Diving

…On board of the ‘Hector’ in Libya also slept the divers.
They also were Wijsmuller employees.
They checked the moorings and oil hoses for leaks or made repairs.

They worked on a work barge, the L-4, which was dragged every morning to a desired location and was brought back by midday.
Then, the divers came back on board and the enthusiast could empty their diving cylinders.

I also did this regularly, although you could not go any further than four metres deep in the small harbor.
Then, I checked the hull of the ship, the propeller, the rudder and the zinc anodes.
Sometimes, I would be searching the bottom, hoping to find something.

One time I put the diving cylinders on my back yet again.
With flippers on your feet you splashed from the jetty into the water.
While I was sliding alongside the ‘Hector’, I had to suck quite hard on the breathing device.
After the ship’s hull was being checked, I came back ashore and went to the divers full with admiration: ‘you must have lungs like bellows’.
‘Why?’, was their question in return.
‘Well, I had to suck quite hard for some air,’ I answered.
The diving cylinders were being checked by them, there was nothing wrong with them.

I had casually dived under with empty divingcylinders, in which I had now pulled vacuüm.