Church's Diary V

I am glad that all the people who are seasick have recovered physically, including Lady Larry and Miss Alice. I don't know if it's Poseidon blessing or Anderson's fish soup working, but I'm thankful to Anderson anyway, sincerely.

Alice began to run around the deck again, feeling the grandeur and beauty of the ocean. Her smile was so innocent, as bright as the May sun, that she seemed to have completely forgotten the pain that the sea had brought her the other day. She also often went to see Anderson fishing, and the two of them talked and laughed in the sea breeze. I said Anderson, are you handing in the peach blossom luck? As much as I don't think you two are a good fit, I wish you the best of luck.

Mrs. Larry, on the other hand, looked much heavier, and wondered whether her recovery was not as quick and complete as that of the young man, or whether it was because of the cold snow that she had the same worries as Mr. Robbins. I see that the two of them have been whispering together for the past two days, and I don't know what they are discussing.

No matter how worried you are, you will arrive at your destination tomorrow, and although it is a full week later than planned, the sea god blesses you, and everything is going well. If it were me, I would have relaxed today, and the results will be revealed tomorrow, whether it is good or bad, everything is in God's control, not us. All we can do is face all this with optimism.

As for when they will return, it will depend on the progress of these scientists' expeditions, and who knows what shocking secrets they will discover? If there are any major discoveries, it will be an honor for me to be with them. Anyway, the endurance of the Explorer is 18,000 nautical miles, which meets the requirements of the unlimited navigation area, and they can toss as long as they want. Although more than 70 people eat 50 kilograms of vegetables and 30 kilograms of fish every day, we have enough food in Auckland to feed for a month, and we can go fishing like Anderson did.

Oh, my God! What was I thinking? Before I got to my destination, I was thinking about my return. It's so old! When you were younger, you wouldn't think about it so much!

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Church's Diary VI

We arrived at the designated location, but did not find Ghost Island.

Anderson and I repeatedly confirmed, again to check the GPS system, and again to look at the charts. Mr. Robbins also contacted the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and asked their system to provide us with more accurate positioning and to retrieve satellite imagery from previous periods. However, all our efforts have been in vain.

I didn't drive in the wrong direction, the GPS didn't give us the wrong direction, everything showed that the Explorer had reached its intended destination. My crew and I didn't feel anything, because it wasn't us who discovered the ghost island and noted the location before, but another ship. But the scientists—the Robbins believed it to be true, because there were a lot of scientists on that ship at the time, and a few of them were on our ship, and they were here for the second time.

Given the seriousness of science and the credibility and sense of mission that transcends life as a group, I think most of what they say is true, and it is not a joke of some boring person, and their knowledge is certainly not easy to be deceived by nature.

Following the position noted by the ship that had discovered the island, I sailed the Discovery to 36°55'S latitude and 136°39'W longitude. This figure is almost identical to the location of Maria Theresa Reef recorded over the past 100 years. But when we arrived, I had nothing but the endless water, and because the water was deeper than the length of the anchor chain, we couldn't anchor at all. Of course, the Discovery has an advanced balancing system, which allows the ship to automatically stop in place even if there is wind and waves.

Robbins asked us to search within 1° of latitude and longitude according to this coordinate location.

Oh my God, the difference of plus or minus latitude and longitude is 1°, that's nearly 50,000 square kilometers of sea surface, which can fit the entire land area of the Netherlands. Just three centuries ago, the country's iron ships conquered many places in the world, and it was the Dutch who first discovered these lands in the southern hemisphere ocean, and named the largest of them "New Holland", and later changed the name to Australia; A smaller piece of land has never been renamed, named after a district in the Netherlands called Zealand, called New Zealand.

Now, I'm going to take this ship and search the waters the size of the Netherlands for two ghostly and invisible reefs that may be about the size of our ship.

We went around the sea and found nothing. In fact, everyone knows very well in their hearts that it is too easy to find two islands in an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers with the help of our ship's equipment and GPS satellites, provided that they really exist. Since we can't find any satellites, we won't be able to find them even if we look for them.

Everyone just doesn't give up, so we continue to go around in circles, hoping that Ghost Island will live up to its name, and if it's a "ghost", maybe the satellite really can't see it.

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Church's Diary VII

We've been cruising this area for two whole days, and everyone is starting to get impatient. If it weren't for Mr. Robbins' rigor and good temper, and for an innocent girl like Alice who brought joy to the ship, everyone would have gone crazy.

Only Anderson remained unfazed, and whenever the boat came to a halt or when he was not needed to work, he went fishing on the aft deck.

He said there was a ghost island somewhere, just a huge ancient fish coming out of the bottom of the sea to catch its breath!

I think Anderson fished and caught a broken head, how can there be such a big fish? Besides, how could those scientists not even recognize a fish?

All the equipment on board was turned on, sonar, magnetics, lasers, infrared, and underwater robots were also put down, but there was nothing. The data shows that the water depth here is at least more than 3,000 meters, and the deepest depth reaches 5,000 meters, and there are only a few submarine peaks, even if the submarine volcano erupts, it is impossible to form an island to expose the sea.

After dinner, the expedition team had a small meeting and invited me and the first mate Anderson to participate. Mr. Robbins made a brief statement and then asked for their views. Everyone looked at the few people who came for the second time, who had sworn that the island existed, but now they were silent with bitter faces.

Anderson suddenly exclaimed, I said it was a fish a long time ago, but you don't believe it! Did you know that the oceans on Earth are much larger than the land, and the water is so deep that there must be a lot of strange creatures on the bottom of the ocean. There is a kind of fish, it is very big, because it is too big, it moves very slowly, its metabolism is also very slow, and its back is covered with all kinds of coral, seaweed, and so on. It took hundreds of years for it to come to the surface to get a breath of fresh air, and it just floated there, but you thought it was an island, haha, that's ridiculous!

The more Anderson laughed, the more ugly the other people's faces became. Robbins wanted to say something, and Mrs. Larry, who was not smiling, said, Don't waste time here, let's go to the next place.

The next place Mrs. Larry said was the underwater ruins with the pyramids. In the end, everyone agreed, although they were not reconciled. But Robbins said that the next place was where they really wanted to go, and that it would never disappear like Ghost Island, because that place had already been preliminarily investigated, and there were photos and physical objects to prove it.

I was also full of anticipation and curiosity about the inverted pyramid underwater.