Chapter 20 The Buoy #2
“It’s okay to talk about it, you know. We all have our fears, and no one would fault you for being scared of swimming into
dark caves or around large sharks.”
He turned on the engine and let it idle.
“Like I said, just nerves. I’m all good.”
“All I’m saying is, when you try to stuff your fears, they grow, but when you expose them to the light of day—even thank them—that’s when you gain the upper hand.”
“How would you know? Doesn’t seem like you’re scared of much.”
“Oh, the fear is there, but I’ve learned to compartmentalize it and give it its own little drawer in my mind, one that I can
close whenever I need to.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not easy, but I’ve had practice. And maybe it’s not sharks so much as other things that really freak me out.”
In the distance a whale breached, creating a huge splash with its enormous body.
“What could scare you more than a healthy twenty-foot white?”
“A shark hunt,” she said, then thought for a bit, “or centipedes. Or some of my nightmares. When they’re bad, I’m afraid to
go back to sleep. Also, relationships.”
All of these things had the ability to bring on the kind of full-body fear response ticked on by the amygdala. Racing heart,
increased respiration and a laser beam focus.
“Yeah, well, I don’t need any therapy sessions. And I’m this close to getting my master’s degree,” he said, holding up his
pinched fingers. “But I appreciate your concern.”
A motherly instinct—one that rarely surfaced—showed up now, and she wanted to hug him. All of him. But mainly the little boy
trying so hard to be a man.
“Fine. But remember, keeping a cool head underwater can mean the difference between life and death. Yours or someone else’s.”
As they neared the buoy, a pack of frigate birds circled overhead, and Minnow could see several fishing boats in the distance.
The water here was a deep marble blue, and she imagined the ahi and ono and mahi-mahi coming in to find a meal but instead ending up with a hook in their mouths and maybe fighting for their lives while a bunch of drunk guys on a boat reeled them in, or at least tried to. The lucky ones broke free.
“Let’s hang around and see who comes near,” she said.
The plan was to ask around and see if anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Answers often came in the strangest
places. You never knew.
They floated a few hundred yards off the buoy, watching the water, the other boats and the sky. Minnow thought the charcoal
clouds were coming closer; Nalu didn’t.
Finally, a small boat buzzed by, and she flagged it down. Not much bigger than theirs with no sun protection and carrying
four guys.
“Probably best if you do the talking,” she said.
They’d already been over what to ask, but she was feeling anxious, desperate for something new she could sink her teeth into.
“You okay?” the driver called.
Nalu nodded. “We’re part of the state Shark Task Force, doing some recon out here. Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?
Dead whales, large sharks, that kind of thing?”
Body parts, Minnow thought.
The guy who had been sitting on a cooler in the back stood up. “I seen a big tiger outside Magic Sands the other day. Ho,
the sucker was long as this boat. Grinding some kind of carcass.”
“Where’s Magic Sands?” Minnow asked Nalu.
“Down south, past Kailua Pier a ways. Not in our wheelhouse.”
“What kind of carcass?” Minnow called.
“Nothing big, hard to tell, but.”
None of his friends had seen anything that stood out, but from the sound of it, they had only been out in the boat twice in
the last month.
Over the next two hours, Minnow and Nalu floated and talked with six other fishing boats.
There were all walks of life out here. From the first guys—who, with any chop, looked in danger of taking on water—to a veritable yacht with a satellite antenna.
Only one of the boats had a girl on it. No one had anything unusual to report.
But the last boat, a salty old guy with a Gilligan’s Island hat and a missing tooth had something interesting to say.
At first he told them he’d seen nothing, but after scratching his chin for a while, he said, “You know, last week I came upon
a pile of what looked like chum just bobbing along in the current. Fish skin, a mahi tail, guts and pink water. Hard to tell
what it was, but it struck me as odd.”
Minnow cast Nalu a sideways look. “Where were you?” she asked the man.
He scanned the distant shoreline, as if trying to remember. “Um, this would have been north of the Kiawe, around the point
and out maybe three-quarters of a mile. There’s two current lines that come together out there semi-regularly. I’ve found
all kind of neat stuff, collectables, glass floats, old bottles covered in barnacles, psychedelic jellyfish. I even found
a surfboard once.”
“Were there any other boats around when you came upon it?” she asked.
“Nah, most guys are outside Kona or closer to Kawaihae, and either farther in or farther out. It’s kind of a no-man’s-land
in that zone.”
“No sharks?” she asked, just to be sure.
“No sharks.”
They headed in after saying goodbye, toward the area the old man mentioned, nibbling on peanut butter, honey and banana sandwiches
that Nalu brought, care of Dixie.
The more Minnow thought about what the old guy saw, the more she became convinced it was no coincidence. Especially the location—so
close to the three incidents. Because although she was not admitting it to anyone else but Nalu, she felt sure that Hank the
swimmer had not been a drowning victim.
“That fishing boat could have easily just dumped its cooler contents,” Nalu said, yelling above the drone of the motor.
“True, but what if someone was chumming out there?”
“Why would someone be chumming?”
“Shark-diving tours.”
A light went on in his eyes. “You think?”
“They do it in Guadalupe. Make a ton of money too.”
“No one does shark tours in Hawai?i.”
“Not that we know about.”
“Someone would have seen them,” he said.
“Not if they’re stealthy about it.”
“Why would they need to be stealthy?”
“If they were chumming close to shore, breaking state and federal laws.”
“And . . . ,” Nalu said, his voice trailing off.
“And what?”
“If someone knew someone, palms might be getting greased.”
She shrugged. “It’s possible.”
When they reached the area in question, there were no boats and no sign of chum. A current line did snake through it. An oil-smooth
ribbon of water carrying a few coconuts, a plastic fishing float, and a barnacle-covered Coke bottle. Minnow’s mind was aflame
with the possibility of someone drawing sharks to the area with chum. On the Farallones they had permits to use chum when
conducting research, and she’d seen firsthand the result. White sharks in feeding mode were all business. It took less than
half an hour for one to polish off an entire elephant seal. She shivered at the thought.