What they needed, Ed said, was an air lift. Then they 

 could suck the sand up to the surface through a big pipe 

 and redeposit it at a safe distance from the scene of opera- 

 tions. With this device they could successfully remove the 

 sand from around the wreck and at the same time uncover 

 whatever objects were buried there. If they put a screen 

 across the mouth of the pipe, it would prevent it from clog- 

 ging and also keep any object but the smallest from being 

 carried away. These small pieces could be salvaged as they 

 emerged from the far end. 



But wouldn't it take a very special piece of equipment 

 to operate such a contrivance, I asked? 



Yes, Ed said, it would take a powerful compressor to 

 do the job. There was room for one in the lazaret of Sea 

 Diver, and he intended to have one installed before we re- 

 turned the following year. 



I loved to watch the men at work on the wreck as I 

 floated by the hour on tlie surface above them, a face mask 

 covering my eyes and nose. I became so engrossed at times 

 that I would suddenly find myself in the very uncom- 

 fortable situation of being completely out of air. Frequent 

 experience of this sort of thing finally trained me to long in- 

 tervals of holding my breath, for I would almost rather have 

 strangled than turn my head for a gulp of air just as some 

 fascinating object was being uncovered down below. 



Occasionally my view would be obscured by one of the 

 great columns of bubbles which rose obliquely from the 

 masks of the divers beneath me, causing my skin to prickle 

 wherever the little pockets of air burst against it. And 

 often the clouds of sediment stirred up by the jetting hoses 

 blotted out the entire scene from my sight if tlie tidal cur- 

 rents were not moving swiftly enough to carry it away. 



While Pete and Ed, in Desco face masks and swim 

 trunks, looked like ordinary mortals on the bottom. Art, in 

 his heavy iron helmet and long-sleeved black sweater, ap- 



92 Sea Diver 



