Chapter Twenty-One

SOMETIMES YOU MEET someone, and know right away you will become good friends.

I slept through the entire day and most of the night. I brought the sub up a few hours before sunrise, opened the hatch, tossed Seaweed some dog biscuits and took Hollie out for another run on the beach. This time, I moored the sub between rocks at the breakwater and left it awash, the bow and stern submerged, just half of the portal sticking out of the water. When we returned from our walk I made a proper breakfast and we sat on the hatch and watched the sun come up. Hollie was happy. The life of a submariner was sometimes peaceful beyond words.

When I felt confident we were well enough hidden, I brought Hollie back inside, put the radio on for him, gave him a new ball, went out and shut the hatch. I intended to practise diving here, where divers supposedly brought up sponges from the bottom and my guidebook said there were rumours of a sunken city.

In the three years since I had met Ziegfried and we began to build the sub, I had learned to free-dive to nearly a hundred feet and hold my breath for two minutes. It didn’t seem like such a big deal now but there was a time when forty-five seconds and forty feet were way beyond my reach. Improving on that had taken me a lot of practice.

The water beneath the sub was only seventy-five feet, so I swam out a little ways, to where I guessed it was ninety feet, did my breathing exercises and went down. The sea was as warm as a bathtub. The early morning sun pierced the water for about thirty feet or so. Compared to the dark water back home, it was like another planet.

It was easier to dive more deeply and hold my breath longer in warmer water, and this made diving more fun. I was having such a good time in fact that I just kind of assumed I was alone in the water.

I wasn’t.

At the bottom I discovered sponges attached to rocks, just like the sponges Sheba kept in her bathroom back in Newfoundland, except maybe a little rougher. I put my hand on one and squeezed it. It felt the same, but was attached to the rock and wouldn’t come off with a strong tug. It would have to be cut off. I decided to return to the sub for a knife. I turned … and froze! No more than fifteen feet away was a large shark! It came straight towards me then veered off at the last second. Its mouth was open and I saw rows of jagged teeth. It all happened so quickly I never had time to think. I was frightened but didn’t panic. The shark swam around in a circle then came back. It was fast! I had to return to the surface for air but was afraid to move. The shark came towards me again so quickly I saw its whole body shake with exertion. I got ready to duck. Just then, a slim brown body went over my head, straight towards the shark! The shark veered again and vanished. The figure was holding a knife in his hand. He turned and faced me. He smiled.

We swam to the surface. I saw that he had a floating burlap bag he was filling with sponges. The bag was tied to three plastic jugs, which acted as a buoy. He didn’t have a boat; he had swum out from the beach all by himself. He was pretty excited to have found me and said something in an excited voice that I didn’t understand. Then, he gestured that we should dive again. Wasn’t he afraid of the shark, I gestured? He shrugged, not at all! He started breathing exercises, just the way I did them. So … I joined him.

Together we went down and I watched as he expertly cut sponges from the rock and put them in a smaller bag. He worked quickly but calmly. I kept watch for sharks.

His name was Omar. He was my age and my height. He was very lean and in amazing shape. We made about ten dives together, which was great practice for me. I saw two more sharks but they didn’t bother us. I could tell Omar did a lot of diving the way he moved so gracefully in the water. Beside him I felt rather clumsy. He let me hold the knife a couple of times and showed me how to cut the sponges free. I chose two nice ones to bring back for Sheba.

When Omar’s bag was filled, we swam towards shore. I pointed in the direction of the sub, which we couldn’t really see from where we were. He wore a questioning look on his face. I said, “submarine,” but that didn’t help. I started to swim towards the sub and gestured for him to follow me. I would just have to show him.

Omar was fearless against sharks but absolutely frightened of the submarine. He stared at it as if it were a sea monster and wouldn’t come close to it at all. I tried to coax him but he shook his head. So, I climbed up, opened the hatch, went inside and brought out Hollie. When he saw Hollie, he broke into a big smile and started to relax. Eventually he came over and climbed up, but would not come inside.

Later, we sat on the beach and communicated by drawing pictures in the sand. Seaweed dropped by when he saw us scratching with a stick, and so, the first thing I had to explain was that Seaweed was part of the crew. That wasn’t easy. Then Omar explained that he was from the desert. As far as I could tell from his sand pictures, he sometimes travelled through the desert by camel, with his family, and sometimes came sponge diving, all by himself. That was his favourite thing to do; I could tell by the way he smiled when he drew himself diving. But he missed his family then. I asked him how many brothers and sisters he had. He drew twelve figures in the sand. Wow. Beside his father he drew three women. Did his father have three sisters, I asked? No. Three wives. Oh.

From another picture Omar drew, it looked as though they also had a farm in the desert. I couldn’t understand how anyone could have a farm in the desert, but he drew a picture of a mountain, and put the farm on the side of it. Then he drew rain clouds and scratched them out. There wasn’t enough water? He nodded.

The hardest thing for Omar to understand was the submarine. Why didn’t it sink? The only way I could really show him that was to coax him inside. That took a long time. He came down the ladder as cautiously as a cat and looked around with wide eyes. He caught sight of the pellet rifles and nodded his head approvingly. I picked one up and gave it to him. That made him so happy he hugged me. Then I showed him the engine compartment and the piles of toys still wrapped in their plastic packages. Would his brothers and sisters like these things, I asked? Yes, indeed. But when Omar saw the engine, his mouth dropped and his eyes grew very serious. He tried to explain something to me, something very important, but he was gesturing too fast and I couldn’t understand. I gave him a piece of paper and pencil and he very carefully drew a long diagram. When he handed me the paper, I stared at the picture and tried to figure out what it all meant. He kept pointing to the engine and the diagram on the paper, which included a map. Was there another engine? Yes. Did he want me to see it? Yes. Did he want me to fix it? Yes. Was it far away? Not too far, he said, three or four days by camel. Would I come, he asked? Yes I would!

But I did have a few concerns. Where would I hide the sub for so long? Three or four days out meant three or four days back. I would also probably need a few days to work on the engine, maybe more. That meant at least a week and a half. I could take Hollie with me, for sure, but what would I do with Seaweed? I didn’t mind leaving him for a couple of days, but nine or ten days was too long. Could a seagull survive in the desert if he had enough water? I would have to ask Ziegfried. I needed to consult with him about fixing the engine anyway. Which tools should I bring? Which spare parts? Although he had taught me many things in the last three years, I was still only an apprentice when it came to engines.

We took the pellet rifles over to the beach, set up targets and practised shooting for hours. When we ran out of pellets we combed the beach for tiny round pebbles that fit in the rifles. It was the most fun I had had in the longest time. I asked Omar if anyone might discover us. Should I worry about my passport? He said, no, nobody would come. And when we went into the desert, I would wear a cloth around my head, just like him, and no one would know me. Cool.