Evening star., 1938-06-26
Capt. Craig Departs to Chart
Reefs Fire Miles Deep in Sea
Adue',turer Will Use Airplane in Search
for Data on Rare Fish Lives in
Caribbean Waters.

NEW YORK, June Is (N.A.N.A).-
Capt. John D. Craig, an author. pho
tographer and diver. who makes MS
living rushing into places where the
angels fear to tread, Is aboard the San
Jacinto today on the first step of a
deep-sea diving expedition among The
practically uncharted reefs that lie
between the Turks Islands and Puerto
Plata, Santo Domingo
There's buried treasure all around
there. I guess" he said. But we're
going to be too busy with other things
to look for the stuff Why, a while
ago, just flying over Nina Island We
spotted something and told Gov. Blan-
ton Winship of Puerto Rico about 1t.
He put the c. c. c. boys to work and
they scraped away the sand and found
an old Spanish galleon. No treasure.
The treasure must have been salted
away somewhere in the neighborhood.
But it was a sure-enough beautiful
old Spanish galleon. Nice, eh?"
oh" he said, in reply to a ques-
ton, I'VE believe in buried treasure
all right, but you know. it's like Santa
Claus. When you get old enough. You
stop looking for Santa Claus. You
wait for Santa Claus to come to you "
Accompanying the captain on his
present expedition are Rene Dussaq.
a cameraman and diver who has found
Hollywood too tame to give him a
workout; Max Gene Nohl, who went
down to the worlds record depth of
420 feet in Lake Michigan; DR.. Edgar
End, a professor at the Milwaukee
School. and Thomas Larkin of Day.
ton. Ohio. In Puerto Rico, they will
pick up Earl Moore, described as the
fellow who started and developed all
the flying there is down there" and
an airplane.
Will Chart Reefs.
''The airplane,' Capt. Craig ex-
planned, will be used to chart the
reefs. The United States Coast
Guard Geodetic Survey is stationing
a cutter at a fixed point offshore for
us and then we're going to photo
graph the reefs With the fixed point
and the photographs. We can build a
time and then 60 to work in earnest.
Its really very exciting. We're
looking for one big reef that's some
where from IS to 80 miles off Puerto
Plata. It's surrounded by some of
the deepest water in any ocean. You
step off the reef there and you touch
bottom 1900 fathoms down. That's
plenty down, let me tell you. Why,
that's more than miles down.
Well, the point is the current
sweeps all the deep-water life right
over the reef, which varies in depth
from wash to about 300 feet. It's
swept over the way wind blows dust
from the plains over a mountain
range. We can stand there in COM
fort in our diving dresses and inspect
and photograph and capture fish life
that is practically unknown to man."
The divers will wear Craig-Nohl
diving gear which enables them to
breathe a mixture of helium and
oxygen Capt Craig and Max Nohl
developed this themselves and experi-
mented with it under the supervision
of DR.. End. This is the suit Nohl used
TO smash the 20-year-old record of
306 feet.
1t works all right said the cap
tain. You know. the gear used by
the Navy specifies that, If you want
to avoid the bends, you take Al min
utes coming up through 100 feet of
water, if you've been down there an
hour"
Comes Up in a Hurry.
The bends are not nice to have and
very few people fail to try and avoid
them. They are little bubbles of
nitrogen that form in the bloodstream
and bulge man out in excruciating
pain before killing him.
Well" said Capt. Craig, "the first
time with our gear I came up in 8
minutes instead of Al minutes. Then
I came up in minutes. Finally 1
came up in minutes, which is lust
about whoosh! and you're up. lust
about time to empty out the tanks.
Doc End followed me around holding
a bucket up to my face to catch my
eyes. He thought my eyes were going
to pop right out of my head. But
they didn't. Nothing at all happened
except that 10 minutes later I got
just a little bubble in my right