As long as I lived I doubted that I'd ever find better tasting water than this.
Matt had been one bubbly being of discovery once we had pulled free of the coral reefs. He was fascinated by the water of the lagoon as much as I was. How did one get fresh water in the middle of the sea?
It wasn't just any freshwater either. It was the best tasting water I'd ever had and I actually felt like I was better off physically since I'd been drinking it.
"It's not methane that's for sure." Matt said introspectively.
"What's not methane?" I asked.
Matt glanced up, "The bubbles in the water. I've seen water bubble like this before in the Gulf of Mexico, but there it was because of methane gas escaping from pockets in the ocean floor. If all these bubbles were methane if someone so much as started a fire the whole lagoon would go up like a fireworks factory."
"What is it then? What's causing the bubbles?" I asked.
"I think its oxygen Eli, believe it or not. It's like a big fish tank with highly oxygenated water. Perhaps that's how people manage to survive without breathing regular air when they're in it."
"Why is it so pure and sweet when we're surrounded by a sea as salty as the one topside?" Jim asked.
Matt turned to him and said, "It's a matter of pressure concentration really. The same thing happens with the Amazon River in South America. The pressure of the freshwater flowing outward pushes the saltwater back. It's possible to still drink fresh water from the sea two hundred miles off the coast of Brazil at where the Amazon River flows into the Atlantic. Here I imagine the coral reefs help keep the salinity of the sea at bay as well. As to the water's sweetness I think it's high in pH value, which might mean that it's circulated and purified through metal deposits below that raise the pH level of the water."
"Don't those expensive water treatment systems you can buy topside rely on platinum for their purification?" I asked speculatively.
Matt grinned big, "Yes they do and it's a good guess that the Earth's core is made up of such metallic metals and alloys. Who knows if we do get a chance to get out of here we might leave as wealthy as kings after all. Platinum brings more than gold on the market." Matt finished with exuberance.
I didn't really care about the possibility of a lucrative trade in platinum or some other rare metal or mineral. In fact I really didn't care to return to the surface with all its technological chaos and lack of positive virtues at all.