XXX—THE LOCKS OF THE SAND
RIGHT away I found that Captain Holstrom knew how to “team” a crew. He started that checkerboard outfit of his to humping in good earnest after he and I had planned out the details of setting the stage for the work ahead of us.
We needed to reach as long an arm as possible toward the wreck.
Inside of four days after we planted our mud-hooks on San Apusa Bar, we had our string of lighters in place.
First we anchored them and then we linked them with one another by cables because the sandy bottom inshore from the steamer afforded poor holding-ground for the anchors. Having a number of lighters hitched together in this manner, the chain made a sort of spring cable for the lighter nearest the wreck where the scuffling surges were piling high over the shoals. The scow nearest the shore thrashed about in rather lively style, but I figured that I could do my work from it in pretty fair fashion. At any rate, by our system of cables, we planted the lighter less than three hundred feet from the upstanding ribs of the Golden Gate. It was about the best we could do, considering our limited equipment.
On the fifth day all was ready for me to go down for the first time.
Of course I had been allowed to pick my own helpers, and I had been giving them lessons for some time. I chose Mate Number-two Jones to tend hose and lines, and Chief-Engineer Shank was to manage the air-pump.
I had found them to be steady and reliable men. I owned a Heinke diving-dress which had cost me six hundred dollars, and with the right men “up-stairs” I was not worrying about my ability to get down and stay down—even if I had been off my job for a while. As to what I would be able to accomplish when I got down on ocean’s floor I was not quite so sure.
While I had been waiting for the lighters to be moored I had pumped Ingot Ike daily.