Deep Water by Watt Key

Author:Watt Key
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

25

I felt something tap my side. I immediately thought of sharks and spun and kicked. In the faint light of the sky glow I saw a long seam in the water next to me. I reached out and touched a rope as big around as my arm. I grabbed it and felt it move heavily atop the surface.

A mooring line.

“Shane!”

I shook him.

“Shane! I’ve got a rope!”

He muttered something I didn’t understand. I began pulling myself along the rope, towing Shane behind me. Slowly I drew us into the dark night-shadow of the rig. When we were about fifty yards away the rope began to curve up into the air to a lower platform about twenty feet overhead. I was facing a crosscurrent swim to make it the rest of the distance to the understructure, where I hoped to find something to climb onto. There was no way I could do it towing Shane with me.

“Listen, Shane,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m going to have to tie you off to this rope while I try to get up there. Then I’ll figure out a way to get you up. Okay?”

No answer.

I untied the line from my BCD and tied it to the mooring rope. This time I doubled the strength of the line for safe measure.

“I’ll be back, okay? Float here until I figure it out.”

I kicked toward the understructure. Fortunately there were no tall waves. In rough seas there would be no way to approach the steel beams without getting slammed and cut to pieces on the millions of barnacles cemented to every part of the lower structure. I could already hear the beams clicking and snapping as the Gulf swells rose and fell over them.

I pulled both of our sun masks out of my BCD pocket. The swells were gentle enough that I figured if I protected my hands from the barnacles, I might be able to hold on to something. I stuck my fists inside the cloth and tucked the edges into the wrists of my wetsuit.

As I drew nearer, the swells lifted and dropped me before a massive grid of iron that slurped and glistened in the shadows. On the next uplift I reached out and touched the steel and let my hands slide lightly down the barnacles before drifting away again. On the next approach I moved over a few feet, rose up, and ran my hands over the steel again. This time I felt a ledge that I could hold on to. I gripped it, feeling the barnacles press sharply into my makeshift gloves.

When the swell dropped I was left hanging there, barely able to hold on. The weight was too much for my gloves, and I clenched my jaw in pain as the barnacles pressed through the cloth and cut into the soggy skin of my palms like glass shards. Then I realized there was no way to climb with my fins on. I waited until the next swell supported me, then let go with one hand to work my fins off with the other.

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.