Chapter Seven
Joel
Despite the fact that wetsuits are skintight, I’ve never thought of them as sexy garments. Maybe it’s because I’m so at home in them, and I just don’t think of them that way.
But then I see Zoe. Her suit is black with a turquoise band across the shoulders and turquoise arms. She looks incredibly hot. The neoprene clings to her bust, follows the curve of her waist, flares over her hips, and clings to her thighs. Wow.
Conscious that I can’t afford to get turned on when my own wetsuit leaves nothing to the imagination, I clear my throat and say, “All ready?”
“Yep,” she says. Her eyes are sparkling, and her dark hair lifts in the summer breeze.
I want to kiss her. But I force myself to turn away and say, “Come on then. Let’s get started.”
I make sure Hōri and Manu are happy with the dive equipment, check a few things myself, then tell Clive we’re ready to leave, and before long we’re heading out of the inlet toward the island.
It’s fantastic to be out on the water, with a whole day’s diving ahead of us. Zoe’s sitting on the bench, keeping out of everyone’s way as we go over the dive plan. I can feel her gaze on me, and when we’re done, I go over and sit beside her.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods. “I haven’t seen you like this before,” she says softly.
My eyebrows rise. “Like what? Bossing everyone about, you mean?”
Her lips curve up. “Partly. But normally you’re so laid back. Today you’ve lit up, as if someone’s plugged you in.”
I smile. “I like diving.”
“See! You’re smiling.”
“I smile all the time.”
“No you don’t. You hardly ever smile. But today you’re all…” Her gaze scans me. “Illuminated. You’re like Kiwa.”
“Are you trying to make me blush?” Kiwa was one of the male divine guardians of the ocean in Māori mythology.
“Maybe,” she says.
I grin. “It’s a beautiful day and I’m taking you diving. Of course I’m happy.”
Man, she’s beautiful. I’d love to kiss her. But I need to stay focused, so I push my desires away and say, “You and I are going to be dive buddies, okay? I want to run through some safety stuff.”
When she nods, I begin asking her to show me the standard scuba-diving hand signals. Okay: just as you’d expect, with the thumb and forefinger forming a loop with the other fingers extended. Not okay or a problem: holding the hand out flat, palm down, and tilting it from side to side the way you’d say ‘so-so’, and then pointing to the problem. A thumbs up to go up or end the dive. Thumbs down for descend. Out of air: a slicing motion across the throat. Stop: holding the hand up, palm out, like a traffic cop. Look: pointing your forefinger and third finger at your eyes and then indicating the object you want observed. A few others that relate to safety stops and leveling off.
“We’ll dive for thirty minutes at a time,” I say. “First I’ll show you around the top half of the ship so you can get your bearings. Then later we’ll join Hōri and Manu deeper down in the hold, depending on how comfortable you are.”
“Do they need to decompress at that depth?” she asks.
“They can stay for twenty minutes and decompress as they’re surfacing as long as they do it slowly. Any longer and they’d need staged decompression. We’ll all be keeping a close eye on our dive computers, don’t worry.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Any problems, anything you’re worried about, any issue at all, you communicate immediately with me.”
Her lips twitch. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m not kidding, Zo.” My heart gives a bang at the thought of her getting into trouble. She has her certificate, but she doesn’t have many dives under her belt, and it only takes one fuck up to cost you your life.
She bites her bottom lip. “I know.”
“If you need to get to the surface, and for whatever reason you can’t find me, ascend as slowly as you can, and try and make a safety stop about five meters down for about five minutes. If you run out of air and have to make a controlled emergency swimming ascent, exhale continuously as you swim toward the surface, and stay as calm as possible.”
“Okay,” she says softly.
“It won’t happen,” I tell her, “providing you do everything I tell you.”
That makes her lips curve up. “Sorry,” she says as I glare at her. “I didn’t realize you were so bossy.”
“I am when I have someone’s life in my hands.”
She presses her lips together and nods, glances at the others, then looks back at me, eyes dancing.
“Stop it,” I scold. “Are you happy with everything?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wow, that sends a wave of desire through me at the thought of her saying that in the bedroom.
I turn away and leave her to it, muttering to myself as I join Clive at the wheel.
“Having fun?” he asks, amused, obviously having overheard the conversation.
“She’s driving me insane.”
He laughs. “I haven’t seen you like this before.”
“Like what?”
He gives me an amused look and doesn’t answer.
I lift my face to the sea breeze and try to calm myself as the boat speeds along. We’re close to the western end of Moturoa Island, and Clive heads for Kent Passage, taking us along the south side of the island.
It’s a beautiful day. It’s coolish out at sea, but it’s going to get hot later, and I’ll have to remember to tell Zoe to put on sun lotion when she’s on the surface or she’ll get horribly burned. The sea here is a deep blue, and the hills of the island are a lime green fringed with dark-green forests, studded with the tiny white dots of sheep.
We round the eastern end of the island, pass the large-ish island known as Battleship Rock, and then approach the group of small islands and the fringing shallow reef known as the Black Rocks. These complex volcanic rock formations have lots of vertical faces, cracks, and overhangs. The Relentless foundered on the shallower reef, but part of the ship—including, unfortunately, where we think the chest might be—floated down to the reefs that are around thirty meters deep. I want to make sure Zoe is comfortable diving before I take her down that far.
Clive drops the anchor, and Hōri gets in the water and descends temporarily with it to attach it to the wreck. Clive attaches a poly ball to the chain to mark the location of the wreck on the surface and cleats the other end to the boat. Now we have an ascent line and a point of reference for the boat to return to, if at any point Clive has to detach from the line to retrieve a stranded diver.
Zoe’s busy smoothing conditioner over her hair, and she pulls her hood on over it. I concentrate on my own equipment. This morning, I want to orient her around the wreck, so I don’t bother with too many archaeology tools, but I do take the waterproof slate so I can write messages to her.
Manu is ready before us, and he and Hōri descend together toward the hold on the deeper part of the reefs.
When Zoe’s ready, the two of us sit on the edge of the boat and I triple check her scuba gear and make sure she has everything she needs. When I’m finally happy, I say, “You ready?”
She nods, her green eyes bright behind her mask.
“Then let’s go.” With a grin, I tip back into the water, and she follows suit. We insert our regulators, make sure the air is flowing, and then begin to swim down.
Zoe keeps close to me, and I swim slowly, checking occasionally to make sure she’s comfortable. She gives me the okay sign each time, so we follow the reef down, exploring the nooks and crannies as we go.
There’s a whole world under the water, as different and alien as if we’ve flown all the way to Mars. Tangaroa, the Māori god of the sea, is putting on his best show for Zoe today, and the visibility is excellent. We see Kōkiri fish or Leatherjackets with their distinctive rugby-ball shape, Marblefish hiding in the seaweeds, red Toadstool Gropers and black-and-yellow-striped Lord Howe Island butterflyfish, and at one point an Eagle Ray swims slowly past us, making Zoe’s eyes widen behind her mask.
Colors change the deeper you go in the water, with reds fading around six meters and oranges at fifteen meters. As many ocean creatures are reddish, they’re well camouflaged, so we’re frequently surprised as groups of fish emerge from holes in the reef to swim past us.
My dive computer has just told me we’re nearing sixteen meters or fifty feet when the first parts of the Relentless emerge from the gloom. The fifty-five-ton schooner broke its back on the reef in 1851, and it’s now lying on its side, the upper portion of the ship resting on the shallower rocks in front of us, while the lower part has descended another fifteen meters or so down into the darkness.
We begin swimming around it, so I can show her how it’s lying, and where the foremast and mainmast are resting on the rocks. The sails have gone, of course, but the skeleton of the ship remains, its structure quite clear.
We swim along the upper deck toward the bow. This front half of the ship is almost intact, and I imagine the feet that must have walked along these planks. We even know some of the names: William Puckey, the mate, William Fairburn, as supercargo—the guy responsible for overseeing the cargo and its sale, and Gilbert Mair, the captain. None of them drowned on the ship; there are no bodies on board.
Zoe takes her time, watching the fish that swim in and out of the holes in the deck and examining the iron rivets that survive. I hope we manage to find something of interest in the hold for her. We’ve already uncovered several artifacts from here, including sealed glass bottles of what appears to be beer, crockery and cutlery from the cabin, and a fantastic, intact sextant, used for navigation.
I attract her attention and gesture up where the bow of the ship rests on the reef ledge above us. She nods and pushes up, and we swim around, then turn and face the ship.
Her face lights up as she sees the figurehead attached to the front. It’s carved in the shape of the top half of a woman. She has long wavy hair, and the neckline of her dress has slipped to reveal one shoulder and one bare breast, which is common for figureheads. The most amazing thing about her is that traces of paint remain. Her dress was clearly blue, as were her eyes. I turn my flashlight on her, and Zoe’s eyes widen as the woman’s hair turns red.
She looks at me, then, and the delight in her eyes warms me all the way through, despite the coldness of the ocean around us. I love that she’s as excited about this as I am. I hold out my hand, and she slides hers into it, and we squeeze each other’s fingers, communicating our pleasure.
After that, I take her down to the galley, and we’re able to examine the iron stove and the items we haven’t yet been able to retrieve, including a wooden bucket she seems particularly fascinated with.
She writes on the waterproof slate: Can we remove it?
It’s not in great condition and of no great historical significance, and ordinarily we’d have left it here, but I understand why she’s desperate to bring something back with her. We’ve already photographed and marked the location of all these objects. So I nod. We take out our brushes, and I show her how to remove the silt and stones that have lodged it in place without disturbing the water too much. It’s not valuable enough to warrant a metal frame or special wrapping, but we wrap it and place it in a bag.
When the dive computer tells me we’ve been under the water for close to thirty minutes, I give Zoe a thumbs up, and she nods, and together we inflate our buoyancy control devices, then begin a slow ascent, following the anchor line. We haven’t been deep enough to worry about decompressing, and so when we reach the surface, we climb up onto the boat, then take a seat for a brief rest. Hōri and Manu are already there, about to get back in for their second dive.
I hand the bag to Emma, and we lift ourselves up onto the boat. We remove our dive hood, scuba gear, and then our wetsuits, and pull on hoodies and wrap ourselves in towels. Then I help Zoe take the bucket out of the bag and unwrap it as carefully as I can.
Emma peers at the broken slats of the bucket with its heavily rusted iron frame. “Interesting.” She gives me an amused look.
“Zoe wanted to bring it up,” I say, and Emma smiles.
“Don’t mock me,” Zoe says. “It’s my first dive artifact. Look at it! Someone used this to carry water or mop the floor. Nobody’s touched it for about a hundred and seventy years!” She’s pushed her dive hood back, and her damp hair is uncharacteristically ruffled, but she doesn’t seem to care. “That was amazing!” She holds the bottle out to me without thinking.
This is a common occurrence, and I take it, unscrew the lid, and pass it back to her, and she has a few mouthfuls. “You enjoyed it?” I ask, pleased, taking my own bottle.
“Joel, the fish! There were so many of them! And that ray, what was it?”
“An Eagle Ray.”
“It was so close to me—I could have reached out and touched it! And oh my God, the ship. I can’t believe there’s so much of it intact. Just the top half though, right?”
“Yeah, the bottom half is further down.”
Her eyes meet mine. “It’s magical, Joel. Like another world down there. I mean I’ve done my sea dives to get the certificate, but it was completely different to this, and seeing the ship…” She struggles to find the words.
“I always think wrecks are so sad,” Emma says. “She seems so lonely and broken, alone in the darkness.”
“I don’t see her like that,” Zoe says. “She could have been taken back to the shipyard and broken up. But she’s been preserved, and she’s a part of the ocean that she sailed on now, in Tangaroa’s arms. She’s home to all those creatures, as if she’s their mother. It’s so quiet down there, and peaceful. I wouldn’t mind if heaven was like that.”
I’m speechless, because she’s described exactly how I feel about the ocean. I don’t see wrecks as lonely and broken, either. They’re mysterious and enigmatic. I’ve never understood why some people are afraid of the sea. I’d live down there if I could.
We have a ten-minute break and munch on a Squiggle—a Kiwi chocolate biscuit or cookie, with hokey pokey or honeycomb bits. By this point, Zoe’s almost jumping and up down, raring to go again.
“Okay,” I tell her, “we’re going to go deeper this time, down to the hold.”
She gives me an excited smile as she gets back into her wetsuit. “I can’t wait!”
“Thirty meters this time. Just for twenty minutes, okay?”
She nods, and before long we’re back in the water, descending once more into the gloom.
A sense of peace comes over me every time I get in the water. Some people are freaked out by the way the water pressure increases as you go deeper, but I’ve always liked the sensation of it, as if the very ocean itself is giving you an enthusiastic hug.
This time we go all the way down to the lower reefs, joining the other two in the hold. They’ve already investigated a good part of it, revealing several crates, although they were unable to work out what the boxes held, as the contents have all decayed, so it was probably foodstuffs.
The four of us work quickly, using the equipment to suck away the silt, and gradually exposing the rest of the hold. By the time our twenty minutes is up, we’re making good headway, and we’re a third of the way through the hold.
I give the thumbs up, and we inflate our buoyancy devices and ascend slowly, pausing five meters down for five minutes before we eventually surface. Once we’re on board, we change out of our gear, then tuck into the lunch that Emma and Clive have prepared for us.
Zoe’s wet hair is smoothed back from the conditioner, and her face is pink from the cold water, but her green eyes are like essence of the sea, absolutely brilliant. Wow.
She called me Kiwa, a divine guardian of the ocean, which makes her his wife, Hinemoana. Her name translates to Ocean Woman, a personification of the sea, which is a perfect description of her right now.
All right Joel, steady on . I clear my throat and concentrate on the sandwiches, cold pies, and fresh fruit as we talk about how the morning’s gone.
We do two more dives after lunch. Each time, we manage to get further into the hold, although there’s still no sign of the chest we’re hoping to see. Even so, we finish the day cheerful and hopeful, pleased with the small collection of artifacts and looking forward to the next day.
When everyone’s back on board, Clive retrieves the anchor, and we head back to Opito Bay. Clive, Hōri, and Emma will be heading home as they live in Kerikeri, and Manu is staying in Kamo up the road with a friend.
“Where are we staying?” Zoe asks me.
“You’re in for a special treat,” Emma states.
“Oh?” Zoe looks at me.
I just say, “Wait and see.”
Her lips curve up, but she doesn’t argue.
When we get to the marina, we transfer all our equipment to Clive’s trailer, change out of our wetsuits and take a quick shower in the marina facilities, and then Zoe and I say goodbye to the others and head for our car.
“I’m shattered,” Zoe says. She’s washed her hair and towel-dried it, and it hangs just past her chin. It’s naturally wavy. I hadn’t realized that.
“Yeah, diving really takes it out of you.” The car crests the hill, but instead of turning back the way we came, this time I turn right, heading for the center of Opito Bay. “Are you too tired for dinner?”
“I’m never too tired for dinner.”
I chuckle. “Maybe we’ll have a short rest, then meet at, say, seven?”
“Does the place have a restaurant?”
“Kind of.” I give a secret smile.
“Mystery man,” she says. “Is it far?”
“No, we’re nearly there.”
Opito Bay in the Northland—there’s another one down in the Coromandel—is a small bay shrouded by pōhutukawa trees. There’s no town as such, and it mainly consists of holiday homes. It has a pebble beach too, so it’s not as beautiful as Te Ngaere or Matauri Bay further up the coast, but it’s a popular place to launch boats from.
The Montgomery Hotel sits high on the hill overlooking the bay, its estate sprawling to the north and west. It has an award-winning winery and a splendid restaurant, although we’re not actually eating there tonight.
Zoe’s eyes nearly fall out of her head as I turn onto the drive, and the car heads slowly along the winding road past the championship golf course with its panoramic views over the bay and the Te Puna and Kerikeri inlets.
“Jesus,” she says when I park in one of the spaces out the front of the hotel. “Does the MOANA budget for accommodation stretch this far?”
“Let’s just say I added a bit.”
She gives me a wry look, then gets out and looks around, running a hand through her hair. “I feel far too scruffy to stay here.”
“You look amazing.” I get our cases from the car, and she follows me along the path, clutching her case, looking a little nervous. I try not to laugh. If this impresses her, God knows what she’ll think of the accommodation.
We go into the spacious reception area and up to the desk. Zoe takes a few steps toward the seating area that overlooks the golf course and the Pacific Ocean beyond, her jaw dropping. “Look at that view.”
I just smile at the woman behind the desk and say, “Joel Bell. We have a villa booked for four nights?”
Zoe’s head snaps around. “A villa?”
“Yes, welcome Mr. Bell,” the woman says. “Here you go, if you could check your details and sign here.”
I fill in the form, sign it, and accept the key card from her. “Jamie will take you to the villa,” she says, gesturing to a young man in a uniform standing to one side. “I hope you have a pleasant stay.”
“Thank you.” I let Jamie place our cases on a trolley, then follow him out of the foyer and along a covered walkway.
“A villa?” Zoe whispers to me.
“I thought you deserved a treat.”
“Yes, but… how much did this cost?”
I laugh. “Don’t worry about it.”
We follow Jamie past the end of the building and around the corner. The villas are surrounded by trees, so it’s only when we turn onto the pathway leading to ours that the building opens up before us.
It’s a wide, one-level building built in the colonial style, with large windows on either side of its central entrance, and a covered verandah. Zoe doesn’t say anything as Jamie opens the door and invites us in. The whole front of the lounge opens out onto a sun-soaked wooden deck with a small courtyard to the side containing a table and chairs that’ll be perfect for alfresco dining. It has its own private infinity pool, as well as a jacuzzi, all surrounded by a lush, tropical garden.
Jamie shows us around the place. The lounge has a huge cream leather suite with colored throws that give it a country-style feel, and a large gas fire, should it be needed. Off it is a pristine kitchen with every amenity you could ever need. There are two bedrooms, both with en suite bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes. The place is magnificent.
“Thank you,” I say to Jamie when he’s done, and I give him a tip.
He smiles. “Enjoy your stay.” He heads back out the front door and closes it behind him.
I turn to Zoe, amused to see that, for maybe the first time ever, she’s speechless.
It was worth coming here, just for that.