ogic, also
appeared to have altered his position.

"See, that settles it. Porpoises are the natural enemies of sharks. A
school surrounds nursing calves and will, on occasion, rupture an
intruder by butting the offender's abdomen. We have no more reason to
fear. Any shark is long gone."

It was now Steve's turn to renew the apprehension. The size of the
animals and the crash of their drift against the boat, was sobering
reality of this stretch of water's potential for the unexpected.

"Cliff, I have all the makings of a complete smart ass. All this talk
of being an experienced diver--that's all armchair politics at this
point. Sure, I've done my bit in pools and their like. But the
immensity of this place terrifies me. Just staring down through the
shades of colour, seeing the breadth of that reef, what with all this
salt and heat, is taking its toll. I've lost my sense of the dramatic.
The rapture of the deep has been displaced by a chilling realization we
don't know the state of any conditions normally common knowledge before
a dive--drop-offs, undertows, further hostile marine life, the ...."

"Hostile marine life," back to that eh, chickenshit. Hey, where's your
wings, boy? That little show whetted my appetite. I'm all for seeing
what's below. Yet I'll give you this much. I'm sick of the confidence
racket we've been pitting against ourselves. What's more, my body
fluids are near depleted. I'm numb with heat--I can imagine myself
thirsty for disaster drinking seawater and thinking there's a spring
nearby. And that sun grows more forbidding the lower it drops. And, as
you say, I am also angered at ourselves for our naivete. No one can
appreciate how enervating it is just watching our skin sear and peel
displaced of its water. That's been the real experience out here
today--seeing what this world does to an outsider. I imagine an odour
growing from my arm by the moment. All I can see is yours and his face
swimming before my eyes. I don't want to get punch drunk. I fear the
prospect of going down into whatever awaits us and struggling to
re-enter a little boat with a fisherman whose so hazed he's beyond
understanding what turmoil comprises our lot. I move we do go in, but
only at the insistence we ponder a little more firmly what the words,
"devil fish," moray and danger mean to cock and bull swaggers like
ourselves.

"This is no Keokuk, Iowa venture into the tristate area on a licensed
Mississippi riverboat. This