A GIRL DIVER

Hokitika Guardian, 29 December 1920, Page 3

A GIRL DIVER

SEARCH FOR SUNKEN TREASURE,

WEIRD BUT FASCINATING LIFE.

Diving for sunken treasure is not a life that a nervous girl ought to take up, for when one goes into the vasty deops tbero are sights to bo seen that might make even the stoutest heart quail. I took to the life just because I have a deep-seated love of adventure in me (writes Miss May Naylor, the only girl diver, in the Glasgow ‘(.Weekly Record”), and I wanted to see what it was like to go down among the dead men in “Davy Jones’s locker.”

I cannot say that my first experience was as satisfactory as I thought it was going to be, and when I got down into tlie depths I rather wished I was on top again, but after the first sensations pass away one gets used to it, and there is always a certain amount of joy and fascination in searching about among such strange surroundings.

The sensation of walking about on the bed of the ocean, with hundreds of tons of water pressing round about one, is weird, but after a time you get to like it. You also get to like the strange and sometimes gruesome things you see deep, deep down, though I dare say one could have too much of it.

There is plenty to make one think and to suggest the tragedy that dogs the footsteps of those who go down to the sea in ships, for the bed of the sea is littejed with wreckage of all kinds, and everything one Sees is eloquent of some great.tragedy of the sea. At the present time after five years of submarine warfare, the bed of the sea is as rich as a gold mine—a fascinating thought no doubt which grips even me, and I am looking fofward to the resumption of our explorations in Tobermory Bay for the Spanish galleons supposed to have been lost there. • I have not found any gold yet, but I have found many things of value and interest, and I have satisfied my liking for adventure.

] think probably the most trying time of all for the divers is when there is, for any reason, delay in responding to the signal to haul up. One day I had been down for some time, and I felt that it was about time to go up but there was some unaccountable delay in responding to my signal, and I began to wonder whether anything had gone

wrong. I repeated the signal, but still there was no reply, and then I really did begin to get the least Ju- alarmed. ” Tiie seconds passed, and still there was no response. My alarm increased, and I had visions of a terrible death overtaking me. To make matters worse I became conscious of some huge body moving' in my direction, and I very badly wanted to scream out in my terror. • However, just when tilings seemed to be at their worst there was a sudden jerk at the line, and I was shot up to the surftce and to saiety. Something had gone wrong with the line temporarily, one of the everyday thrills of the game, but, of course, there was no real danger. What the object moving towards me was I cannot say, hut there are plenty of weird creatures down there to give one tlie creeps. Personally, I like the life, and have no desire to give it up. Tlie greatest danger arises from the entanglement of lines, when more than one diver is working in the same area, but as a general* rule we avoid that by special precaution. The coAiditons under sea vary a giea deal. At some parts'you get the impression of wandering about in a very mesy and sticky place, but at others one might he in a land of enchantment, where everything seems delightful, and one cannot tire of walking over this ground. Probably tho severest physical strain comes from the pressure of water about the ears, and -there is always a certain amount of strain due to reliance on artificial respiration.

Down there one finds plenty to suggest romance, and even tragedy. One may find, and we do find, such trifles as last messages from people who have been lost at sea, and some of these messages are pathetic in the extreme. They hear all dates, and the wonder is how they have been preserved so long. Only once have I had the experience of going over a real wreck lying many fathoms down. It was a terrible experience walking along the decks of this vessel and feeling that ono was treading on ground that so many people trod for the last time, with all the accompanying terror of a ship-wreck at sea.^ More terrible still -Was to make one’s way below, and note all the signs of the sudden end, the treasures of the passengers laid ready to he taken off if circumstances permitted, and then finally to find some of the dead in various attitudes where death had found them, some of the bodies preserved, the others in differing states of decay. Here and there figures in the attitude of prayer, and others suggestive of the last leave-taking of loved ones who knew that their last hour on earth had come.

There is something distinctly awesome in one’s contact with the mysteries of the Silent Land. It is much more over-whelming than the loneliness of desert places on land. Under the waves there is the stillness of death. No sound comes to encourage the faint heart. Only the ghostly forms of the denizens of the deep float silently round one in the ‘long cold night- that Jags a,-creeping there.?’ No ono is ever tempted to linger too long. 'The time comes.when one feverishly gives the simal to be hauled to the surface, back to” God’s fresh air and the blue of heaven.