Swamp diving is tricky at the best of times, even when the sun's out the water's so murky you might as well be swimming in a cup of coffee, as my cousin Charlie used to say. Much as we kept to the "safer" shallower areas, the deeper waters beckoned every time and every dive made it harder to ignore.
'Bout three weeks ago we decided to take ourselves in deeper than any guide would dare to. Rented our own boat, packed our gear and set off as early in the morning as we could in the hopes that the chill in the air would keep any alligators on land basking.
We'd been driving two, maybe three hours out into the quieter parts, hoping we'd be far out enough to not run into law nor local. We settled on a clearing, hitched the boat to a nearby tree and before we could chicken out we were down there with a rope tied between us so neither could get lost.
Found ourselves a few small treasures down there, old coins and a few clay pipes. When we eventually resurfaced the rope got caught on something. I couldn't say if it was a branch, an alligator or what but when the rope went slack again only I resurfaced.
I don't know where he went, spent a good few days coming back and forth trying to find even a trace him before I gave up and called missing persons. Funnily enough some of theirs vanished too when they went looking, claimed the same thing about lines getting caught and some kind of hidden current.
Only difference is one of theirs came back. She swam her way from the middle of nowhere back to a ranger station nearly twelve miles from the clearing. Official story is that she got swept away in a previously unknown current but what she's been saying in the taverns is something else entirely.
Claims she saw eyes the size of truck tires at the bottom of the swamp and a mouth full of corpses that grabbed her by the flipper and dragged her to a wooden shanty town, all sunken with skeletons tangled in their fishing nets. Claims they held their arms out to her as the creature let her go.
She wants to go back now, feels the lure of the depths just as keen as Charlie and I did.
'Bout three weeks ago we decided to take ourselves in deeper than any guide would dare to. Rented our own boat, packed our gear and set off as early in the morning as we could in the hopes that the chill in the air would keep any alligators on land basking.
We'd been driving two, maybe three hours out into the quieter parts, hoping we'd be far out enough to not run into law nor local. We settled on a clearing, hitched the boat to a nearby tree and before we could chicken out we were down there with a rope tied between us so neither could get lost.
Found ourselves a few small treasures down there, old coins and a few clay pipes. When we eventually resurfaced the rope got caught on something. I couldn't say if it was a branch, an alligator or what but when the rope went slack again only I resurfaced.
I don't know where he went, spent a good few days coming back and forth trying to find even a trace him before I gave up and called missing persons. Funnily enough some of theirs vanished too when they went looking, claimed the same thing about lines getting caught and some kind of hidden current.
Only difference is one of theirs came back. She swam her way from the middle of nowhere back to a ranger station nearly twelve miles from the clearing. Official story is that she got swept away in a previously unknown current but what she's been saying in the taverns is something else entirely.
Claims she saw eyes the size of truck tires at the bottom of the swamp and a mouth full of corpses that grabbed her by the flipper and dragged her to a wooden shanty town, all sunken with skeletons tangled in their fishing nets. Claims they held their arms out to her as the creature let her go.
She wants to go back now, feels the lure of the depths just as keen as Charlie and I did.
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