The methodology was remarkably simple. Video frames from a surveyed reef were compared with sample images taken months or years earlier at the same locale. A count of the fish and "benthic," or seafloor, organisms provided a scientific snapshot of the reef's relative health. Dozens of reefs around the islands were targeted by the NUMA project to provide an assessment of the entire region's waters.
Summer kicked lazily along the track line until reaching the end point in a sand gully, marked by a stainless steel pin driven into the seafloor. A plastic card marked in grease pen was attached to the pin.
Summer reached down and turned the card toward the camera, filming the designated line and waypoint before turning the camera off. As she let go of the placard, something in a nearby burrow of sand caught her eye. Kicking her yellow fins in short scissors kicks, she glided over to a cluster of small rocks. A small octopus was sliding about the rocks, puffing its body up and down as it drew water through its gills.
Summer watched the intelligent invertebrate as it changed color, turning nearly translucent as it expanded its mantle before squirming away toward the reef. Gazing back at the rocks, she noticed a small round object protruding from the nearby sand. A miniature face seemed to smile up at Summer, as if happy to be discovered. Summer fanned away a light layer of sand, then plucked up the object and held it in front of her mask.
It was a tiny porcelain figurine of a maiden, wearing a flowing red robe, her black hair rolled high in a bun. The statuette's plump cheeks were tinged with red like a cherub while the narrow eyes were unmistakably Asian. The artistic handiwork was somewhat crude, and there was an ancient look to the dress and pose. Just to assure herself, Summer flipped the figurine over, but found no made in Hong Kong stamp on the bottom. Sifting her free hand through the soft sand, she found no other buried objects nearby.
A few yards away, the silvery air bubbles from another diver caught her attention. It was a man, kneeling on the edge of the reef taking a sediment sample. Summer swam over and hovered in front of the other diver, then held up the porcelain figure.
The bright green eyes of her brother Dirk glistened in curiosity as he studied the object. Lean and tall like the father he shared names with, Dirk secured the sediment sample in a dive bag, then stretched out his legs and motioned for Summer to show him where she found it. She led him away from the reef and across the sandbar to the gravelly patch where she had spotted the smiling face. Dirk pulled alongside, and the two of them swam in a wide circle around the sandbar, gliding a few feet off the bottom. The undulating field of sand abruptly ended in a gnarled bed of lava as they circled toward the shore. Moving away from the shoreline, the sand bed dropped away in a steep incline that didn't reach bottom for another fifteen thousand feet. A small patch of coral appeared in the middle of the sand field, which Dirk swam down to examine.
The coral stretched in a linear path for ten feet before disappearing under the sand. Dirk noticed the sand appeared darker along a continuing line before meeting the lava wall. Summer swam toward a small round clump that rose from the bottom, then waved Dirk over to take a look. Dirk kicked over to what appeared to be a large rectangular stone nearly six feet across. He dove down and felt its hard growth-encrusted edge with a gloved hand, then probed along its surface. The hardness gave way as his fingers pressed into a dense growth of sea urchins at its center. Nodding his head with interest, Summer moved in with her video camera and filmed a close-up shot of the object. The two divers then abandoned the item and completed their circular sweep, finding no other objects. Reaching a drop line near where they started, they kicked to the rippling surface thirty feet above.
Their heads bobbed up in the sapphire blue waters of a large cove near Keliuli Bay on the southwest shore of Hawaii's Big Island. A few hundred yards away, the surf crashed into a rocky shoreline, which rose steeply to encircle the cove in high cliffs of black lava. The crash of the waves striking the rocks reverberated off the steep walls in a thunderous roar as a ring of white foam settled on the surface.
Dirk swam over to a small inflatable boat tethered to the drop line and bellied himself over the side.
Unfastening his tank and weight belt, he reached over the side and helped pull his sister aboard. Summer spat out her regulator, barely catching her breath.
"What do you make of that coral outcropping in the middle of the sandbar?" she asked.
"It showed some linearity."
"I thought so, too. I'd like to excavate some of the sand around its fringes and see if there's anything there not devoured by the coral."
She pulled the porcelain figurine from her dive bag and studied it under the sunlight.
"You think you've got a shipwreck in the coral, eh?" Dirk chided, releasing the bowline and starting a small outboard motor.
"This had to come from somewhere," she said, holding up the figurine. "How old do you think it might be?"
"I haven't a clue," Dirk replied. "For my money, the rectangle stone is much more intriguing."
"You have a theory?"
"I do," he said, "but I don't think I'll make any outlandish claims until I've had a chance to peruse the ship's research computers."
Dirk gunned the throttle and the small boat leaped over the waves toward a ship moored in the distance.
The NUMA research vessel was painted a bright turquoise blue, and as they approached from the stern the black-lettered MARIANA EXPLORER could be read on the transom. Dirk idled the boat to the port side, drifting beneath a small crane that hung over the water dangling a strand of cables. As Dirk and Summer attached the cable ends toD hooks mounted to the rubber boat, a man's torso leaned over the rail. With a muscular build, thick mustache, and steely blue eyes, the man could have been the incarnate of Wyatt Earp, reborn with a Texas accent.
"Hang on to your pants," he shouted, pressing the controls on the hydraulic winch. In an instant, Jack Dahlgren raised the boat out of the water and deposited it on the ship's deck. As he helped rinse off and stow the dive equipment, he asked Summer, "Did you capture the final reef here? The captain wants to know if he can pick up and move to the next survey area, Leleiwi Point, on the east side of the island."
"The answer is yes and no," Summer replied. "We've completed the data collection, but I'd like to make another dive on the site."
Dirk held up the porcelain figure. "Summer thinks she has a treasure wreck on her hands," he grinned.
"Cultural treasure would be just as fine with me."
"What signs of a wreck did you find?" Dahlgren asked.
"Nothing obvious, but Summer did find an interesting stone object," Dirk offered. "We need to go look at the videotape."
Dirk and Summer showered and dressed, then met Dahlgren in one of the research ship's laboratories.
Dahlgren had hooked the video camera to a monitor and was replaying the images over the large screen.
When the rectangular stone appeared, Dirk reached over and pressed the PAUSE button.
"I've seen something like that before," he said, then sat down at an adjacent computer and began tapping the keyboard. "It was at an underwater archaeology conference, from a paper presented on a wreck discovered in Malaysia."
After a few moments of searching, he located a website that contained a copy of the scientific paper, along with photographs of the excavation. Dirk scrolled through the images until he stopped at an underwater photograph of a stone slab. It was a rectangular piece of granite, tapered on one end, with a pair of holes carved through the center.