“That makes sense,” Chelsea nodded.
“Flip that switch right there, Chelsea,” he said then, and when she did the running lights came on. “That’s better. We don’t want to go too far without those on. All right, everyone, I’m going to blow the vents so the submersible can dive. It might get noisy for a hot minute, so you may want to plug your ears.”
Not that much later, the little orb had dipped down into the water and they were traveling over a patch of deep-sea coral. Various sea creatures passed by their windows, including one or two sharks, as they headed toward the drop-off so they could go into the deeper water.
“You haven’t ever had one of these things fail down here, right?” asked Dan as they neared the edge of the shelf and he could see the deeper water below them.
“Never,” Mark said with a smirk. “But there’s always a first time for everything.”
“Great,” he said nervously.
“If you’re going to get sick, make sure you do it in the collection bag,” Mark said, and thumped him in the chest with it.
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“I’m fine, sir,” he said defensively.
“Okay, then,” Mark smirked. “Enough said.”
They moved out into the deeper water and began to descend. Chelsea felt her ears adjust to the new pressure by slow degrees, at one point hissing and popping mercilessly and beginning to ache as they reached about three thousand feet. That’s where Mark stopped the descent and leveled off.
“All right, guys,” he said, speaking into the communicator as well. “This is as far as we go today. Now for the fun part. Just out of sight over there is a coral bed connected to the side of the shelf wall. We’re already down here, so we may as well do some actual studying while we’re at it. I’ll have each of you take turns using all the different equipment, and we’ll also gather a small sample to take back with us for further study. Erik? I’ll have you start out doing that while I go situate everyone else. I heard that’s something you do well, so it should just be a matter of figuring out the difference between the controls there and the ones here. I’ll leave that for you as well.”
“Yes, sir,” he said with a nod, manning the controls. Soon everyone else had a job to do as well. Chelsea grinned broadly now that she was finally able to get to work.