trip to the Bahamas with Sea Diver in March, 1953, accom- 

 panied by the retired Canadian Air Marshal, Robert Leckie, 

 and his wife, Sally, both of whom were enthusiastically in- 

 dulging in their first diving experience. 



Cay Gorda turned out to be a pretty, palm-sprinkled 

 island with a scattering of rude thatched huts facing on 

 a small, almost landlocked harbor formed by a rocky outer 

 cay. We anchored Sea Diver offshore and approached the 

 settlement in the glass-bottomed boat, not wishing to risk 

 putting the larger boat aground in the narrow entrance. 

 We found only a fisherman, his wife and two children on 

 the island. They explained that no one lived on Cay Gorda 

 any more; that they and some of the other villagers from 

 nearby Sandy Point used the island to raise some small 

 crops and occasionally spent a few days there cultivating 

 their gardens. The man knew of the ballast we were seek- 

 ing and obligingly skulled us to its location in his heavy 

 native skiff. 



It lay only a few hundred feet beyond the southern 

 entrance to the harbor, in water of not more than two 

 fathoms, just at the edge of a shelf where the bottom 

 dropped off sharply into much deeper water. Through the 

 fisherman's glass bucket we took turns looking at the bal- 

 last, which lay in a scattered pile on the bottom. It seemed 

 likely that some of these irregular shapes might turn out 

 to be silver. Without a detector, how could Art and Charlie 

 have been sure that they had retrieved all of the valuable 

 bullion? 



We decided to return to Sea Diver and bring her in 

 where we could anchor her close to the ballast pile. 



"This should be easy," Ed said hopefully, as he guided 

 the vessel toward the yellow buoy which we had left to 

 mark the spot. "When I turn the metal detector on that 

 pile of rocks, it will soon tell us whether or not there is 

 any silver left there." 



134 Sea Diver 



