Underwater Riches of Santa Maria

“Shove it,” I say to Victor as we get deeper and deeper.

“You always want me to shove this in your face when you’re right,” he says to me with a grimace, “and you’re never right.”

We’re both dressed in the best scuba gear money can buy. I have mine custom made, of course. Any self respecting snob would. And that wasn’t a compliment.

Victor has his eyes closed and is holding his breath. I can hear him complaining under his breath, but I don’t know if he knows I can hear him.

I turn my head back towards the surface and look at the way we came down. The sun is blinding and it almost hurts my eyes. There are birds circling overhead and at first I think they’re seagulls or something, but then one of them moves away from its spot and I see that it’s some kind of turtle thing with a giant striped tail that looks like a rainbow.

I keep my eyes on the sea creatures above us and then put my mask back on. The water is warm and doesn’t feel like water at all anymore. It feels like an ocean mist now and my ears are popping as if there was a pressure change somewhere around me, but there hasn’t been any noticeable change in depth or pressure since we started our descent. The fish are just as fascinating as they seem in documentaries or pictures; big ones with glowing orange tails or tails with stripes or spots or whatever else people haven’t named yet because they haven't seen them before.

I look up again and take my mask off just to look at the surface for a minute. Victor opens his eyes and takes his mask off as well as if he knew what I was doing. His hair looks messy even underwater, but I don't think it's because of the water so much as it is because that's how he always keeps it no matter where he goes. He has these dark blue eyes that look brown sometimes and really white teeth that seem too large for his mouth sometimes, but other times they're perfect for his smile which is usually too large for his face, but then again most everything about him seems too large for his body; big feet, hands, ears...He's an average height guy with an overdeveloped sense of self confidence if you ask me so why shouldn't everything else also be oversized? His hair is curly black and thick like mine only not nearly as luxurious looking, but we've been friends for years so maybe I've gotten used to him by now...I hope so anyway because otherwise he's starting to look more than a little ridiculous to me lately...

His eyes flicker over towards me from time to time while mine hold steady on the surface above us until after a few minutes I'm looking at the bottom of our boat instead of the surface above us. People don't realise how deep we are by just looking at our boat on the surface so there's no need to panic or anything like that even though that's exactly what happens when people realise how deep we are when they look at us through their masks once they start their own dive - panic that is - but not us...we're professionals...at least in theory...because who really knows what they can do without dying first? No one obviously because then everyone would do it...but here we are...diving deeper into the ocean than anyone ever thought possible without dying first...and while everyone else panics we sit comfortably inside our boat ready to go deeper still...deep enough to find treasure nobody else has ever discovered before...or die trying!

The sun disappears below the surface of the water and there's nothing but darkness down here now except for our lights pointing upwards towards where we hope to find treasure soon enough hopefully it won't take too long because Victor doesn't have much air left already and once our tanks run out we're going to have some real problems getting back up to our boat without drowning!