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Back and forth. Back and forth. This went on for quite awhile as they mapped the seabed, but nothing appeared on the laptop to suggest a shipwreck laid far below. This kind of work took time, though. Lots and lots of time and they all knew it.
Dylan sighed, leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms. Hollis turned a specialized detector over in her hands.
“Are you sure your equipment works?” she asked.
Dylan’s chair dropped back down with a thump. “It works,” he said in a snippy voice. He was tired of her questioning their high-tech equipment.
Hollis lifted the detector up to the coin hanging around Dylan’s neck.
BEEP!
He narrowed his eyes. She was going to get it later, he decided.
“Just checking,” she said with a playful smile.
Something was wrong, Dylan thought, and crossed his arms. His gaze roamed over all the high-tech equipment laying on the boat’s deck.
“This is the wrong spot,” he said, brow furrowed.
“What?” Hollis shook her head. “But, we took everything into account when we re-navigated. The archives gave us survivor statements, location data-- when they sank, how long they rowed, the beach where they landed...even storms and the tides…”
Her voice trailed off, at a loss. But, something she said snagged Hiro’s attention and he began to type on his phone.
“I know, but my gut says we should have found something. After 300 years, the wood has rotted away, but we still have cannons, nails, metals, coins and gems down there.”
“Unless itisjust a legend,” Hollis said, meeting Dylan’s gaze.
“Guys, check this out,” Hiro said. He swiped the image from his phone onto the laptop screen. “Here’s an image of the currents off the coast of Florida in 1715.”
Then, Hiro hit a button and pointed to the present-day currents. “And, here they are today.”
The image shifted dramatically.
“If you take the shifting currents into consideration and enter your original calculations...” He typed some numbers into a program. “Look!”
A new, highlighted area appeared closer to the coast. Hiro tapped the screen with a triumphant smile. “This is where we should be looking. It’s all shifted into shallower water.”
“Hiro, you’re a genius!” Hollis exclaimed. She hugged him, then turned and found herself wrapped in Dylan’s arms, all of them laughing.
“The good news is now we’re looking at less than 40 feet deep,” Hiro said. “Bad news is we’re less than 3 miles off the coast.”
“No longer international waters,” Hollis said.
“Which means Florida is going to want her piece of whatever we find,” Dylan added.
Hollis bit her lip, then let out a determined breath. “Florida can wait. As of now, I have permission to salvage, so let’s dive.”
That’s my girl, Dylan thought.
They moved to the new search area and, after scanning the seabed, buoys now marked the new hunting perimeters in the water closer to shore.
Suited up in diving gear, Hollis and Dylan finished their pre-checks. Then, Dylan meticulously tucked his coin necklace into the wetsuit and covered his watch with the suit’s sleeve.
As Hollis watched him cover anything that shone or reflected, her gaze automatically dropped to his covered calf and the shark bite that she knew was underneath the wetsuit. He was incredibly brave to go back into the water after what happened. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to do the same.
Dylan walked over, lifted her arm and drew her wetsuit sleeve down to cover her dive watch. “No sharks today,” he said.
“Only treasure.”
