Below The Surface
The Gulf of Mexico off South Florida September 12, 2006When Briana Devon surfaced, her boat was gone. Something—besides the fact that the gulf had gone rough since she'd begun her dive—was terribly wrong.
She struggled to keep her underwater camera and strobe from being ripped away by the waves. Her tethered plastic slate with its latex rubber pencil she used to make notes underwater smacked her face; she thrust it behind her.
She kept the regulator in her mouth, clenched between her teeth. Still sucking in the air from her tank, she heard the hiss of her more rapid breathing mingled with the howl of the increasing wind. Since she was fairly low on air, her single tank yanked back and forth on her BC, the vest-style buoyancy compensator that supported her in the water.
This was impossible! Had she come up in the wrong place? No, the pelican float she'd deployed bobbed wildly, riding the waves. She was where she meant to be, but where was Daria and their dive boat? And how fast the distant storm had come up.
Holding on to her gear and using her flippers, she spun in a circle. Maybe the Mermaids II was just blurred by the darkening horizon. No, all she saw were ... read full excerpt from Below the Surface ebook
