Ken sure looks all concerned talking about the “Missing Nuclear Material…”  The same look he had when he first laid eyes on the sickened shark…  Mark must have gone to acting school judging by the effective gestures he is offering up, giving the impression that he is actually thinking and feeling, two things that the Mark Trail of yore would not have been so proud to exhibit…

And Kelly, why so sad in panel 3?  is it your hair?  The fact tht you really don’t “get it?”  Well, get used to it girlfriend, between your hair color and just-shy-of-retro styling, you are going to spend a lot of time there…

In Lost Forest, they drink their coffee hot and black and out of cups with saucers…  What the hell do you have in your hand?  Some hipster mug that you bought at the local Crate and Barrel?  That’s a lot of caffeine, there, Ken…  Not to mention it’s perilously close to that laptop…   one slip and it’s curtains for the motherboard…

I think I just found the article, too… although in real life, the “highly radioactive and dangerous” Cobalt-60 was found on land, and ironies of ironies, the hijackers are expected to die since even minutes worth of exposure can be lethal… Forgive me Mark, for questioning your extreme reaction to what you found on the freighter…  So what’s the big deal here?  Dirty bombs!  Dirty bombs, my friends…

The color of Ken’s shirt matches the highlights in Mark’s hair which matches the accent color of the lampshade.  OK, I’m reaching.  Big time… but watching ken do an internet search is about as exciting as, well, Ken doing an internet search.  Almost as exciting as the yet to be released thriller about Edward Snowden downloading a bunch of classified data… or the 1995 Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net…

“Oh, there are things called articles?  Oh yes, I write those.  I need to make sure I keep that in mind if I am to justify renting a cigarette boat…” …Mark must be thinking…

Assuming the moon still rises in the east, that shoreline is facing south which suggests North Florida coastline…  Nice digs!  Ocean Front with a view!  $2 million dollar home if it’s a nickel!  Maybe it’s Uncle Doyle’s…  Maybe Ken is really rich!  It’s nice to see that Kelly has colors other than pink in her closet from which to choose…

Mark, what would you do if the world did not stand ready to feed you?

Kelly is ashore, and probably shopping for dinner…  since she is the woman and therefore must prepare the meals!  So yes, let’s race back to Ken and Kelly’s.  Literally.  Race.  Mark should be able to smoke the Shur Ketch3 in his cigarette boat… Ha!  get it?  Smoke him??

But no time for silliness here…  there’s “research” to do… like look up shipwrecks and stuff…  too bad that for the first time in his life, Mark did not have a camera with him!  What was he thinking??

…while Mark continues to lose his!  “Seriously?” he says…  Ken is starting to think that Mark has made the whole thing up…  Still perspiring heavily (what- radiation poisoning already?  Or is it the bends, considering how fast Mark shot to the surface…) Mark continues to gesture wildly in making his point.  And it would also seem that Mark keeps an eagle-eye on the maritime shipping news- not ONE story about a shipwreck in the gulf…

So what are we to make of all this?  Ken, chill.  Mark, manic…  Mark’s brain is working hard now… no report of a wreck, must have been an unflagged vessel… smugglers!  TERRORISTS!!

OK, we get it…  but isn’t it more accurate to call it “Radioactive Material?”  Whatever’s down there, Mark is starting to sweat bullets, and most every one of his hairs is back in place…

And with Mark worried and using clumsy hand gestures, you know that we are only a few dozen strips away from real action!  Stay with us, boys and girls!

OK, this has gone on way too long…  but come to think of it, has she shown her face the entire time Mark has been on the scene?  Maybe she got sick of waiting and demanded that Ken take her ashore…

But with Mark safe on board the Shur Ketch3, I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much.  As we see in panel two, Mark’s hair is quickly snapping back in to place (oh what The Donald wouldn’t do to have that low-to-no maintenance mane…) so we can now get on with what is really the mystery- what is down their on the freighter that has the NUCLEAR SYMBOL on it?  Where did that symbol come from- when did it start to signify to the world Danger!  Radioactive material!!  It is, according to Wiki, the “Radiation Warning” symbol, one of many warning symbols used in the world, and did not always have the black on yellow trefoil that we commonly associate with danger today…

Faster than a billfish, featured in panel one, Mark catapults to the surface, clearly shaken by what he has seen and been exposed to…  even dropped his light… that’s too bad.

But really Mark?  “Cough, Cough, Ken! Ken!!?”  Couldn’t spit out MISSISSIPPI?  But at least stage one of the mystery is solved- what is making the fish sick…  or at least the sharks.  Who owned that boat, what’s with the cargo?  Much more to figure out here.  Let’s see whether Mark goes all vigilante or whether he calls in the proper authorities, which would be who??? EPA? DOE? LMNOP?

Oh… and a big shout-out to #Scuba Sports Club on Facebook.  They have been following Mark’s exploits in the Gulf and my commentary on same!  Welcome to the Trailverse, everyone!!

“What’s That!?” he says??  What about the famous (only to those who have devoted enough time to well, sadly, know…) “What Th-”  What is it Mark?  It’s only what the reader was expecting, so that’s a good thing, I guess…  the always available compromised and poorly packed shipment of radioactive material…  now unleashing its fury onto the environment…

Funny how the tides have turned for what W would call “Nucular” Energy.  It is now what is going to save us from evil carbon and halt the rising seas… despite the fact that Fukushima is still emitting a plume of radioactivity that is bathing the west coast of america…  No easy answers, my friends, no easy answers…

Sea Hunt!  I used to watch that show all the time!  What adventure!  What danger and suspense… Literally breathless moments…

So as Mark continues to impress us with his general knowledge of all things marine and shipping (“standard shipping crates,” “forward compartment…”)  we get the distinct idea that there is something down there, otherwise this has been a long swim for little to naught…

Mark you are either brave or silly, but we are with you.  Watch out for what’s behind that door!

That’s not a very big hole, there, Mark…  you going to be able to fit??  Never go in to something unless you know the way out…

What could be in the boat?!?  I say it was a drug runner…  Mark will finally bring home an actual way of making money should that be the case…  kilo upon kilo of the good stuff…  I am sure Mississippi Ken will have no problem hooking them up with the right people.  Uncle Doyle sounds sleazy…

But then I am just letting my own fears enter into this situation…  I would also feel better if I could actually see anchor line coming off the bows of the boats…  as they magically say in one place while Mark is rummaging around in the depths…  and the dark…

I like how Mark’s hair is actually impacted by being underwater…  we’ll have to see how quickly it snaps back into place once he resurfaces…  If he resurfaces…  duh, duuhhh, duuuuhhhhh…

Like I said before, doesn’t anyone have a depth finder??

Always have to have the last word, don’t you Mark?  Mark’s not buying the whole “boat lost power therefore the electronics went out and therefore the depth finder went out and the boat crashed up onto the reef” theory… He prefers things simple- like himself- “storm pushed boat onto reef” that has many fewer syllables and requires much less in the way of deductive reasoning…  Like Occam’s Razor, Mark prefers the theory that has the fewest number of potentially competing assumptions…Easier on the Trail-Brain…

A virtual graveyard for craft of all kinds!  That’s what Mark has stumbled onto here…  Now it’s a “small cargo freighter” as if Mark was an expert in identifying all manner of ocean-going vessel…

Clearly, Kelly was employing hyperbole when describing their location as being “in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico..”  They are obviously very close to shore…

…on Moray eels…   like, how long do they usually get?  What color are they typically?  By gosh Ken was right… the Giant Moray reaches 3m in length (9.8 ft) and and weighs in at 60 lbs. The Slender Moray can get longer than that but isn’t as impressive…  But what’s really freaky is the second set of jaws that lie inside the mouth designed to pull prey into the digestive tract!  Ewww!  But in all the images that pop up, not a single one is pink!

And Mark is smart to give this thing a wide berth…  here’s a video of what seems like a ‘tame’ Moray biting a diver’s thumb off!!  OK I have to admit I couldn’t watch the whole thing!  He’s a dumb-ass anyway for feeding “Emma” sausages…  But it’s the final scene from “The Deep” where Louis Gossett Jr. gets his head crushed by a Moray, only slightly more interesting that the earlier scene where Jacqueline Bisset is entered in an underwater wet t-shirt contest where she is the only contestant!

I hope that Mark has brought a Geiger counter with him!  I suspect radiation poisoning!

Yesterday I asked rhetorically what makes this a “Seaplane…”  is it like the old joke-  “I am on a seafood diet- I see food and I eat it?”  I see the plane so it’s a seaplane?  I do “see” now that it has a very bulbous fuselage and wings on top- no ‘toons necessary, it just uses its belly to take off and land!

It would appear that whatever is causing the shark to ulcerate is also giving the Moray Eel in panel two a creepy-pink, spam-like glow…

…should have given you an indication of depth…  Not to mention the fact that any fishing rig worth its salt would have a depth finder aboard…  but no matter.  Let’s focus on the “sea plane” that Mark found.  Landing gear/ pontoons either broken off or buried in the mud.  Other than that, not sure what makes it a “Sea Plane…”  But thank goodness the plot is starting to gel a bit…

I can see now why Mark needed “help” getting into his gear- a much more involved setup than what he had in the Swamp…

Thank goodness Mark’s “special equipment” includes a custom-fitting face mask that allows him to talk freely and communicate with Ken while he is underwater looking for Heaven-Knows-What…

“Kccchhh… Trail here… Kcccchhhh…  Wet, blue, everything looks normal down here…”

“Roger Mark…”

“OK what now?”

<better cue the shark, the big one>  <you mean Bruce from Jaws?>  <Sure… Why not??>

…and if there is one think that warrants more than “quick look” by an under-qualified naturalist it has to be the ocean.  Other than the depths of space itself, there can’t be anything more vast and mysterious than the part of our planet not above sea level…

What exactly are you looking for Ken to do to help you with, Mark?  My aren’t we getting needy all of a sudden.  You put on your scuba equipment without any help from Cherry in the Great Dismal, where you got bum-rushed by a Bull Shark… but here you need your Ol’ Friend “Mississippi Ken” to help you suit up for battle like he’s your Squire or something…

And where the heck is Kelly?  the one that saves bunny rabbits and squirrels??