Hubris—it’s a terrible thing.

Just when you thought you knew everything… back to the research drawing board you go.

I’m a big fan of research. Heck, I was student library president in high school. I have a degree in history, and I spent forty years in the law biz writing pleadings and briefs. If you need a factoid and it exists in the real world, I’ll find it. I am also available to track people, and pets… wait – that’s another blog . Last month, I wrote about the joy and familiarity of writing the fourth book in the Hayden Kent series. Hayden and I have been friends since 2012 when we met during NANOWRIMO. Because I created her, I thought I knew most everything about her. That would be boring. I’m glad she still has some surprises up her dive skin. It’s the surprises in her dive sites that confound me.

I became a certified diver in 1971. It was easier then, lots of science, but less stuff to wear. Most of the “old” wrecks I write about were sunk to become artificial reefs after I certified. They were intact when I first dove them. Hurricane George broke the Eagle in two. Hurricane Dennis moved The Spiegel Grove from her starboard side to her keel. Death by Blue Water features a wreck called the Humbolt. She’s the fictitious stand in for the Thunderbolt. I last dove her in 2005, before Wilma, Irma, and Ian struck the middle Keys. I needed to know what she looks like today. She’s a featured player in my current work in process, Death by Deception.

Photo by Karl Callwood via Unsplash

The last time I dove her, several fire coral covered toilets littered her decks. How they got there confounds me. It’s eighty feet from the surface to the deck. I suspect nets and ropes were involved, but no one’s talking. Then there’s the fire coral. It’s yellow. Colors disappear at depth. Yellow is one of the first to go. Many an unsuspecting tourist diver posed on those potties, to the amusement of the locals. The wreck also boasted a full-size plastic skeleton in the wheelhouse that was regularly repositioned and replaced. The last time I saw him, he lounged in the corner on a toilet. Divers love a good joke. I wondered how the two goliath groupers that frequented the wreck felt about him.

Thunderbolt was sunk in 1986 as part of the artificial reef program, but finding it was never a straightforward task. You needed accurate GPS numbers and someone willing to dive to the submerged mooring barrel carrying a bowline with a spring hook. The fire coral encrusted barrel rested fifteen feet below the surface, so hooking up was a delicate venture. Things didn’t get easier after that. Fish hooks lost by anglers studded the descent line from the barrel to the wreck. The dive was worth the risk. That, as my husband likes to say, was then. This is now.

I’m living in Maine these days. No opportunity to hop off a boat and do a quick check dive on the ‘Bolt. Instead, I checked my facts the way any sensible writer would do. YouTube videos. Good thing I wasn’t underwater. My mouth hung open for most of the reel. Toilets – gone. Skeleton – gone. In 2023, a dive club undertook cleaning up the wreck. They hauled all that stuff to the surface. Even the mooring barrel was gone. Replaced with two mooring balls resting twenty feet down. It was a relief to see the two goliath groupers still in residence. Details matter in fiction. I have over a hundred dives on the Thunderbolt, but none of them are current. Without research, so many of these details would have disappeared, just like the yellow of fire coral.

I’m not a proponent of write what you know. I am a proponent of trust, then verify. Even if I’m double checking my own memories to bring them into the present day.

Writers, how do you research places you aren’t able to visit? Readers, do errors affect your enjoyment of a story?

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Sisters in Crime New England. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter.