Chapter 355 Extremely Difficult Salvage Environment

In the offline room, Xiao Peng was looking at the nautical chart with a frown on his face. Pascal, Fabian and others were there, but no one spoke.

At this time, there was a knock on the door.

Pascal opened the door, and Natalia Malova came in with coffee. She couldn't stay in the kitchen any longer. Her job now was to make coffee and wash clothes. She could do both: there was a washing machine for washing clothes and a dryer for drying them. But there were too many people on the boat, so it wasn't an easy job.

Xiao Peng took the coffee, thanked him, and began stirring it with a coffee spoon. His speed increased until a small vortex appeared inside. He looked at the vortex in the cup and fell into deep thought.

Fabian said, "Xiao, why don't we go back now? I just made a note. If we go back now, we won't be able to pay much for the remaining payment from Russia."

Pascal agreed: "Yes, Xiao, there is no need for us to take risks now."

Xiao Peng was still staring at the vortex in the cup in a daze.

At this moment, the door to the offline room was pushed open, and Xiao Zhou rushed in with a stack of documents. "Boss! The results are in!"

Xiao Peng didn't blame him for barging in without knocking. He stood up and took the document from Xiao Zhou's hand and looked at it carefully. The more he read, the more his brow furrowed. "Is this the result?"

Xiao Zhou quickly explained, "Boss, although the SAR system (Synthetic Aperture Radar) has the advantages of all-weather, all-day, high-resolution, and wide coverage, vortices are affected by various ocean environmental factors when the SAR system images them. It is difficult to fully interpret the characteristics of the vortex through SAR images alone."

Xiao Peng was completely silent now.

This time the sailing team made a huge discovery, but they were almost wiped out.

They discovered a vast cluster of shipwrecks beneath the sea. According to the multibeam sonic scanner, if ten aircraft carriers hadn't sunk simultaneously, then there must be at least a hundred. There were traces of large numbers of shipwrecks on the seabed.

But when they wanted to explore further, they encountered a terrible thing: an ocean whirlpool appeared here. If Moreau had not reacted in time and led people to evacuate, they would probably have drowned in the sea.

Duan Bo is still being criticized for this matter. This time, the "Five Little Strongmen" were led by Moro and Duan Bo. When the vortex appeared, Duan Bo wanted to continue exploring there. Moro had no choice but to call Xiao Peng and force them to come back. As a result, less than five hours after they left, the small vortex had evolved into a big one with a diameter of more than one kilometer.

But this "big guy" isn't really that big. There's a vortex off Australia, over 200 kilometers in diameter and 1,000 meters deep. That vortex is truly massive, carrying such immense energy that it's lowered the sea level there by over a meter! The amount of water it carries exceeds the flow of 250 Amazon Rivers! Even an aircraft carrier wouldn't be able to escape from that vortex.

The vortex in Australia wasn't the scariest. The scariest thing was the sudden giant vortex that appeared without warning. It formed without warning, yet it carried immense destructive power. If you encountered one, there was no chance of escape.

This is why, apart from explorers, ships rarely wander the seas, and most stick to safe routes. The ocean is full of unpredictable factors. A ship could be sailing safely one moment and sink to the bottom of the ocean the next, without even having time to send a distress signal.

The sea can be so scary sometimes.

This vortex with a diameter of one kilometer is not as scary as the one in Australia, but it is undoubtedly a "giant vortex". According to the simulation calculations made by Xiao Zhou using a computer, if their ship approaches the vortex, it would be like an old man hanging himself - he would die because he thinks his life is too long!

Xiao Zhou ran over to a computer on the console and started working on it. Inside was a map of ocean currents. He zoomed in and explained to Xiao Peng, "Boss, there's an ocean current flowing from the Don River into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait into the Black Sea, where it meets the Black Sea's surface current. These two currents have different speeds, temperatures, and directions, and when they collide, they form a vortex. In ancient times, even from Yalta to Samsun or Istanbul, the straight line is clearly the shortest distance between two points. Yet, ancient trading ships would take a detour and avoid this route precisely because of this. Only fearless and experienced smugglers would go this way! If I'm not mistaken, those shipwrecks on the seabed were destroyed by vortices."

Xiao Peng nodded: "Have you found the vortex pattern there?"

Xiao Zhou smiled bitterly. "This isn't the Salter Flow. While it obeys some mathematical rules, it doesn't obey all of them. We can only make predictions. Vortices are a natural state of violent chaos; they never repeat themselves. Even the Salter Flow has exceptions, doesn't it?"

The 'Salt Current' he mentioned is the largest vortex in the world and also a very interesting one.

The Salt Current, originating between the Saldenfjord and the Hirstadfjord in Norway, creates a massive vortex roughly every six hours, pushing the water from one fjord into the other, and repeating this process repeatedly. This natural phenomenon has existed for at least two thousand years, and it's likely to have existed before, though there's no written record of it.

The Salt Stream has now become a famous tourist attraction in Norway. Every six hours, when the sea water passes through the strait at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, several or even dozens of large whirlpools will appear.

But the Salt Current's vortexes were definitely not as formidable as the ones here. The largest Salt Current vortex was only twelve meters in diameter, while these deep-sea vortices could easily reach diameters of several kilometers or even dozens of kilometers! The one-kilometer-diameter deep-sea vortex they were facing was still a small one, but no one could guarantee its potential to expand further.

Xiao Peng asked Xiao Zhou, "Xiao Zhou, how deep is this vortex?"

Xiao Zhou said, "According to simulation modeling, it's probably between 140 and 170 meters. But this isn't likely its maximum depth. Considering the current season, if this vortex occurred in winter, the ocean current speed and temperature difference would conservatively be at least twenty times larger, and the depth would likely exceed 400 meters."

Xiao Peng fell silent again. Suddenly, he pulled Xiao Zhou up from the operating table, worked on the computer for a while, then turned to Xiao Zhou and asked, "Xiao Zhou, what do you think of my idea?"

Xiao Zhou fell silent as he looked at the blueprint on the computer screen. After a moment, he looked up at Xiao Peng and said, "Boss, are you crazy?"