He floated a few moments longer, his pulse racing, taking gulps of air through his reg in stunned amazement. A quick glance at his tank pressure showed him he needed to move, and move quickly. He shot inside the engine room and wriggled over the diesel motor to grab up the bag, wrench and lantern. He put the lid back on the grease and dropped the tub beside the engine for later use. Backing out the way he’d come, he pulled the door closed against the crowbar he used as a stop; in case the hinges seized, he’d still be able to slip through. Bag in hand he kicked hard up out of the hold and let the current whisk him to the stern, where he grabbed the line and went up as fast as he dared. Looking up, he saw Ainsley’s cuddy cabin brightly lit by the sun and a figure peering over the side into the water. His reg breathed heavy on his next inhalation but he knew he couldn’t ascend any faster, he was already risking the bends. Next breath he felt the agonising clunk of the second stage closing and his air supply was done. He let the air left in his lungs slowly ease out as he rose. With the surrounding water pressure reducing as he neared the surface, the air left in his lungs expanded so he knew to relieve that pressure as he ascended. He broke the surface and threw his reg aside to grab a sweet lungful of air.
“Everything go okay?” Ainsley looked down at him with an innocent smile.
“Like clockwork,” Whitey managed in reply.
Chapter 40
November 2019
They decided to pair up; Hazel and AJ were hoping to investigate the mysterious door, whereas Thomas and Carlos were staying as shallow as the current would allow. AJ led and, as planned, she released the line when she reached a depth of 70’, letting the current take her towards the cabin structure as she continued to descend. Hazel followed suit. They figured they’d gain a minute or two from taking this shortcut... provided they timed it right and didn’t get pulled off the wreck. With no air in her BCD, AJ dropped swiftly as the air in her wetsuit was crushed to nothing by the water pressure and she became less buoyant. The plan worked perfectly, and she was released from the current as she reached the rear of the cargo hold at deck level. With a quick okay sign from Hazel, the two continued straight down the back of the hold towards the door. Hazel shone her powerful, compact dive light ahead and AJ carefully watched her dive computer.
It read 131 feet as they settled upright before the door. It was wedged open somewhere around forty or fifty degrees and the base blended to the floor of the hold with a carpet of silt and coral debris. AJ could just make out a coral-encrusted rod of some sort apparently used to hold the door ajar many moons ago. Maybe while they cleaned the wreck after it was sunk, she thought. Hazel shone her light inside the room and AJ peered over her shoulder. It was clearly the engine room. Inside, away from the sunlight the big diesel engine was free of coral growth but covered in a layer of fine silt and a green, sinewy algae that looked like underwater cobwebs. Hazel ran her light around the door frame to size up the entry and AJ was pleased her friend was concerned about not disturbing the living coral on the wreck.
AJ watched Hazel carefully slip through the doorway and, taking her own light from her BCD pocket, turned it on and did the same. The inside was cramped with lines and plumbing from the motor, running in all directions like a dark jungle full of vines. Hazel moved to the port side, so AJ went the other way. The room was narrower than the width of the boat so there had to be rooms either side, but there was no sign of another doorway in or out. An eye glinted in the edge of her light beam, and bringing the illumination carefully back in that direction revealed a large grouper, looking rather unsettled by their presence. AJ was careful not to blast him with light, but he still decided to bolt for the door in a haze of silt that clearly startled Hazel, causing her light beam to flash around the room. They both looked across the engine room, keeping each other in the soft light at the edge of their torches. AJ could tell Hazel was smiling behind her reg.
AJ checked her computer. They indeed had gone a little deeper when they entered the engine room, 135 feet. They were at the very limit of safe depth. No-deco time was nine minutes. They’d barely spent any time inside the wreck but at that depth the volume of gas they were consuming was significant. She decided they could spend three more minutes inside and then they needed to get out quickly. She held up three fingers then pointed down indicating she meant in here. Hazel gave her an okay sign. AJ softly finned towards the back of the room, careful to stay higher in the angled room so she didn’t go any deeper. Below her the drive train extended from the back of the engine through a bulkhead towards the stern and the props that were hanging in mid-air over the drop-off. In fact, she wondered, are we far enough back where we are, to be over the edge of the wall? The idea that straight below them was nothing but water for close to a thousand feet was unnerving and she decided to stop thinking about it.
After a few more minutes exploring and enjoying watching a tiny nudibranch inching its way along a corroded steel tube, she checked her computer. It was time to go. She shone her light over the port side to see what Hazel was up to. She could see her light beam but couldn’t see Hazel. AJ eased to the top of the motor amongst the myriad of lines, carefully picking her way through the mess. Now would be a bad time to get all strung up and entangled. As she made the port side, Hazel rose up and pointed to the door. AJ nodded, figuring she’d snare some lines if she tried to signal okay with her hand. They both squeezed back through the doorway and immediately ascended to the cabins, allowing their no-deco time to gain a few more minutes with the depth decrease. AJ looked around until she spotted Thomas, watching her from the walkway across the upper cabins. She signalled they were heading to the line, and he confirmed they’d follow. Carlos was just behind Thomas and saw the exchange.
The four divers kicked firmly towards the bow trying to minimise their time below a hundred feet to get there. AJ let the three of them start up the line before she joined them. As they pulled themselves up, hand over hand, they all looked back down at the magnificent wreck. She’d once been a small cargo vessel, nondescript and indistinguishable from a thousand other small boats moving man’s goods from place to place. Now she lay in her grave as the core of an ecosystem that bristled with life, from AJ’s nudibranch to the school of large jacks they now watched circling above the cabins. Her whole outer shell had become a living entity of coral. AJ felt a stab of sadness as she remembered the precarious position the wreck held. Next storm she’d almost certainly be gone. Her sadness swiftly changed to appreciation that she’d had a chance to explore the Raptor before she left for deeper waters and became the host for another set of life forms.
She looked at Hazel hanging on the line with her strong arms and noticed the sleeves of her wetsuit had a brown hue. Curious, she thought, she must have really dug around in there. Looking back down she saw a large reef shark slowly weave its body back and forth, cruising across the wreck. AJ idly wondered how long that shark had been patrolling the wreck of the Raptor. I bet he’s seen a thing or too, she thought with a smile.
Chapter 41
June 1974
Whitey stood knee deep in the gin-clear water with his Voit fins in one hand and his flat-lensed, oval mask and straight tube snorkel in the other. The warm water lapped gently around his legs before rolling slowly up the pale sand of Seven Mile Beach. Isabella stood on the sand adjusting the rubber strap of a similar mask with her fins laid by her feet. The morning sun shone brightly from behind her in the east, making Whitey squint to see her perfectly tanned figure barely covered in her black bikini. His attraction to her was certainly physical, but it was much more than that. He wanted to hear the words from her lips. Whatever she talked about he was interested in; if it affected her world, he wanted to know about it. With the majority of women he’d frequented, he’d wished they’d stop talking.
Satisfied her new mask was adjusted right, Isabella walked towards him into the water.
“Okay, I think I have it like you said. How far out are we going?” she asked, casting her view across the
open water.
He let her walk straight to him and kissed her as her body pressed against his.
“To the reef. I don’t know exactly how far it is off the beach here, I’d guess about half a kilometre.” He sat back in the water and pulled his fins on while he floated on his back. She watched then did the same. Whitey kicked away from shore until the water was deeper then stood on the sandy bottom and put his mask in place. He kept the very top of his moustache, under his nose, shaved so the mask would seal. Once she’d put her mask in place, he gently swept away some of her long black hair from under her mask seal.
“Okay, just swim using your fins and keep your hands still, nice and calm so we don’t scare the fish; we’ll see more that way. If you get too much water in your mask, or down the snorkel, pop up and clear it. Later I’ll show you how to clear them without coming upright.”
She nodded, her beautiful big green eyes gazing at him from behind the glass lens. She put the snorkel’s rubber mouthpiece in place and glided across the water with her mask submerged. With a few strong kicks he was beside her and they settled into a gentle rhythm heading west towards the shallow reef. They passed over the occasional small patch of coral and Isabella lingered to watch the juvenile fish busy themselves in their isolated little world. Whitey chuckled to himself, knowing what was ahead of them. If the coral patch was Isabella’s tiny hometown of Mojácar, they were about to visit Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia combined on the reef ahead. The depth slowly increased until around fifteen feet, where a dark shadow appeared ahead of them. Isabella sat upright, finning gently to keep her lean body afloat. She took her snorkel from her mouth and Whitey could see her eyes were concerned.
“What is that?” she pointed ahead of them.
He laughed. “That’s what we came out here for. Trust me.”
They put their snorkels back in and he took her hand for reassurance as they continued. The shadow quickly came into focus and the colours of the reef began to reveal themselves. The overhung ridge of the edge of the reef sprang magically from the sandy flats like an oasis in a desert. Soon the reef was only eight feet below them, and Whitey heard a squeal through Isabella’s snorkel. Carpets of gorgonian soft corals gently tickled the water around them, and sea fans and plumes swayed with the almost imperceptible surge. Sponges in bright yellows and pinks stretched towards them and barrel sponges, two feet across, looked like pairs of open-topped tom-tom drums. Isabella’s hands became animated as she pointed at one thing after another and Whitey drifted along beside her, letting her soak up her first experience on a coral reef.
She watched a pair of longnose butterfly fish shimmy in and out of a small coral head. She was fascinated by the brilliant blues and yellows of a queen angelfish that shyly hid behind a purple sea fan. Her hands clutched together nervously when she saw the head of a spotted moray eel waving back and forth from a crevice, its mouth opening and closing as it pushed water through its tiny gills. Whitey waved a hand under her mask to get her attention and pointed to his right. Isabella turned to look and her hands clasped together in delight when she spotted the baby hawksbill turtle clumsily taking nibbles from a brown sponge.
Whitey heard her splutter and they lifted their heads up.
“I turned too much,” she laughed between coughs. “I swallowed some water down my tubey thing.”
He laughed. “That’s a snorkel, my dear.”
“I swallowed some water down my snorkel,” she corrected herself with a big smile. “This is amazing! There’s so much to see. I can’t believe I’ve been on the island all this time and never come out this far.”
“I’m happy to be the one to introduce you,” he said, brimming with joy at her instant love of the world he adored. “Wait till I teach you to scuba dive.” He grinned.
“Really? You’d teach me? I want to go down there!” she said, looking into the water excitedly.
“You can go down there right now,” he said and taking a deep breath he ducked under and swam down to the top of the reef. He kicked around and rolled over to look up at Isabella, staring wide eyed through her mask at him, her perfect form silhouetted on the surface.
He could get used to this. He knew right then that he wanted to spend forever on this island. Or maybe it wasn’t just the island. Maybe it was Isabella.
Chapter 42
November 2019
The Fox and Hare wasn’t a fancy place and it was tucked out of the way enough in West Bay that it catered mainly to locals. An occasional tourist stumbled across it by chance or recommendation, usually Brits looking for a traditional-style pub on the British overseas territory. The only advertising they did was for their Friday night live music, so by the time AJ had picked Hazel up and they walked in, the place was packed. Thomas waved to them from a table in the corner and the two made their way through the crowd and joined the group. AJ felt a little self-conscious in her new, form-fitting summer dress but the compliments flowed as she passed people she knew. She noticed with a smile the eyes lingered on Hazel a little longer in her short denim skirt and vee-neck blouse unbuttoned seductively. Carlos and Sydney were already there, and Reg was helping his wife, Pearl, set up her gear on the small stage. Pearl was the entertainment a couple of Fridays a month and brought in a good crowd of ex-pats and locals alike.
“Hey guys,” AJ started, “this is Hazel,” and turning to Hazel said, “and I think the only one you haven’t met yet is Sydney.”
Sydney, a tall, beautiful, Caymanian girl hugged AJ and shook hands with Hazel. “Hi, I’m Thomas’s sister and Carlos’s fiancée.”
“Bonsoir,” Hazel replied. “And you go to university in America, correct?”
They both sat down. “I do, Miami, I’m only home for a long weekend visit,” Sydney replied.
“Who needs drinks?” AJ asked, still standing.
Hazel went to get up again and AJ touched her shoulder indicating she should stay put. “You’ll have plenty of chance; what can I get you?”
Hazel protested, “Okay, but remember I’m supposed to be buying. I’ll have one of those ciders you like.”
Everyone else had a drink so AJ headed for the bar leaving Hazel being blasted with questions from the others. She detoured to the stage and gave Pearl a big hug. The woman was a little shorter than AJ, and with her busty figure, AJ was always surprised how far she had to lean her head in to rest cheek to cheek when they embraced. Pearl, like her husband, was a keen hugger, so she’d knock the breath out of you if you weren’t prepared. AJ loved them both dearly and Pearl’s hugs had the warm, unrestrained affection that AJ’s mother never quite managed. She could stay in her embrace forever. Well, until she ran out of breath. Tonight, Pearl wore stage make-up, which was a little heavier than her usual eyeliner and lipstick, but still subtly done. They finally released each other, and Pearl looked her over approvingly.
“Lovely dress,” Pearl noted in her thick London accent. “Thanks for coming tonight, my dear.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” AJ replied. “You’ll have to meet Hazel when you take a break, she bought me the dress; she’s the French woman who’s been diving with us.”
Pearl smiled. “Reg told me you lot dived that old wreck off the point here. You’re always up to something crazy, my girl.”
AJ laughed. “It was fun, but maybe don’t mention it to Bob and Beryl.” Reg and Pearl stayed in touch with AJ’s parents, as they had since the Bailey family first came to Cayman on holiday when AJ was a young girl. She knew all four were just looking out for her but there was no point unduly worrying her parents back in England.
The bar was packed but a couple of regulars recognised AJ and let her squeeze in to make her order. Frank was down the far end but looked her way and she held up two fingers to which he nodded back. After a few minutes he made his way down her end with two bottles of Strongbow cider.
“Evening AJ, anything else?” Frank said, his forehead beading with sweat.
“Better get Reg one,” she replied and Frank po
ured bourbon over a couple of ice cubes and set it on the bar.
“Thanks Frank.” AJ took the drinks and made her way back through the crowd, saying hi to everyone she knew on the way, and receiving a few more compliments on how nice she looked. As she sat down, the house music cut and she heard Pearl’s voice over the sound system welcoming everyone to the Fox and Hare.
They all stood to try and see the stage through the hub of people, as Pearl started strumming her guitar for the intro to Sheryl Crow’s ‘If It Makes You Happy’ to the applause of the crowd. As Pearl got into the chorus Hazel leaned over to AJ. “She’s really good!”
AJ smiled back. “She’s just getting warmed up, wait ‘till she takes on some Heart, she’ll go toe to toe with Ann Wilson any day.”
Hazel smirked in approval. “I love Heart.”
By the time Pearl had finished her first set, the table was littered with empty food plates, the contents devoured by the hungry divers. Pearl and Reg had joined them, and they packed around the small table intended for four.
“Okay, please let me buy a round of drinks,” Hazel begged, having been denied several times.
The group relented and AJ accompanied her to help carry the drinks. Hazel started towards the bar but then veered off towards the door and stepped outside. AJ followed and wondered where they were going. Once outside and clear of the door, Hazel stopped and turned to AJ with a serious look.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
AJ was taken aback, her first thought wondering if she’d said something wrong to her new friend.
“Sure, what’s up?” she replied tentatively.
“I need to go back to the wreck,” Hazel said firmly, looking AJ straight in the eyes.
Wreck of the Raptor Page 14
