Ness laughs. Really laughs. He slaps the steering wheel. “So snorkeling would be like dating in college,” he says.
“Or maybe at work,” I offer. “Diving would be like dating in college. If you don’t find someone early, all the good ones are gone. Just like with shells.”
Ness nods. I make a mental note of this metaphor. Michael would absolutely loathe it. I’ll have to email it to him.
“Shelling is like relationships,” Ness says. He turns away from me and scans the beach, makes an adjustment with the wheel. “I can see that.” He nods to himself. “Yeah, I can totally see that.”
20
I watch the shore recede until it becomes a thin, dark line. Only the lighthouse remains distinct, a finger of black jutting up from an outcrop not far from Ness’s estate. There is a gentle undulation to the sea, a rhythmic swell. The outboards roar. We pass patches of drifting seagrass. In the distance, a handful of birds trace lazy circles against the sky, signs of sporadic life in this watery wilderness.
Finally, Ness throttles back and the bow dips. The boat slows. We are in a patch of sea that looks like any other on the surface, but I see Ness studying the GPS, which shows our boat as a small triangle on top of a classic symbol for a shipwreck: a curved hull with what might be a sail-less mast but looks more like a cemetery cross.
“I thought you said it was just offshore,” I say. Ness reverses the throttle briefly to kill our speed, then looks back toward land.
“Seven miles,” he says. “Practically on the beach.”
He goes forward to toss out the anchor. I slide over into his spot and study the GPS. The large screen shows the depth of the water in feet. Right by our position, the numbers range from 70 to 120. There’s a steep ridge here. The water is much deeper toward land before rising back up again. If all the oceans were stripped away, these would be rolling hills overlooking a majestic valley. Instead, it’s a world invisible, the contours seen only in a scattering of numbers and covered over by fathoms of blue dirt.
“You said earlier that I shouldn’t dive deeper than sixty feet,” I point out. Maybe it’s the shipwreck symbol or my bout of paranoia earlier, but I have a bad feeling about this plot of sea. Like something awful will happen here.
Ness throws out the anchor and watches as coil after coil of rope zips over the rail. When the line begins to slide away lazily, he cinches it off on a cleat. I remember helping my father do that. It was my job on the boat. Here, I’m an anxious spectator.
“It’s a little over eighty to the bottom,” he says. “You don’t have to go that far. The wreck sits up off the sea floor, so it’s less than sixty down to the conning tower. Besides, there’s not much good shelling this shallow unless you get pretty remote. It’s all been picked over. But you can see the wreck, and if you’re comfortable hanging out for a few minutes at depth, I can show you where I used to make my finds.”
“I thought you’d be with me the whole time.”
“I will. If you don’t feel comfortable, we can come right back up. Just give me this sign.” Ness points straight up. “Do it with both hands, if possible. If you don’t feel like you’re getting air for any reason, do this.” He makes a choking gesture.
“Comforting,” I say.
“And if everything is okay, give the okay sign. If you give me a thumbs-up, I won’t know if you’re doing great or you want to go up to the boat.”
“Sixty feet, ten minutes,” I tell him.
“It’s a guideline,” Ness says. “Don’t worry if you go a little below that or stay down fifteen minutes. It gives you a lot of leeway. We won’t be long, and we’ll come up nice and slow, maybe even make a couple safety stops just to make my dearly departed dive master happy.”
“Whatever’s the safest, that’s what I want to do.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be perfectly safe. Trust me.”
I try to. He and I drag our duffels to the stern of the boat and begin setting out the gear. There’s a small door on one side of the outboards and a narrow dive platform. I figure out how to work the door, and I kick the stainless steel ladder hinged to the platform into the water. Somehow, effecting my doom lessens the worry. Nerves are like carsickness: I get less nauseated if it’s my hands on the wheel.
Ness starts prepping his tank, and I do the same with mine, repeating the steps I learned just an hour or so ago. I appreciate that he lets me do it myself, but I make sure he’s keeping an eye on me. I assume he’ll tell me if I do anything wrong. When I crack the valve on the tank, there’s a brief sputter of air, and then the rubber gasket catches tight.
“Let’s get your weight belt on,” Ness says, “and then your tank. You can sit on the platform to do your fins and mask.”