"Let them get over there, and if they get one, and it looks exciting, then give them the money." This peculiar advice was given by Father George from his hospital bed to a member of another private foundation which I had hoped would fund the coelacanth capture part of the project. I had to muse that this approach would not help us in the beginning and if we had a coelacanth in the transporter tank practically any foundation on the planet would come up with the completion financing- at least at that time. Father George might have been bothered by some pre-expedition publicity that did not mention him or the aquarium. I was dismayed, for if indeed this were the cause of his remarks, the publicity that irked him had been carefully worded. It was part of a continuing smoke screen to shield Father George and the Aquarium's involvement from the awareness of other aquariums: fallout from his own secrecy policy. We lost the additional funding.

     For a while, the news about Father George's health overwhelmed everything. I was not so concerned about our trip. I knew it would happen one way or another. I thought about my encounters with Father George; about how much I had liked him. My complete deference to him. My desire to please him. What now? I wrote Father George in the hospital. He wanted to be informed of everything that was going on. The coelacanth project would literally be one of the last things on his mind. Through George's secretary, Gerry Martzeller, it would still be possible to negotiate with the Aquarium as a recipient of the first private foundation's money--if we got it. The directors of the foundation had had past connections with the Aquarium. I also decided to submit the capture proposal, that I had previously sent only to Father George, to the foundation's decision committee for funding consideration, rather than the science proposal Bemis had rushed to me--though I included it in the packet. My reasoning was that if we didn't get over to the Comoros and capture a fish, there would be no science to do anyway--so this sequence of priority seemed obvious. We got the money.

      I was delighted, it was the first money I had ever raised, but David Wilkinson, when he heard the money was going to capture rather than science, was furious. He thought I had used Bemis' science proposal to raise money for the capture part of the expedition. Bemis was upset yet again. Somehow, he even felt his career had been damaged. The American Museum of Natural History, David informed me, would withdraw its support. But what support? Such were the unpleasant realities of fund raising. I was disappointed in the whole business with the American Museum of Natural History. Apparently they thought we were looking for a tax write off, so we could have free trips to the Comoros. I thought the groundwork with them had been done by David and Bemis. It hadn't. If it had, I would have put the money with the AMNH before and in spite of the news about Father George. Over the following weeks, as Bemis blew hot and cold, I never knew if the AMNH was with us or not. Somehow I no longer cared. Spurned, I had lost interest in their support. Despite best efforts, someone was always annoyed with something. But I would come up with a gesture to appease David and Willy Bemis.

      Meanwhile, Justin Brinn, the 10 year old son of the Ed Brinn, U.S. charge d'affairs in the Comoros, the boy who had hung out with Jean Louis Gerod taking SCUBA lessons and had "pulled a living coelacanth on a rope," appeared in New York with his mother in January of '87. Very curious, I debriefed him on the question of the German/French submersible expedition that we heard about while in the Comoros. He said they had only seen sharks. Jean Louis showed them some of his video tapes. Abbas also reported in a letter to Michael that the submarine hadn't found any coelacanths. But that was early in the winter, after what would later only be called the pilot dives.

       Later, in early spring of '87, long before he knew about his illness, Father George had sent me a clipping from Science magazine in which a German scientist, Hans Fricke-- pronounced "Frick-eh"--announced that he had made the first films of coelacanths swimming at their natural depth. Later a photograph of one of the fish appeared on the cover of the prestigious British science journal, Nature, accompanied by an article inside analyzing the coelacanth's fin motions. The pictures were creating a sensation in the world of fish science. Some mistakenly believed these were the first pictures ever taken of living coelacanths.

       I understood the enthusiasm. Still, I was surprised to see a piece about the dives on the front page of the New York Times, together with a coelacanth photograph. The picture was striking as the fish was viewed from the side with fins fully deployed. It appeared just as I was submitting my proposal to the first of the private foundations. I clipped it and included it in the package. Ironically as things turned out, the timely article helped raise the money for the capture expedition. This is ironic, as there were hints even then that Fricke, the scientist-film maker, was opposed to the capture of coelacanths. I was too busy making preparations to evaluate the success of the submersible team. Besides, our science program, some of which I had now agreed to fund from the capture money, was much more elaborate than mere photography. If everything worked out, we would have a coelacanth available for unlimited scientific observation in just a few weeks.

         With help, I had crunched through every obstacle. Now, on October 19th, 1987, the day the stock market crashed 509 points on the Dow, Peter Stevens and I bought the expedition's fishing gear at Chas Attalich and Sons in Hampton Bays, Long Island. We took our time. The power down-riggers had to be customized with manual hand cranks in case of power failure in the boat. We bought Penn Reels, fighting harnesses, gloves, hooks, leaders and snaps, down-rigger "cannon balls," several spools of monofilament of differing tests--amounting to thousands of yards, Cyalume glow sticks, and flares. Peter advanced the funds against our grant money, which wouldn't actually be available until after the trip. Spending that money was the first tangible statement that we were going ahead. It was exciting to actually lift up the pieces of equipment and hold them in hand.

           I had picked up a number of fish finder sonar brochures at the boat show in New York. Now, I was systematically contacting manufacturers to see which would work for us and how cheaply we could get them. I lucked out with the Lowrance Company. They made a unit called the X-16, which could pick fish out at a depth of 700 feet in salt water. What's more I could obtain two, with all accessories, on special terms. The company wasn't giving us the units, but we could use and return them at no charge, or else buy them at the end of our expedition at a reduced rate. Lowrance well knew the publicity they'd get if their units succeeded in locating coelacanths. The company had just sponsored Operation Deep Scan, one of the most thorough searches yet for the cryptic Loch Ness Monster. They didn't find Nessie, but they sure were all over the news. The representative I talked to seemed genuinely interested in our success.

             I also ordered everything from car batteries and portable battery chargers to lamps, power inverters, life vests, and walkie-talkies for boat to boat or boat to shore communications. I bought two NATO commander's compasses at The Smarter Image, that wonderful Yuppie gadget emporium, one compass for myself, the other a token gift for President Abdallah of the Comoros--if we met him. At the science fiction store, Forbidden Planet, I purchased an assortment of high tech knick-knacks, such as psychedelic eyeglasses and magical glowing eggs, as give-aways for the local kids who helped us in the Comoros. For the same purpose, I also produced a second generation of our T shirts. Peter provided a first aid kit from his medical supplies company in Toronto. Arn Neis contributed a couple of hundred ball point pens and twenty five pounds of cosmetics from his pharmaceutical company. Comorans would soon be applying cocoa butter skin balm en masse. (It turned out many of Arn's creams were tanning lotions for the dark skinned Comorans!?)

            With news of the fund money coming into the Aquarium's coffers, the board of the New York Zoological Society, which ran the New York Aquarium, finally took notice. It decreed that Lou Garibaldi, the Aquarium's Assistant Director, would join the expedition for a week, and that an aquarium technician would accompany the entire capture phase of the expedition. The purpose was to provide maximum care for any coelacanth that might be caught. This would also reduce potential criticism of the Aquarium and the Society in the event of a fish fatality. This was good news, for while I had small scale aquarium experience, professional help would take a lot of weight off my shoulders.

        Lou Garibaldi designed plastic float bags, which he had custom built to hold a coelacanth on the surface as it awaited our resubmersion cage or was towed to the transporter.

       We also had to consider liability, in case anyone on the expedition died or was injured. After prolonged legal consultations, the most practical advice was to have every member sign a release form and carry adequate personal insurance coverage. I could be vulnerable to negligence suits if I didn't keep an eye on things. Even those organizers who remained at home would bear some liability. From this angle the small number of participants worked in our favor. There would initially be six of us, but, including myself, only two from the Explorers Club. The other E.C. member was Judy Schraft, a savy brunette in her mid forties with a mile long brag sheet of exotic locales stashed for instant recall. Judy ran the Coral Reef Society, an environmental group, out of her home in Palm Beach, Florida. She had some SCUBA and underwater photography experience which might come in handy if we had a fish in a cage. She was a sharp writer and would astutely chronicle the first two weeks of the expedition in the Explorers Journal, the E.C.'s in-house publication. Judy was the one respondent to my newsletter announcement. I had invited her to come on the first segment, because at this stage, I really wasn't sure there would be another. The rest of the E.C. coelacanth organizers were still equivocating on a later, January visit.

        Peter Stevens, 51, my Canadian fisherman friend, and CEO of a Canadian medical supplies company, would be back to coordinate the actual fishing effort. Over the past year, domestic problems had taken a toll on his nerves. But fishwise, he was gung-ho as ever.

        Josie Coy, a brainy, New Age eco-awareness artist/advocate, in her early forties, was coming for one week only. She had helped organize the financing, and her basic task would be to see that the promised funds--which we still didn't have, everything being done on credit--were being properly spent. Josie also planned to document the adventure with a series of pen and ink sketches.

        Lou Garibaldi, forty four, New York Aquarium's Assistant Director, had the job of checking out all the gear, makingsure the life support equipment was operational and that the expedition was generally getting off on the right foot from the Aquarium's point of view. Back in the States, Father George, the Aquarium's gravely ill Director, returned to his home in Philadelphia. In a communication through his secretary he had asked me to keep him fully informed of developments, and this I proposed to do with regular communications stateside.

        Finally, there was Richard Crist, an assistant curator at the New York Aquarium, and an energetic lean and mean twenty-eight year old who kept a pet ferret named Sammy at home in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Rich was the one sent along to insure proper handling of any live specimens caught during the entire active fishing campaign.

        Two weeks before departure, we held a Comoran event at the Explorers Club, announcing the venture. I gave a brief slide lecture on the over-all purpose of the mission. Lou Garibaldi spoke of the educational value of a captive coelacanth, and Dr. Bemis described the scientific value. Michael gave a quick slide lecture on the "recon" trip--which he did very well. David Wilkinson introduced each speaker. Opposite the lecture hall, "Ahmed," our first coelacanth, packed in ice, lay in state for the guests to scrutinize before being presented to Willy Bemis. The cuisine was Comoran.

       The Comoran Ambassador, who had been issued a special invitation--with a promise to sit next to Lucy--was impressed. He announced that housing and boats would be arranged for us, that President Abdullah would meet with us personally, and that we would have the use of the President's personal satellite phone to help with communications to New York. All this was welcome news.

      By the evening of November 17th, everything was set. Fourteen cases of equipment, to be picked up by an Aquarium van in the morning, were crowded among the robots in my office. More gear would go directly from the Aquarium to the airport. I had never felt so organized in my life. The only missing piece of information was whether or not we could connect our life support equipment to the airplane's power supply on the flight back from the Comoros. But even this was a matter of redundancy. We had batteries enough to power the equipment on our own.

      I went to the movie, "Cry Freedom" by myself, later walking home down Park Avenue. It was unseasonably warm and humid. The air hung heavy, wet, and still. Fast taxis swished by, taking the avenue in swoops of a dozen blocks at a time. Illuminated upper stories of post-modern skyscrapers glowed majestically in the fog, like Mayan temples in a sound and light show. I had spent two years arranging for an encounter with the distant past of life on our planet. That encounter would probably alter my future as well. It was now the calm before the storm of our great adventure.