Wreck of the Raptor by Nicholas Harvey

Author:Nicholas Harvey [Harvey, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781710723601
Published: 2019-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 36

November 2019

AJ led the group as they pulled themselves hand over hand down the anchor line. The current held the line taut against the pull of the boat and the tension in the rope could be felt through their bare hands. If the grapple came free now, they’d have four divers hanging on a line trailing behind a loose boat, drifting with the ocean current. It would be a mess. She hoped the prongs had a good hold on the wreck, and furthermore she prayed it was the wreck she’d hooked. If they descended to find she’d stuck a grapple hook in a coral head, she’d be mortified. A few feet farther and her fears subsided. The dark shape of the cargo vessel loomed out of the depths below a large school of young barracuda that seemed oblivious to the current affecting the divers. The top of the cabin structure appeared at about the same time as the bow. Both had lost their hard lines to the coral that grew prolifically in the nutritious waters rushing over the wreck. They were grappled to the side railing on the port side, behind the bow, where the sheet metal dropped and the side was guarded by a handrail. That railing can’t be very secure after forty years of decay in the sea water, AJ thought. As she pulled herself closer, she saw the grapple had snagged the first vertical pole down low which she hoped would be less corroded than the top. The whole centre of the wreck was a gaping cavern where the empty cargo hold had lost any covering it may have had when the boat was unceremoniously scuttled by her crew.

As she reached the railing, AJ scanned the wreck and could see the Raptor was indeed hanging stern over the wall, and at quite a steep angle on the slope to the drop-off. The rusty boat appeared to be clinging to the island by her fingernails. AJ eased into the top of the hold in the lee of the bow, clear of the current, and Reg followed her, looking around. She checked her depth: a hundred feet; everything worth exploring was deeper. With the angle of the wreck, they’d have to continue deeper to stay in the shelter of the hold. She looked at Reg, his thick beard floating around like a creature attached to his face. His eyes were calm, but he shook his head and tapped his dive watch, clearly thinking the same thing. AJ signalled back that she planned to start towards the stern in the top of the hold and watch the depth as she went. The other two had joined them and, seeing her signals, returned an okay sign. With everyone following, she finned her way towards the cabin structure watching her depth drop steadily despite staying towards the top of the hold. Below them they could make out the floor of the hold, which was now littered with clumps of coral growth and humming with fish life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.