Outside Reading Post 3

A new character has emerged, a well known diver named Richie Kohler. Kohler loves diving and is even part of the Atlantic Wreck Divers. Most of the men in this group were well known and were obsessed with artifacts, they would take anything and everything they could get their hands on, which tells you something about their personalities. On one occasion he was invited to join the Belinda on a dive to the wreck of the Doria; because late in the previous season John Chatterton had made it to the third class of the wreck, something nobody else had ever done. John then used a Broco torch to cut through a steel bar that stopped people from gaining entrance to the third class. A video was made of the bar being cut and it leaked out into the web, and it showed all of the mounds of china in third class. The crew of the Belinda tried to get to third class to take all of the china they could before the Seeker returned two days later. Kohler was on the crew of the Belinda which stirred up bad blood between him and Chatterton. John and another man they constructed a 300-pound steel door to block the entrance to third class from other divers. The steel door was successful and the crew of the Belinda gawked at the sign Chatterton had left behind, it read, "CLOSED FOR INVENTORY, PLEASE USE ALTERNATE ENTRANCE, THANK YOU -CREW AND PATRONS OF SEEKER" (Kurson, 112).

Going back to the story, the crew of the Seeker had earlier found a sunken U-Boat or so they thought. They tried to keep it a secret from other crews but eventually other divers found out; though nobody but Chatterton and Nagle knew the coordinates. On their second dive all of the crew members were the same but on the way back up one of the divers died, Steve Feldman. Nagle was obligated to report the death to the Coast Guard but he didn't want to give the coordinates away so he waited until he was a few miles from the real site. This is where Kohler comes in, they needed another diver, and Kohler was the one for the job. Brennan, a diver from the previous dives asked Nagle about Kohler joining them for the next dive, and Nagle didn't know what he should do. Chatterton had a certain dislike for Kohler, but Kohler had qualities Nagle thought he could use, Nagle considers it, thinking to himself, "The idea seemed perfect. Kohler was smart, tough, and relentless, one of the best wreck divers on the eastern seaboard... And he would not go and get himself killed--the last thing Nagle needed after the Feldman accident" (108-109).

Nagle accepts Kohler onto the Seeker for the third dive to the U-Boat. They still needed proof that the sub was indeed a U-Boat. Chatterton and Kohler descended within minutes of each other but they both went their separate ways in the boat. Chatterton after studying up on U-Boats in between dives relentlessly knew exactly what he was looking for. Chatterton discovers two bowls in the room he was searching for, Chatterton describes them, "The fronts were white with green rims. On the backs, engraved in black, was the year 1942. Above that marking were the eagle and swastika, the symbols of Hitler's Third Reich" (117). Since both Chatterton and Kohler descended at the same time they both ascended together, but for awhile they could not even see each other. At about 30 feet, Kohler spotted Chatterton and saw that his goodie bag had something in it. He descended to Chatterton's depth and eyed the bag and reached for the bag. Chatterton pulled away but then stated,

"Their eyes locked. No one moved for what seemed like minutes. The men did not like each other. They did not like what the other represented. And you don't touch a guy's shit. But as Chatterton searched Kohler's eyes he could not find anything sinister in them; the man was just flat-out excited to see the china. Chatterton opened his shoulder, slowly at first, and pushed the bag forward" (118).

This is an important step for them because it was like a new start for them. You could tell that they were going to put their pasts behind them. After all while they were in the water, they were the only two people that knew for sure that it was a U-Boat. And Chatterton understood what Kohler meant, he were no longer talking about diving, he was talking about life. At that point Chatterton decided that it would be worth his while to get to know Kohler.