away on the barren, sandy shore. It was this httle fishing 

 village which Morison had picked as being close to the 

 original site of Navidad. Others beheved, however, that 

 Columbus's settlement had been part of an Indian village 

 inland, probably on the banks of one of the rivers which 

 emptied into the harbor. The shore was too far away to 

 make out any details, but I resolved to investigate it more 

 closely before we had completed our search for Santa 

 Maria. 



Reef Diver had by now returned from her preliminary 

 survey. As she came alongside, Bill climbed aboard, and 

 Clayton and I quicldy dropped from the rail into the 

 smaller boat. We wasted no time, but headed once more 

 toward the reefs, for the sea was becoming constantly 

 rougher. 



Ed and Captain Weems had tired of staring through 

 the glass bottom, so Clayton and I took over the watching 

 posts in the cabin, stretching ourselves upon our stomachs 

 on the airf oam bunks to gaze down through the glass panels 

 in the bow. I found that the sea bottom on these north 

 Haitian reefs had a character all its own. The clean white 

 sand to which we had become accustomed in the Florida 

 keys and the Bahamas was missing. In its place was a hard- 

 looking composition, almost covered with clumps of kelp 

 and grass. I saw large clumps of stag coral towering from 

 the lowest deptlis, tangles of finer coral forming hiding 

 places for brilliant small fish which darted in and out, and 

 the usual yellow and purple sea fans and Gorgonia. There 

 were no big fish, which surprised me, and only a few small 

 grouper and blue parrot fish. Clayton caught a glimpse of 

 a leopard ray and a small barracuda, just before he turned 

 over his watching post to Captain Weems. 



That morning, on our way from Cap Haitien, we had 

 reviewed what we might find of Santa Maria's remains by 

 means of this surface scanning. Long ago the ship's tim- 



184 Sea Diver 



