Skeleton Sea

by Dwiggins, Toni

  However, this line ahead was a different color, a reddish-orange.

  For a moment I thought this must be another piece of land. An island. A bit of shallow reef revealed by the tides.

  And then we neared and Tolliver said, “Well how about that.”

  The thin line thickened into a large irregular stain on the water. It looked scummy, like a crust. There was the faint odor of rotten eggs.

  Walter said, “Is that...”

  “Algae bloom,” Tolliver said.

  “The harmful sort? The sort that sickens sea life?”

  “Right color,” Tolliver said.

  Walter said, “How about that.”

  The Breaker slowed to a stop. Faith idled the engine. “Here we are.”

  Walter and Tolliver and I exchanged a look. Yeah, I thought, how about a harmful algal bloom sitting on top of our target neighborhood? The sort of bloom that produces a poison that bioaccumulates in plankton-eaters like anchovies, which sea lions then consume. That causes a sickened sea lion to beach itself, which brings a rescue team that includes Oscar Flynn and Jake Keasling. How about that for a coincidence?

  Tolliver said, “Well, it’s red tide season. This won’t be the only one out here.”

  Still, I thought. How about that.

  Tolliver studied the bloom. “It's kind of patchy, beginning to break up, but you can see why it's hanging around. See how the water kind of dips, holding the bloom in place? That’s an eddy. You know, the water rotates...” He twirled a finger. “Something to do with currents and what the seafloor underneath looks like.”

  Faith called from the wheelhouse, “Where do we anchor, Doug?”

  “Hang on.” Tolliver took out his own handheld chartplotter.

  Walter and I crowded in for a look. It showed a 3D map of the seafloor and I recognized the contours from our bathymetric map—the target neighborhood. A long ridge extended along Cochrane Bank, and from the crest it sloped down toward the outer continental shelf. The ridge looked something like a caterpillar with smaller jagged ridges and canyons bristling like legs off the central crest. I recognized our two targets. They straddled the caterpillar.

  I pointed them out to Tolliver.

  He looked from the chartplotter to the sea. “One’s over there.” He pointed to the bloody red patch of ocean. “I’m damned if I’m going to anchor my boat in that mess.”

  “Then shall we settle there?” Walter pointed to the pinnacle on the chart.

  We looked up from the chart and scanned the sea and saw several dark patches rippling the water—they had to be the kelp beds. The closest dark patch appeared to form a canopy over the pinnacle.

  Tolliver called to Faith, “Let’s anchor just shy of that kelp bed.”

  We motored over to the dark patch and stopped at the edge. Faith pressed the button to lower the anchor. It clanked and creaked and slap-splashed into the water and then Faith killed the engine.

  Here we were.

  ***

  Our world went silent and still.

  No wind, calm seas.

  I looked back toward the invisible coast. The boat speck had disappeared.

  It was just us now, and the world beneath.

  Faith came out of the wheelhouse and we all looked over the side.

  Directly below, the water was cobalt blue, clear, unlike the bloody red water of the algal bloom a few dozen yards away.

  Directly ahead the water was carpeted by green-gold fronds. Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera. It was hard to think of it as a forest. I was used to looking up through a forest to the treetops. Here, we looked down from above. The canopy was laid out flat along the surface of the sea. The long slender blades were attached to sturdy stalks, swelling into fat gas bladders that held the plants aloft. The blades swayed lazily in time with the gentle currents.

  It was mesmerizing.

  My stomach surged.

  As the blades moved they released a fuzz of tiny bubbles.

  I focused on the science, on kelp caught in the act of photosynthesizing, sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turning it into the energy needed to build itself, and in the process releasing oxygen.

  I sucked in a huge helping.

  “Kelp diving’s an art,” Tolliver said. “You’ll need to follow me.”

  I shifted my focus from swaying kelp to solid rock. Through a patchy spot in the canopy, the pinnacle was visible a dozen or so feet below. I stated the obvious. “There it is.”

  Walter nodded. “For clarity’s sake, let’s call this Target A. Which makes the reef beneath the algal bloom Target B.”

  Tolliver shook his head. “Nah nah, somebody—me probably—is gonna at some point say, now which one was Target A again? How about this, reef over there under the red tide we'll call Target Red and the pinnacle here we'll call Target Blue, for blue water.”

  “I can live with that,” Walter said.

  “Now that we know where we’re talking about,” Tolliver said, “let’s talk logistics.”

  Plan was, we concluded, we would dive down to Target Blue, diving through clear water to the seafloor at the edge of the kelp forest, where we would begin our sampling. Then, into the forest and up the pinnacle, sampling if need be. Then over the top of the caterpillar ridge and down to Target Red to sample there.

  We’d be looking for something to tie Robbie Donie to this site.

  We posited that he had made two separate trips here.

  On trip one, he came here—for whatever reason—and found the yellow float. Perhaps it was some sort of warning buoy, for boaters. The float was perhaps anchored to one of our targets—judging by the mineral and coral grains embedded in its rope—and it broke free due to the faulty snap hook. Donie plucked it out of the water and stashed his prize in his duffel bag. And then upon returning to shore, he took his prize to his shrine at Morro Rock.

  On either trip one or trip two the Outcast encountered something that scratched its rub rail and embedded iron particles.

  On trip two, Donie returned here—for whatever reason—and anchored at Target Blue or Target Red. In either case, he anchored close enough to the kelp to snag and break off a holdfast harboring a telltale pebble.

  On trip two, he disappeared.

  If he'd gone overboard here, was he down below? Or what remained of him? Tolliver had explained that cold water at depth would slow decay. That the body would sink and then be subject to the ebb and flow of currents and tides. That it would be at the mercy of marine predators, likely small fish and crabs. That aside from some nibbling and pruning, the body would be in good enough shape for the medical examiner to establish cause of death.

  That is, he’d added, if we were able to locate the body.

  I cleared my throat and said, “If this is the site where Donie did the squid fishing, what’s the chance we’re going to see some Humboldts?”

  “They mainly come up at night,” Tolliver said. “I know, we saw them daytime out near Birdshit. Guess they couldn’t resist all that action. Look, we’re not jigging bait, we don’t look like a meal, so even if there’s Humboldts in the area, no reason they’re gonna bother us.”

  Walter and I nodded.

  “They’re like rattlesnakes,” Tolliver added.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “You come from the mountains, you know snakes, right? You see a rattlesnake, what do you do? You leave it alone. Don’t rile it and it won’t pay you any attention. Same idea in the water. You see a Humboldt, you leave it alone, it’ll leave you alone. That make sense?”

  “I’m clear on Humboldts,” I said, “but what about jellyfish? Like the kind that stung the diver?”

  “Purple stripe, so I understand,” Tolliver said. “Yeah, they live out here. They’re drifters, on the currents. Could be anywhere. We don't know where Silva got stung.”

  I rather hoped, not here.

  “End of wildlife lesson,” Tolliver said. “Time to dive.”

  We stripped down to our swim suits and tur
ned to the job of wrestling into our wetsuits. Walter and I had rented our gear at the local dive shop, under Tolliver's critical eye. Tolliver handed us waterproof slates with attached pencils, for underwater communication.

  We finished suiting up.

  Shrink-wrapped in thick black neoprene, sporting blue buoyancy compensators, burdened with weight belts and high-volume tanks, we moved to the dive platform.

  Faith raised the dive flag and settled into Tolliver’s jump seat.

  “Okay, last-minute do's and don'ts. First off, we'll use the anchor line as a guide,” Tolliver said. “Descent and ascent.”

  I nodded. We'd learned that in Belize.

  “If we get to Target Red and need more bottom time we'll ascend there and Faith will pick us up. But damned if I want to surface in that mess. I'm planning our time so we return to the anchor line.” He tapped the dive computer on his wrist. “You'll notice I’m also carrying a pony bottle.” He patted the bright yellow tank strapped to his flank. “Emergency air. Don’t plan on needing it. Just standard procedure.”

  I nodded.

  “And this here,” Tolliver patted the reel and line clipped to his harness, “is a guideline. On the off-chance we need to enter an overhead environment, I lay the line. It shows the way out.”

  I nodded. The dive master in Belize had carried one.

  “Finally,” Tolliver said, “if we do enter an overhead environment we're going to do a gentle frog kick to direct the force of our fins away from the bottom so we don't stir up the sediment. Can't see a damned thing in a silt-out.”

  I nodded.

  Tolliver glanced at Walter.

  Walter's eyebrows lifted. “I believe we've mentioned that we're not new to diving.”

  “You're new to me, in my ocean.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Cold water slapped my face.

  This was not Belize. This was not a bathtub tropical sea. Ah hell, this was field work and the fact that the field was underwater was simply a matter of logistics.

  Tolliver and then Walter disappeared beneath the surface and then it was my turn on the anchor line. I clamped the regulator in my mouth, sucked in canned air, deflated my buoyancy compensator, and dove.

  Down below, I saw Walter’s fins gently kicking.

  Good form, partner.

  Lessons learned flooded in. Relax, breathe slowly, watch your bubbles. You want a slow trickle. I tipped my head and checked my bubble trail. Too big, too fast. Tolliver had given a tip: hum to yourself to ensure your breathing is slow and easy. I cast about for a tune. What came to mind was the theme music to Jaws.

  Never mind.

  I concentrated instead on the metallic ring of the regulator exhaust bubbles and found my rhythm.

  My bubble trail slowed.

  Down the anchor line I went.

  A peppy orange fish came by, examined me, flashed his blindingly bright orange self at me, and then dashed into the kelp forest.

  We descended just outside the forest, which draped the pinnacle.

  Out here, clear of the forest, the visibility was good, the water clear and blue and sunlit down to the seafloor below.

  Down below, the base of the pinnacle flared out and tapered into fingers, and between the fingers were sand channels that ran bright and white as sugar. The rocky fingers were haired with kelp—the colonizing outer reach of the forest.

  Plan was, we’d descend to the rocky fingers and take our first samples there.

  As Tolliver and then Walter neared the bottom I glimpsed a dark triangular shape cruising one of the sand highways, slowly flapping fins that looked more like wings. The bat ray appeared menacing and graceful at the same time.

  I saw Tolliver reach bottom and point to the creature.

  I saw Walter join Tolliver, and then wave his arms in imitation of the ray.

  All's good with you, boys?

  When I reached the sandy seafloor the men gave me a nod and then Walter indicated the nearest rocky finger and cocked his head. I nodded in return. Good enough. Tolliver pointed to a nearby stalk of kelp, pointed to himself, and then made a cutting gesture. He was going to take a kelp sample while Walter and I addressed the rock.

  I studied the rocky finger. It was a dark volcanic mix, a fine-grained melange, dark gray I thought, although colors underwater were not the same as colors in the lab. Still, I was willing to make a field ID and call the rock a Franciscan basalt.

  This could be the source of the pebble lodged in the holdfast caught in the Outcast’s anchor.

  Walter took a hammer and chisel from his dive bag and whacked at a fragile-looking knob, careful to avoid the spiky greenish creature parked nearby.

  A sea urchin. I thought of the Keaslings. Spiky creatures—two of them, at least.

  We took our rock samples and Tolliver rejoined us with a kelp frond sealed in a collection bag.

  Tolliver checked his wrist dive computer and held up five fingers. Fifty minutes bottom time remaining.

  Walter wrote a word on his slate: coral.

  Time to go hunting on the main body of the pinnacle.

  Tolliver took the lead and found an opening into the tangle of the kelp forest—a trail of sorts. Walter followed Tolliver. I trailed. Tolliver’s kelp-diving lessons kicked in. Put your hands together in front of you, palms outward, at the ready to sweep the kelp aside as you pass through. Kick gently. Streamline yourself. Be a fish.

  I entered the rubbery woods, a big awkward rubber-skinned fish.

  The sunlit blue water gave way to the filtered amber light of the kelp forest. It was like moving from a mountain meadow into a thick forest of pines. From the open into the enclosed. From light to shade.

  My breathing picked up. Bubbles streamed. I needed to see blue. I rolled my head sideways and back, looking toward the surface, hunting for the sky, but all I saw was the kelp canopy like a large hat blocking out the sky above, shielding the world down below. It seemed a clandestine world down here, a world of shadow and hidden things.

  A few spears of light penetrated the canopy, gilding fronds here and there.

  Kelp stalks thick as pillars soared all around me.

  And then—in the manner in which my eyes would adjust to shade in a terrestrial forest—my vision adjusted to this liquid forest.

  It burst into color.

  The fronds were muted shades of green and gold and brown.

  Big blue fish roamed above. Dozens of silvery needle-nosed fish shot by, like someone had emptied a pincushion. Cigar-shaped black-spotted orange fish converged on a spray of scabbily-encrusted fronds and seemed to scrape them clean.

  A golden-shelled red-footed snail inched up a slender stalk.

  I glimpsed a pugnacious red crab guarding its patch of kelp, claws clacking, and I wanted to smile but that would mean losing my death grip on the regulator mouthpiece feeding me air.

  I had gotten so distracted by the citizens in the kelp forest that I fell behind the others and I had a moment of alarm before I caught sight of Walter’s black fins, just disappearing round a bend ahead.

  As if I’d momentarily lost him on a hiking trail.

  I kicked harder.

  I became a fish, moving like everything else down here in time with the current and the gentle ebb and flow of the surge, fronds and stalks and fish and me all undulating, swaying, in tight synchronization with the heartbeat of the sea. I swam though Tolliver’s narrow trail, through a sudden tunnel of long flat stalks that looked like belts, belts fringed with feathery blades that tickled my face as I swam. The tunnel narrowed. Blades and supple stalks seemed to caress me.

  The caresses tightened.

  Wrapped me.

  I was no longer moving forward.

  I kicked furiously.

  Not a fish.

  Don’t belong.

  Breathing hard, bubbles volcanic.

  If I had become entangled in brush on a hiking trail on a mountain path the way an air-breather should be hiking I could have calmly worked my wa
y out of trouble and yelled to my hiking companions up ahead to wait.

  I couldn’t yell down here or I would drown.

  All I could do was hum.

  Theme from Jaws.

  Bubbles slowed, just at the edge of perception.

  Okay lady, you’re caught in the kelp. You got your fins entangled. Stop kicking. Reach down to your leg and draw the dive knife from the sheath. That’s why dive knives were invented.

  I bent and twisted and tried to reach my knife but the entanglement went all the way up my calves.

  And then my worst nightmare bloomed and I suddenly did not want to look behind me to see what had hold of my legs, because what if it wasn't kelp? It was not out of the question that my legs were entangled in the tentacles of a jumbo Humboldt squid or a purple-stripe jellyfish or some sort of encasing toothy eel.

  I froze.

  Don’t rile it.

  Like starting a bar-room brawl, I recalled Tolliver saying about chumming for Humboldt squid.

  I waited for it to bite me, sting me, or release me.

  It did nothing.

  I came to my senses. First, get that breathing under control. Think of a mountain meadow in the sunshine.

  Breathing slowed. Bubbles slowed.

  Next, I reached into the mental file drawer where Tolliver’s kelp-diving lessons were stored. Searched for the heading if you’re stupid enough to get entangled. Found it. Draw your knife, cut yourself free. Couldn’t reach the knife. Next? Very steadily, without twisting your torso, pull your knee—or knees, plural, should you be stupid enough to get both legs caught—up toward your chest.

  Very steadily, without twisting my torso, I pulled my knees toward my chest. Astonishingly, they came. Along with their wrapping.

  Next? Unwrap the kelp from your limbs.

  I reached down and grasped the tangle of kelp—snapping stalks and pulling the mess free of my limbs—and when I had finished self-rescuing I streamlined myself into one hell of an agile fish and in short time I caught up with Walter and Tolliver.

  It appeared they hadn’t missed me.

  Lessons learned.

  ***

  The kelp trail branched and branched again but Doug Tolliver, along with his wrist compass, led us to the pinnacle.

  We had sampled its spreading fingers, outside the forest. Inside the forest, the pinnacle was a thick-bodied pillar of rock, wider at the base and thinning as it rose.