Splash

The Island

The voyage had already taken three days. All around, for as far as the eye could see – endless, gorgeous, sparkling blue ocean. Magnificent puffy white clouds were dabbed across the azure sky. The sun had already moved past its noon position, heading toward the westward horizon.

Heading towards Sydney, Australia, where Richard and Hank had set sail from just a few days earlier. Their ride: the Explorer Class Series 7 Yacht from Infinity Enterprises – Richard’s father’s company.

Infinity Enterprises manufactured everything from boats to cars to heavy duty construction vehicles. They were a successful international corporation. Worth billions. And Richard’s father had hoped, and fully expected, his son to take over and run the business someday as the new CEO.

But Richard hated sitting in an office all day. He hated board room meetings, stock charts, and dealing with government regulations. And as fun as it was to drive his company’s state of the art luxury vehicles – honestly, Richard didn’t care enough about them to run a business empire focused on them.

Richard was an explorer. He loved nature. He loved being outdoors. He sought at adventure. And nothing excited him more than stories of hidden, buried treasure.

Today was his 31^st birthday. His father was planning to retire next year. He’d been grooming and preparing Richard to take over Infinity Enterprises ever since Richard graduated business college. Richard was always a good son. He showed up to board meetings, majored in finance and business management like his father insisted, and did his best not to embarrass the company by having any unseemly photos appearing on social media.

But truth be told, Richard was scared. Scared he’d ruin the company, run it into the ground. He barely passed business college with a C-. He just had no interest, no passion, no desire for business. He tried. He really tried. But his heart just wasn’t in it.

But one good thing came out of business school. That was where he met Hank. And the two have been best friends ever since.

Hank, unlike Richard, did have a head for numbers and business. While Richard had inherited a wealthy lifestyle thanks to his dad’s business, Hank had actually started as a minimum wage employee, worked overtime, invested what little cash he had, and over the years made a few lucky stock trades, and was on his way to becoming a millionaire himself.

Which meant both boys didn’t have to work day jobs. And since both loved the outdoors and sought adventure, the two often found themselves traveling around the world. They went mountain climbing together. They camped in a rainforest together. Visited Europe, Asia, and most recently Australia. And it was there, as tourists in Sydney, that they met a seasoned fisherman by happenstance, who mentioned a tale he’d heard from other sailors, about an island far beyond the Great Barrier Reef, toward the Solomon Islands, that was rumored to have long lost buried treasure.

Treasure that was put there over a century ago, that remained hidden and protected all this time – because of a curse.

Old buried treasure? An ancient curse? Richard and Hank were hooked. They had to know more. And the fisherman told them all he knew, for a nominal fee, of course.

Apparently the treasure belonged to the British Empire. It was on route to Australia, which was a British colony at the time. Funds to help establish the new remote outpost. Resources by which to govern it and grow it. But the ship – The Isabella, named after the captain’s daughter back home – never made it. A violent storm like no other had risen up unexpectedly, and despite the captain’s expert skill and years of experience, the ship crashed onto a little remote island, and sank. The crew miraculously survived. They salvaged the ship to build basic shelter. And the Queen’s treasure was safe and secure, which they hid somewhere on the island until help arrived.

But help never did arrive. Something … mysterious … started happening. One by one, in the middle of the night, the men began disappearing. No trace. No explanation. One evening they were there, everyone went to sleep, and by the time the others awoke, one of their own had simply vanished.

Night after night that happened. One after another.

Even the captain mysteriously disappeared without warning.

There was no sign of struggle. No evidence left behind. It was as if these men simply woke up in the middle of the night, walked to shore, and disappeared into the sea – for no reason at all. Until the men started disappearing, morale overall was pretty good, all things considered. And the island, although small, had enough fruits and plants to live off for a while. The men were skilled fishermen too, and the sea was abundant. The captain knew a search party would come looking for them. The Queen would not casually ignore so much wealth that had gone missing. The storm was brutal, but by his calculations, they couldn’t have blown that far off course. There was hope.

But why were the men disappearing?

One after another.

Night after night.

Vanishing.

Soon the men started getting scared. Frightened. They called it ghosts, or sea sirens, or they believed something paranormal was going on. The captain tried assuring them those things were all just superstitions and tall tales – until he, himself, mysteriously vanished like the others. Then the remaining men really started to panic. Some fought, accusing each other of foul play. Maybe there was a traitor in their midst, who was killing them off one by one, to keep the massive treasure for himself. But the men kept disappearing. They took turns keeping a night watch. And that was when they got their first and only clue.

Around midnight, one of the sleeping men awoke, feeling a strange urge to go to the beach. The night watcher noticed this, of course, and followed the man there. The man, inexplicably drawn to the shore, stripped off his clothes and wandered into open waters.

“What are you doing?” asked the watcher.

“Going home,” was all the man replied. And then he dove under water – and was never seen again.

Now the remaining men were sure there was some kind of curse. The few remaining individuals tied themselves to palm trees before going to sleep. It worked for some – but others must’ve untied themselves, or broken free somehow, and they too were gone by morning.

Eventually a search ship had arrived, spotting remnants of the shipwreck on their shore. But by that time, only two men remained, both terrified their fate was next. Sleep deprived, dehydrated, and paralyzed in fear, it wasn’t until weeks later that they were able to share what transpired. They were returned to England. And despite urgings to return to the island to show where they’d hidden the treasure, neither man was willing to go anywhere near that place, and warned others not to either.

Wars, political changes, and economic factors prevented any further expeditions to search the island. But its location was marked on a map by the rescue ship, with the plans of someday returning to recover the Queen’s lost gold.

That map was recently discovered in the Royal Archives, a forgotten piece of history. Some say the amount of gold was purposely exaggerated, to make the empire seem wealthier than it actually was at the time, and very little if any valuable treasure was actually there. Others say pirates found and plundered it long ago. But most fear the curse. The harrowing story of men mysteriously feeling compelled to drown themselves at sea.

Thanks to the Internet and a less-than-trustworthy archivist, the map of the mysterious island was scanned and posted to a Reddit forum. A few treasure hunters have since explored the island. And they used all the latest in GPS tracking, satellite imaging, and metal detecting technology. The layout of the island was thoroughly mapped, detailed, and explored. No sign of any treasure. Maybe pirates did plunder it long ago. Maybe the treasure wasn’t real. Or maybe, as Richard and Hank believed, the treasure was still there, but underwater.

Stories have a way of changing over time. The alleged curse, they believed, was meant to deter others and keep the treasure safe. But the story itself was a clue to the treasure’s actual location. In the story, the crew kept walking out to sea. They dove into the ocean. Could that be where the treasure actually lay? Had all the other modern day searches failed, because everyone was searching dry land?

It was a question worth answering, and an adventure worth having. One last hurrah for Richard, perhaps, before needing to “settle down” and take over his father’s business.

So they took a high speed luxury yacht, entered the GPS coordinates, and set sail out of Sydney Harbor – and traveled fearlessly, boldly, bravely, excitedly – to search for the long lost treasure of The Isabella.

This trip was kind of Richard’s birthday gift to himself. Would they actually find treasure? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t so much about the money – although more was always nice – it was more about having fun, enjoying his freedom, going on one last adventure, before he had to live and work full-time in New York City to run his father’s business.

They’d been cruising for days. Their ship had plenty of food, entertainment, and comfortable furniture to relax and enjoy their time. The two men, Richard and Hank, shared stories as they reminisced about their past adventures and travels.

“I’m really gonna miss this,” Hank said.

“Me too,” Richard admitted.

“Hey, you’ll still be able to take vacations and stuff. We can still travel and explore and treasure hunt then.”

Richard wanted that to be true. He looked at his friend, took a deep breath, and sighed. “Yeah.” He didn’t really mean it. Sure, he could “take a vacation” whenever he wanted – except as the CEO of a billion dollar international corporation, he always had to be available and on call. Something could happen to a factory overseas at any time. Or some politician might be trying to pass some new law that would add mountains and paperwork and regulation and new expenses to his company. Business deals had to be made in the board room and on the golf course. Media interviews. Stock investor reports and announcements. Budget approvals. He knew how hard, and how often, his father worked. Sometimes 20 hours a day. His father spent so much time at the office, he literally had a private apartment furnished adjacent to his office. He spent so many nights working late, or working overnight entirely, that Richard’s mom eventually fell into the arms of another man, and eventually, a divorce with a long drawn out legal battle. It was not fun for anyone.

Richard didn’t want that life.

He wanted freedom. Open space. Nature. Adventure. Discovery. He wanted to continue traveling the world with his best friend Hank. They were a couple of young, healthy, good-looking guys. They could be anything they wanted, go anywhere they wanted, do anything they wanted – if only Richard were free.

“You could just tell him no,” Hank said.

“Huh?”

“Your dad. Tell him to find somebody else to run Infinity.”

Richard shook his head. “You’ve met him. He’s not the kind of guy to take ‘no’ for an answer…”

Hank nodded with understanding.

“Ever since I was born, it was his dream to pass his little business empire over to me when I was older. When it was time for him to retire.”

“But what about your dream?” Hank asked.

Richard shrugged. Then he happened to look up.

He saw it.

“The island,” he pointed.

Hank turned to look.

Wow.

It was beautiful…