stage too.”
“If Marnie’s specialty is wood, and Scott’s is pottery and ceramics, then what’s your specialty, Amanda?” I asked.
“My specialty? Human remains of course. And from what Eddy told me, you’re somewhat of an expert yourself.” I smiled, but that quickly turned into a blush when I caught Dr. Sanchez sneering again.
“I wish someone had told me this was going to be a kids’ day camp.” I was happy when everyone ignored his comment.
“From what you’ve said, metals, wood, and ceramic could all be preserved in water given the perfect circumstances, but what about human remains?”
“Good question, Peggy. And the answer is — it all depends. Do you know what sailors used in the old days to preserve their food — meat in particular?”
“I think I read somewhere they used to use salt to keep meat from rotting.”
“Right, it was the most efficient preservative they had aboard ships back then. The downside was the high salt content of the meat often caused sailors to have scurvy and high blood pressure. But getting back to preserving of human remains — salt water combined with an environment void of oxygen and some nice protective silt create the perfect place to preserve just about anything. Problem is — conditions are rarely so ideal. For instance, there are many organisms in the water that feed off organic matter. Dr. Sanchez can tell you more about that — his expertise is worms!” So that explained why the guy was so creepy.
“Worms! Nasty!” I said. Dr. Sanchez rolled his eyes. Captain Hunter grinned.
“It truly is fascinating stuff — go ahead, Hernado — we’d all like to hear about those nasty little creatures you find so interesting.” More eye rolling and sighing.
“Yes, all right. My specialty is marine borers — poopilarly known as the sheep worm,” he said in his heavy accent.
“Poopilar sheep worm?” I laughed. Probably shouldn’t have.
“Not bah bah! I said sheep worm,” he barked impatiently.
“He means ‘ship worm,’” Amanda interpreted. “From your samples do you think ship worm is going to be a problem for us?”
“It’s too early to say. The sheep worm cannot survive in certain types of water — like in brackish water. But let me tell you — if teredo and gribble worms are here then the timber from our Intrepid, she will be full of destructive tunnels — then it’s going to go kaput if we take her from the water. My hope is the currents quickly covered her in silt before any sheep worms got to her. If so, then maybe we’re going to find human remains.”
“Say the preservation conditions are perfect — what’s the chance we’ll find human remains buried with the Intrepid?” I asked. Captain Hunter looked at his watch, his signal that it was time to wrap it up.
“Well, that’s a good question, Peggy. And there’s really no way of knowing until we find our ship. So I say we get going and do just that. Everyone with me?”
“Yes sir,” I said, jumping up from my seat. “Let’s get going ASAP!” The captain smiled. “Glad to hear you’re in, Peggy. But first — Dr. Sanchez, what’s the latest on the weather?”
“It’s good for now, Dr. Hunter. But I want to say a something about the radio … somebody’s been touching all the dials. Was that you, leedle girl?” Zoom — my face turned the colour of tomato soup.
“Oh, yah, that. Ah, I was touching the radio because someone was calling. It was fuzzy so I turned some dials to try and get the reception clearer.”
“You do not touch the radio, it is my job,” said Dr. Sanchez. Then he looked over at Captain Hunter. “Yes, and his job too.” He probably wanted to rag on me some more, but the conversation quickly turned to what needed to be prepared for the afternoon dive. After everyone split off in different directions to do their jobs Captain Hunter asked me about the call.
“You didn’t say if you were able to make contact with the caller, Peggy.” It was one of those split moment decisions — do I tell or not? After getting razzed by Dr. Sanchez I wasn’t up to disappointing Captain Hunter at that moment. Especially not when everyone was in such a good mood and I was going to get my first chance to dive. It’s not like there was anything he could do about it right then anyways.
“You know, the reception on that radio sure is bad,” I said slowly. “It was hard to hear who was calling.”
“Oh, I know, it can be pretty awful sometimes. Well, if it’s something important they’ll try again.” He turned and headed off to the equipment room. Hmmm … that was easy, I thought. And he had even jumped to that conclusion all by himself — now that can’t be my fault. So then why did I hear Aunt Beatrix’s words hounding me like a ghost: Face up to your problems with courage and remain honest and true. If nothing else, remember it’s your moment-by-moment conduct that will determine the success of your life. What a pain having Aunt Beatrix for a conscience!
Chapter Eight
Glancing up towards the ocean surface I saw a beautiful blanket of emerald green light. It was bright enough to illuminate all the little particles floating around me, but not enough to light the dark ocean floor below. For that we needed waterproof flashlights. As the rays from the flashlights lit the sandy surface I saw the anchor for the first time and was surprised at how small it was — I was expecting something at least as big as a Volkswagen. Then I noticed the circular grid the team started that morning. It looked like a giant spider web with the anchor caught in the middle. Not far was a reef loaded with marine life, including patches of violet coral, blue-clawed crabs, and plumose anemones.
Before our dive Amanda warned me to not interfere with any of the sea life — especially the anemones. She also made me review hand signals and the four points a diver must always keep in mind — depth, air, time, and area. I half expected she’d pull a Tornado and make me write DATA on my hand, but she didn’t. But that’s when I learned that the fun and carefree Amanda was all business when it came to diving.
“Don’t feel bad, Peggy. I do this with all my dive partners. You don’t want to be fifty feet under water and be confused over the safety details or what your partner’s trying to communicate to you.”
With everyone now all paired off, Captain Hunter gave us the signal to fan out from the anchor and do a visual search of the area. As each team swam away in different directions I hoped Amanda and I would be the ones to find the ship first — not that it was a race, but it would probably annoy Dr. Sanchez. We knew that the ship couldn’t be too far but visibility was poor that afternoon and we couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead … which was why I practically hung on to Amanda’s flippers. There was no way I wanted to get lost down there!
As we swam slowly along Amanda stopped frequently to jot notes on her waterproof permatrace paper. At first I didn’t see anything too noteworthy, but then I realized that what appeared at first to be only small mounds covered in sea plants could very well be man-made objects — otherwise why would Amanda plot them on her grid? I had the urge to brush away the silt and sea weeds to see if they really were artifacts, but I knew better than to disturb the site. Eddy always told me that artifacts in situ could tell an archaeologist a lot. I was pretty sure that rule applied to underwater archaeology too.
Before swimming away from each artifact Amanda
