we had discovered one morning when Ed set out with 

 Jane and Barney to fly over the wreck sites on which they 

 had been diving at Delta shoal and Looe key. 



It was a calm, lovely day, and it seemed very possible 

 that beneath the mirrorlike surface they might detect 

 evidence which had hitherto escaped their search. The 

 brown shadows of the reefs showed up in distinct patterns 

 beneath the turquoise blue of the surrounding waters. 



They flew low over the two locations near Sombrero 

 light, quickly spotting the bottle markers they had left 

 floating to identify them. There were no reefs near the 

 surface at either of these places, and they found it impos- 

 sible to see the cannon they had been diving on twenty- 

 five feet beneath the surface. 



Swinging the plane southwest, parallel to Seven Mile 

 bridge and Bahia Honda bridge, they flew toward Ameri- 

 can Shoals light, twenty miles beyond, searching the water 

 as they went for the pole marker which indicated Looe 

 key. At last the reef appeared beneath them, the jagged 

 coral fingers of its seaward side standing out plainly as 

 they viewed it from the air. 



Upon the surface, between two of these fingers, they 

 saw a small boat, probably a fishing boat, for none of our 

 party had planned to dive there that day. They had 

 worked until well after sunset the previous night to raise 

 a cannon from the Looe and tow it back to Marathon. 

 Because of the dark, Ed had been forced to abandon one 

 of Blue Heron's anchors, which had caught in the bottom 

 coral. Now he looked for the buoy which he had left to 

 mark it. 



Then he realized that the fishing boat was on the 

 wreck site. Circling the reef as he lost altitude, in order 

 to have a better look at the area, he suddenly compre- 

 hended that the two men in the fishing boat were engaged 

 in pulhng up the long nylon line which he had left at- 



32 Sea Diver 



