The Key West Citizen

Tempted by Gerald Pider, dancing star of many of Key West's brightest floor shows.

Gerald had donned the diving helmet belonging to Willie Wickers and was down around 35 feet below the surface.

Something he was carrying dropped on the bottom and Gerald bent over to pick it up.

Unused to the rules of helmet diving, Gerald did not think that bending over, the water would flow into the helmet, which is open at the shoulder.

Hardly having time to take a deep breath, Gerald threw the helmet off and swam frantically to the surface. He said he could see he was almost there when everything suddenly went black.

The quick ascent and change of pressure had caused it. Above in the boat from which the air was being pumped, Harry Wickers, William Wickers' son, noticed this shape floating some way below the surface and taking no chance dove overboard after it. Finding it to be Gerald he hastily seized him and brought him into the boat, where it took some nifty first-aid to bring Gerald to. Gerald is undaunted, though, and is not afraid to go down again.

A CITIZEN REPORTER borrowed the helmet from Wickers and going out to the shoals in front of Duval and Whitehead streets, which are well marked with stakes, dropped overboard with a friend at the pumps.

It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. As the helmet is placed over your head you hear the rush of air being pumped in. Your right hand holds the air line so that it cannot be bent next to the helmet.

Down you drop to the bottom of the ocean about fifteen feet below. Breathing is just a trifle difficult, but one does not mind.

Walking on the bottom is more like sailing off into space occasionally in the "slow motion" way. Being careful of the sea eggs, which are everywhere, you stand and marvel at the crag of coral higher than your head before you, at the clean white sand below your feet, at the long line of grunts like a waving ribbon over the reef, at the small butterfly fish, the large muttonfish, the intense green and blue in the caves of the shoal. You'll misjudge when you try to climb a shoal, always falling short because the glass in the helmet deceives one's concept of space.

Then back to the red-bottomed boat above, leap upward and with a friend pulling at the hose you come above the surface, the pressure is off, the helmet is lifted from your shoulders and once again you breathe fresh, pure air and see bright sunlight. Lucius Beebe, famous naturalist-scientist-helmet diver writes for a thrill one should go down.