Chapter 3 — Reef Keeper

It wasn't quite dawn yet when Khue and Thao were already at the wharf, preparing their diving gear to go to Da Bac reef. The small motorboat they rented from a family familiar to Ms. Bay Xuyen was already running, blue smoke flying over the still water. Khue checked the oxygen tank, belt, and diving goggles one last time. Her hands were shaking slightly with nervousness - a feeling she had never had in hundreds of previous dives in other waters.

"Are you nervous?" Thao asked, noticing the difference in Khue's eyes.

"YES." Khue admitted, not hiding it. "I've dived in many places, but this is the first time I've dived in the same place where my dad used to take me out to play."

The boat driver, a skinny old man named Mr. Tu, silently listened to the two girls' story, still quickly controlling the rudder. When the boat left the anchorage and entered deeper water, he spoke, his voice hoarse from cigarettes.

"Are you Mr. Dam's daughter? Back then, he and I often went on squid fishing trips together." Mr. Tu looked at Khue out of the corner of his eye. "He is the person who understands the sea the best in this neighborhood, I'll be honest. He knows where the fish spawn, where to avoid, and never fishes indiscriminately like the kids do these days."

"Yes, thank you." Khue smiled, even though there was an indescribable feeling of sadness in her heart. Every person she meets on this island seems to carry a piece of her father's memory, and each piece makes her feel a little closer to him, even though he's gone.

After nearly forty minutes, the boat arrived at Da Bac reef area, about three nautical miles east of shore. The water here is strangely clear, the reefs below can be dimly seen through the rolling waves. Mr. Tu turned off the engine, dropped the anchor, and let the boat drift gently with the current.

"Here and there." Mr. Tu said, pointing at the water. "In the past, there were so many fish here. When you dive down, you can see schools of red snapper and grouper fish swimming in the sky. Now I don't know how many there are left."

Khue and Thao put on diving suits, checked their equipment one last time according to the safety procedures they had memorized, and then flipped upside down into the water together. The coldness of the seawater enveloped Khue's body in an instant, but she had long gotten used to this feeling. Just a few seconds later, her breathing returned to regularity through the breathing tube.

The underwater world opened before her eyes, quiet and magical like a dream. The morning sunlight penetrates the water, creating shimmering streaks of light dancing on the white sand below. Khue swam slowly, her eyes observing every smallest detail. Her heart was both moved and aching when she realized that the scene before her eyes was no longer the same as what she remembered in her childhood memories.

On the west side of the reef, once blue staghorn coral blocks are now covered in a bone-white color, broken branches are scattered on the sandy floor, some places are covered with a thick layer of brown algae clinging to the dead coral patches. Khue swam closer, gently touched a branch of white coral, clearly feeling its brittleness under her fingertips - a sign of bleaching due to warming water and prolonged pollution.

She took out her waterproof notebook and began marking coordinates and recording the condition of each area according to the scientific survey process she had been trained in. But amidst those dry numbers and symbols, her heart couldn't help but ache when she remembered what her father wrote in his diary about the colorful schools of fish and butterflies that used to roam here.

Thao swam closer, signaling Khue to pay attention to another area, where the situation seemed better. On the east side of the reef, away from the water flowing from the island, there are still relatively healthy patches of block coral and brain coral, with bright colors ranging from turquoise to light purple. A school of tiny fish swim around the rocks, occasionally hiding in coral holes when a person swims by.

Khue felt a ray of hope rekindle in her heart. If this area still retains vitality, this is an ideal source of mother coral to take samples for propagation and transplant to degraded areas. She signaled Thao to come closer, and they both observed more closely, measuring the size of the coral blocks and recording the fish species residing.

But when swimming around a reef to continue surveying, Khue suddenly stopped. Before her eyes was a large gap in the reef floor, where there should have been dense coral blocks but now there was only rubble and sand, as if a bomb had exploded right there, flattening all life within a radius of a few meters. Broken coral fragments were scattered, some were still streaked with dark red streaks of crushed coral tissue, gradually blending into the surrounding water like a wound that had not yet healed.

Khue swam closer, her heart pounding in her chest. She has read many documents and seen many pictures about the consequences of fishing with explosives, but this is the first time she has personally witnessed such a scene in real life. This type of destruction is not the same as bleaching due to climate change, nor is it the same as natural deterioration over time — this is an explosion, and it happened recently, perhaps only in the last few weeks, because the debris is still sharp, not yet covered with algae.

She gave Thao an urgent signal, pointing towards the explosion hole. Thao swam back, her eyes behind her diving goggles wide open in surprise. The two swam around the area, taking photos and videos with waterproof cameras, trying to record the entire scene as scientifically and completely as possible before leaving.

When they emerged from the water, both were still in shock. Mr. Tu pulled them onto the boat. Seeing the expressions on the two girls' faces, he immediately guessed that something was wrong.

"What's up?" He asked, his voice worried.

"Uncle Tu, there is an area under the reef that has been blasted by mines." Khue said, her voice still shaking with emotion. "It just happened recently, the debris is still very fresh."

Mr. Tu was stunned, his tanned face flashed with a complicated look - both worried, as if he had expected it, and as if he was trying to suppress something he didn't want to say. "This... let me ask. Recently I heard rumors of strange ships going out at night, but no one is sure what they're doing."

"Strange ship?" Khue asked immediately, her scientific curiosity immediately turned into vigilance. "Can you explain more clearly?"

Mr. Tu seemed to regret having said the wrong thing. He avoided Khue's eyes and focused on pulling up the anchor. "Okay, let me ask that again, don't dare say nonsense. You and I should go back and report to the fishery control department, so they can handle it according to the correct procedure."

On the boat's way back to the wharf, Khue sat quietly, looking out at the sparkling sea under the rising sunlight, but her mind was completely absorbed in the image of the explosion hole at the bottom of the reef. She remembered the last words in her father's diary: "Tonight I saw a strange light on the reef. I'll have to go check it out tomorrow." A chilling coincidence begins to form in her mind — could what her father witnessed twelve years ago be the beginning of the same type of destructive activity that she has just found traces of today?

"Miss Khue, what are you thinking?" Thao asked, noticing Khue's unusually pensive look.

"I'm thinking..." Khue hesitated, not wanting to share all the vague speculations in her mind. "I think we need to report this carefully and in detail to the fishery control department. This is not a small matter. If someone is fishing with explosives right in the area we restore, the entire effort of the project could be destroyed overnight."

Upon arriving at the wharf, Khue immediately went to the marine conservation station to report to Uncle Tam. After listening, the fishery captain's face became serious. He immediately took out his notebook to record the coordinates, time, and scene description that Khue provided.

"I will let you guys check out today." Uncle Tam said, his voice was determined but his eyes flashed with something incomprehensible, like an unspoken shyness. "But Ms. Khue, let me tell you first, fishing with explosives in this area is not new, it has been around for many years, but it is very difficult to catch them in the act. They are sophisticated, they wait until there is no one to take action, and then withdraw smoothly."

"I understand, but at least we must have complete records as a basis." Khue said. "I will send you all the pictures, videos, and GPS coordinates I measured."

Uncle Tam nodded and accepted the memory card Khue gave her, but before she turned away, he said one more sentence that made Khue stop.

"You should be careful. This is not as simple as you think." He lowered his voice, glancing around as if to make sure no one heard. "This sea area is very complicated now, it's not just fishermen secretly fishing."

That unfinished sentence made Khue feel a cold streak running down her spine. She wanted to ask more, but Uncle Tam had turned away, busy with work, as if he had just said something beyond his limits.

That evening, Khue sat alone in the old house, opened her laptop and reviewed each photo taken under the reef in the morning. The image of a jagged gap between the coral background appeared clearly on the screen, like an ugly scar amidst the fragile beauty of the ocean. She integrated GPS coordinates into the map of the reef area, marked the location of the blast hole, and compared it with old notes in her father's diary about the most beautiful coral spots he had ever recorded.

What made her cold was that the location of today's explosion hole was very close to one of the coordinates her father had marked as "the most beautiful coral spot that must be preserved" in his notebook. It's as if an invisible hand, over decades, has persistently targeted the most beautiful and life-rich places of Da Bac Reef for destruction.

Khue closed her laptop, walked out onto the porch, and looked up at the starry sky. She felt a new determination, stronger than ever, growing in her heart. Not only is it the determination of a scientist who wants to restore a decaying ecosystem, but also the determination of a son who wants to find the truth behind his father's death - a truth that she has a hunch is hidden somewhere under the calm waves out there, waiting for her to find it.