shortly after our return to Florida in Feb- 

 ruary, 1953, we made our first dive on a wreck which, even 

 today, after several years of exploring, still stands out in 

 my mind as the most picturesque, the richest and most 

 interesting of all the old wrecks near the Florida keys 

 which it has been our privilege to investigate. 



Although our efforts of the previous year had pro- 

 duced relatively little in actual articles recovered, or even 

 in wrecks discovered, we had added a great deal to our 

 knowledge. We felt that we now knew how to go about 

 locating the elusive remains of long-sunken ships. Once 

 having found them, we certainly had improved our tech- 

 niques of salvaging them. These things we had learned 

 mostly by trial and error, always an expensive procedure 

 in both time and equipment, but there were no textbooks 

 to enlighten us on the subject. 



We had also learned enough about the weather to 

 realize that it is impossible to prognosticate what may be 

 expected. We had been harried with strong winds from 



76 Sea Diver 



