12dz Chapter 230 Voyage
Chapter 230 Voyage
Sister Qian advised her not to go too far, as she was a novice with no experience and the sea was unpredictable, so she should be careful about getting into trouble, but Wen Qing insisted.
The next day, Wen Qing left 5000 yuan as a deposit for the boat, and asked Sister Qian to make scallion pancakes. She filled the kettle with boiling water to eat on the road, went to the village dock to find someone to fill up the diesel, and bought another large bucket as a backup. In fact, she still had diesel in her space, but she had to do it for others to see.
Sister Qian gave her a simple stove and pot for use on the boat, and some dry noodles to eat on the road. She suggested that she go south, as there were islands along the way where she could stay and rest at night, which was much better than staying on the boat.
Wen Qing smiled and said, "Thank you, Sister Qian, you have prepared so much for me. I can also catch some fish to eat, so I won't be hungry."
Wen Qing carried his things on his back and boarded the boat. He rowed out of the small harbor, hoisted the sail, and took advantage of the south wind to row towards the deep ocean.
The weather was very good that day, with white clouds dotted in the blue sky, the sea was calm, and the boat was not going fast. Wen Qing stood at the stern, controlling the rudder. The splashing water hit her body, leaving white salt stains after drying. She didn't care much and drove for 3 hours, going more than 50 kilometers before stopping to rest. She was already in the middle of the sea, surrounded by vast sea and no land in sight.
After dropping the anchor, Wen Qing ate two pancakes with the boiled water in the kettle, then sat on the deck to rest. Looking at the sea, Wen Qing remembered that an ancient shipwreck seemed to have been salvaged in this sea area, but she didn't know the exact location.
She took out the shells she found yesterday from the space. These shells were as big as large plates. Wen Qing pried open the shells one by one and took out the shell meat. Sure enough, she found pearls inside. Wen Qing discovered that only the Mars mussels and white butterfly mussels were easier to find pearls, and other shellfish did not have pearls.
She pried open more than 70 shells before finding 15 pearls, the largest of which was as big as the glass beads she played with when she was a child. She heard that only pearls with a diameter of more than 1 cm are valuable, so such a large pearl would probably not be cheap. The other pearls were not so big and had a variety of shapes, but Wen Qing thought it was fun, so she put the pearls into the space and put the shell meat back into the space to eat later.
She used a bucket to scoop up sea water to wash the planks, then jumped into the sea again and dived to the bottom of the sea to see if she could find any pearl oysters. This seabed was more than 5 meters deep, with water plants and fish of various colors swimming around. The seabed was black mud and no large shells were seen. She swam underwater for more than 6 or minutes before surfacing to breathe, found a small boat, swam over, got on board, and continued rowing towards the island she had marked.
There are four small islands nearby. Wen Qing wanted to go to the small island reef on the east side, which was the one that Sister Qian said was more dangerous. It was about 80 kilometers away from Nanshan Island. She rowed for more than 2 hours before arriving. The water was very calm and there seemed to be no danger. She stopped beside a reef, dropped the anchor and stabilized the boat.
According to her observation, the reef pile that emerged from the water was about 7 to 80 square meters, but the underwater reef was about 200 square meters. The reef pile was 3 to 4 meters below the surface. There was no whirlpool on the sea surface and it was very calm, so she jumped off the boat by herself.
Maybe because humans don't come here often, there are many oysters and sea cucumbers in the cracks of the rocks, and these things fell into her bowl. Wen Qing hurried to dig them up, one by one, and soon filled two buckets. She did not let go of the shells on the seabed, mainly because there were too many of them. She only picked up the white and large ones, as the probability of this kind of shell producing pearls is higher.
Of course, she couldn't let go of the abalone on the reef. Before yesterday, she had never seen live abalone, and she hadn't eaten the abalone she caught yesterday. If she caught more abalone today, she could eat abalone in the evening.
After picking up this piece, Wen Qing untied the rope of the boat, collected the anchor and drove the boat to the other side. There were no reefs on the water surface here, but there were large reefs one meter under water. Wen Qing fixed the anchor in the crevice of the reef.
After resting on the side of the boat for a while, she dived into the water again. The sea water was very clear and she could see the blue sky through the water. She collected all the abalone on the reef and dived down along the cracks in the reef. The cracks were quite long and it was estimated that billions of years ago, this was a mountain. She swam down for a long time before she saw the seabed.
There was a large area of shells below. When Wen Qing swam, she created waves. The shells that were opening their mouths to breathe felt this tiny change and closed their mouths one after another. She started to pick from the largest shells and floated up to rest every 5 or 6 minutes.
According to Wen Qing's skill, she should be able to hold her breath longer, and maybe even switch to internal breathing, but she is not used to it yet.
This time, Wen Qing slowed down her dive, imagining herself as a fish, breathing the oxygen in the water with her skin. Her hands and feet turned into fins and tails, feeling the flow of the sea water. As expected, she dived under the crevice effortlessly. She used her mental power to collect the shells, sea cucumbers, abalone and sea fish that she touched into the space, greatly improving her efficiency.
After swimming for a while, she saw a bunch of branch-like things on the edge of the rock, probably coral. She swam over and tried to shake it, but she broke off a piece with just a slight grab. It didn't feel like stone in her hand, so Wen Qing broke off another piece and floated to the surface with it.
She put the things into the boat, turned over and returned to the boat, found a towel to wipe the water off her face, and then picked up the thing again. There was a lot of moss and dirt on it. Wen Qing scooped a basin of sea water and washed the thing clean. She found that it was a piece of black wood. It had probably been soaked in water for too long and had become rotten. It broke into pieces with a little force.
It should be a piece of wood from a shipwreck. This sea area has been a shipping route since ancient times. No one knows how many shipwrecks there are, and no one knows whether it is a piece of wood or a shipwreck. Is there anything on the ship?
Wen Qing went into the water and dived towards the place where the wood was found. The feeling of diving just now was great. She concentrated and calmed her mind, regaining her previous state. She still dived along the cracks in the rocks and came to where the wood was. She looked carefully and found a relatively flat seabed. The wooden pole was covered with water plants and seaweed. Judging from its size and shape, it was probably a shipwreck buried in sea sand.
She dug down along the wooden pole, removing the thin layer of seaweed and sea sand on the surface. Wen Qing discovered that this part should be the stern of the boat, and the bow was immersed in deeper mud and sand.
She did not step onto the shipwreck rashly, but swam around the suspected hull area several times. The ship was about 40 meters long and 7 or 8 meters wide. If it was an ancient shipwreck, it would be considered a large ship.
Wen Qing found some broken wood poles near the shipwreck, which were probably damaged when the shipwreck occurred. She did not find anything around the shipwreck, so she began to clean up the mud and seaweed on the shipwreck. While cleaning the shipwreck, Wen Qing floated up every ten minutes to breathe and rest.