Chapter 790 The Struggles of an Ama (2/2)

While Hans was busy being a righteous man, Li Du was busy getting ready to go into the sea to search for black gold abalones.

The level of the sea surrounding Tasmania and King Island began decreasing rapidly on the night of Li Du's return to King Island.

While standing atop a rock on the island's shore, Li Du and the others looked ahead and watched the sea level gradually decrease, as though an invisible giant was draining the seawater.

After waking up once the sun rose on the second day, they walked to the harbor to have a look. In one night, the sea level there had already decreased by a huge amount.

The decrease in the sea level by the shoreline a bit farther away was much more obvious. With the shoreline having retreated such a long distance, large sections of reefs and the seabed were exposed, and there were seaweeds and seagrass every three to five steps on the shore.

There were lots of small fish, prawns, and crabs left behind on the shore that had not managed retreat in time.

Since the small crabs were still able to survive and move about on land, they were fine and were running amok on the shore.

The small prawns and fish were worse off. Unless they were lucky enough to be in a puddle where they could wait for the sea level to rise, they were pretty much fated to die under the scorching hot sun.

There were also some sea turtles on the shore, including some leatherback sea turtles that the department of fishing and hunting were monitoring. Those leatherback sea turtles were astonishingly huge, and some were even as big as a dinner table.

In addition, there was a large number of enormous black gold abalones among those that were on some of the exposed reefs.

Those were the treasures that harvesters were going after. Since the decrease in the sea level had exposed the seabed, harvesting black gold abalone was much easier than normal, so everyone would be racing against the clock to harvest them.

There was a unique term for this period of harvesting black gold abalone: the ebb war.

Black gold abalone harvesters were among the earliest to enter the sea. Subsequently, while carrying baskets and dragging bags, the tourists and residents on King Island also came over to the shore one after another to search for valuable seafood.

Soon after, officers from the department of fishing and hunting hurried over to prevent people from damaging the exposed coral and picking up protected marine animals.

At the same time, the officers also had to warn the crowd to be careful of the sea snakes and poisonous jellyfish that were left behind on the shore after the tide had subsided. Due to the change in environment, the sea snakes were extremely aggressive.

As the residents on the island were more experienced, they had prepared highly reinforced rubber rafts in advance.

Due to the shore having lots of mud pits after the tide had subsided, walking on the shore was very dangerous. In order to avoid sinking into a mud pit, one had to travel in rubber rafts to distribute the pressure they were exerting on the shore.

As Li Du and his group had not made the necessary preparations, they could only stand next to the sea and watch.

Having been through many ebb wars, the other black gold abalone harvesters were well-prepared. Not only did they prepare rubber rafts, they had also prepared various tools, such as iron hooks and forks, that were suitable for use in a variety of environments and for harvesting a variety of seafood.

Evidently, besides harvesting black gold abalone, the harvesters were also harvesting other valuable seafood.

Cruz showed up, and seeing Li Du and his group standing on the harbor, he asked curiously, ”Why are you guys standing here? Quickly go down and find the black gold abalones that have emerged on the shore first.”

Li Du laughed bitterly. ”I didn't prepare the right tools. I was prepared to dive straight into the sea.”

Cruz asked helplessly, ”You didn't make any preparations after I informed you? You came empty handed?”

”Yeah.”

”Great!”

Unable to help them, Cruz could only wave his hand and say, ”I have to go. As you know, the sea levels won't remain low for long and will start rising in the afternoon. This period is very precious. I have to grab hold of it. Bye.”

Li Du waved his hand and said, ”We should go, too. Let's go out to sea.”

When Li Du and his group were about to leave, Hans came over with the ama, whose name he had discovered was actually Christie. Both Hans and Christie drove over in a pick-up truck that had a few large inner tubes in its cargo compartment.