The New York water was dotted with foam cups and cigarettes, its surface splotched with oil and a broken umbrella, but Richie could hardly believe the beauty beneath the surface—horseshoe crabs crawled by, minnows darted, and a jellyfish drifted past on the current—and as he moved about this place where human beings were not supposed to go, where the U-boats had glided under the noses of the world, he understood that he had penetrated another realm, that he had made that astronaut leap for which he had always yearned.
