dinner there was talk of setting an anchor watch, but 

 nothing was done about it. We all went to bed vaguely 

 worried. 



Barney and Jane, in the forward cabin, found it im- 

 possible to sleep because of the din made by the rattle of 

 the rudder chains and the jerking of the boat against 

 the anchor line. They finally sought refuge on the wide 

 seat of the afterdeck, where they slept until dawn brought 

 the usual thunderstorm, which drove them below decks 

 once more. There was a splendid display of pyrotechnics 

 from the blackened sky. The galelike winds drove the rain 

 in sheets across the decks, and Sea Diver reeled drunkenly 

 in the disturbed seas. Then, suddenly, it was over; the 

 wind went down and the sea immediately calmed. 



Two hours later, when we effortlessly released our 

 hne from the buoy and set out for the reef harbor, where 

 we tied up, equally without effort, to the buoy we had 

 left there, we congratulated ourselves that we had at last 

 solved our anchorage problems. 



The next day was most satisfying. That morning I 

 lay face down on one of the bunks in Reef Diver, Glenn 

 on the other, gazing through the glass bottom at the reefs 

 below as we searched for further evidence of the ship 

 whose ballast we had found. Kemp, with his keen Ba- 

 hamian eyes, perched on top of the cabin, scanning 

 through the water to the bottom, while Ed expertly guided 

 the boat around the edges and then across the surface of 

 the reefs wherever the water was suflBciently deep, for 

 today there was not a ripple. The sea was heavenly calm. 



Suddenly I glimpsed an anchor. But we were past it 

 before I could shout, "Stop, stop!" Glenn, too, had briefly 

 seen its ring from his side of the boat. Ed threw Reef 

 Diver into reverse, and we were over it. 



It lay on a flat shelf of the reef about thirty feet 



The Silver Shoals 269 



