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Post by Evangeline on Sept 18, 2008 22:47:36 GMT -5
<<< Last post >>>
"I'm kinda looking forward to another search now." Dawn washed down her sandwich with a swig of fruit juice. "Could be a lot more of'em down there, or something just as interesting."
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 9:44:05 GMT -5
"Could be," nodded Delfina as she ate the last bit of her sandwich, "but we can't rush this. We can't overdo it."
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 11:36:42 GMT -5
Dawn checked the dive tables and made some notations. "Manuel and I can do two more short dives or one longer one today."
"Why is that?" Randy asked.
"A large percentage of the human body is liquid, Randy." Dawn sat up, showing the chart. "All liquids absorb gas, OK? Under pressure, they absorb more of it, especially nitrogen, which humans absorb twice as much of as oxygen. This isn't a problem as long as a human stays under pressure, but if they've been down to, say, fifty or sixty feet for a while and go back to surface pressure too quickly, the nitrogen will form bubbles in the blood and tissue and cause a lot of pain and maybe some serious damage. If you ever see a human come up too quick and then start bending or contorting in pain, you'll know they've got "the bends", or decompression sickness, and can get help. So, the diving tables help us figure out how deep and how long we can go down and still be safe."
Randy mulled this for a few beats. "OK, I think I get it." he turned to Delfina. "I s'pose you have some way to avoid that, do you?"
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 11:52:34 GMT -5
"I can shift from airbreathing to waterbreathing," said Delfina, "So, it isn't that much of a problem for me. I can stay down as long I need to. And that's why I don't wear that much equipment as Dawn and Manuel do."
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 12:22:58 GMT -5
Randy had seen the fins, masks and snorkels, but the scuba tanks and regulators were new to him. "Must be heavy."
"They're OK underwater, neutral bouyancy." Dawn said. "You just don't want to go walking around with them on the surface though."
Randy glanced towards Freda, muttering something about having a lot to learn.
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 12:28:55 GMT -5
"I know, it's alot to take in, isn't it?" asked Freda with a chuckle.
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 12:40:26 GMT -5
"I'm gettin' better, really." Randy grinned sheepishly.
Manuel checked his watch. "Another half hour."
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 12:49:10 GMT -5
"I know," Freda said with a nod and a smile.
"Well, let's rest for awhile," said Delfina, "It's not worth it to worry too much about the next dive."
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 14:15:29 GMT -5
There was, in the distance, another party apparently on a diving mission. The ship was maybe three times the size of Freda, and the divers were two adapted forklifts bolted into submersible pods with thrusters. Each of them was connected with the ship via an umbilical cord which served as leash, communication and power line. It certainly looked like there was a lot of money behind the operation.
"Check out those guys." Randy observed. "Y'think they're looking for the same thing that you found?"
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 14:33:06 GMT -5
"Probably," said Freda, "and that ship dwarves me. But the thing is, we were here first. Once a dive site is located and marked, it belongs to the ones who first found it. We have exclusive rights to this place and to the those that had hired us. I would expect that they want to know what we found too."
"I should go over to that ship and find out why they're here," said Delfina as she climbed up on the gunwale again to observe the larger ship for a moment.
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 15:02:04 GMT -5
Randy was a bit more diffident. "Dunno that they look all that friendly to me."
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 15:14:59 GMT -5
"And I prefer to remain a noncombatant," added Freda, "He's bigger than me. I can't argue with that."
"Well, then," said Delfina, "I'm just gonna go see what his divers are doing. Maybe just give them a scare of something."
She smiled with a wink as she climbed down to the diving platform, "They've never seen anything like me in my mermaid form before, hadn't they?"
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 15:47:42 GMT -5
"THAT would be funny." Randy snickered. "They'd freak right out of the water."
Dawn and Manuel looked a little concerned as Delfina headed back into the water.
In the meantime, the bigger ship sniffed contemptuously at the smaller boats in the distance and yawned. "Damn tourists."
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Post by ebonyviper on Sept 19, 2008 16:07:23 GMT -5
Delfina waved as she slipped smoothly into the water, shifting to her marine form and diving down into the deep to look for the other ship's divers.
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Post by Evangeline on Sept 19, 2008 16:29:15 GMT -5
About sixty feet below the surface, one of the forklifts, sealed in his pod and thrusters, was checking out a steep dropoff. Below was a seemingly bottomless depth that only got darker, and as he descended, he turned on his lights, illuminating a submarine landscape resembling a cliff face, except that it was studded with coral, anemones and fast-rooted kelp. Little motes of sand or tiny creatures swirled with the currents. He was taking great caution not to get his umbilical line snagged on the dropoff itself or on anything projecting from it, and eyed the whole setup anxiously. If he'd had his way about things, he'd be on the surface of the ship, not risking his life in what amounted to a bubble with engines because the boss was too cheap to hire a mini-sub and didn't trust outsiders to keep their mouths shut. This totally sucks...
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