Shark Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page B

settled, movement somewhere above made me look up. Halfway to the surface, perhaps fifteen feet away, swimming with agitated movements that projected (to me, anyway) anger and frustration, was a second tiger shark, this one the size of a midsize sedan.
    I knew the cause of its apparent distress: in the hierarchy of tiger sharks—and several other species—the biggest feeds first, and this smaller animal, which the consensus would later declare to be about eleven feet long, had no choice but to watch as the tasty hors d’oeuvres were consumed by the larger fellow.
    Again the big tiger bit down on the stingray, seeming this time to take in its mouth the entire brain coral, and its teeth tore the carcass to pieces. Shreds of gray black skin flew out through the shark’s gill slits and sank to the sand, where tiny fish, brave enough to sortie out into the tumult, snatched them up and retreated to eat them in the shelter of the reef.
    I was transfixed, paralyzed not from fear but from fascination and concentration. And then—
    Oh, Jesus.
    I couldn’t breathe. Trying to inhale was like sucking on an empty Coke bottle. Quickly I looked at my air gauge: zero.
    I was out of air.
    For once I didn’t panic, and counterintuitive though it felt, I didn’t shoot for the surface. I knew the risk of an air embolism: ascend too fast, holding your breath, and the air in your lungs will expand and blow a hole in a lung, letting slip an air bubble that can travel to heart or brain and kill or maim you. If I was to attempt a free ascent, I wanted to do it properly: drop my weights, open my mouth, and exhale constantly as I swam for the surface.
    But I also knew that there was, in fact, at least one more breath of air in the tank, though I’d have to ascend to get it: air that has compressed as a diver descends expands when he ascends, and unless you have truly sucked a vacuum into your tank, chances are there’s a bit of crucial, life-sustaining air left.
    Of course, to be on the surface above one feeding tiger shark and one tiger shark pissed off because it couldn’t feed was not an ideal situation. Still, it struck me as preferable to drowning. Besides, I didn’t intend to stay on the surface for long. I looked up and saw the boat above me. If I angled my ascent properly, I should be able to surface near—if not exactly at—the dive step at the stern.
    I turned to Stan and made the “out-of-air” signal—a finger drawn across the throat—then rose off the sand bottom, slowly, as inconspicuously as possible, straightening my legs for the first time in more than an hour and starting to kick.
    Both legs cramped, simultaneously and in exactly the same way: my hamstrings sprang taut, snapping each leg up under my body, rendering useless legs, feet, and fins. The sudden pain made me gasp … except there was no air to gasp.
    Now you are in trouble … what to do, what to do, what to do?
    I pulled the release on my weight belt; twenty-five pounds of lead dropped off my waist, so immediately I began to rise.
    A breath of air became available, and I gulped it down, careful to leave my mouth open to let my exhalation escape.
    The last thing I saw before my head popped through the surface was the second tiger shark, swimming in circles beneath me. Alerted by the commotion of my ascent, it had ambled over to see what was going on, and it swam, body tilted slightly, so that I could see its eye watching me.
    No worries, mate,
I thought.
Just put an arm out and let ’em pull you aboard the boat.
    Frightened, disoriented, and addled by excruciating pain in my locked legs, I extended an arm and … nothing. Nobody grabbed it.
    I spun in place, and …
well, no wonder
. The boat was ten yards away and drifting farther.
No! Impossible! The boat was anchored …
I
was the one drifting.
I was caught in a surface current and being swept away.
    I raised my arms, hoping to