In clear water the anchor could easily have been spotted 

 from the surface and picked up by a fisherman as a weight 

 for his fishing trap, then brought to the reefs we had 

 searched, which were hard coral rising from a hard bottom 

 with scarcely a trace of sand. This shoal nearer shore, on 

 the other hand, while it might contain coral rock, was 

 largely composed of sand and mud from the river mouth. 



We continued to study all the material we could get 

 our hands on. It seemed more and more plausible that 

 what was left of the Santa Maria might be buried in 

 this shoal which we had failed to investigate. Of one thing 

 we were convinced: the ship had not gone down on any 

 of the reefs we had originally explored. 



It seemed a shame that this possible solution had not 

 occurred to us sooner. But that is the way with any kind 

 of research. It is only by eliminating the false assumptions 

 and carefully following every new clue that progress is 

 made. We looked forward eagerly to investigating this 

 new lead when we once again returned to Cap Haitien, 

 for our finding of the anchor had convinced us that some- 

 day the remains of the Santa Maria would also be found. 



228 Sea Diver 



