to investigate further. After all, one could pick no more 

 risky a spot in the whole hemisphere, for the wreck lay 

 in a forty-mile-square area of reefs far from any land. I was 

 content to speculate and to dream. 



Now, however, if we were to take Sea Diver to Turks 

 island, where Verhoog believed Columbus had seen a light 

 just prior to his discovery of San Salvador, it seemed rea- 

 sonable to include a trip to the Silver shoals, only a hun- 

 dred miles beyond. 



By the summer of 1954 our plans were pretty well set. 

 We would begin our expedition by searching for the Santa 

 Maria at Cap Haitien. From there we would go to the 

 Silver shoals, some 150 miles to the northeast. With this 

 phase of our trip completed by early summer, we would 

 head for Turks island and the Caicos to investigate the 

 possible Columbus routes. We expected to spend several 

 months in these three enterprises, varying the time spent 

 on each according to our findings. 



Ed and I found ourselves swamped with correspond- 

 ence in regard to the three projects — with Mendel Peter- 

 son at the Smithsonian, with Captain Weems, the Criles, 

 and the dozens of other candidates who hoped to join us 

 at various times. There was an exchange of letters with 

 o£Bcials in the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Repubhc, 

 and arrangements to be made for caches of fuel oil for 

 Sea Diver and special aviation gasoline for the Widgeon, 

 which Ed intended to have available to aid in our searches. 



We corresponded with Captain Verhoog and Dr. Mori- 

 son in order to clarify questions which arose as to points 

 in their theories of Columbus's route. We were swamped 

 with requests for information about our plans from maga- 

 zines and newspapers. And in our spare time we continued 

 to hunt out every last bit of material we could find in regard 

 to all three subjects. 



I was surprised to learn that we were going into an 



146 Sea Diver 



