Читать книгу Into the Abyss. Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World онлайн

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Once I was about 15 metres down, the unmistakable outline of a long thin barge materialised out of the gloom below. The underwater visibility was only about 5 metres on the bottom but I could see that we were at the stern.

There was a three feet square, open hatch leading below the main deck and I could see the start of a rectangular Hold, some 10-15 feet wide, leading off in the distance into the darkness. With the poor visibility the end of this Hold was out of sight in the gloom.

Without hesitating, my buddy made a bee line for the open hatch and as he arrived there he swept upwards into a standing position and then let himself drop down feet first into the hatch, slowly being consumed by the vessel until he was gone from my sight.

I followed over and grabbed the rim of the hatch and looked down. I could see nothing but darkness. I started to fumble with my hand for my torch but as I did so a large cloud of fine, grey silt suddenly started emanating from the hatch followed by my buddy’s grinning face. He produced a large old aluminium teapot and set it down on the deck. Hardly a collector’s item but still, one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure, as the saying goes.