Always Breathe: The Abalone Diver

Robert recognized him instantly—the mischievous one with the distinctive notched left flipper that looked like someone had taken a bite-sized chunk from its edge, the same pup who'd been playfully tugging at his fin tips all day, leaving tiny teeth marks he'd examine later.

His sleek torpedo body, slick and coffee-brown, cut through a shaft of fractured sunlight that speared down from the surface 40 feet above.

Instead of his usual playful figure-eights, he darted ahead with frantic purpose, his translucent whiskers twitching like live wires and marble-black eyes wide with what Robert could only interpret as panic, circling a jagged limestone crevice in the barnacle-encrusted reef wall.

His behavior had transformed—no longer the curious underwater puppy but something wild and urgent, his muscular 150-pound body jerking in sharp, agitated movements that sent small fish scattering in colorful explosions.

Robert followed, his fins generating powerful thrust that sent low-frequency vibrations through the pressurized water around him, the neoprene at his ankles chafing slightly with each kick.

As he approached the ancient rocky outcropping, its pockmarked surface a living tapestry of red and white cup coral, and green sea anemones that retracted at his shadow's passing, he spotted what had triggered the pup's alarm.

Wedged deep in the crevice wasn't an abalone at all, but the unmistakable glint of metal catching what little light penetrated this chink in the reef. He maneuvered closer, the darkness momentarily obscured his view. "I should surface now—report this—" but his hands were already reaching.

When he pulled his hands back, he found himself face-to-face with the curved edge of an old US Navy Mark-V diving helmet. Its once-gleaming brass and copper surface now mottled with verdigris made his stomach knot—a diver's grave marker?