back or just out of range of the narrow field of vision 

 within my mask lurks some dreadful creature. I have 

 swung around to find nothing in sight more frightening 

 than a pair of beautiful blue-and-gold angelfish or a school 

 of curious jacks. Or perhaps nothing. At times, even then, 

 the feehng has persisted, not fading into the background 

 until my interest has been caught by the ever-engrossing 

 and exciting environment of the underwater. Now it has 

 become almost automatic, if such a feeling nudges me, to 

 take a quick look around, brush oif my forebodings, and 

 return to what is occupying me. There is too much to see 

 and do in this underwater world to waste time worrying 

 over things that might happen but seldom do. 



When Jane and Barney returned to Sea Diver for 

 lunch, they brought with them two round ballast stones 

 they had dived up from the outside of the reef which lay 

 between the one marked by the dry rock and the one 

 which we had selected for special searching because of 

 Korganoff's chart. Here was concrete evidence of the pres- 

 ence of a wrecked ship. 



We could hardly wait to explore the location further, 

 but by the time we had eaten, the wind had come up and 

 it was too rough on the outside of the reefs for us to ven- 

 ture there. Instead we spent the afternoon in following 

 the inside edges of the reefs to the north of us with both 

 the smaller boats. 



We returned to Sea Diver about the middle of the 

 afternoon and, with Reef Diver in tow, started out toward 

 the banks to seek a better anchorage for the night. There 

 was quite a sea running and we did not look forward to 

 spending the night tossing and rolling, as we were almost 

 certain would be the case. But there, at least, we would 

 have sea room in case of storm. We also looked forward to 

 finding some clean bottom where we could drop our hook 

 without getting it fouled in coral. 



Our hopes were soon dashed. What with the poorer 



264 Sea Diver 



