It was 1763 when we left civilization to discover the very depths of the sea. Charlotte, Rose, Lois and I left the surface of the earth and sank to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a vessel we called the Blossom.

After three and a half years of building the Blossom we finally got away from the horrible world that lay just above the surface. Once under the sea, though, we found we still had some things inside the Blossom that needed to be fixed. But they were all just little things that could be fixed during our voyage. Finally we sank to the bottom and the room filled with light as blue as the sky above. Then as we went further down the light got dim and we had to turn on an artificial light.

When we were at the bottom we saw millions of creatures we had never seen before. We were all awestruck. Lucky we'd brought our cameras and drawing paper. When I glanced at Charlotte she looked amazed, so I walked over to her. Just as I was about to ask what it was she was looking at through the window I saw a large animal with stringy looking things hanging off its body. "That thing looks like jelly-jelly fish," said Rose. And we all started giggling at the thought of jelly fish. Then we saw more of them and we thought it would be cool to name the creature "jelly fish."

That whole day we had a great time exploring the floor of the ocean. It was hard to tell when it got dark on the surface so we had to use our watches. We promised ourselves that we would get a clock for the lounge when we got back to dry land. When it got late we went to bed and slept peacefully all night.

In the morning when we awoke we were floating on the surface. We all wondered how we got there? Then we finally saw that the pressure in the engine had gone down during the night and we floated back up to the surface. We stayed up there for a while and looked around with the scope we'd invented. We saw lots of land that we'd never seen before. The land was beautiful and looked like it was deserted, so we decided to go ashore and check it out.

The land turned out to be very much like some of the Alaskan cities that I'd read about. There were many green trees and lots of wild animals that roamed the forest floor. As we walked deeper and deeper into the forest we started hearing a beat that sounded like our own heart beat. When we went deeper in the forest we saw a huge clearing that was filled with Native people. "These must be the Native people of this island. Keep low, you girls," said Charlotte. Lois and Rose were giggling at the way the Natives were moving around on the ground. "Shut up you girls!" Charlotte whispered. "We're going to get caught spying, so keep quiet!" I added.

Without our knowing it a camouflaged Native sneaked up behind us and scared us. We were so scared we didn't care which way we ran to get away. "I don't want to die!," exclaimed Rose. "We aren't going to die," yelled Charlotte. "I hope not," said Lois. We ran till we thought we lost the sneaky Native, but suddenly there was a big log in our path, and we had to climb it to get over it. When we got to the top of the high log we peered down into the trees and we made sure the Native wasn't follwoing us. The land seemed like it stretched for miles. There were endless trees and the ocean looked like it had no end.

After we admired the land and ocean, we continued back to the sub. Meanwhile the tide had come up and we had to swim to get to the Blossom. Then we took it down to the bottom of the ocean floor where it was easier for Captain Rose to drive.

After going down underwater we followed a school of fish until the water got too shallow for us to move ahead anymore. When we surfaced we noticed that we were on the coast of Alaska. "That must've been an Alaskan Native village that we saw back there!" Lois shouted. "Uh... yeah," answered Charlotte. Then we all looked at a map to see where we really were. Sure enough, we were in southern Alaska where the coastal Yupiks lived. And there were so many different things there, and so many different species of fish. There were also large sea mammals that we named whales. And everything was so beautiful there. "We should stay here and meet the Natives," I said to the girls. "Maybe we could learn about their way of life and how they live off the land," I added. "That wouldn't be such a bad idea. And we could teach them new things, about the Blossom, and how to build things," Lois said.

Our final decision was to stay and live with the Natives in southern Alaska, even though their lives were as complicated as living in one of the bigger cities. After a year or so they finally accepted us into their village, and there we lived almost happier ever after.

Cheryl Hunter