Spanish Bay Reef: AJ Bailey Adventure Series - Book Nine by Nicholas Harvey

Author:Nicholas Harvey [Harvey, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Monday

AJ parked the van and clumsily stepped out, dragging her rucksack with her, and clutching her coffee. It was another cool morning for the islands, dipping slightly below seventy degrees, and she was bundled up in her woolly hat and sweatshirt again. Fifteen years of living in the tropics had driven the English weather hardiness from her system, leaving her far too accustomed to the balmy warmth. The Norwegian, coming around from the passenger side, had a brighter spring in her step and appeared less affected by their late-night stake-out. They had finally left Archie’s at midnight, with no sign of the poacher, and they all agreed he wasn’t coming. Five hours of sleep was several less than AJ deemed adequate, and she plodded towards the dock where Coop bounded her way with a lot more enthusiasm than he received in return. She finally reached down and scratched behind his ears, which was enough to send him happily running circles around Nora.

“You look chipper this morning,” Reg greeted her by the hut.

“It’s freezing,” she groaned.

Thomas walked up the dock towards them, having brought the Newton to shore and tied it alongside the dock.

“You’re getting soft,” Reg replied. “Need a good winter back in Blighty. That’d get your blood thickened up again.”

“Dis is freezing for Cayman,” Thomas chimed in, wrapped up himself in several layers, topped by a thick, hooded sweatshirt. “Da ocean might be icing over any moment.”

Reg shook his head. “You wouldn’t make it on a Navy ship, either of you,” he laughed. “The North Sea in January, that’ll give you a taste of real cold.”

“Try growing up near the Arctic Circle,” Nora scoffed.

Reg laughed. “Yeah, fair enough. That’s why you don’t look like you’re getting frostbite like these two.”

AJ grunted, and walked off down the dock, barely managing a good morning nod to Reg’s crew, who were getting two of his boats ready for the day. The worst thing, she realised, was they had committed to Operation Poacher for another night. She was going to need a serious nap before then.

Twenty minutes later they were moving away from the dock, customers aboard, and Nora’s welcome and safety briefing was complete. She had delivered the speech with more pep than AJ felt she could have mustered herself this morning, so she passed that element of her divemaster training with flying colours. Once they had cleared the shallow water, AJ rolled the throttles forward and brought Hazel’s Odyssey up on plane. She aimed north-west towards the wall sites where the underwater mountain rose from thousands of feet down to barely reach the ocean’s surface. Grand Cayman’s coastline gently sloped to depths around one hundred feet, before plummeting over a sometimes vertical drop-off, down the side of the mountain. Thomas stood beside her, scanning the water ahead for hazards, his hoodie pulled tightly around his face. The biggest danger to turtles was boat strikes when they surfaced for a breath, so they always kept an eye out for their brown heads and shiny shells.

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