Shallow enough that she didn't have to worry about the bends now, Juliet headed straight for the surface. A silver tray like this would have been fairly standard in first class or officers' cabins on steamers of the mid nineteenth century, and of course the ocean is a dangerous and unforgiving place. Juliet knew the poem "A Harsh Mistress", she had read the book "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat, had also read "The Old Man And The Sea" by Earnest Hemmingway. The sea is harsh and cruel and unforgiving, and has been claiming the lives of men and women since the first cavemen launched the first dug-out canoe to see what lay beyond the placid blue line where sea and sky met...<br/><br/>So the presence of a silver tray was not exactly that unusual, except Juliet had deliberately picked this location because it wasn't on any dive charts. Wrecks all along the world's coastlines were mapped and often marked with buoys, and divers often visited them looking for such treasure as this - although most everything of any value had long ago been salvaged or scavenged or plundered. Tucking the tray into her sample bag (that was noticeably empty), Juliet headed for the ladder at the stern of her boat.<br/><br/>Back in the cabin, she shed the SCUBA gear, stripped off her wetsuit and took a quick shower to rinse the salt off her skin and hair. Then, dressed in a warm jersey and comfortable jogging pants against the cool tropical evening, she powered up the computer - taking it's electricity from the rapidly spinning turbine at the masthead. She connected to the internet via the yacht's satellite link, opened google in her browser and typed in 'SS Pacific'. She read with growing confusion. The SS Pacific had gone down with the loss of three hundred lives, in the waters off Washington State, close to the border with Canada. There was no way this tray, if genuine (and she had no reason to think it wasn't), could be here, some three and a half thousand nautical miles away...<br/><br/>It was a puzzle. She supposed it could have been somehow picked up by a migratory whale, the humpbacks sometimes came this far south, and definitely went into the waters around where the SS Pacific went down. But how? She shrugged. A far more likely cause was that some treasure hunter had looted it from the wreck and then lost it while visiting this cove... She laughed and recited, "'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the the truth'. Thanks, Arthur."<br/><br/>She shut down the computer having failed to locate the wreck. Unsurprising considering the amount of gold supposedly on board...<br/><br/>......................................................................................................<br/><br/>Next morning, Juliet decided to sail a little further down the coast, just to see if there was anything worth looking at. It wasn't long before the jungle capped cliffs gave way to a sandy beach with people wandering along, many of them in various states of undress from tee-shirts and shorts through bikinis (for women) to topless to completely naked. And in a variety of colours from pale blue (the Scots, Canadians and Northern Europeans) through white and pink to bright red and dark brown - most of the latter being born that way!<br/><br/>About the only thing she found that was of any real interest was a small shop, where she was able to stock up on supplies, in particular bottled water, and so extend her stay by a couple of days.<br/><br/>Back at the isolated cove, about an hour after the sail boat had disappeared, a small but fast looking motor launch chugged  noisily across the sand bar. Sitting in the back of the boat, Andrea Consuela Maraleno checked the GPS coordinates. Yes this was the correct place. The cocaine was wrapped tight in three bundles each weighing five kilos, water tight and protected in thick plastic sealed with duct tape. Her Papa had entrusted her with the transfer. She would leave the bundles of coke in this isolated bay, hidden under the water from prying eyes, a small fishing float the only sign they were there.  Tomorrow, the Americanos Del Norte would come by in their boat, would take the drugs and leave the money, in similarly sealed packs.<br/><br/>Andrea would return the day after and retrieve the payment. It was a reasonable transfer system, so long as no-one tried to double-cross anyone else. But all business was based on trust. The boat stopped, dangerously close to the jagged rocks and coral to one side of the cavern that disappeared into the shadows under the cliff. She glared at the boat's driver, but he was ignoring her, concentrating on exactly where the boat was in relation to the rocks. She snorted and dropped the three packages into what looked like a suitable spot, watching as the little red marher bobbed up to the surface. "Bueno. Vamonos." She told the man at the wheel. He nodded and eased the boat back out into the open sea.