“What are you guys doing?”
The voice came from the water below and caused Minnow to lurch into the air. Nalu almost toppled over backward.
“Holy crap, you scared me,” she said, looking down at the man in the water.
He wore a tinted dive mask, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but there was something familiar about his voice.
Nalu opened his mouth to say something, but the man beat him to it. “Again, what are you guys doing so close to my boat?”
“Just checking to make sure everything was okay. We didn’t see any flags, and with what’s been happening around here, you never know,” Minnow said.
No dive tank either.
“I was just setting my anchor. Nor do I need any help,” he said.
Not friendly, not unfriendly. Gold-tipped hair.
Recognition dawned. This was the guy from the Kiawe—the one with the newspaper. She wondered if he recognized her in her large straw hat and dark glasses. He didn’t seem to, and for some reason she wanted to keep it that way.
“Nice rig,” Nalu said, eyeing his fishing reels.
For the first time she noticed they were gold and top of the line, just like the boat. There was also a large steel alloy hook attached to a pole. It made her curious. Who was this guy and why would he need such a big hook?
She had to ask. “Are you alone?”
In one swift movement he hauled himself out of the ocean and into his boat. She could now see that, shirtless, his body was tan and smooth like carved stone.
He glanced around. “Do you see anyone else here? And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“We’re scientists, looking into the recent shark incidents,” she said.
He stood quiet for a few blinks, then slid on a wet suit top and strapped a hefty dive knife to his leg. His back was to them, as if he had moved on and their conversation was now over. “I’m here to hopefully find some dinner on the rocks,” he finally said.
“‘Opihi,” Nalu said.
“Yup.”
Minnow remembered the large black limpets from the rocky islands off Kane‘ohe, and how she had gagged when coerced into eating one by her fellow students.
“Have you seen any white sharks around this past week? Or anything unusual or out of the ordinary?” she asked him.
“I’m not from here, so I wouldn’t know usual from unusual.”
He then grabbed a mesh bag from the center console, where Minnowspotted a fish-finder the size of a large computer screen. How nice it would be. Her fish-finder was duct-taped to the grab rail and barely worked, registering rocks more than fish.
“Well, good luck getting dinner,” she said, annoyed at how purposefully unhelpful he seemed. “And watch your back down there. Sharks often approach from behind.”
“I have eyes in the back of my head, so no worries there,” he said, before sitting on the gunwale and falling back into the water.
“Nice bloke,” Nalu said, as they watched him swim toward shore.
“Is it just me, or did he seem extra touchy?”
“Probably just some richhaolewanting a piece of paradise. No aloha, that one.”
Minnow wondered what exactly constituted “having aloha.” And did she?
“I saw him at the Kiawe yesterday morning, drinking coffee.”
