The water was murky, but he had dived in worse. He swam down, letting the current move him over the bottom, adjusting his depth so the bottom was just detectable. He swung the light right and left to make his search as wide as possible. Presently the bottom began to rise, and he figured he was approaching the point. He decided to search back toward the skiff a little farther out. He turned deeper and pulled himself up the safety line against the current. When the angle of the line got to about 45 degrees, he turned deeper again and drifted back downstream. Then still deeper and back upstream. Nothing. By now his tank was getting low, so he surfaced.
"Nothing yet. Should we try the other side of the point?"
Anthony agreed, so Rick clambered up the ladder hanging off the stern, and switched tanks while Anthony maneuvered the skiff to almost even with the point and slightly upstream. "Okay, most of your search'll be downstream from the point. Good luck."
They repeated the pre-dive equipment check and he re-entered the water.
He happened to look toward shore and figured he saw some damaged coral and scraped rocks on a rise at the very end of the point. He followed the bottom down. He was getting ready to turn around when he found a wide damaged stretch of sea bottom that trailed off out of sight and slightly toward shore. He was at the end of his line, so he drifted straight up. When he hit the surface, he waved and yelled to get Anthony's attention.
Anthony was watching, and immediately weighed anchor and drifted toward him. Rick pulled in the line to stay in approximately the same place. Anthony dropped the anchor and brought the boat to a halt about 20 feet from him. "Damage on the bottom. Might have something," and he went back down.
He followed the track of broken coral and scraped rocks. Almost immediately he saw what had to be a whip antenna. He felt thankful for his training—it was helping keep his heart rate under control and his breathing even. About at the end of the line he saw a large dark shape at the edge of visibility. It had to be the boat! He returned to the surface and signaled Anthony. "I think we found something!" he yelled. Pull about 30 feet closer!"
Anthony signaled a thumbs up, and Rick returned to the bottom.
The boat lay canted to one side, dents and scrape marks all over. The exposed side of the bow had been completely crushed in. The boat would have dived for the bottom and rolled over several times in the current before it stopped moving. Maybe rolled over and then dived, depending on the angle of the boat, the waves, and the wind. He could imagine the crew being thrown overboard immediately if they hadn't known what was about to happen. He swam toward the stern. Sure enough, the Lydivivi. Rick got a lump in his throat. He looked at his depth gauge. 40 feet.
"Could they have escaped?" He wondered. "Conceivably, but doubtful. But maybe. Too many variables to be sure either way." He attached a marker float to a railing and inflated it, then swam an inspection tour of the wreck. He looked inside through the hole in the hull and just made out the galley through the wreckage. The cover to the hold had come off (he hadn't seen it anywhere, so it had probably drifted farther downstream), the cockpit was crushed, but the companionway into the cabin was open enough to swim down, and the cabin looked empty. Behind the companionway, the door into the engine compartment was halfway open. He pried it farther open—and found a body, legs pointed toward him. In spite of himself, he sobbed. (Not a good idea because screwing up his face made his mask leak. He cleared it easily; mask leaks are a common nuisance while diving.) He drew a shaky breath, reached into the compartment, and pulled on the pant cuffs to extract the body. He wrestled the remains up the stairway and onto the deck. Marine scavengers had gone to work on the exposed parts, and he couldn't tell which man it was. He was able to recover the contents of a hip pocket, a wallet, but didn't attempt to read it. Time enough for that later. The current was pushing the body over the railing and he helped it over, then watched it drift away.
He headed for the surface. He had been down long enough to necessitate some decompression time, so the trip up took a while.
"That's it," he yelled.
Anthony let the boat drift some more so Rick didn't have to pull himself as far to climb in. "I figured, when I saw the marker. Any bodies?"
"One. Can't tell if it's Gus or Bill. Their boat, though."
Anthony sighed. I have an idea. "Let's cruise the shoreline and see if we find any signs of anyone washed ashore. Not that it's much of a shore. Mostly rocks."
When they were a hundred feet or so out, Rick suggested, "I'll check the bottom, you scan the shoreline," and he jumped in using snorkel, fins, and mask, and swam in to where he could just make out the bottom.
They had toured for about fifteen minutes when Anthony rapped on the hull of the skiff to get Rick's attention.
Rick looked up and Anthony pointed.
Rick headed that way and found the other fisherman. Gulls had pretty much removed the flesh from the head, the body seemed crushed, and crabs had exposed the skeleton at the extremities. He could see movement in the pant legs. Gritting his teeth to keep his gorge down, he found the wallet, then grabbed a pant leg and dragged the body into the water. When he got to the boat, the body was not in evidence. "Lost at sea, both of them," he muttered.
Anthony nodded. Both bodies would be completely gone in a week. Their condition would have made them a horrible memory if loved ones were to see them.
As they motored back to the terminal, Rick held out the wallets. "We know it's both of them," he said, looked at Anthony, then tossed them into the water.
Anthony didn't even nod, but he agreed. They rounded the point and headed north. It was a secret they would keep all their lives.
——————-
Karen and her parents had expected a lot of competition for seats, but the crowd was mostly relief workers arriving and islanders milling around ready to help pick up equipment and supplies. They were able to take the first plane out, and the airline apologized profusely for the inconvenience, as if the storm had been their fault. They even got to sit in first class. Two hours after they got to the airport, they were in the air.
Roy looked at his wife. "He seems to be a fine young man. Karen could do worse."
She replied, "Yes, but I hate all those tattoos! Whatever possessed him to get them?"
"Well," he said, "He has a polynesian background, and that's what they did then. And there. They'll be quite the attention-getter when he comes to visit Mobile, won't they?"
She rolled her eyes and hmmf'ed. " I don't know, but I'll try to get used to them. He does seem nice. And competent." She got a little gleam in her eye. "It might even be fun to shock the bridge club."
——————-
Karen was waiting for them when they got back. "They're gone!" she announced. "Then she sobered. "Any luck?"
Rick sighed. "It was their boat, all right. No bodies on the boat, though. We even searched the shoreline." It was the closest he would ever come to lying to her.
Anthony added, "Rick left a marker buoy attached to the boat so we can recover it if they want to. I don't see how anyone could have survived, but we should check with their families in case they managed to walk home. No one waved to us from the hillside or anything."
They loaded the diving equipment into the truck and Anthony drove them to the dive shop. Karen got in first, and she teased Anthony about having the shift lever between her legs. Anthony enjoyed every minute of it. Before they got to the store, Anthony suggested they go to Gus's place to talk to Lydia. "If they made it, that's where they'd go first."
The road was just clear enough to navigate up the hill. When they pulled into the driveway, Lydia met them at the doorway. "Come in. I don't think you're bringing good news," she said, a grim expression on her face.
