Chapter Twenty-six
IT WAS AS IF someone had lit a giant firecracker beneath the island of Thera in 1500 BC, and blew it up. The firecracker was a volcano, and it was still active.
The last eruption was in 1956, but there were always gasses escaping from the ground, which made beautiful sunsets for the tourists, and Thera had lots of tourists! You would know when the island was going to blow, they said, when the water started getting murky.
We sailed in at night, on the surface, without lights or flags. I wanted to make as careful a reconnaissance as possible before finding a place to sleep. Thera had once been a small island with a mountain in the center, like a cupcake. Now it was a doughnut with a couple of bites missing, and you could sail right inside the perimeter and around the smaller pieces sticking up here and there. It was very rocky, but not like any other island I had ever seen. The sand was black! The rock was volcanic, with hard-packed ash on top of it, layer upon layer, which all looked like it was going to collapse any second. On top of that were built villages of shiny white houses, white churches and bright blue roofs, all lit up at night like candles. It was very pretty. There were no trees, grass or bushes anywhere, just jagged rocky cliffs, with villages clinging like bird nests. The bay was packed with yachts and sailboats, none of them sitting at anchor; it was too deep. They were moored to buoys linked by chains. The volcano had blown a hole under the water too, all the way down to 1500 feet! Was Atlantis down there?
We motored silently through the shadows and dark corridors of the island, between the cliffs and moored boats, until I began to get my bearings. Then, we submerged to two hundred feet and I studied the sonar screen. The terrain was even stranger beneath the sea. But I could only bounce sonar waves off it; I couldn’t get close enough to see it. Outside of the island, around the perimeter, the sea floor was only a hundred feet deep in places. We glided over it in the darkness and the sonar revealed some very peculiar patterns. I wanted to hit the floodlights and have a look but was afraid someone might see the lights from the cliffs, or from a boat. I would just have to wait and explore in the daylight. In the meantime, we would catch some sleep. Before the sunrise I sailed to the far side of one of the tiny isolated islands, submerged to two hundred feet and went to sleep. I was pretty sure it was uninhabited because it was just a rock.
In the late afternoon we surfaced. I opened the hatch and climbed out with Hollie. Standing on the very edge of the little island, with her hands on her hips as if she had been waiting for twenty years to get off, was the most surprised and angriest woman I had ever seen.
“Who … what … where … how did you …? Who are you? And what do you think you are doing?”
She was really angry. Talk about a volcano!
Her name was Penelope Sargeant. She was professor of archaeology at the University of Chicago. She spent a lot of time on the island of Thera, she said, because her specialty was Atlantis. She had written a book about it. I had read it.
“You’re not allowed to be down there, doing that! Don’t you know you aren’t allowed … don’t you know it is forbidden to … how did you get here anyway … how … you … you’d better get the heck out of here before I call the police!”
Then Seaweed dropped out of the sky, landed on the hatch beside me, opened his beak and squawked for breakfast.
“Just a minute,” I said, and went inside the sub. When I came out, I threw Seaweed some dog biscuits. Penelope was still standing there with her mouth open. There was no one else on the little island.
“Did … did you just feed a seagull?”
“Yes.”
“But … wait … is that a submarine?”
“Yes.”
Penelope sat down and started rubbing her forehead. I wondered if maybe she had been in the sun too long, she looked so upset.
“Look, young man. What’s your name?”
“Alfred.”
“Where are you from?”
“Newfoundland.”
She peeked out from behind her hands.
“You’re from Newfoundland?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get here?”
“We sailed here.”
“Oh my gosh … that’s unbelievable … that’s … who’s we?”
“Seaweed — that’s him, and Hollie.”
I held Hollie up for her to see.
“This is my crew.”
“A seagull and a dog?”
“Yes.”
She started to laugh.
“I must be going crazy!”
Maybe. I didn’t really care. If she were going to report us, we would just sail away. But first, I had promised Hollie a walk, and he was going to get one, whether she liked it or not. I moored the sub to the rock and we jumped over. There wasn’t much beach to speak of but he could run around on the rock. Penelope just sat quietly for a while and watched us. Then she got up and followed us.
“Don’t you realize it is forbidden to dive in Greek waters, which are all archaeologically sensitive areas?”
“Yes, but I’m not diving, I’m just sailing.”
“But you’re in a submarine.”
“So?”
“So … you’re under the water.”
“So?”
She took a deep breath but didn’t answer. Hollie found a stick and brought it to me. I pretended to hide it, then threw it for him.
“Look, Alfred. I’ve spent my whole life studying and searching for Atlantis. These are delicate places of great historical importance; you can’t just come barging in here like you’re some kind of treasure hunter, and disturb the sites.”
“I’m not a treasure-hunter, and I’m not disturbing the sites.”
“Then what are you?”
“An explorer.”
“Oh.”
She was quiet again for a while. I could tell she was thinking really hard about something.
“What are you exploring for, Alfred?”
“Lots of things. I just love exploring. Right now I’m looking for Atlantis.”
“So you are looking for Atlantis? You can’t just jump into the water and go looking for Atlantis. You have to study it. It’s very, very complicated. There are centuries of information to go through. There are theories, scientific evidence and archaeological sites to consider.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know? How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“You’re fifteen? And you’ve sailed across the world in a submarine?”
“I’ve studied too.”
“Oh? Have you? Which universities have you attended?”
Penelope was starting to bug me.
“Well? Answer me. What studying have you done?”
I felt like telling her I had read her book and that it wasn’t any good.
“I’m an explorer, not an archaeologist.”
I also felt like pointing out that she and I were standing in the same place, but that should have been obvious to her.
“Look. Alfred. Just by coming through here with your submarine you might have disturbed the delicate balance of things under the water. There’s a huge mound of broken houses and pottery and sunken statues just offshore in shallower waters.”
“Rows, actually.”
“There isn’t one big mound, just a bunch of smaller rows, like waves.”
“Excuse me. It clearly says in my texts that the shallower waters outside of Thera contain a large mound of ancient debris, not rows! I think I know what I’m talking about!”
I stared at her. She was probably fifty years old. She looked kind of old and young at the same time. She was lean, had long dark hair with gray streaks, very tanned skin and lots of wrinkles. She had a friendly face, actually, but looked sort of burnt out, as if her many years of searching for Atlantis had exhausted her. Now she was arguing with me about something I had just seen, which she had only read about in a book. There was something so pointless about it all.
“Okay.”
“You see? It’s just one large mound. Right?”
“Yup.”
“Good.”
Whatever. After Hollie had a good run-around we headed back to the sub. Penelope just stood there and watched us go, but she looked upset. She seemed to have a painful argument going on inside her head. She looked so alone on the little island, just her and her research. I felt kind of sorry for her.
“Good luck!” I called out, as we climbed into the sub.
She stared without answering. I even wondered if she were going to cry.
I poked my head up from the portal.
“Yah?”
“Ummm, you sailed from Newfoundland, right?”
“Right.”
“So, your submarine is safe, right?”
“Right.”
She came over, looked around to see if anyone was watching — took several deep breaths and …
“I’m really not supposed to do this but do you think maybe you could give me a ride?”