Pacific Vortex!
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''Pacific Vortex!'' is an
adventure novel Adventure fiction is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the literary definition of romance fiction. History In the Introduction to the ''Encycloped ...
by
Clive Cussler Clive Eric Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached ''The New York Times'' fiction best-seller list m ...
. Though not the first book to be released featuring the author's primary protagonist,
Dirk Pitt Dirk Pitt is a fictional character created by American novelist Clive Cussler and featured in a series of novels published from 1976 to 2021. Pitt is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of pulp magazine icon Doc Savage. Pitt is a citizen of the ...
, Cussler states that this was the earliest story he wrote starring the popular action hero. Begun in 1965, it was published in 1983 after much internal debate and a great deal of prompting from his friends, family, and publisher. Cussler states in the foreword that he feels the novel is not up to his usual standards and should be treated as a sort of historical curiosity.


Explanation of the novel's title

The "Pacific Vortex" is the name given to a fictional area of the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu that, similar to the Bermuda Triangle, has a history of ships mysteriously disappearing in it.


Plot introduction

Dirk Pitt is enjoying a lazy day on a secluded
Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O ...
beach at Ka'ena Point when he spots a bright yellow container just past the breakers. Braving the dangerous
riptides The Riptides were an Australian power pop group which was formed in Brisbane, Queensland in 1977 as The Grudge. Their founding mainstay was Mark Callaghan on lead vocals, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and as principal songwriter. Former member M ...
, Pitt swims out and retrieves the item and finds that it is a communication capsule used by submarines which wish to communicate with ships on the surface without surfacing themselves. Inside he finds a chilling message from the commander of the U.S. Navy's latest nuclear submarine, the ''Starbuck'', which disappeared with all hands six months earlier while undergoing sea trials. Investigation reveals that the submarine disappeared in the "Pacific Vortex", an area of the ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands where ships have been disappearing for more than 30 years.


Plot summary

After discovering a communication capsule from the lost submarine ''Starbuck'', Dirk Pitt is seconded from NUMA to the 101st Salvage Fleet and ordered to help get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance of the top-secret submarine. Pitt discovers that the submarine went missing in an area of the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu nicknamed the "Pacific Vortex". Similar in its mysterious reputation to the Bermuda Triangle, the Navy has documented 37 cases of ships vanishing without a trace with all hands in this area of the Pacific since 1956. When the ''Starbuck'' originally went missing, the Navy conducted a massive and exhaustive search in the area of the Pacific where the submarine was last reported without finding a trace of wreckage. Pitt determines that it is suspicious that the Navy found no wreckage whatsoever, since the search pattern took them over the area that was reputedly the graveyard of the Pacific Vortex. Even if they did not find the wreckage of the submarine, they should have found some wreckage from any of the 38 ships rumored to have gone down in the area. While doing research in an ongoing hobby effort to find the royal tomb of Hawaiian King Kamehameha, Pitt learns of the mythical island of Kanoli rumored to have existed north of the current Hawaiian Islands, and similar to the lost continent of
Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and '' Critias'', wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that b ...
, rumored to have sunk into the sea killing the race of men who lived there. Pitt intuits that the Navy has been searching in the wrong direction and that they should turn around and concentrate their search for a sunken seamount in the area just north of the island of Oahu. Pitt eventually discovers that in 1956 three respected men of science, Drs. Lavella and Roblemann, specialists in various areas of underwater science, and the renowned Dr. Frederick Moran met their deaths in the same area of the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
. It is revealed that Moran, a renowned anthropologist and pacifist, who believes that it is only a matter of time before the human race destroys itself with the atomic bomb, has been searching for a place where he and his followers can survive the coming Apocalypse. Pitt believes that Moran and his followers discovered the sunken seamount that was once the island of Kanoli and have been using it as a base to raid Pacific shipping for the last 30 years as a means of financing their project. When Pitt finds the sunken submarine in good condition, he determines that it cannot be immediately raised and also reveals the existence of the sunken fortress of Kanoli. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
in Washington, DC elect to destroy the submarine with a nuclear tipped missile in an effort to ensure that its top secret design and nuclear missiles do not fall into the hands of Moran, the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
or any other nation. In an effort to stave off the attack, Moran kidnaps Adrienne Hunter, a previous love interest of Pitt and the daughter of the commander of the 101st Salvage Fleet, Admiral Leigh Hunter. When Pitt discovers that Admiral Hunter will not tell Washington about the kidnapping of his daughter in order to delay the attack, he mounts a last-minute desperate rescue operation intending to personally rescue Adrienne and, using a team of submariners and SEALs, recover the submarine as well.


Characters in ''Pacific Vortex!''

* Lt. Commander Paul Boland - The 101st Fleet’s executive officer and commander of the salvage ship ''Martha Ann''. * Captain Orl Cinana - The officer in command of the fleet of salvage ships. The captain was having a secret affair with Adrienne Hunter, which enabled Frederick Moran, otherwise known as Delphi, to blackmail Cinana into spying for Delphi's cause. * Commander Burdette Denver - Aide to Admiral Hunter and cousin of
Rudi Gunn Rudi, born Albert Rudolph (January 24, 1928 – February 21, 1973), also known as Swami Rudrananda, was born in Brooklyn, New York. Rudi was a spiritual teacher and an antiquities entrepreneur in New York City.Swami Rudrananda udi ''Spir ...
of
NUMA Nuclear mitotic apparatus protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''NUMA1'' gene. Interactions Nuclear mitotic apparatus protein 1 has been shown to interact with PIM1, Band 4.1, GPSM2 G-protein-signaling modulator 2, also call ...
. *Commander Felix Dupree - Captain of the top-secret prototype nuclear submarine USS ''Starbuck''. *
Al Giordino AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...
– Assistant Special Projects Director for NUMA. * Adrienne Hunter - Daughter of Admiral Hunter and old romantic liaison of Dirk Pitt's. * Admiral Leigh Hunter - Commander of the 101st Salvage Fleet, assigned the task of undercover recovery missions for the U.S. Navy. * Dr. Lavella - A prominent physicist and follower of Dr. Frederick Moran who specialized in the science of
hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is call ...
and helped make the colonization of the seamount possible. *Frederick Moran (Delphi) - Described as a giant of a man over 6'8" tall with hypnotic yellow eyes, Moran is the father of Summer Moran and the son of Dr. Frederick Moran, the original discoverer and colonizer of the seamount Kanoli. Moran's father was known as the Oracle of Psychic Unity, who as one of the century's great classical anthropologists advocated the theory that the human mind would be the crucial factor in man's eventual extinction. Moran the younger assumes the identity of his father becoming known as Delphi or the Oracle of Delphi. * Summer Moran - A beautiful young woman in her 20s with blazing red hair, Summer Moran is the daughter of Delphi, otherwise known as Frederick Moran. She mistakenly attempted to abduct and assassinate Dirk Pitt, but later discovered that she had romantic feelings toward him and was instrumental in saving Pitt's life several times. Summer apparently perishes at the end of their adventures at the Kanoli seamount. However, it is revealed in '' Valhalla Rising'', set approximately twenty-three years later, that Dirk Pitt and Summer had an assignation sometime during the events of ''Pacific Vortex!'' that led to Summer becoming pregnant and giving birth to fraternal twins Dirk and Summer Pitt, named after their father and mother respectively. *
Dirk Pitt Dirk Pitt is a fictional character created by American novelist Clive Cussler and featured in a series of novels published from 1976 to 2021. Pitt is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of pulp magazine icon Doc Savage. Pitt is a citizen of the ...
– Special Projects Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) *George Papaaloa - Director of the Bernice Pauahi Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. He has been encouraging Pitt to search for the tomb of the Hawaiian King Kamehameha, who is rumored to have been buried in an underwater cave. He tells Dirk Pitt of the myth of the island of Kanoli rumored to be located to the north of the main Hawaiian Islands. *Dr. Roblemann - A renowned surgeon and follower of Dr. Frederick Moran, who was experimenting on a mechanical gill system so humans would be able to absorb oxygen from water. *
Admiral James Sandecker Dirk Pitt is a fictional character created by American novelist Clive Cussler and featured in a series of novels published from 1976 to 2021. Pitt is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of pulp magazine icon Doc Savage. Pitt is a citizen of the ...
– Chief Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency.


Allusions/references to other works

''
Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
'' by
Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...
is briefly referenced in relation to its having been based loosely on the sinking of the whale ship ''Essex'', the only known ship to have been sunk by a whale. And Delphi Moran's eye color is an allusion/homage to the crypto-genealogy of the
Wold Newton Universe The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of Fictional crossovers, crossover fiction developed by the American science fiction writer Philip José Farmer. Origins In real life a meteorite, called the Wold Cottage meteorit ...
, more specifically
Doc Savage Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Real name Clark Savage Jr., he is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who "rights w ...
and Citizen Chauvelin.


Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science

While discussing the history of the Pacific Ocean as an ocean that rarely gives up its secrets and has claimed its fair share of ships the author briefly references a number of historical events, including: the mutiny on the
Bounty Bounty or bounties commonly refers to: * Bounty (reward), an amount of money or other reward offered by an organization for a specific task done with a person or thing Bounty or bounties may also refer to: Geography * Bounty, Saskatchewan, a g ...
and the stranding of
Fletcher Christian Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS ''Bounty'' during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the ''Bounty'', Christian se ...
on Pitcairn Island; the sinking of ''Essex'', the loss of the United States submarines USS ''Thresher'', USS ''Bluefin'', and USS ''Scorpion''; and the raising of the submarine ''F-4'' off the mouth of
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...
in 1915. Though it is not directly referenced in ''Pacific Vortex!'', portions of the plot dealing with a secret salvage ship designed covertly to recover both US and enemy sunken submarines and other vessels bears a striking similarity to the real-life ship ''
Glomar Explorer ''GSF Explorer'', formerly USNS ''Hughes Glomar Explorer'' (T-AG-193), was a deep-sea drillship platform built for Project Azorian, the secret 1974 effort by the United States Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division to recove ...
''.
Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
built ''Glomar Explorer'' under contract to the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
for the express purpose of secretly raising the Soviet submarine
K-129 ''K-129'' (Russian: К–129) was a Project 629A (Russian: проект 629А ''Projekt 629A'', NATO reporting name Golf II–class) diesel-electric- powered ballistic-missile submarine that served in the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy ...
in an operation known as
Project Azorian Project Azorian (also called "Jennifer" by the press after its Classified information in the United States#Top Secret, Top Secret Security Collateral clearance, Compartment) was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sun ...
. Since the exact date that the author wrote ''Pacific Vortex!''In the foreword to the reprint edition of ''The Mediterranean Caper'' the author states that he started writing what would become ''Pacific Vortex!'' in 1965: (''Pacific Vortex!'', Simon & Schuster reprint edition, 1996; p. 7) is unknown, it is difficult to know whether this is a coincidence or whether the author based this portion of the book on real-life events which were revealed in a ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' article in 1975.


US release details

*1983, United States, Bantam Books, , 1983, Paperback *1984, United States, Bantam Books (reissue), , July 1, 1984, Paperback *1988, United States, Time Warner Paperbacks, , January 1, 1988, Paperback. *2000, United States, James Cahill Publishing (Limited Trade Edition) , December 2000, Hardcover.


Note and references

The 1965 text was revised in places for the 1983 publication. {{Clive Cussler 1983 American novels Dirk Pitt novels Novels set in Hawaii