Free Swimming With the Dead by Kathy Brandt

inside.  The conch dries out and dies, produces a horrible smell, and over the side it goes.  Many will insist that it’s just one little conch or one small piece of damaged coral, but the popular dive and snorkeling sites can see a couple of hundred people a week, maybe more depending on the season.  Michael followed the reports.  Just last year the Global Reef Monitoring Network reported that thirty percent of the coral reef worldwide had already been destroyed.  They predict that if trends continue, sixty percent will be decimated by 2030.”
    “I’m convinced.”  I had to admit I was about as interested in hearing about shit in the water as I was about dead conch.  I’d seen conch on someone’s plate in the hotel restaurant.  It looked like a curled-up piece of old tire.
    “Sorry,” she said, “I’m afraid Michael’s passion was contagious.  His research revealed the true extent of the problem in terms of boating and tourism, problems that locals talked about only anecdotally.  Like the owner of Underwater Adventures talking about the dead turtle he found off Cistern Point with plastic wrapped around its beak.”
    “How did Michael gather his data?” I asked.
    “He spent most of his day taking water samples, measuring visibility and water temperature, examining and taking photos of coral colonies.  He’d record bleaching.  That’s when the coral gets stressed and expels the algae that give the coral its color.  He would compare the data to the data about boat traffic and the use of the land nearby, looking for correlations.  Then he would move on to the next area and do the same.”
    “Do you know why he was diving out at the Chikuzen ?”
    “Michael took water samples and dived at all the dive sites.  He had been consumed by the Chikuzen site lately because he had discovered some dead fish there.  It had been a one-time occurrence and he was trying to figure out what had killed them.”
    “Why would he have gone out alone?”
    “If Michael had wanted to dive the wreck and no one was available to go with him, he wouldn’t have waited around.  I think it’s easier for me to accept Michael’s death because it was always a possibility, given the fact that he lived so fully.”
    “He took risks then?”  I asked.  Maybe his death was just what the coroner reported—accidental drowning—and my trip down here was a wild-goose chase.
    “Yes, in certain situations, he did.”
    “What do you mean, certain situations?”
    “He was completely confident about his diving skills, a fanatic when it came to the environment, and determined when it came to an unanswered question.  He’d dive without hesitation if he thought he’d find an answer in the water.”
    “Can you think of anyone who would want to kill him?”
    “I can’t imagine who,” she said.  I thought I saw a flash of doubt cross her face, but she said nothing else.
    “Could his research have been a threat?” I asked.
    “It could have an impact on the charter industry down here,” she said.  “Michael would have eventually made a case to the local government and to the tourism board.  He thought he could convince them that the damage to the reef and the water pollution would eventually impact tourism.  They could force charter companies to address the problem by installing holding tanks on boats and providing pump out stations.  This would be quite costly.
    “More costly yet, they could start putting quotas on the number of boats chartered each year, which would have huge financial implications on the larger charter fleets.  They can’t afford to have boats sitting idle in port.”
    “When you talk about the charter companies, how many do you mean?” I asked.
    “Well, there are three or four large ones, over one hundred boats in each of their fleets, and there are scores of smaller operations scattered around the island.  Then there are the companies who run day charters.  Approximately four hundred