“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??

With both boats magically anchored in 1500m of ocean depth, Mark is going to go “below the surface of the water.”  I think we call that “underwater,” but no worries…  I guess we will see what there is to see.  Given that we see pelicans and gulls, maybe they are closer to shore than I suppose…

Is that a microscope in panel one?  Part of the “special equipment” that Mark brought to use in this investigation?  CSI Trail?  So what’s Doc going to think?  “I don’t know Mark, looks like blood to me…  maybe shark blood.”

Anchored?  Really?  Not so sure about that…  the Gulf of Mexico is shallow along the rim, but gets deep fast – average depth of 1,500 meters. That’s the approximate depth of the Deepwater Horizon site… and where it lies at the bottom of the ocean now after exploding and sinking…  That’s a lot of anchor line…

“Any Ideas, Mark?”  “I don’t know , Ken…”  Of course he doesn’t know.  What credentials did Mark bring?  What earthly good was he going to add to this situation?  Apparently this is NOT something that has “Mark Trail’s name written all over it…”

You know who we need here?  Jacques Cousteau!  Or at least Steve Zissou, made (in)famous by Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic…

Samples?  of what?  Just looks at this poor creature!  Lesions all over its body, the once proud apex predator lies in state, soon to be poked an prodded in the name of… science?  Mark, you are journalist…  a nature writer…

Funny how Kelly is being totally ignored so far…  is she still on the boat?  napping?

Ponytail and facial hair aside, I am now convinced that Ken is not a bad guy…  despite that fact that those are traditional markers in the Trail-verse…

And, Ken, dude, that’s the same t-shirt you have had on for days now…  I’m guessing it’s a might rank by now.  And e-mailing the results to doc…  that sets you free Mark…  proof of your landing…  but where;s the signal?  You have satellite technology?  Does the Shur Ketch3 have wi-fi?    My, how far we have come!!

Words like “beautiful” and phrases like “a little fishing” are not consistent with that twin-engined, floating phallic symbol that you are piloting there, Mark…

So as Mark plays (hopefully) one round of “mine is bigger than yours,” we can (also hopefully) move this story along…

But why do we call them that?  Because back in the day, they were used to smuggle cigars and cigarettes in to the US…   and cigarette manufacturers were the main sponsors of the races that involved these over-sized, over-powered craft…  True Cigarette boats took a crew to run them- a throttle man or men, someone to steer, working the throttle up and down as the boat careened along, going in and out of the water.   Wiki honors this boat as the “Go-Fast Boat” preferred boat of smugglers…

Yup, that’s Ol’ Ken, shouting insults across the water.  Mark is back in his element- away from Cherry, Doc, and the young one that always wants to go fishing..  what’s his name again??  oh yea… Rusty.

OK, let’s get on with the story here.

Funny how things with remind you of things…  the binocular view in panel three reminds me of two shows- Flipper and Gentle Ben.  Both involved fathers who were in government jobs doing game-warden-type work…  I found that fascinating even as a young tad.  The camera was forever “peering through binoculars” in order to sneak up on the bad guys!

Do we have to refer to him by his qualifying sobriquet?  Reminds me of the old joke (grade school) “How do you spell Mississippi with one ‘i’?”  Answer:  (While holding a hand over one eye) M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I… Did Ken make his way from Itasca to the Gulf, thereby earning the nick name?  Is he a former pro wrestler so that there is no need for an explanation?

And thank you Mark for all this information- you are a regular floating wiki…  Of course I underestimate the depth of Mark’s knowledge on any given topic and his ability to reason while being catapulted through the seas by heavy horses…

Nice whale.  But do Humpback Whales ply the gulf waters?  It would seem that they do, depending on the season…  Summer feeding in polar waters and coming south to breed…

He’s really working it, Ladies and Gentlemen.  But really, what does Bill Ellis’ opinion matter at this juncture?  He never leaves the city unless it’s in comfort and only then to get kidnapped by rogue islanders…  And besides, if a “chemical spill” happened, it wold be impacting all life, not just sharks…

”

I am glad that Mark has not forsaken his wardrobe of khaki shirt and denim pant in favor of a Tommy Bahama floral print shirt and board shorts…  Of course we haven’t seen his bottom half, but one has to assume…  and it looks like he has applied extra Brylcreem to his coiffure in order that no hair be out of place…