When Sea Diver returned to her labors two 

 days later, her crew very much refreshed, I did not accom- 

 pany them. I had visited a doctor in Port-au-Prince after 

 putting the boys on their plane. He had advised that I 

 should stay quietly ashore for a few days. I did not have 

 any broken ribs, as I had feared, but the tendons were 

 badly strained, and I was tightly bandaged. So I spent the 

 time at the Becks' hotel, very much irritated at my en- 

 forced idleness. 



Sea Diver's crew, meanwhile, had abandoned their 

 search of the three reefs which had originally occupied us 

 and moved on to a bank of reefs just west of them. There 

 now seemed only one thing to do, to proceed from reef 

 to reef, wherever they figured the Santa Maria might have 

 sailed, and carefully explore each one. It promised to be 

 a long and grueling task. 



There was one chance of shortening the search. Mori- 

 son had chosen the reefs we had examined after first con- 

 vincing himself that Navidad had been located on the 



Search for the Santa Maria 195 



