Juan and Mike threw each other another OK sign and unceremoniously rolled into the Atlantic’s cool embrace. Both were quick with inflating their suits and adjusting their buoyancy so they hovered like dark jellyfish just below the surface. They found handholds along the side of the Nomad and switched their air feeds to the spare tanks attached to her.

“Let’s go.”

“Hold on tight. Nomad, release.” A pause. “We are clear.”

Bubbles erupted around the submersible as Eddie purged her tanks and the thirty-foot mini-sub began its descent to the seafloor and whatever lay hidden on the derelict mine tender.

Cabrillo could feel pressure building on his suit and knew it would approach two hundred pounds per square inch when they reached the wreck. He continuously added argon gas to keep the material from crushing in on him. The cold temperature wasn’t a problem now, but it would eventually start seeping through the protective layers and leach heat first from his skin and then his very core.

Down they dropped, the blue-gray water of a dawn dive giving way to midnight blue and finally true black as they settled deeper and deeper. There was no sense of movement to their descent except for the steadily building current that swept tropical waters out of the Caribbean along the East Coast and eventually to Northern Europe.

Juan kept a constant vigil over his equipment, checking valves and his dive computer for time and depth and other details. He also checked in with Max and Eddie at regular intervals and maintained visual confirmation that his dive partner was okay. Laxity anywhere is dangerous. On a dive, it is deadly.

“Bottom coming up in fifty feet,” Eddie announced. “I’m going to switch on the lights.”

As powerful as they were, the xenon lamps mounted on the forward part of the submarine could throw a corona of light only twenty feet. It showed the ocean was full of snow—tiny particles of organic matter that continuously rained down from the surface, only this was much worse because of the current. Cabrillo had experienced this phenomena many times, but this trip was like trying to peer through a blizzard.

“Visibility sucks,” Mike complained.

“Say again,” Max radioed.

“No visibility,” Juan enunciated slowly.

“Copy that. Poor vis.”

“We’re coming down about fifty feet off the ship,” Eddie said. “I’ve got it on lidar. The vessel itself is eighty feet long, but she’s trailing a good two hundred feet of old fishing nets that’re snagged around her hull.”

A burst of silt erupted around the hull when Eddie gunned the sub’s motors a bit too hard. “Oops. Sorry about that.”