“Well, first off, we need to set the float for the exhaust from the sieve. We’ll set that down current so all the waste sand blows far down from where we’re working.”
“So, this thing is kind of like a giant Hoover?” She glanced at the collapsible tubing and back to the small raft-like float. Her brows pinched together with concentration. “What happens if you suck up something important? Won’t you just blow it away?”
“The tube has a set of valves and baffles in it. Think of it like this. Sand is light, but there’s a lot of it that we need to move. Anything important, coins, gems, maybe smaller relics, might get sucked up, but as they travel up the tube to the surface, the action of the suction tumbles everything about.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Heavier things settle out while lighter stuff, such as sand and seaweed, gets sucked all the way to the surface where we’ll place several traps. The heavy stuff will fall into the traps, while the junk gets sucked to the float and expelled as exhaust. All of the water and debris is released back into the water.”
“Ah, I didn’t realize there were traps. It’s like panning for gold, isn’t it?” Her face brightened with understanding. “They swirl everything in a pan, or down a series of sieves, and the heavier gold either stays in the bottom of the pan or tumbles into the sieve.”
“Actually, it’s almost exactly like that. Only we’re sucking up sand from forty feet.”
“That’s cool. So, we deploy the float. I’m assuming there’s tubing we have to connect, and that’s it?”
“Pretty much. We do need to anchor the float. How are your free diving skills?”
“It’s been a bit since I set an anchor that deep. I’m not sure I can do it on one breath.”
He scratched his chin. Dive tables were strict about how long divers needed to spend out of the water before diving again. If he went in too soon, he could risk getting the Bends, a serious, and sometimes life-threatening, injury.
“I’ll just grab a tank.” Brie glanced over at the stack of tanks. “I can always put it on the whip when your first two tanks are filled and top it off. Is there anything else you need done while I’m down there?”
Safety protocols mandated that a diver never went into the water alone. If something happened, a malfunction of gear, or any other emergency, there wouldn’t be a buddy in the water to back them up. With thousands of dives under his belt, he had no problem jumping in solo for something this minor, but hesitated to ask Brie to take on that added risk.
“I’d rather not have you down there alone.”
“I’m just setting an anchor.” She gave him a little shove. “Easy-peasy. Besides, I can’t let you and Donald have all the fun.”
He glanced at Donald who squatted in front of the compressor and rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Everything okay?” Brent squinted against the harsh sun.
Donald popped his head up. “Yeah, but I need to switch out the filter.”
“Something wrong?” They depended on those filters to scrub the air and remove any impurities.
“I’m not taking a chance. It’s going to take a minute for me to change this out before I can help set the float.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Brie piped up. “I’m going to set the anchor on the float.”
“Okay.” Donald turned away, his focus on the compressor rather than Brent’s concerns about sending Brie down by herself.
“Let me grab my suit.” She gave him a little wave. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
He planned this expedition knowing he and Donald would be diving. They had wetsuits for themselves, and backups, but nothing small enough for Brie to wear. Fortunately, she had brought all her gear on board when taking this job, which included her dive gear. He liked her adventurous spirit because it matched his need to explore and push boundaries. In fact, many things about her seemed to be a perfect match.
With her changing, and Donald swapping out the filters on the compressor, Brent made sure the gear for the sieve was good to go. Attaching all the tubing, and double checking his work, he used the crane to hoist the small platform off the deck and into the water. By the time Brie returned, he had everything ready.
She shrugged into her gear with a big sloppy grin on her face, looking excited to finally be helping in their recovery efforts. Her enthusiasm erased any of his concerns and he trusted her to know the limits of her diving.
“How far from the ship are we putting this?” She glanced out, squinting without her dark sunglasses on. Her dive mask dangled from her arm as she bent to attach her tank for the dive.
“About a hundred feet. You can let it drift into position or tow it. I’ll let you know when it’s far enough.” There needed to still be play in the hose connecting it from the last trap, which he would put near the surface, just behind the back of the boat. He completed her buddy check then tapped her on the back. “You ready?”
“Ready Freddy.”
He smiled at how easily she incorporated the phrases he and Donald used. With a light smack to her ass, he helped steady her as she moved to the dive platform.
“Get in the water goofball. Down to set the anchor then back up. I’ll be timing you, and if you’re not up in five minutes, I’m coming after you.”
She cupped his face and her bright eyes beamed. “I’m going for a little swim while the two of you do your thing up here. I’ve soloed before. I’ll set the anchor, but then I want to see this grid you set up before you start digging.”
“As long as you don’t touch anything, or move anything.”
She shook her head. “I won’t touch or move a thing. I’ll stay well above it. I just want to see.”
“Okay, but please don’t stay down too long. I’m not comfortable with you down there without a buddy.” He didn’t want her anywhere out of his sight. How could he protect her?
“I know it’s not kosher and all, but trust me, I do this a lot. Yacht captains get very little free time, and I rarely have one of the crew to get in the water with me. I’m not a Rookie Ranger, nor a Hazardous Harry. I’ll be safe. Besides, the water is so clear, you’ll be able to see my bubble trail the whole time, and I always carry a bailout bottle.” She pointed to a small canister tucked into the top of her wetsuit. It held a few-minute supply of air for emergencies.
He pressed his lips together. “Okay, but no more than twenty minutes.”
“I can stay in for up to an hour on a tank this size, longer if I stay at thirty feet.”
“Don’t push me.”
“Or what?” Her eyes twinkled and he sensed a hint of something exciting in her gaze. How adventurous would his girl be, if and when he ever got her in bed?
“Be careful, or you might just find out.” He stepped in close to give her a heart-stopping kiss, then smacked her on the ass again, this time hard enough to lift her on her toes.
“Oh really?” The expression on her face wasn’t one of fear, or concern, but rather interest and it smoldered with the same fire flowing in his veins. He couldn’t wait to get her alone.
She stepped off the dive platform and splashed into the water. He waited for her head to crest the surface before letting out his breath. Being nervous was new for him and he wasn’t sure how to handle his feelings for Brie.
She popped to the surface, gave him a wave, then went to the float. Grabbing the line he handed down to her, she pushed away from the Pendragon and began swimming away from the ship. A stronger swimmer than he’d given her credit for, she made quick work of it. He almost forgot to give her the signal to stop. She gave another wave before grabbing the anchor off the float and disappearing from view.
Despite the crystal-clear waters, he lost sight of her bubble trail and spent the next forty minutes anxiously checking his watch.
Donald came over to sit beside him. “You like her, don’t you?”
“More than I should. It’s weird, but I feel like I’ve known her forever.”
“I’ve never seen you like this with a chick. Never thought I’d see the love bug bite you so damn hard.”
“It’s that obvious?”
Donald slugged him in the shoulder. “Just let me know when the wedding is. I have plans for an epic bachelor party for my best bud.”
“So, you’re okay with this?” There had been a few times when he thought he sensed jealousy.
“I’m very happy for you.”
They sat there for a time while he obsessively checked his watch. Brie said she dove solo all the time, but he couldn’t help the worry churning in his gut. He turned to Donald, eager to get his mind off Brie’s absence.
“Did you fix the filter issue?”
If they had problems with their compressor, there would be no way to fill their tanks. That would kill the entire operation while they broke anchor and headed ashore for repairs. Chances were minuscule anyone would know to check this particular spot, but if that happened, and they came upon that grid, he and Donald could lose their claim. Until they had definitive proof of the vessel and what it was carrying, their claim remained tenuous.
“The filter went bad. It’s no problem. I replaced it, but will check it again once those tanks are filled. What do we have left to do to get the sieve ready?”
“Not much. We can set the traps up on our way down during the next dive. I want to extend the grid just a bit, but would really like to work on the center point this dive.”
“It’s a bit surreal, isn’t it? That we actually found it. I wonder what she was carrying when she went down.”
He gave his friend a fist bump. “If she had anything similar to the San Jose, we’re looking at coins, ingots—gold and silver—and fingers crossed we find a relic or two.”
“Unlike you, I don’t care about relics, although I respect them. I’m trying to add up the zeros.”
“I think they recovered over a hundred million from the San Jose. I don’t want to get too excited, but if this is a treasure galleon, like I think, we could be looking at many times that. I’d say easily five hundred.”
Donald let out a low whistle. “Wow, twenty-percent of that…”
“Yeah, we’re looking at close to fifty million apiece.”
“Not too shabby for a couple of dudes.” Donald pointed at a disturbance on the surface. “Looks like your girl is on her way up.”
Chapter 15
Brent
Brent helped Brie with her gear, then the three of them sat at the end of the dive platform while the last fifteen minutes of his and Donald’s surface interval ended.
This would be their first excavation dive. He found himself focused more on what he wanted to do to Brie down in his cabin than on what he and Donald would find beneath the waves.
She held his hand, drawing circles and hearts into his palm, while he and Donald discussed the next dive.
“You sure you want to start excavating at the center?” Donald’s lips pursed together. “Shouldn’t we try more forward? I thought you said that’s where the hold would be.”
“I want to do this by the book. Besides, the sieve’s not perfect. We’ll disturb the squares to either side. I know you want to get in there and start digging, but we’ll miss something important if we do that. Our first priority isn’t in finding gold, but rather establishing what ship this is.”
“How do you do that?” Brie turned his hand over and traced out each of his knuckles with her feather-light touch.
Donald had heard all of this before, but it was good to go over one last time. He felt the same rush as Donald, wanting to jump in and dig. As the only formally trained archeologist on this expedition, he needed to ensure they maintained the integrity of the site. It would be much easier to do with a team of graduate students, but he didn’t teach in a university and didn’t have a team of eager students to help. Too much was at stake to risk a leak in their operation; lean and mean might make things harder and slower, but it also ensured secrecy.
“Well, these ships were rather simple. The galley, if you’d call it that, was usually amidships toward the rear. We’re looking for a brazier. They typically would keep one burning the entire time. Find that and we might find plates and bowls. Those will have the Spanish seal on them as well as the vessel’s name. The cannon will have markings from the foundry and may or may not have the ship’s name on it.”
“I want to dig for gold. Dude, you’re killing me.” Donald made a show of throwing a temper tantrum. It was fake, totally over the top, and completely Donald in every regard. They all had a good laugh.
He cracked a smile. “I know, but patience now will be worth it in the end.” He pushed back the hair from his eyes. After an hour, it was nearly dry, just in time to get wet again.
“Patience is one of those damn virtues I am sorely lacking in.” Donald crossed his arms and gave an exaggerated frown.
Brie’s lilting laughter flitted through the air. “You’re so funny, like a two-year-old who didn’t get his sweet.”
“I don’t want sweets. I just want gold.” Donald kicked and beat at the deck, making a show of a true tantrum.
“And you’ll have it,” Brent pronounced. “Surface interval is over. Time to suit up buddy. Let’s do this.”
They donned their gear and with another round of kisses for good luck from Brie—Donald got a peck on the cheek, while he got a peck on the lips—they entered the water.
He held Donald off to do one more pass with video and still photos. Donald went straight to work and after they documented everything, joined Brent at the center square of the grid. He hovered over the bottom, using his cupped hand to slowly remove sand. Hurricane Julian had already done most of the work, but there would still be substantial sand to move. They would get to it soon enough. For now, he wanted to absorb this moment.
He dug down less than six inches when he found the first coin. Most of the coins would be loose, which would make them hard to recover, but he hoped the captain of this galleon took better care of his cargo. Some captains placed coin in leather bags, tied together with string. Over time, those bags would degrade, spilling the coins. Once loose on the ocean floor, tides and wave action took the relatively light coins and rolled them along the seabed, distributing them over miles and miles. Storms and hurricanes shifted sand, alternately exposing and burying the coins. When exposed, they tended to be scattered even more.
A smart captain would have taken the coins, stacked them, and wrapped the stacks in thick burlap. Those rolls would then have been placed in a leather bag, or in a strongbox. Over time, as the burlap decayed, coralline algae would grow over the coins, forming a cement of sorts. Bound together, the stacks were heavier and less likely to be tossed about during a storm and strewn about. He hoped one of those captains had run this ship.
He held up the coin, showing it to Donald, then tucked it into his net bag. Once he gave the signal for the sieve, Donald went to grab the long, flexible hose. It was not a subtle job, and would require him to plant his feet on the sand rather than hover delicately inches above it. He set himself in place, did a quick check of his air gauge, and flipped the lever which activated the suction.
Whoever said treasure hunting was sexy didn’t have a clue about the work involved. It took effort to control the sieve, effort which drained his tank at an alarming rate. He swapped out with Donald every few minutes to rest and get his breathing back under control. Every few inches they stopped to dig at the bottom of the pit. Donald held the sieve to the side, while he investigated some dark shapes.
Wood.
Whether from the deck, pieces of one of the spars, or any other piece of the ship, it was hard to say. Without a doubt, they had found a shipwreck. He was about to signal Donald to give him the tubing, when a flat shape caught his eye. He waved his hand, moving sand, and the round shape of a plate caught his eye.
With some difficulty, he forced his breathing to slow down, not that it did anything for the palpitations of his heart. He turned the plate over and an
unmistakable Spanish crest stared back at him. He gestured Donald over, showing him what he held. Donald’s eyes widened. This was it.
Buried under the sand, there was no coral encrusting the plate, but it had been subjected to the abrasive effects. Three hundred years had worn down the markings, but he clearly held a piece of the San Fernando in his hand. With a fist bump to Donald, he celebrated the find with a curtain of air bubbles.
Setting the plate to the side, he dug to see what else they could uncover. Donald retrieved one of the sample trays and placed the plate inside after taking a moment to admire it. They photographed everything.
They moved to the next segment of the grid, removed the top two feet of sand, and recovered more plates, bowls, and silver cutlery. Still no gold, but they had found enough to make this a historic find. He worked back toward the stern, where the cargo hold would be with any gold it contained. If the strongboxes had remained buried beneath enough sand, the aerobic decomposition would have been slowed substantially. The thought that they might recover an intact chest had his heart racing.
With their air running low, he called the dive. Now was not the time to push themselves. Donald set the lift bag on the tray and waited for Brent’s signal to inflate. They would then ascend to their safety-stop fifteen feet below the surface. He swam over the area of the grid most likely to be where the cargo hold would have been and debated their next move.
When he gave the signal, Donald inflated the lift bag and the tray slowly ascended. That’s when an oblong shape of evenly stacked flattened rectangles caught his eye. He gestured to Donald, waving him over, as he dug in the sand. As Donald approached, he uncovered a stack of six silver ingots, fused together by over three hundred years of electrolytic action.
He turned wide eyes to Donald who choked and coughed into his regulator. With their air low, they didn’t have time to explore further. He put the fused stack into his bag. When he did, his heart skipped a beat, because that was only the topmost stack of what appeared to be rows upon rows of ingots, most likely once stored inside a wooden chest.
Brent: Military Heroes (The One I Want Series Book 2) Page 10