscalculated the rate of air usage? Then the answer came to him. Without the BCD attached, the low pressure hose had been constantly hissing out air. However, recognizing the cause of miscalculation provided him with little in the way of solutions to his problem.
Now what?
He could now see a little more clearly, and felt as though he’d gained just a little control over his rising panic, now that he had regained the use of one more of his five senses.
Sam resisted the urge to instantly begin the process of resurfacing, which would be a death sentence. Only in James Bond films did the bad guys ever leave immediately after thinking they’d killed the good guy.
Then the answer to his predicament suddenly came to him — he was going to test his new Sea Scooter!
Sam made his way to the back of the center cockpit, where a large storage compartment rested. Undoing the hooks, he found his Sea Scooter 120 — an experimental version, capable of traveling at a speed of 20 miles per hour.
After mounting the sleek scooter, he pressed the red start button.
For a moment, Sam worried that seawater may have gotten into its electronics, but of course, it was designed for diving and it started right up.
The Sea Scout’s little electric engine started to whirl within the confines of its protective mesh, which was there to prevent a diver from accidentally losing any limbs or digits.
He then opened the two air cylinders already attached to its frame.
A soft, red light illuminated the computer screen, located between the handlebars, just the same as those which would be on the dashboard of a motorcycle.
On the top of the dashboard there was a sonar image of the seabed, reaching up to 500 feet ahead. Below, were three instruments. The one on the left was a simple compass. The middle one displayed the current battery power, and like the markings on a fuel tank, it showed a number of boxes up and down, and right now, it showed all the boxes as filled in green, indicating that the tank was full. The last gauge showed the air supply in BARs, at 920.
That was another huge relief.
Sam had already exceeded his maximum no-decompress time, but with that much air in his tanks, he could take his time to resurface ensuring that he would be able to incorporate enough decompression stops along the way to release the nitrogen build up in his bloodstream, a necessary step in order to prevent getting the bends.
Pointing the Sea Scooter so that the compass arrow indicated due west, Sam turned the throttle in his right hand, and the little electric motor started the propeller whirling beneath him. He planned to head straight for the shoreline.
This one is going to be hard to explain to the insurance company.
The trip took less than twenty minutes to reach the shoreline, and another thirty minutes for him to eliminate his risk of decompression illnesses.
Sam then powered the Sea Scooter all the way up onto the sandy beach.
Taking off his dive mask, he noticed that he’d reached an almost-secluded beach. To the south, the point was creating a beautiful break, one that today, had been forming into barrel waves, which then broke about fifty feet from the beach.
It looked like a nice place to surf.
A tanned blonde girl in a purple bikini flashed her sparkling blue eyes and with a friendly smile, asked, “Hey, where did you come from?”
Sam’s mind returned to the present.
“I’ve been diving a wreck,” Sam replied, looking back at the waves breaking on the beach. “It’s pretty choppy out there today. How’s the surf?”
“Really? Where did you put in at? I’ve been surfing here for the past couple of hours and I thought I had the break all to myself.” She sounded rather suspicious for a girl who’d just spent her morning surfing in what could only be described as a surfer’s paradise.
“There’s a wreck dive out there and a beautiful sunken ship.” He then glanced over at the malicious dark blue structure, which was still visible at more than two miles out to sea. It looked like it hadn’t even moved. They were taking no chances, that’s for sure. “It’s a long way out, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Chapter Seven
Aliana looked at her Cartier wrist watch.
The elegance of its solid sapphire bezel on its stem seemed oddly out of place on the wrist of a woman who’d arisen early to see if she could catch a wave.
It was already 9:30 a.m.
She would probably make it back to her hotel in time if she left now. Besides, the winds had started to pick up and were ruining the surf.
It had been a nice morning so far. Cyclone Petersham, to the north, had now dissipated, however, more than two thousand miles to the south, the result of its passing was an enormous, continuous swell.
It had turned an otherwise average surf beach into one bordering on perfection. But, now that the wind had picked up, the surf had become much choppier.
She tossed her short board onto the back seat of her Jeep, where it nestled along her roll bar, climbed into the driver’s seat, and then made her way back into town.
It had been a nice morning for surfing.
Her phone, which she’d left carelessly inside the glove compartment, showed a new message from her dad.