mch

88 - QUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
northern tip of Antikythera island. There, guarded by the enormous
bulk of the Glyphalda Cape he found calm water.
The Greeks are charming people whom I love very much, but
when they have nothing else to do they can't stop drinking, gambling,
and fighting. And the trouble is that they seem to have
very little to do far too often. That is exactly what happened to
Condos and his crew of twelve. The storm lasted for days, and to
keep both his tartan and his diving boat, where the air pump
and the diving suits were kept, from being turned into shambles
by his wine-loving crew, Condos sent all of them on a wild goose
chase—to look for sponges along the shelf of Cape Glyphalda.
He could not care less whether they found sponges or not. He
had to keep them occupied.
In the gray of the early morning, while the gale was still blowing
in the open sea, the diving boat left the tartan in the port of
Potamos and was rowed to Pinakakia, where the water was calm
and clear and good for diving. Captain Condos looked through
his glass-bottom pail set in the water and could see down about
30 fathoms to a protruding ledge. Thirty fathoms is about 180
feet, which is the outer limit for a diver in an air-pump suit, but
Condos' divers were probably among the world's best at that
time and he figured he could try his luck and keep his men busy
by sending them dov^ni one after another at five-minute intervals.
Six divers could explore the bottom for half an hour while the
other six would man the oars and the air pump.
Diving is very dangerous business and Condos' men knew it.
The six
divers stood assembled in the bow of the diving boat,
smoking one cigarette after another to calm down hunger pains.
Nobody had eaten breakfast because food in the stomach increases
the chance of contracting cramps, the terror of all divers.
One after another they flipped their cigarettes in the water,
soaped their wrists v^dth black soap so that the diving-suit cuffs
would close airtight, and with the help of the youngest boy on
the boat, an apprentice seaman, put on their cumbersome diving
equipment. When the deck boy had rinsed out each helmet with
sea water and cleansed the visor glass with a special sponge to
prevent fogging, the casque was screwed on to the diver's suit,
and after some weights were added to his breastplate and the