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us with the same dire fate that a similar squall, just a few 
months before, had meted out to an older and larger schooner 
now piled up with broken back on the shoals between our insecure 
anchorage and the shore. 
"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good." This rather 
violent squall got us under way for Espiritu Santo and Ascension 
Bays with more expedition than we had previously thought possible. 
From an inspection of the Hydrographic Office charts we selected 
these bays as promising collection grounds for the next two 
weeks. On this occasion, however, we could only briefly 
reconnoiter them. On arrival at Espiritu Santo, the captain 
came to us with what he called a "problem, "--virtually empty 
fuel tanks! There was nothing left but to hasten back. We 
We were able, nevertheless, to see enough of both bays to agree 
with Dr. Daiber that Ascension Bay was the better place to pursue 
hisecologic study of a mangrove swamp. 
So good did the weather prove to be on this unscheduled 
return to Cozumel that we tried to make the most of it. After 
refuelling on April 8, we ran up to have a look at the extensive 
bank off the north end of the island, an exposed, indifferently 
charted area that the captain had been fearful of tackling before. 
Finding a favorable anchorage in those coral "infested” 
waters calls for an alert lookout. Too late did ours, perched 
up on the foremast, call down that we were hard upon a huge coral 
head too near the surface for a vessel drawing 9 feet to clear. 
Despite the helmsman's most strenuous efforts, the port bow 
