It was in early July. I was diving on the reef where my father discovered ruins built by Pacific Islanders before recorded history.

Dad's theory, ancient ruins, possibly a temple, had been brought down by a catastrophic event, a force of nature, that ended up putting the civilization underwater.

My question was, did the temple come down during the event my father described, or had the temple come down due to some other entirely different deal, and subsequently, a storm put those people under the water?

It was the kind of question that had my father giving me one of his long looks with no answer. Of course, we can't know what we can't know and before recorded history was a long time ago.

I wasn't apprehensive about those ruins or anything else. We were diving off the research ship Horizon two and a half days southeast of Guam. It was the South Pacific. The weather was perfect.

We were there because the professor's theory, Professor William Payne, involved the slow deterioration of reefs in the Pacific Ocean. It was far more complicated than that, but Bill, the professor, thought that by studying the same reef or reefs each year for five or six years, he'd be able to see the slow deterioration he suspected he'd find.

It wasn't the kind of thing you could see in a visit or two. Bill planned to dive on the same reef each summer and that's why we were back. It was my second summer on one of Bill's research trips. Last summer, I went with my dad. He was with Bill. I was with my father. This summer, Dad couldn't get away. For some reason, and out of character for him, he agreed that I should come along as the assistant to the documentary filmmaker, Logan Warren.

Bill invited me.

There was nothing new in my diving on reefs. My father took me on my first dive before I turned ten. I went on about half my father's dives with him. I'd go on all of them, but there was school to consider. While I'd rather consider more interesting things, I knew better than to try to get out of going to school.

I suppose, I wouldn't be here if my second father, my biologic, hadn't start buying me cameras for my birthday and Christmas. Each camera being a bit more sophisticated than the last, and with me becoming more serious about my photography each time I opened one of the boxes my father gave me on appropriate days.

Daddy-O, my biological father, hadn't made an appearance in my life until I was about to turn ten. I was so angry with him. He was so missing from my life, but once he showed up, all the anger went away and I realized how lucky I was to have two dads.

My mother died. I don't remember her. I had Mama, Twila, and Aunt Lucy to mother me, which meant I got plenty of love, but I still missed Sunshine, and I loved when all my mothers talked about her.

I learned how to dive first. Then, I learned about photography. Mostly, I was self-taught. After seeing what a camera could do, I went about making it do more. I went from stills on top of the water to stills of my father underwater.

The one big mistake Daddy-O made, buying me an 8mm camera. I was fascinated by motion, but it wasn't much of a camera and I lost interest in motion and went back to stills, until Daddy-O stopped at a garage sale and picked up a vintage 16mm camera that had been used to film World War II. It was a handheld platform that was portable.

Motion came back into my life in a big way. Everything changed.

Last summer, I went along to learn. Logan Warren, Bill's documentary filmmaker, agreed to work with me, once Bill explained that I spent a lot of time filming my marine biologist father.

There was an incident early on in the 1983 research voyage that I filmed. Logan had been teaching me about his new 16mm camera. We'd been out on deck with the new camera for about a half hour.

Logan saw something in the water I didn't see. He took off, leaving me holding the camera, and I did what I knew how to do, I kept shooting the activity centering around what Logan saw.

Logan asked me if he could use the footage I'd shot that day. It was his camera, his film, and I had no objections. When I saw the assembled documentary film from that summer, I was credited as his assistant filmmaker for the film he used.

Dylan Aleksa-Olson filmed the Tangle rescue sequences.

By that time, Logan and I were friends. He was between my age and my father's age, and while they didn't exactly see eye to eye, Logan liked his kid. After a summer of watching what he did and how he did it, I was a far better photographer than when I came aboard the Horizon.

I was back and I knew the routine. Logan and I renewed our friendship while I worked with him. This summer he wanted me to learn more about editing the film I took, and he had a new editor that did everything but brew the morning coffee.

Nothing was new to me the second summer I went on the Horizon for that summer's research voyage. There was no drama like the bad storm or the Tangle rescue from the summer before.

As we got on the site where we'd start diving, I was on the bridge as Captain Hertzog put the Horizon where he wanted it. He indicated for me to come over to put my finger on the anchor button. It was why I went to the bridge.

Captain Hertzog didn't mind me hanging around. It was where everything happens on a ship. After he let me push the button to drop the anchor, His expression told me he was ill at ease. I often saw the same worry lines on my father's face.

When he brought the anchor back in without shutting the engines down, I wondered if I did something wrong. I question everything. That's when he moved the Horizon further away from where the charts indicated the reef was.

He pushed the button this time. He liked this spot better. It took me a minute to realize why. No, I wasn't going to ask the captain why. I didn't want to walk the plank, but I did remember the captain's disposition from the summer before.

Both my father and Captain Hertzog were antsy about the ruins, but for entirely different reasons. My father knew what he knew as a scientist, and he didn't know how those ruins got on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean or what knocked the structure down.

Captain Hertzog took an almost opposite reaction to what my father knew was a scientific uncertainty that deserved investigation. He was sure a sea monster was responsible for knocking the temple down, and if there was anything you didn't want to laugh at, it was a seaman's fear of what might come out of the sea.

After we anchored, I wanted to see if I could help Bill or Logan get ready for what was coming. I came to the biology lab, stepping inside. Bill was taking a microscope out of a box, when he looked up.

"Does he think whatever is down there will go away if he moves the boat a few hundred yards?" Bill asked no one.

Bill wasn't a humerus guy but this made me laugh. I knew who he was and I knew what he was saying. Another thought came into my mind. What does Bill think is down there?

It's the kind of question that occurs to me and passes as fast as I think it up. I knew what was down there. I'd been on a thousand dives, and I couldn't wait to get the dives going this summer.

"We'll do a preliminary dive this afternoon. The Scorpion will stay put until Sidney Peacock goes over all her systems. It hasn't been in the water since last summer. It may be a day or two before we can take a look see in the Scorpion.

"Anything I can do for you, Professor," I asked.

"No. I'm ready to go. I need to set up a few instruments, but it's a one man job. You need to check your SCUBA gear. I plan to dive this afternoon if you're going along," he said.

I'd already checked my SCUBA gear a half dozen times. There was nothing I liked more than getting into the water. I'd be ready to go when Bill was ready. Logan always had something for me to do and I continued down the main passageway to the film lab.

"We moved already. We just got here," Logan said happily.

"Captain Hertzog didn't like the spot where he anchored first."

"He has us right over that trench if my calculations are correct. I'd think a seafaring man would be more suspicious of a two mile deep trench than a reef with ruins behind it."

It was an interesting observation.

"He doesn't realize where the trench is. He knows where those ruins are. He has it marked on the charts he has out," I said. "Bill says he's diving this afternoon. You going?"

"Probably. I'm getting the new editor ready to rock and roll. We'll be doing most of the work on the new editor. It does everything but brew coffee. I'll show you all the bells and whistles once we take some film. Technology is improving so fast, I can't keep up. The two new cameras are right out of the space age. I brought one for you to use. Both cameras are the same and it won't matter which one we grab when we dive. Each camera is a little different though."

I lived to dive but it was during the afternoon I learned the lessons I needed to become a competent filmmaker. Logan was a patient teacher. He was doing what he loved to do, and he was sharing that love with me, because I wanted to document my father's work in the Gulf of Mexico.

It was always a little disorderly once we got on site. Everything had to be readied and put into good working order. The schedule was set. Each member of the crew knew what he was responsible to do. After that, the days ran smoothly with little variation. It was once my feet felt the Pacific Ocean sand under my flippers that I relaxed.

I had a new tripod that was lighter and easy to set up and take down. Once I affixed the camera to the tripod, it was a single unit I could move and reset in a few seconds. On the first dive that afternoon, I made sure I moved a lot and reset my shot quick enough not to miss anything that popped up unexpectedly.

I wondered about Dad once we came back from the afternoon dive. He was back home studying the Gulf of Mexico. He couldn't get away this summer. Harry told him no and Harry was in charge. For some reason Dad said I could go.

He kept me on a short leash the summer before. Getting him to let me do anything took work. After he realized what I'd be doing wasn't that different from what I did in the Gulf on dives with him, he loosened his grip on me, and I was able to do things he didn't say I could do.

He was a scientist working with the professor. I was a kid along on a lark. Working with Logan Warren gave me some freedom to roam, and there were the things I did that Dad didn't know about until he saw the documentary film I put together on what I did on my summer vacation.

When Dad saw the pictures I took of the ruins and the surrounding murky bottom behind the reef they were working on, he gave me one of his long evil eye looks. The film was a big hit but what I filmed, not so much with my father.

This summer I was free to decide what I wanted to do. As wild and wonderful as that sounds for a kid, I was accustomed to being supervised. Too much of a good thing wasn't always good for me, but that was a worry I had for about a minute and a half.

Dolf was on hand when we came out with our equipment. He went down the ladder and I handed him my tanks, my camera, and my flippers and mask before climbing down. When I realized Bill was waiting for me to get out of his way.

I stood out of the way as Bill and his equipment followed me down. I stayed out of the way until he was ready to go into the water. Dolf handed me my tanks before handing me my camera and tripod that I hooked to my wetsuit. I sat beside Bill just before he slipped off the platform and into the water. I followed him.

Logan came out at the last minute, which was the way he did it. He followed us, usually going into the water about the time Bill was pushing down his face mask and disappearing into the ocean with me right behind him.

For a couple of days, with Logan only diving in the morning, and working in the lab in the afternoon, we both filmed Bill as he worked on the front of the reef. Once we'd gotten twenty or thirty minutes of film, Logan nodded to me, indicating he wanted to go behind the reef.

Yes!

We set up side by side north of the ruins. We filmed while stationary. I especially wanted to film the murk that seemed to be several feet deep and hid a lot of the foundation of the ruins. Once we did that for a while, Logan moved up over the ruins and I moved up and went around the outside of the foundation, shooting down. Logan stayed at the center of the ruins about twenty feet above them.

Once we returned to the front of the reef, we had ten minutes of air left and it was time to get ready to surface. Bill went first, I followed, and Logan followed me.

Dolf was waiting as soon as we broke the surface. He knew how much air we had and when we were getting close to running out. If there was any danger in the things we were doing, it never came to mind. I was in hog heaven, diving twice a day. It was something Dad never allowed, even if he took a second dive in a day.

I looked into the clear blue sky and felt the warm south Pacific air on my skin where I peeled down my wetsuit. The water was colder in the pacific. I rarely wore a wet suit in the Gulf and once I was on the platform, the sultry air had me sweating. It wasn't uncomfortable in shorts and a tee-shirt, because there was always a breeze.

We sat in a tight little circle around Captain Hertzog to talk about the dives after the first week on site. He liked to be informed of what we were finding and what changes, if any, Bill noticed.

The gatherings were more formal than the summer before. It was the four of us drinking coffee on the bridge. The cordial warmth between captain and professor had cooled somewhat. They both were more careful about what they said. I could see this but I wasn't sure what the difference was.

Nothing had changed. Captain Hertzog was in control of all aspects of the Horizon. What a captain said was law, except Bill's university owned the Horizon. Bill said where to go and when to go there. The captain could always say, 'No, I won't go there.'

He'd then be looking for another ship to captain. Bill called the shots on the Horizon. He knew where he was going and why he was going there. Captain Hertzog was along for the ride.

One afternoon during the second week on site, Logan was in the film lab and I followed the professor down to the reef. It was actually becoming a bit boring. I never tired of the sea creatures or of seeing the reef, but my routine didn't change much.

I did roam off to do my own thing sometime during each dive, but even that didn't change much, but I never knew when there would be something unexpected and totally new to film, and that's why I went on so many dives. There was always the opportunity for me to film something so rare that few people had seen it before.

I lived for moments like those.

It was just another dive. I felt nothing out of the ordinary as I set up 63 feet from the surface, according to my depth gauge. I always went close in on Bill's hands as he was digging some vegetation or taking a piece of reef he'd put into the netting he kept on his side. I'd draw back from his hands to establish where he was on the reef, and if there was unusual activity from the sea creatures, I'd spend time filming the colors and shapes the surrounded the professor.

I could do this in my sleep. I'd done it dozens of times the summer before. As I was going back in on Bill's hands, my eye was in the viewfinder. I watched fish darting around Bill's hands.

That was the sort of thing that made me giggle. Tiny fish made their way into almost every scene, but there was something wrong with these fish, or Bill's hands, or the reef itself.

Suddenly, everything went dark. I thought it was the camera. I tapped it just in case. I used my fingers to wipe off the lens. As I took my eye out of the viewfinder, a massive shadow covered, Bill, the reef, and me, and I fell backward knocking over the camera and ending up tangled in the tripod.

It was totally disorienting. Being underwater was disorienting if you didn't pay attention. I looked for Bill. He'd fallen backwards and away from the shadow. Everything was darker and as I looked toward the top of the reef trying to figure out the source of the darkness, I saw it move.

This would be the subject of discussion for years to come.

What exactly did I see? I saw it move back and out of site.

What was it I saw? I saw it and it was big. It was a shadow. What was in the shadow I can't say. At the time of the incident, disoriented didn't quite describe what was going on in my brain.

What was it? What had I seen? I saw a shadow of something that was huge, and that's all I saw.

Bill was blowing bubbles and twirling his finger to indicate for me to surface. I knew from diving with my father, when the man in charge of the dive tells you to surface, you surface, and I did.

I hooked my camera and the tripod to my wet suit and I pushed off the bottom. As I was twenty feet above the floor, I remembered about sharks. They react to motion in the water. That's what gets their attention. Now I can't say what I saw was a shark, but disturbing the water by surfacing might not be the best move to make with something unidentified nearby.

It was too late to turn back now. I didn't know if Bill was getting me out of danger and he intended to stay on the bottom, or not, but when I looked down, Bill was right behind me.

When we surfaced, Bill swam ahead of me. He did not say a word. Bill usually had something to say as soon as we broke the surface on most dives. I followed him to the dive platform and he climbed up and slipped off his tanks.

Dolf was late. Of course, we were early. I had thirty one minutes left in my air tanks, but a few minutes after we got back, Dolf was coming down the ladder.

"We didn't see anything," Bill said, in a soft voice that was loud enough for Dolf's keen ears to pick it up.

If I hadn't already been disoriented, maybe I wouldn't have been confused by this, but I was, and when Bill looked at me, at Dolf, and at me again, the message got through.

Dolf would take anything he heard straight to his father, and the good captain wasn't a happy camper. I would not say anything about what I saw. What could I say?

"Back early, Professor," Dolf said, looking at his watch.

"Regulator. Buzzer went off. Sidney needs to check it," Bill said, going up the ladder before Dolf did.

Dolf tapped the gauge two and then three times.

"Nothing wrong with this regulator. Sidney checks your equipment every morning before you dive. He'd notice a regulator problem," Dolf explained to me.

I shrugged, handing him my tanks. I knew what was coming and I wanted to get out of there before it came.

I hurried up the ladder and onto the deck.

"What did you see?" Dolf said, stopping me in my tracks.

What was I going to tell him? He heard what Bill said. He wanted me to tell him what was going on. No matter what I said, he'd take it straight to his father. He'd tell him that I wasn't being honest.

Stick to the story, I thought.

"He said his buzzer went off. That's all I know," I said, dancing into the passageway and away from Dolf.

"Yeah, right," Dolf said, following m with his eyes.

I didn't know how to lie. It only complicated everything.

To top it all off, Bill never rushed, but he took off like he suddenly smelled one of Greek's cobblers. He left me holding the bag, and the bag had holes in it.

I took off after Bill. He'd obviously seen something. He saw enough to say, 'We didn't see anything.'

When I got to the biology lab, the door was locked. I looked at the handle that wouldn't turn. I knocked on the door. He didn't answer, and I started for the film lab carrying the camera with me.

"Wait. I thought you were Dolf," the professor said.

"I'm not Dolf," I said angrily. "What did we see?"

"Is the film still in the camera?"

"Yeah, it is. What did we see down there?"

"Take it to Logan. Tell him I want this to go in front of everything else. I want to see what's on that film."

"Professor," I complained. "There's nothing on the film. I knocked the camera over when that thing was considering if we were his lunch or not. What was it?"

"Calm down. I don't want Captain Hertzog thinking there's something down there?" he said as though Dolf didn't already know and was telling his father about it right that minute.

"There's nothing on the film. I knocked the camera over," I said, knowing what I knew.

"Take it to Logan anyway. I want to see that film today."

The door shut and I heard the lock being set.

I took the camera to the film lab. Logan looked up.

"What happened to you?" he said, looking away from the editor.

"We saw something," I said.

"What did you see?" he asked. "You look upset. What's wrong?"

"The professor wants me to lie about it so the captain doesn't get wind of it," I explained.

"Wind of what?" Dolf asked, standing in the doorway behind me.

"Shit!"

"I don't know?" I yelled. "I'm just doing what I was told to do."

"Want to let me in on it?" Logan asked sympathetically.

"In on what?" I asked too loud for the small space.

"What were you told to do?"

I handed over the camera.

"Develop this. God wants it today," I said even more angry.

"A tad testy, aren't we?" Logan said. "I've never seen you angry before. You need to calm down."

"There's nothing on it. I knocked the camera over while that thing was hovering over us. I fell on top of it and by the time I got up, it was gone."

"What was it?" Logan asked.

"I don't know. I saw a shadow. The shadow covered everything. It was hovering over the reef."

"My father's going to want to speak to you," Dolf said.

"I don't know anything," I said.

"That's OK. He'll want to know about what you didn't see."

Dolf turned and left the film lab.

Logan already had the film out of the camera.

"I've got film developing. This will need to wait if I don't want to ruin the film we took this morning."

I sat down. I didn't have anything to say.

*****


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