Eel finds a hole

This would be Barge Huntley's last dive of the day. He'd already dropped anchor from the yellow kayak a dozen times at various little coves and outcrops along the coast, shooting pictures with a digital Nikonos, taking notes in a "wet book." Lots of colorful coral and fish, and if he were interested just in nice photos and spearing dinner (he had a big parrot fish in a cooler), it would have been a good day already.

But Barge, international artifact hunter, was looking for an underwater sea cave, and so far he'd come up empty. And the afternoon wind was about to rise and mess up visibility. At least then he'd practically sled back to the beach where his truck waited. That was one thing about his job. Even when he was coming up empty, Barge was usually having a pretty decent time. And all it took was one big find to pay for years of days like this.

Ever the optimist, Barge chucked the small anchor into the water -- and it bounced right back!

"Holy s---!" he shouted. And then, as the kayak was lifted out of the water five, 10 feet, "What the hell kind of sea monster is that?!"

It was gray and dappled like an eel, but huge, bigger than a humpback!

As it slid back into the water, Barge and the kayak were swept along in its following surge, closer to where surf broke on the rocky shore.

He'd survived an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada by swimming across it, and he tried that now, paddling furiously across the mass of ocean pulled along with the monster and soon broke free into water unaffected by its passing. Paddling further out, as much for perspective as safety, Barge tried to judge its size. Bigger than a whale, hell, it was big as a Los Angeles-class fast-attack sub!

It appeared to Barge that the nose-end of the eel was poking into rocks on the shoreline, and as it did so its tail whipped back and forth, as if trying to force its way into a hole, in the process kicking up a jumble of waves that rocked the kayak.

A hole?! Kamehameha's cave?!

Barge quickly triangulated three positions on the shore, jotted them down, snapped several photos for good measure.

The wind freshened, and Barge let himself drift, fascinated by the agitation and persistence of the monster eel as much as its very existence. He snapped more photos.

He got a series of really good ones as the eel suddenly shrieked and rose head-first out of the water, fangs wide in shock and pain, blood streaming from it's right eye.

"Be damned," Barge muttered as the eel dove and disappeared. "Better bring a friend or two next I come this way."

And he would be back. With friends like those boys Smith & Wesson.