After many days of fruitless search, hampered by the 

 rough seas, we decided to head south by way of the Tongue 

 of the Ocean for the poorly charted and almost unknown 

 banks south of Andros. Here we hoped to come upon two 

 wrecks which Kemp advocated enthusiastically. We had 

 only to follow the directions which he had obtained from 

 a Curly cay fisherman, he assured us, to cast our anchor 

 beside the cannon which distinguished them. 



It was a long trip to this area, and we spent the first 

 night at Fresh creek, halfway down Andros, so as to arrive 

 at our goal with plenty of daylight left to find an anchor- 

 age. It was well that we did, for upon our arrival the fol- 

 lowing afternoon we found our chart was useless. Once 

 inside the banks we would not have dared to move had it 

 not been for Kemp's careful piloting. 



There followed several days of picking a route for 

 Sea Diver through a maze of coral heads, and of searching 

 without success for the cannon which were supposed to 

 mark the two wrecks. We spent one frightening night 

 among the reefs while thunderstorms, one after another, 

 raged past us with winds up to forty knots threatening 

 to tear us from our anchorage. 



During our sojourn on this remote spot, Ed and I took 

 time to indulge ourselves in some fascinating hours of 

 diving upon bottom which we were sure had never be- 

 fore been explored. We raided shallow beds of finger coral, 

 spreading the smelly stuff all over Sea Diver's upper decks 

 to bleach. Ed dived up quantities of conch and crawfish, 

 which abounded on the banks, while Vital and Kemp 

 amused themselves by filling the freezer with a limitless 

 variety of fish which they had caught from the small boat. 



Then we headed for Nassau. We had found no trace 

 of wreckage, although we had followed every clue. At 

 Nassau we spent considerable time tied up at our dock, for 

 the winds blew almost continuously for weeks. Once word 



The Bahama Islands 131 



