Up From The Deep by Vaughn Jackson (highly recommended books txt) 📕

“Here,” Toby replied.

“That piece of junk? It’s a Sea Quod. We’re going past 150 today, dude.”

“The Oceanic Nitrox flooded on yesterday’s dive,” Toby said quietly. He still didn’t feel good about it. Of the two of them, he had a superstitious streak and a bunch of things had been adding up over the last couple of days that had him spooked. One couldn’t stay spooked around Ewan for very long, though. The man blew through everything in life like a charging rhino.

It was both inspiring and unnerving.

Ewan grunted. The light breeze coming out of the northwest ruffled his hair.

“Check the regulators again. Then let’s gear up and get going. We should get two dives in today if the weather holds.” He pulled up the rest of his dry suit and zipped up. “Barb, you good?”

“Thumbs up, hon,” she replied, muscling her way into the heavy suit. Despite her misgivings, it was a fine morning to be out on the water. Sunlight glittered off the waves. Aside from a fleet of day fishermen scattered miles to the northwest off Montauk’s shore, they had the ocean to themselves.

From below decks, Gus “Doogie” Stillwell emerged, carrying extra diving weights. Doogie was one of their many part-time helpers—one of those locals who did pickup work around the harbor. Mostly, in his case, as a deckhand on the Viking Cruise lines, though he could also be found at Uihlein’s Marina helping with boat repairs off season. A horse-faced man in his late-thirties, he had the haggard, leathery features of a veteran fisherman and a smoker. If not overly burdened in the brains department however, he was doggedly reliable and methodical, two things invaluable as an anchor man on diving trips.

“What’s the good word, Doogie?” Toby said, crouched over the tanks, re-checking the regulators.

“Focus-mocus!” Doogie shot back, one of his standard Doogie-isms. Only this time it came out a little flat, as if he too felt under par.

“That’s right, pal, focus-mocus.”

Ten minutes later they were geared up and on the dive platform at the back of the boat. Doogie stood to one side, arm outstretched so Ewan could read the oversized watch on his forearm. Barbara always hated this part—the scuba gear was incredibly heavy and the neoprene suit made her sweat.

She looked over at Ewan, who gave her a wink and a thumbs-up.

“Everybody in!” Doogie yelled when Ewan nodded.

The first plunge into the water always shocked her: the sudden, claustrophobic sensation followed an unreasoning flash of fear—the fear of dropping into a vast body of water (like the Atlantic) with an unknown multitude of strange creatures somewhere below. Even as a girl at camp she’d hated freshwater lakes, the ones with murky depths and trailing water grass... and God knows what else.

Today their destination lay 160 feet down in an odd little crevasse not far from where the submerged shelf dropped aside into the deeper abyss of the Atlantic. Just inside the government restricted dive area...where the two strange shipwrecks had been found the day before. One had been the remains of a nineteenth century square-rigger—a frigate Ewan guessed—but the main wreck had been a WWII Destroyer, wedged into the top of the canyon.

The descent line they’d secured on the previous dive still hung in place. It’d been left attached to a submerged buoy for easy retrieval—to Barbara it appeared to be little more than a path down into nothingness.

The three divers took a moment to check each other to make sure all their equipment was working properly. The dive plan they’d laid out had them descending first to one hundred feet for some general ocean shots, then down to the wreck for forty minutes. Factoring in time for decompression, the entire dive was set for 90 minutes, max.

Ewan was concerned about the deeper rip-currents which had kicked in aggressively the day before roughly twenty feet above the wreck. There’d been a few hair-raising moments when the three of them were forced to swim hard against it for a full five minutes. Today, everyone was under strict orders not to stray more than ten yards down-current from the descent line.

This morning however, the ocean seemed preternaturally calm, as if it had been waiting for them. One of Barbara’s weaknesses Ewan constantly ribbed her about was her overly imaginative mind and a tendency to personalize everything around her.

With her breathing growing more regular, Barbara relaxed somewhat as they made their way down through the absinthe-tinted depths. Here and there schools of fish went about their dizzying course changes, occasionally pursued by a nurse shark. She let herself become attuned to the uncomfortable sensation of breathing through her mouth; the odd taste of the rubber regulator between her lips, the constant chorus of bubbles chasing each other up to the surface.

The subtle tugs and rhythms of the ocean.

Ewan took the lead, with Toby following behind with the main camera. Barbara carried the secondary camera; a Backscatter Canon 5D Mark IV underwater rig. Toby might be a much more seasoned underwater photographer, but lately Barbara had been getting quite a bit of good footage and Ewan had hinted at letting her handle even more of the camera work on today’s dive.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention—an adult Great White flitting just along the edge of their range of visibility. She felt an instinctive pang of nervousness but wasn’t overly concerned. Sharks rarely went after divers underwater.

Another movement caught her eye—Ewan signaling urgently.

It took her a moment, then she saw it: a giant sea tortoise gliding ahead of them. She lived for these moments: the majestic creatures of the sea, glimpsed in their element. Checking her tether to the descent line, she glanced at the depth gauge on her wrist, then brought the camera up and began shooting.

It would be great footage, she knew, with the light beams from the surface bracketing the tortoise as it caromed and arced gracefully through the water, trailing bubbles. For a moment she forgot she