CHAPTER 6 

(Part One)

Girls of the Bottom Time

In the morning, I caught a glimpse of Gun’s Captain’s License inside his open sea bag. I decided to check it since I could say it dropped out. Now I was getting as bad as the Feds. Well, not as bad as them. “Ira Isaac Gunderson” was his full name. Ira Gunderson, I loved the sound of it immediately. From that moment I decided to call him Ira. To counter his “Ca-leb mah belle” singing and to tick him off. It was “Ira this...” and “Ira that...” for the entire next day. Each time the blood in Ira’s face would rush red in irritation. When I sensed he was about to explode I backed off, choosing my “Ira’s” carefully thereafter, and mixing in a “Gunner” every so often. I thought of him as Ira now, not Ike, or Gun. I don’t know why, he just looked like an “Ira” to me, and considering his secret conversation he also seemed to be a different person. After lunch, I sipped instant coffee and thought my thoughts topside while Gun steered to a new site in accordance with Joni’s navigation.

The sky was clear but I recalled the spot about 50 feet overhead where the jagged ribbon of lightning shot over us. Let it flow man, the most powerful force in the universe, it was right there, so few feet away that I almost could have touched it, coming and going in a single instant of, God Please Give Me Another Chance! Then vaporized in a white-hot flash.

My signals were still half-crossed and I had trouble coordinating my breathing and heart rate. That moment when the lightning bolt streaked overhead and blew out in a hail of sparks was forever burned into my mind.

***

            The Rapture luxury dive charter appeared on the horizon, racing our way. Docked at Cat Cay she resembled a layer cake with her dark wraparound windows sandwiched between the white decks. Now she was nothing if not sleek, with the sun flashing off her mirror glass with pontoons barely skimming the water like a sled skating across the surface.

Joni and Gun concluded that they were heading to the exact place we were, an abundant lobster field and offshore spear-fishing reef. “God, I can’t believe it,” I said. “That is one fast ship. She was on the horizon a minute ago and she may get there ahead of us.”

Jim explained it was because she had so little wet-surface area, consequently much less drag.

Joni checked the Position Finder. “Heck, I think we’ll be close enough in a minute.” She made her normal optimistic face.

“Rapture’s faster than any ship in these waters,” Gun said. “She screams. They say she’s one of the most advanced in the world. In a different class.”

“40 knots easy,” Carl added. “Not faster than a cutter, though.”

Joni smirked. “Mother wants that spot real bad.”

“Sure. Flat out, yeah, she’s much faster than a cutter,” Jim argued. “She’s going much more than 40 knots right now.”

“Na-ah,” Carl replied. “Close. Not faster.”

“Sure,” said Jim. “Rumor is she’s as fast a hydrofoil, capable of more than 100 knots. Has some special 21^st century propulsion system in it.” When Carl made a very skeptical face, Jimmy added, “Yeah, the owner is Seaweed Joe’s brother, Randy Revere, that’s the one with the goatee, he’s a super-brain, connected to some government people.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” said Gun.

He added something about SWATH technology and hydrodynamic water jet propulsion. Killis seemed to absorb everything, pretending to listen or not to listen, there was no telling with him since he participated and reacted so little.

As the boats converged, a few Shark men with binoculars commented on the abundance of women aboard The Rapture. “Um, yummy… Girls love Bottom Time…Bless ‘em, can’t get enough of girls who love Bottom Time,” were a few remarks.

Then we stopped getting closer to each other. “Why can’t we anchor together?” I asked.          

“I wouldn’t mind swimming with a few of them gals,” Jimmy added.

“Two ships can’t be closer than 150 yards to each other,” Gun informed me.

Dammit, I said to myself. I decided to dive headlong in their direction if possible and share my Bottom Time with the girls. Maybe I’d be able to make some eye contact and pretend some distress so they’d rescue me!

We were off a tiny island of rocks called “Two Trees” which, when two giant trees on it were lined up so they looked like one single tree, they pointed to the abundant spear-fishing and lobster field offshore. Both boats anchored along the same reef, about 150 yards apart. They were down-current from us. While the Hammerheads suited up and dove over the side to pillage, The Rapture lowered a couple wave runners mounted by women who began revving themselves around the island.