Chapter Eighteen
Island Paradise
As they approached the structure, Joseph unraveled the mystery: “It’s a sunken ship. But where is the light coming from?”
“It still has airplanes strapped to the deck,” exclaimed Sharianna, as they got closer.
“It’s a World War II aircraft carrier,” said Dad.
They passed over the rusting old ship and discovered the source of the strange luminosity. A crack in the floor of the ocean exposed the molten lava below.
“Why doesn’t the lava solidify when it is exposed to the water?” asked Sharianna.
“Why doesn’t it spew out like a volcano?” added Joseph.
“It must be one of those peculiar balances in nature,” Mom theorized. “The extreme pressure of the water from above keeps the lava down, while the extreme heat from below keeps it hot.”
“Like the moon: Earth’s gravity keeps it from flying out of orbit, but its momentum keeps it from crashing into the earth,” Joseph declared proudly.
Dad glanced at the map, “Some of the most intense fighting during World War II took place right here, and on the islands west of here.”
Joseph turned his attention back to the map. “Look, the map legend says that one inch equals 660 miles. If we went mostly straight on the route home, we would be underwater for about nine inches.” Joseph was scrawling on the back cover of the book. “That is almost 6,000 miles. How fast do you think we were going Dad?”
“Probably fifty, maybe seventy-five miles per hour.”
Joseph continued his math on the back cover. “At 50 miles an hour…that would be 120 hours, or…”
“Five days,” interrupted Sharianna, who was happy to display her quick math skills.
“We didn’t seem to be making very much disturbance; I don’t see why we couldn’t double our speed when we’re in open water,” suggested Mom.
Now Sharianna was looking at the map. “There is quite a bit of information about the ocean on here. It shows where the basins are and where the mountains are...”
Joseph interrupted, “It also shows how deep the water is.”
“I was trying to say…the basins are probably flat so we could go pretty fast without crashing into any underwater mountains.”
“Good idea,” agreed Dad.
Looking at the map, Dad said: “If we turn left from the Mariana Trench, we would be heading east. Then we could zigzag north in a random pattern.”
“Sounds good to me,” concurred Mom. “I brought some food, but I don’t think it will be enough; and a lot of it is just junk food.”
An exciting idea occurred to Joseph. “Why don’t we catch some fish?”
Sharianna interpreted the direction of his thoughts. “We could use the spacesuits and go diving.” She was not interested in fishing, but she thought it would be splendid to swim with the tropical fish.
Thomas had always dreamed of diving in tropical waters, but always had to be content with watching the nature channel, so he was an easy sell. The idea even sounded exciting to Sophia.
“Okay!” cried Mom and Dad in unison.
Mom looked at the clock. “It’s almost morning.”
“No, I think it is almost dusk,” countered Dad.
“I’m going by our clock, and we haven’t had much sleep the last few days. I’ll fix something to eat, then we all better get some sleep.”
Thomas rose from the anti-gravity sofa feeling more rested and invigorated than he could ever remember. He looked at Sharianna’s clock as he entered the control room. “Ten hours?” he said to himself. He could scarcely believe it. He hadn’t slept for ten hours straight for a very long time. He began examining Joseph’s book: “Earth and the Stars.” He opened it up to the world map and studied it. He wondered what Columbus and the early explorers would have given to have a map so accurate and full of such an incredible amount of information.
Thomas looked up as Joseph quietly entered the control room. “Mom’s fixing breakfast, and Sharianna’s still sleeping,” reported Joseph, in response to his dad’s glance toward the doorway.
“Okay, navigator, let’s plot our course,” ordered Dad, with his big smile, as he handed Joseph the book.
Joseph liked the idea of being the ship’s navigator. “It looks like there are a lot of little islands south of here, the Caroline Islands; maybe we can find an uninhabited shore for our fishing expedition,” he proposed hopefully.
When they rose up over the rim of the Mariana Trench, they traveled south along the bottom of the East Mariana Basin and the ocean slowly became shallower. The silty mud on the bottom gradually gave way to sand as the floor of the ocean sloped up more steeply with many exposed rocks and what looked like ancient lava flows. Directly in front of them they encountered a huge cliff, fractured and broken, with many crevasses and caves. As they rose along the cliff face it gradually got brighter. When they got near the top of the cliff they could see beautiful coral attached to the rock with an abundance of highly colored tropical fish.
“It looks like a giant aquarium,” gasped Sharianna incredu-lously.
The water was calm and so beautiful and crystal clear that they could actually see trees and the shoreline with a mountain rising up behind the trees through the water as they paused near the surface. The early morning tropical sun was beginning to rise in the eastern sky.
“I wish we had a periscope to get a better view and see if there is anyone around,” commented Dad.
Sharianna couldn’t take her eyes off the pretty fish. “I sure hope the colors are as bright in the pictures,” she said, as she snapped several shots. Then she noticed a large, bare rock right at the edge of the cliff. “Why don’t we park the robot on that big rock over there?” she suggested. “That way we won’t crunch any of the coral reef and the robot could stay hidden under the water while we explore the shore; it doesn’t look very far to the beach.”
“We swam a lot farther than that when we wore the space-suits in the lake,” added Joseph, who was eager to get out and explore.
“I can’t see any people, or any sign of civilization,” observed Mom.
“Okay, but we’ll leave the robot here, just to be safe,” determined Dad, as he maneuvered the robot over to the large rock. While standing upright on the rock, the surface of the water was only ten or fifteen feet above the robot’s head.
“No, not you this time boy,” Joseph rubbed Percy’s ears and head, as they proceeded to get into their spacesuits. Joseph emptied everything out of his backpack and put it on, before donning his spacesuit.
“The water might come rushing in when we open the outer door,” cautioned Dad as they all stood in the airlock.
Mom looked at Dad’s strange metal ball, “Shouldn’t we put that in the cargo bay?” she asked.
Dad tried to pick it up without success.
“Don’t you remember, Dad, it weighs at least three hundred pounds now,” Sharianna reminded him.
Thomas began rolling the ball down the hallway to the cargo area. Even if this were solid steel, I can’t imagine how it could weigh this much, he thought.
“Everyone ready?” asked Dad when he got back to the airlock. He pushed the button to open the door, but instead of it opening, water started to rise up from the floor until the little room was full right up to the ceiling.
Mom felt a little nervous as the water was rising in the airlock, but then she realized how silly it was. We just escaped from monsters on the moon, what could be more dangerous, she thought. Percy barked from the other side of the hall door. Joseph swam over to the window in the door and looked out to see Percy sitting in the hall; he waved as the outer door opened.
Sharianna was the first one out. She swam toward the beach, looking down at the beautiful coral and brightly colored fish. Joseph quickly caught up to her and they swam side by side.
“Come on you guys. What are you waiting for?” called out Joseph, as he motione
d them to follow.
“It’s even more beautiful than I’ve ever seen in the pictures and the movies,” marveled Sharianna, as they swam over the reef. Anemones waved their colorful tentacles slowly with the gentle movement of the water. A myriad of colors were boldly displayed on sea cucumbers, starfish and innumerable tropical fish that danced in and out among the pretty coral.
“This must be the most colorful place on earth,” exclaimed Joseph softly. The clear, sparkling water seemed to only enhance the bright colors.
“I heard that there are more species of animals in these waters than anywhere else on the planet,” commented Dad. “And I believe it.”
As they left the reef and swam toward the beach, Joseph and Sharianna noticed many beautiful seashells lying on the sandy bottom. Joseph picked up a delicate looking spiral, cone shaped shell. Sharianna spotted a huge shell, larger than a grapefruit, with pretty white, pink and salmon colors. Carrying the shell made it a little harder to swim but she figured it was worth it; besides, she could put it in Joseph’s backpack when they got to the beach.
Mom and Dad caught up with the two explorers as they reached the shallow water at the edge of the beach. As they stood up and looked around, they realized that they had entered a sheltered lagoon. Directly in front of them and curving around to their left was an expanse of pristine, undisturbed, white beach, bordered by many species of tropical plants, blooming with beautiful, colorful flowers. At the head of the lagoon it looked like there might be a small stream flowing from amongst the trees. Palm fronds swayed gently in the morning breeze.
Not more than a few hundred yards from the beach rose up a steep, cone-shaped mountain, the slopes of which were covered in verdant vegetation more than a third of the way up, then giving way to steeper, rocky terrain and finally, nearly vertical, barren cliffs up at the truncated summit.
“It looks like an old volcano,” observed Sharianna.
“Most of these islands are,” agreed Mom.
“Even Hawaii,” added Joseph.
Off to the right, they noticed an old lava flow about ten feet high extending from the base of the volcano, through the lush vegetation and out into the ocean, protecting the lagoon from the waves, like a breakwater. It appeared that a few very enterprising plants had begun to colonize the rocky flow, but for the most part it looked like a very bumpy highway leading from the mountain all the way down to the ocean.
As they gazed over this tropical paradise, Joseph smiled as he imagined that they were the Swiss Family Robinson. Over by the stream, Joseph noticed a stand of giant bamboo.
“Come on Dad, let’s go make some fishing spears,” invited Joseph, as he headed toward the bamboo.
“I’m going to search for some more seashells on the beach.” Sharianna pulled off her spacesuit and slung it over a small palm tree that was growing almost horizontal to the ground. She kicked off her shoes, and ran back toward the water’s edge through the soft white sand.
“Go ahead and explore; we’ll be on the beach,” said Mom, as she followed Sharianna’s example and removed her spacesuit. The fresh breeze coming in from the ocean was invigorating. She took off her shoes and ran toward the water’s edge, feeling euphoric, like a little girl.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the spacesuits,” said Joseph, as they added theirs to the pile on the tree.
As they approached the stand of giant bamboo, they realized how big they really were. Some of the canes that were over twelve inches in diameter and over 50 feet tall. “It’s hard to believe that this is grass, isn’t it?” queried Dad.
Putting a hand on Joseph’s shoulder, “Wait,” instructed Dad earnestly, as he stared at the bamboo.
“What is it?” inquired Joseph apprehensively, as he peered into the stand of bamboo, wondering what could be hiding in there.
After a long pause, Dad continued: “I heard that bamboo is the fastest growing plant, and that you can actually see it grow, sometimes two or three feet in a day.”
Joseph breathed a sigh of relief, “I’ll bet that observation was made by a really bored person,” concluded Joseph, after staring for only a few moments.
“I’ll bet you’re right,” confirmed Dad, as he grabbed onto one of the small canes, only about an inch and a half in diameter, and tried to break it off, without much success.
“Wait a minute, Dad.” Joseph pulled from his backpack a short knife that he had taken from the kitchen of the robot. The entire knife was made of a strange, clear material with silver crystal flecks throughout. Joseph drew the knife across the base of the cane and it immediately cut through the tough fibers with only the slightest effort.
Dad looked at the cut end in amazement. He flipped the cane around and measured two arm lengths from the base. “Did you know that most people’s stretched out arm length is the same as their height? That means this stick is twelve feet long, if you cut it right there.”
“Let’s explore the jungle,” suggested Joseph, after selecting a suitable cane for his own fishing spear.
Sharianna looked up from scouring the beach for beautiful seashells to see Joseph emerge from the trees carrying a huge armload of what looked like strange looking footballs, followed by Dad carrying some shiny greenish, leathery looking, pear shaped objects, larger than grapefruit.
As they approached the tree where they had left their space-suits they saw a small pile of the most exotic seashells they had ever seen, carefully piled up next to Sharianna’s shoes.
“Wow, I have only seen most of these in expensive gift shops,” declared Dad.
Sharianna came running up the beach. “Look at this one!” she exclaimed, holding up a shell that looked like a delicate red and white spiraled corkscrew.
“What are those?” asked Sharianna, pointing to the burdens they had been carrying.
“Coconuts!” answered Joseph, as he picked one up and quickly cut through the stringy fibrous husk, revealing the familiar brown nut inside. “Look,” he directed, as he pierced one of the ‘eyes’ of the nut and drank some of the sweet milk inside. “Here, try some.” He handed the nut to Sharianna.
“Did you see any animals in the jungle?” asked Shariana.
“Just lots of pretty birds,” Dad replied.
“And lizards,” added Joseph.
“You won’t believe this,” said Joseph, as Sharianna handed the nut back to him. With all the flare of a professional demonstrator, he easily sliced through the hard shell of the coconut, revealing the beautiful white meat inside.
Mom looked at the knife. “How does it cut so easily?”
“I wish I knew,” replied Dad.
Joseph put on his suit and grabbed his long sharp bamboo spear. He had ingeniously fashioned a barb out of a long, curved thorn, which he had accidentally found on a formidable tree; he proudly showed them the wound in his arm like a warrior exhibiting his battle scars. He had carefully cut a small hole at a steep angle near the point of his spear and pushed the thorn all the way through until it was wedged in tight, then he shaved the thick end flush with the spear.
“Robinson Crusoe!” exclaimed Mom.
Dad put his suit on, picked up his spear and brandishing it like a primitive hunter exclaimed: “We bring back meat!” Joseph followed suit, and the two hunters then sprang toward the water yelling like primordial savages.
Sharianna winced. “Why can’t we just sneak into a restau-rant, or a supermarket, on the way home?”
“Good idea,” agreed Mom, as she donned her suit. “I’d sure like to explore the reef some more.”
“Me too,” said Sharianna, as she picked up her suit.
Sharianna swam over to explore the reef near the ancient lava flow. As she was reaching out to touch an interesting looking piece of coral, she was startled when it suddenly swam away. She raised her hand instinctively. Suddenly, the piece of metal that was attached to the wrist of her suit flipped open right into her hand. She looked at it and discovered a button. She
curled her hand all the way toward her and the handle flipped back onto her wrist. Then she flipped her wrist back all the way and it flipped out again. Carefully, she put her thumb on the button. It was round, like a roller button. As she pushed the button slowly forward, her whole body began to move in that direction. Immediately, she released the button and her forward momentum stopped – it seemed to be spring loaded.
Joseph approached the reef in anticipation of spearing a fish. He was surprised to find that the reef seemed unusually still.
“Must be pretty smart fish to know that we were coming,” chuckled Dad.
They swam on toward the drop-off in hopes of finding some game there. Joseph went left along the edge of the cliff, while Dad went right. Joseph spied a rather large silvery fish hiding in a cavity under a rock. Slowly, he inched closer and finally, with a strong thrust of his spear, impaled the fish and, with some difficulty, pulled it out of its hiding place. “I got one!” he exclaimed.
Mom turned from examining a blue, multi-armed starfish in time to see Joseph freeze as a large tiger shark flashed up from the edge of the drop-off and clamped its jaws onto Joseph’s wiggling fish, biting off the end of his spear.
“Thomas!” Mom called frantically for aid as she began swimming toward Joseph.
Suddenly, three more large sharks appeared and competed for the scraps from Joseph’s fish.
Joseph was right in the middle of a feeding frenzy. Joseph had seen this shark behavior on TV and knew that he was in extreme danger. He could feel his body tighten with fear.