When we swim at the beaches or in the ocean pools near the shore we have to watch out for sharks, sting rays and morays. One day at Tower Island, I went to climb the cliff for birds’ eggs. I took two boxes of soft cotton for packing any eggs I might find. And as I went along I tapped the ground to make the small birds fly up from their nests. This way I could locate them. I found a mocking bird’s nest, took one egg, got some frigate eggs and a gull’s egg. Then I turned to come back and I could not remember the way. So I made for the cliff and the sea and came along till I found a place to climb down again over the huge boulders of loose lava rock. The frigate nests were near the shore. Their eggs are about the size of a hen’s egg, quite white. The Galápagos gulls’ eggs are smaller. And the boobies’ eggs are like the frigates’ only a little smaller. After hunting for birds’ eggs I thought I would go over to see what Lin was doing in the big shallow pools across the beach. She was fishing with a tiny hook and line. So I tried, too, and I caught a lovely little blue and silvery fish about four inches long. It had small white speckles and was a new species. There are many different kinds of fish in these little pools, whole schools of them, varying from one to eighteen inches long and some with very lovely colors, many having stripes of gold and silver. Later I speared a whole collecting bag full of crabs for Mother to use as bait for her fishing out in the inlet. The black lava rocks are just full of bright colored crabs crawling around ... thousands of small black ones, speckled, and lighter color sandy ones, and great big bright red ones. Evidently they are all chasing each other all the time, and acting like cannibals. And then the rest of the time the birds are swooping down and snatching one. They certainly scurry the minute a shadow appears, and dart up and down the rocks so quickly it is hard to catch them. The ship’s whistle blows at eleven in the morning and at four at night to warn us to return to the beach to be ferried out again. THE DIVING HELMET In addition to the nets and trawls and dredges, the ship is equipped with a diving apparatus. It is a helmet or head piece, but not the rest of a suit. This tall helmet is made of thick brass with a triangle shaped glass window in the front. It fits on the shoulders and there is an air space inside so one can breathe. Then fresh air is pumped in by a hand pump, and whole flocks of bubbles keep rising to the surface coming out from under your arm pits. Uncle Will is the best one at it for he has used it most and goes down oftenest. It can be used at any depth a man can stand pressure, and of course the deeper down, the stronger the pressure, and one feels this especially in the ears. They buzz and hurt as though someone was pushing on them. You have to swallow hard to keep back this feeling and equalize the pressure, the same as going down in a high elevator.