Lighthouse Point: AJ Bailey Adventure Series - Book Fifteen by Nicholas Harvey

Author:Nicholas Harvey [Harvey, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvey Books, LLC
Published: 2024-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

18

BONAIRE

It was a little after ten by the time they arrived at the dive site, having stopped at a large hardware and building material store called Kooyman. The deck of the Beste Leven now looked more like it was part of a house renovation project than a dive expedition. A stack of assorted corrugated sheet metal lay next to a hefty mallet. Their plan was to bash the metal into the sand, but their hurriedly planned shoring scheme was purely experimental.

“I’m over the wreck, according to the GPS,” De Konig said. “How do we find the buoy you set underwater?”

AJ picked up her fins and mask. “You’re right over the site now?”

“Directly over it,” De Konig confirmed.

“Okay, stay west of the wreck so you don’t run me over,” she replied. “Reg will tell you what to do from there.”

Jumping off the side of the boat, she slipped her fins on in the water, then took the mask she’d looped around her wrist and slid it over her face. Dipping her masked face in the water revealed nothing but blue water turning to cobalt in the depths below. Figuring the line was being pulled by the light current and the gentle swells towards shore, AJ swam east towards the island.

They hadn’t given much thought to the buoy on the ascent the previous day, and with the pull of the boat on the mooring line, the second line had disappeared from view by the time they’d reached the shallower decompression stops. Reg had been guessing how much line to pull in at the wreck, so she had no idea how deep the buoy had ended up. If he’d misjudged and the ball was below 60 feet, AJ might not even see it.

Farther from the wreck than she thought it would be, a pale white speck appeared in view, well below the surface. AJ swam until she was over the buoy, then waved to the two men on the pontoon, which idled towards her.

“How deep is it?” Reg yelled.

“Hard to tell,” AJ shouted back, hoping it wasn’t too far down.

She didn’t consider herself a great freediver, and she was wearing shorter tech fins, not the extremely long style worn to descend on a single breath hold with minimal effort. Reg tossed her a line which he’d secured to a bow cleat while De Konig kept the boat idling in place ten yards from where AJ bobbed on the surface.

With the line in hand, AJ slowly filled and expelled air from her lungs, bringing as much fresh oxygen into her system as possible before holding her last inhalation and ducking under. Using her thighs to make long, sweeping strokes with her legs, she kicked down towards the buoy. The process would be easy if she’d donned a scuba tank, but she didn’t need the extra dive on compressed air which would compromise her bottom time on the wreck. She was doing it the hard way, which wouldn’t have been very hard at all if the buoy was the ideal depth of 15 to 20 feet down.

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