The Discovery

The Discovery is the first book in Gordon Korman's Dive trilogy, a young adult adventure series set in the Caribbean. The novel alternates between a present-day storyline about four teenage diving interns who uncover evidence of a centuries-old shipwreck and a historical storyline following a boy aboard a 17th-century English privateer, a privately owned ship licensed by a government to attack enemy vessels.

The novel opens with a prologue set on September 8, 1665. An explosion tears through the Griffin, a barque, or sailing vessel, laden with treasure in the Caribbean. Thirteen-year-old Samuel Higgins, the ship's boy, watches the vessel break apart and sink in under three minutes, carrying chests of coins, jewels, silver bars, pearls, and gold to the seafloor.

In the present day, Bobby Kaczinski, a teenage former hockey prodigy from Toronto who goes by Kaz, travels to the Caribbean island of Saint-Luc for a summer diving internship with the Poseidon Oceanographic Institute. He is haunted by a hockey game in which his legal body check left an opponent permanently paralyzed, and his sports agent arranged the internship to give him time away from the sport. Kaz meets fellow interns Dante Lewis, a teenage photographer also new to diving; Adriana Ballantyne, a 13-year-old from a wealthy family with minimal scuba experience; and Star Ling, a skilled snorkeler who has a mild case of cerebral palsy causing a pronounced limp on land but no limitation in the water. Tad Cutter, a young man from Poseidon, introduces himself as the dive team leader. None of the interns understand why Poseidon selected such unqualified divers.

At the institute, the self-absorbed director, Dr. Geoffrey Gallagher, shows no interest in the teens. Captain Braden Vanover, a Poseidon ship's captain, notices Cutter has abandoned the interns and volunteers to take them diving aboard his research vessel, the Hernando Cortés. Their guide, Menasce Gérard, is a local diver nicknamed "English" despite speaking French. On the first dive, a small, harmless reef shark approaches, and Kaz panics and kills it with his dive knife. Dozens of sharks swarm the carcass in a feeding frenzy, and English hauls everyone to the surface. Vanover explains the reef shark was harmless and warns them about "Clarence," an 18-foot tiger shark that has lingered near Saint-Luc for years.

Interspersed throughout are historical interludes tracing Samuel's earlier life. Kidnapped at age six by a chimney sweep in Liverpool, England, Samuel spent years as a "climbing boy," cleaning chimneys, before outgrowing the work and being cast out. Penniless, he signed on to the Griffin for a plate of stew. He serves the tyrannical Captain James Blade, who carries a snake whip with a bone handle set with a large emerald. Samuel befriends Evans, an elderly sail maker who privately confesses his hatred of Blade. When Evans tries to attack Blade in the ship's rigging, Blade strikes him, and Evans falls 100 feet to his death. Blade himself nearly falls, but Samuel catches his belt and saves the captain's life. Blade begins calling the boy "Lucky."

Back in the present, Cutter repeatedly departs on the Ponce de León before the interns can board, leaving them stranded with odd jobs. In the village, Adriana, whose uncle is a curator at the British Museum in London, notices a large, weathered wooden eagle sculpture in English's cottage window. She recognizes it as potentially centuries old and carved from oak, a wood not native to the Caribbean, meaning it was brought by ship. English refuses to discuss it; Vanover confirms the piece is tied to an old family legend that English finds embarrassing.

Following Vanover's advice, the four sleep aboard the Ponce de León so Cutter cannot leave without them. Marina Kappas, a researcher from Poseidon's San Diego office, greets them warmly. Cutter assigns the interns to tag cave openings with marker buoys. During a dive, Dante spots a sunken airplane and Star enters it, retrieving ammunition from a gun turret. Her air hose snags inside the fuselage, cutting off her supply. Kaz enters the plane, shares his regulator—the device that delivers air from his scuba tank—and frees her. On the surface, Cutter laughs and explains the plane is a Hollywood prop. Afterward, Dante nearly grabs a red-labeled tank instead of the required green-labeled one, confusing the colors. Adriana observes that Cutter's data printouts resemble readings from a magnetometer, an underwater metal detector, rather than sonar data; she recognizes them from her British Museum experience. Star realizes the cave-tagging is meaningless busywork designed to keep the interns occupied while Cutter's team scans the Hidden Shoals for something metal.

During a subsequent dive, Dante collides with a coral head after a playful dolphin encounter. Dazed, he discerns the outline of an anchor buried beneath layers of coral; his eye for shapes and textures allows him to see what others miss. He retrieves a small black disk and marks the spot. Aboard the Ponce de León, Cutter dismisses the anchor as another film prop. When Dante moves to discard the disk, Chris Reardon, a surly member of Cutter's crew, lunges to grab it.

The interns later discover the disk in Cutter's office, soaking in a chemical solution that has cleaned it to reveal a silver Spanish piece of eight, a common 17th-century coin. The interns realize Cutter recognized the coin all along and stole their find. Gallagher refuses to intervene. Dante then reveals his secret: He has color blindness, which explains his failed color photography, the tank mix-up, and his ability to perceive shapes others cannot. Star tells him his condition is a gift.

Vanover loads the interns onto the Cortés to deliver them to Cutter. En route, they hear an explosion Cutter attributes to an engine backfire. Star and Adriana dive and find a crater where Cutter's team has illegally dynamited the reef. In the rubble, they find the exposed anchor and a carved whalebone handle with the initials "JB" in old English script and a large dark stone set into it. Meanwhile, Kaz gets entangled in a fishing line attached to a massive grouper. Clarence bites the grouper in half, and Kaz sinks to the seafloor in terror. English descends in an antishark cage and rescues Kaz after a harrowing confrontation. Kaz resolves to keep diving, reasoning that a freak accident should not define him.

The evidence converges: The dynamited reef, the anchor, the coin, and the whalebone handle all point to a shipwreck buried beneath the coral. Cutter, Marina, and Reardon are not scientists but treasure hunters using their Poseidon positions as cover. The cave-tagging busywork, the magnetometer data disguised as sonar, and the selection of unqualified interns all served as a smoke screen.

In the final historical interlude, the Griffin reaches the New World after four brutal months at sea. More than half the crew has died. Samuel, having overheard sailors boasting about plundering Spanish treasure, confronts Blade, calling them pirates. Blade strikes him unconscious. York, the ship's barber, explains they are privateers authorized by the king of England with letters of marque, official licenses to attack enemy ships. On August 28, 1665, the Griffin arrives near Portobelo, the western terminus of the Spanish treasure route. York tells Samuel they have come to plunder and burn the city. The story continues in the second book of the series.