I N A G U A 



"You bet," his letter said. "When do we start?" Hurriedly I 

 wound up my Haitian vacation and returned to the United 

 States. 



Back in America the scheme did not seem so easy. Financing 

 the project was the most difficult problem. For weeks and 

 months we scrimped and saved, putting away a few dollars 

 here, a few more there, until we thought we had enough. There 

 were contacts to be made, arrangements with the museum to 

 bring to completion, endless discussion about the scientific 

 problems to be undertaken, how these problems had best be 

 approached and correlated. There were nightly scannings of 

 charts, mappings of itinerary, reminding us of the days long 

 past when we had done the same thing in imagination. 



Practical consideration of the problems involved, including 

 those of finance, soon convinced us that ours was to be a small 

 expedition. We could not afford a yacht nor could we pay a 

 crew to man it. The needs of our research program demanded 

 that we should be able to slip into little coves and harbors 

 closed to ships of deep draught. It was essential in order to 

 carry out this program that we utilize the smallest vessel com- 

 patible with the task in hand. 



Such is the driving power of dreams that in due time we 

 found ourselves with a snug little sailing ship, the backing of 

 a great museum and an appaUing sense of what we had started. 

 But it was not as simple as that. A year and a half slipped by 

 before we even found our ship. We did not just pick her up— 

 our boat had to fill too many specifications. We needed a ship 

 that would be seaworthy, staunch and sturdy. We had to have 

 room in which to live and work in comfort; we had to be able 

 to carry provisions and water for long periods so as to be inde- 

 pendent regardless of location; we had to have a ship that could 

 be sailed in any weather by one man, if necessary. Such a boat 

 was not easy to find. We scouted all over our home waters, 



