The Secret of Skeleton Reef Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Otherwise it would have been a lot worse. The stars must be out of line today. First Chrissy is missing and now this.”
    Joe glanced at the two men in the stern who were tilting the mailboxes into the water. He’d learned from Flask that the one with a beard was Vines and the one with a mustache was Wilson. Joe was keeping careful track of everyone on the Destiny . One of them could very well be the person after Chrissy Peters.
    The engine was turned on and the aluminum mailboxes rattled loud as lawn mowers. “The boxes are blasting now,” Flask told the Hardys as he cut a bandage with scissors.
    â€œSo tell me, Mr. Flask,” Frank said, wanting to get his mind off his injured leg. “How did you manage to find the Laughing Moon? ”
    â€œWell,” Flask began, “the Laughing Moon was a famous pirate ship in its time, and its captain, Black Dan Cavendish, was pretty famous, too. Supposedly he and his band captured as much Spanish treasure as any of the buccaneers. Then, in the year 1712, the Laughing Moon disappeared. Some figuredBlack Dan sailed the ship to Africa, while others figured the vessel fell victim to bad weather.”
    â€œHas anyone else besides you looked for the Laughing Moon? ” Joe asked.
    â€œOh, lots of folks,” Flask said with pride. “But none of them ever saw a trace of it.” Flask wrapped the bandage around Frank’s ankle, and continued, “I was determined to find it. First, I went to Spain. They’ve got a big library in Seville where they keep all the logs and records from the old Spanish vessels. Boys, I spent an entire year in that library, poring over scribbled ink on yellowed parchment. Fortunately, I’m pretty good with Spanish.”
    â€œSounds like school,” Joe said.
    â€œI found every reference I could to the Laughing Moon ,” Flask continued. “And then I studied old weather reports of every location where the Laughing Moon was seen and every location where it might have been. Just when I was about to ruin my eyes, I figured things out. I had a good notion that in July of 1712, a storm forced the Laughing Moon onto Skeleton Reef. There, I figured, the rough coral of the reef ruptured the hull, and the boat sank.”
    â€œThis reef must be especially treacherous to ships,” Frank said.
    â€œThat’s why they call it Skeleton Reef,” Flask said, chuckling as he taped Frank’s bandage.
    Joe heard the engine shut down and the mailboxes stop rattling. Four crew members in divinggear jumped off a ledge at the boat’s stern. “So you went to Skeleton Reef and looked around for the Laughing Moon ,” Joe said, turning back to Flask.
    â€œIt wasn’t that simple,” Flask said. “It took me another solid year to persuade the St. Lucia government to grant me the rights for the search and then to find someone to finance my work. Finally I made those two things happen and was ready to go.”
    â€œAnd then you found the ship,” Joe said.
    â€œThen I started looking ,” Flask said, jabbing Joe with his finger. “For two years my crew and I sailed around these waters dragging a magnetometer behind us.”
    â€œOh, one of those iron-detecting devices?” Frank said.
    â€œRight,” Flask said. “If the mag readout showed a large quantity of iron in the water, we would anchor the boat and dive down to check things out. We found the remains of some old heap of a boat more than once, and we found some even more worthless things, like a discarded washing machine. We also had to keep careful records of where we had been so we wouldn’t cover the same area twice.”
    â€œWow,” Joe said, wiping sweat from his face, “that sounds like a tremendous amount of work.”
    â€œKid, let me tell you something,” Flask said, squinting from the sun. “Treasure hunting isn’t a profession, it’s an affliction. Finding a