by Landon Beach
His lungs began to ache—a warm feeling in his chest against the cold water that threatened to freeze him in a block of ice. He used the chain to pull himself down to the point where it entered the plane. He shined his light inside.
The chain continued below, perhaps ten feet deeper? It was hard to tell because the plane was resting on an angle. He could not make out the stock or flukes—there was too much wreckage. He changed his grip on the chain and then yanked it upward.
No movement.
He shook the chain side to side and then at weird random angles trying to pry it loose or at least get a look at what the anchor was stuck on. All he did was stir up silt. At least the plane wasn’t moving; the calm conditions above and lack of current were keeping the sailboat from exerting more strain on the chain and anchor. He shined the light into the cockpit and to the right.
A skeletal hand hung down suspended behind one of the seats. He searched with his light for the rest of the body but to no avail. His chest was now on fire. He aimed his light above and kicked—the temperature warming as he rose.
His head broke through the surface and he gasped for air.
“You okay?” Trist said from the pulpit.
Robin took in a few more breaths and then managed a “Yeah.”
“Anchor untangled?”
“No. You’re not gonna believe what it’s tangled on.”
PART III
Berthed
20
Robin slid his hand over the stacked air tanks coupled to the compressor. “I think I can get inside if I just have my free flow mask on and weight belt. We’ll station you at the opening to guide the air hose down so that it doesn’t get tangled. And, to be safe, we’ll leave a rigged tank down there just in case with a mask tied to the tank straps.”
“So, you think it’s an old seaplane?” Trist said.
“I think it was a floatplane,” Robin said.
“What’s the difference?”
“Not much. A floatplane is just a type of seaplane. You take a land-based aircraft and mount fixed floats—pontoons—underneath the fuselage, which means the fuselage doesn’t have to be watertight since it doesn’t come in contact with the water. In a traditional seaplane, the fuselage is designed to land in the water—one massive pontoon if you will. Anyways, when we’re down there, we can poke around for the pontoons and see if I’m right.”
“Wouldn’t those have floated to the surface when the plane went down?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, but if they hit the water and got any type of a hole in them, then they’d sink.”
“Sounds like the pilot is still down there.”
“Somebody is. You okay seeing it?”
“I think so.”
They both had on wetsuits now along with neoprene booties and hoods. Trist wore a buoyancy compression device. It was dark enough outside to spot any source of light on shore or on the water, but they saw nothing.
Trist did a slow 360-degree scan of the horizon.
“Something else got you bugged?” Robin asked.
“I was just thinking about what Uncle Tyee told me before we headed up here.”
“What’d he say?”
“That for most of our trip we wouldn’t be near anyone who could help if we got into trouble. It’s almost too quiet around here, dad.” He bent over and strapped on his dive knife. “You don’t think anyone will board our boat and rip us off while we’re down there do you? I mean, they could cut off your air supply by turning off the compressor and then you’d be up shit creek without a paddle.”
Robin laughed. He got that phrase from me. “I’m not worried about it,” he said. “However, we don’t need to announce our presence to the world either. Let’s keep the anchor lights off while we’re down below. The compressor will make some noise, but out here it would be difficult to know where the sound was coming from.”
“Isn’t that against the nautical rules? What if someone rammed us because they didn’t see us?”
“C’mon, Trist. We’re in the middle of nowhere. You want the lights on or off?”
Trist put his hands through his tank straps and buckled in. “Off.”
“I already locked the cabin, so we should be good.”
“So you say.”
“When did you become Mr. Cautious?”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
“Cards after dinner?”
Trist paused. “Revenge.”
Robin grinned. Before locking up the cabin, he had set out the playing cards on the salon table. Gonna kick his hind end in Euchre later. Usually, it was he and Tyee versus Trist and Levana, but when you play with just two people and take out the 9s and 10s, it was still the card game in Michigan. If more people gathered around the kitchen table and played cards instead of zoning out to electronics, the world would be a better place. He hoped that Trist would keep the family card parties alive.
They put their fins on over their booties and grabbed their dive lights. It was still cloudless. The moon would provide plenty of natural light when they surfaced later.
Robin fired up the compressor and the steady chug vibrated the decking below their fins. Next, he made the appropriate adjustments and put on the face mask, making sure that air was flowing in. He gave the ‘okay’ sign. “Ready?” He shouted from behind the mask’s faceplate.
Trist could hear him and immediately grasped the advantage they would have underwater because his dad could direct him as necessary. If Trist needed to communicate, he could use his dive slate to write down a message.
Robin took off the Desco mask and handed it to Trist. Then, he entered the water from the swim step and swam over to the starboard rail. Trist passed him the mask and hose underneath the railing so that the hose rested on the gunwale. Treading water, Robin secured the mask and then turned on his smaller dive light which was attached to a cord around his wrist. Trist had the larger light to aim where Robin needed it.
Trist stepped down from the cockpit onto the swim step, closing the section of railing behind him. Robin arrived and took a coil of nylon line and the extra tank, regulator, and mask from the platform and started swimming toward the bow. He was definitely warmer with the wetsuit on, but the water still chilled his skin. Trist held the regulator to his mouth and jumped in. He caught up to Robin and they kicked along the surface until they reached the anchor line.
“Ready?” Robin said into his mask.
Trist gave the ‘okay’ sign.
“Turn on your light, and let’s go,” Robin said.
Trist flipped the switch on his light, which illuminated a cone of water below. They dove.
The descent was slower than his free dive earlier. Trist finned beside him and searched the depths with his light. He’s anxious to see the wreck. This will more than make up for the one we skipped. He cracked a grin. He sailed the boat alone off Whitefish Point, the area with the most unpredictable weather in the entire Great Lakes. With the tank strap through his left arm, he held his dive light in his right hand and aimed it below, waiting for the wreckage to come into view.
Trist’s light found it first, and they slowed their descent.
“Okay, buddy,” Robin said.
Trist began to shine his beam on the area around the plane in order to find a suitable location to place the emergency tank. They could now see that the left-hand portion of the wing was still intact, extending out from on top of the fuselage and resting on the bottom; they couldn’t see the right-hand part of the wing. Robin watched as Trist moved his light forward of the wing across the sandy bottom. He followed with his own light.
“Stop.” Robin said.
Trist’s beam was on a flat area of sand between two rocks the size of basketballs a few yards to the left of the plane’s cockpit.
“Hold your light right there,” Robin said and then swam over and placed the tank, regulator, and mask carefully on the bottom between the rocks—a foot to spare on either side of the tank. Other rocks littered the lake
bed but none as big as these two for at least another ten yards away from the plane. He gave Trist the okay sign and then swam up to him so that they were face to face. “Okay, we get into trouble, locate the anchor chain and follow it down to the cockpit. Facing the fuselage, trace the cockpit down to the right until you find the bottom. Stop, put your back to the plane and in one kick you’ll be at the rocks where the tank, regulator, and mask are. If you reach the wing, you’re too far aft. Got it?”
Trist gave the okay sign.
Robin held the nylon line in his hand and said, “Follow me.”
They swam back up to the point where the anchor chain disappeared into the cockpit and hovered over it. Here, the depth was around thirty feet.
“I’m going to shine my beam inside and show you the part of the skeleton that we can see, okay?”
Trist nodded and moved back a few feet in order to see better.
“Then we’ll do our survey before I try to enter the plane and free up the anchor.”
A strong okay sign from Trist.
Robin turned and shined his underwater light down into the cockpit. The light seemed to bring the dangling arm to life, the palm facing them and the fingers spread out as if the hand was poised to reach out at any moment and pull one of them down into the deep. Robin looked over at Trist whose gaze was transfixed on the bony appendage. After waiting a few seconds, he aimed his light away from the cockpit. “You good?”
Trist gave a slow nod.
“All right, let’s get a look at the rest of it.”
Robin motioned to the left and they started to swim over the cockpit in the opposite direction of the emergency tank. They reached the edge of the plane, but where they anticipated seeing the lake bottom, they only saw darkness. They aimed their beams down and still couldn’t find the floor. Trist followed him perhaps ten yards out into open water and they turned around to look at the plane.
It was on the edge of a rocky cliff that plummeted almost straight down into the black abyss. The right portion of the wing was gone, which almost certainly would have tipped the balance and sent the plane down the cliffside. Even as it rested now, if it slid just a few more feet toward them it would be history. They’d be hard pressed to find a greater example of one of Lake Superior’s textbook drop offs. He’d have to be extra careful inside the wreck—one disruption could send them down.
Trist tapped him on his shoulder and he turned toward his son. On the dive slate, Trist had written:
FOLLOW CLIFFSIDE DOWN...TRY TO FIND BOTTOM?
Robin got his mask close to Trist’s.
“No more than thirty feet directly below the plane. I’ve got more air hose available, but sixty feet is the max depth I want to mess around with, especially if I have to swim down and reach you if you get into trouble.”
Trist wrote:
GOT IT. BE RIGHT BACK.
Robin watched as Trist’s light started to follow the cliffside down.
✽✽✽
Trist kept his eye on his depth gauge as he descended. Forty feet...forty-five feet...fifty-five feet. He started to tread, which stopped his drop at just over sixty feet. Nothing but a rocky cliff face. Above, he could see his father’s light aimed down at him. He aimed his own light down below and could not locate the bottom. For his ascent, he decided to swim on a diagonal line toward where the plane’s tail would be. He lined up and started to kick.
At fifty feet, the cliff face angled out to a small shelf and he made out one of the plane’s pontoons—resting almost vertically with a massive gash that had split open most of the end that was pointed toward the surface. He swam up and reached the back of the fuselage—the tail was nowhere to be seen. It must have broken off on impact, but there was something not right with the fuselage’s skin. He swam to within a foot of the structure and shined his light on the surface. The upper portion that wasn’t bent was still smooth, but as he moved his light toward the bottom, he saw that some of it was disfigured—melted. Perhaps the fuel tank had exploded and the tremendous heat had caused this. He couldn’t think of anything else that could have. Motion to his right caught his attention, and he saw his dad’s light approaching.
✽✽✽
Robin reached his son and watched as Trist showed him what looked like a melted portion of the fuselage plating. Then, Trist wrote on his slate:
1 PONTOON BELOW. NO BOTTOM IN SIGHT AT 60FT. NO MORE WRECKAGE.
“Anything else?” Robin said.
Trist wrote again:
AIRPLANE SKIN MELTED. FIRE?
“Probably,” Robin said. “You sure there was no more wreckage?”
Trist shook his head yes.
“Okay, let’s swim aft, go up the left side and then try and work on the anchor.”
Making sure his air hose would not get tangled, Robin swam a few yards above Trist and they kicked over to a position directly aft of the fuselage, where the tail would have been. The opening was large enough for one person to squeeze through. Trist aimed his light inside.
The seatback to the aft bench was still upright so they could see nothing except for the water between the top of the seatback and the ceiling. Robin got closer and aimed his light toward the cockpit. The back of the co-pilot’s seat was mostly a metal frame, the material covering it gone. Burned off in a fire? Possibly. He could see the anchor chain disappear out of sight between the front seats. He swept his light behind the pilot’s seat. There, he saw the owner of the hand reaching into the cockpit, but he could only see the top third of the body. It was as if the person had died giving the pilot’s seat a hug from behind. Trist was now beside him and aiming his light at the skeleton. What had happened? He could probably squeeze in over the back bench if going through the cockpit didn’t work. Either way, it would be hard to get out if the plane slipped off the edge.
They backed out and swam along the left-hand side of the plane. The portion of the wing resting on the bottom was in fine condition. In fact, the only damage they could see was a foot-long crack where it connected to the top of the fuselage. Seeing that there was no debris on the lake bed near the plane, they finned over the emergency tank and returned to their original position outside the cockpit.
Robin positioned Trist so that the boy’s light would give him the maximum visibility but also be on an angle so that Robin wouldn’t be blinded on his way out. He used his own light to examine the frame for any glass that might remain from the cockpit windshield. A few jagged pieces jutted out on the left, but they wouldn’t be a problem. He gave Trist the coil of nylon line and then moved back a few yards. Trist got his attention and raised a crooked index finger in the shape of a question mark.
Robin pointed to his fins and then got close to Trist. “I’m going to take them off to give me more room inside. It’s going to be cramped in there, and I don’t want to stir up a bunch of silt if I don’t have to.”
Trist held out a fist, the signal for danger.
“I know,” Robin said. “Let’s take it slow.” He took off his fins and placed them under Trist’s knees who put his weight on them against the plane’s nose.
Trist trained his light inside, and Robin entered the cockpit head first and carefully pulled himself in past the two front seats. To his right, he now saw the full skeleton. The legs had been crushed under the weight of the caved in section of the fuselage. He took a moment to honor the poor passenger.
He moved his light across the back bench and over to the anchor li—wait a minute. He moved his light back to the bench. There was a piece of rope coming out from underneath the seat where the side of the cabin had been bent inward. He took hold of it cautiously. The outside was slimy at first, but as he tightened his grip, he realized that it was not so much a rope as it was a handle. He released his grip and followed it below the seat. There he felt fabric—the handle was still attached to something.
He slid his legs in, making his body into a ball, then turned to rest his knees on the cabin floor. Crouching down, he twisted his neck to avoid to
uching the skeleton’s pelvis and aimed his light underneath the seat where the rope led.
There was a small duffel bag jammed in there. Using his free hand, he felt around and made out the zipper and then the bag’s edges. He started to pull on the handle and a small cloud of slit rolled out from underneath the seat. He stopped and watched the particles float in his light’s beam and then start to settle back down. Better look at the anchor.
He moved over to the left and followed the line down past the back bench. There it was. The flukes were caught on a bent portion of the aft fuselage, and the stock was wedged below the aft bench’s seat. He would have never been able to pull it free from above. He slid around the side of the bench and grasped the stock with both hands, letting the underwater light dangle from the band around his wrist. With a few powerful jerks, he freed the stock first, and then twisted it to pry the flukes out from under the fuselage wreckage. The anchor was now free, and Robin pulled it up over the back bench. The wreckage shifted, making a sick moan, but then settled again.
✽✽✽
Trist watched as his father spun around. He kept the light away from Robin’s line of sight and soon saw the anchor coming up out of the cockpit guided by his father’s arms, muscles straining under the wetsuit fabric. Trist pulled on the chain to help, and together they lifted the anchor up past where the windshield once was and set it on the plane’s nose beside him. There, Robin quickly tied the end of the nylon line to the anchor stock and handed the other end of the coil to Trist. His dad smiled behind his mask and got close.
“You’ve got about a hundred feet of line. Hold on to this so we don’t lose our lifeline up to the boat. If the line runs out, hang on and follow it and I’ll catch up to you.” Trist gave him the okay sign. “I’ll be right back,” Robin said and then re-entered the plane. As he did, the anchor slid slowly off the nose.