I don’t know whether it’s because I can trick myself into thinking that when they’re in the lab, they’re on solid ground somewhere and when when they’re exploring underwater, they’re really standing in front of a large aquarium somewhere. I haven’t bothered to ask myself these questions too deeply. I could think about this more but I’m afraid that the tenuous illusions that I have have constructed for myself would be shattered.
What does bother me are those shots taken above deck- when there is nothing to see but the vast expanse of limitless ocean. The only thing worse than these shots are when the ship is going, presumably “full steam ahead” and there is a massive wake churning up its- well, in its wake. This sends my blood pressure through the roof.
Once I regain consciousness, I find myself examining the wake to see if there’s anybody I know bobbing up and down in it. When I don’t see anyone, I go over and sit on the couch and try to think happy thoughts. Usually, I can’t come up with any.
Yesterday, they were having electrical problems with one of the submersibles- to the point where they had to cut one of their dives short. I checked again later before going to bed to see if anything had changed. Nope. Still working on it.
This morning, before work, I logged on and checked again. The only differences I could detect were that, first off all, the water that normally stretched out to infinity, now stretched out into the dark void of their pre-dawn sky. The other thing that I noticed was that the submersible, which usually sits just beyond the upper guardrail to the right, was gone.
And there was a third thing. No one was around. This was understandable since it was about 3:30 in the morning, their time. But still, it was a little- odd. After I got to work, I checked again.
Look closely at this picture. See all those of people? Of course you don’t. There aren’t any. Rear deck with one submersible missing? Nothing. Vast expanse of deadly ocean with no one apparently bobbing up and down in it? Nothing. Empty control room? Empty. I checked the site several more times with increasing frequency, throughout the morning. The only thing that changed was the sun was rising, along with my anxiety.
Any reasonable person would assume that since they’re not able to explore, maybe they’re taking advantage of being able to sleep in. Or, since they’re not able to explore, maybe they're off-camera in the lab, getting caught up on tagging the specimens from previous dives.
I thought about these explanations, and others too. But after repeatedly checking in and not seeing anything different, I decided sometime around 10:30AM my time, that these explanations were unlikely and far fetched.
I decided that it was much more likely that they had been boarded by pirates- modern pirates- the kinds of pirates that raid ships with assault weapons. And these pirates, in a show of strength, had pushed one of the submersibles overboard “as a warning- just in case anybody gets any funny ideas” and that by now, everyone was tied up below deck- if they were lucky.
And since I wasn’t even seeing any pirates in the videos, the only logical conclusion was that all of this had happened in the dead of night and the pirates were now long gone.
All the pieces fit.
It suddenly occurred to me that even after all of these years, I have absolutely no idea who you call to report a pirate attack.
...
I got an email from Jake around 11:45 saying they were still working on the electrical problems and would be heading out further to their next site and hopefully be able to hit the site they had to skip, on their way back.
And now, I’m seeing activity on the boat. The status has even been updated- presumably by an actual crew member.
Although I haven’t heard back from Jake, I’m beginning to have some doubts about my pirate scenario. But boy, it sure seemed like the most plausible explanation at the time.
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