It had never occurred to me that digging could happen underwater. Sea and sand are relentless, irresistible forces, as anyone with a beachfront house or a sandcastle knows. You can impose your will on it for only a short period of time until it decides to stop humoring you and takes whatever it had in mind.

So I was fascinated when the Dredge appeared on our seafloor excavation site. The idea of moving sand in the ocean—and having it stay put—was so strange to me that it took a couple of days for me to comprehend the significance of the Dredge. At first, it might as well have been a spaceship, hovering above us, occasionally eclipsing the sun, and supporting a web of ropes and tubes. I would look up, dodge one of its appendages, and continue to work around it. There were diagrams and discussions of the Dredge, but the magnitude of what it was doing only became clear to me when I began to work with it.

I would wave (or waft, or fan—there’s some debate over the technique) my hand, and the sand, never having been directly touched, would swirl up and head toward the Dredge’s hungry mouth. It was magic: swish and flick, and then it was gone. As the silty clouds were swallowed up, they uncovered nests of rocks and, when we were lucky, artifacts.

The hand fanning seemed like a delicate process, yet the floor of our excavation square dropped down significantly, as evidenced by the surroundings and our original grid lines. Once I followed the longest tube of the Dredge, its tail, over a rocky crest and found its end: soft sand dunes that would indicate the presence of giant subterranean worms in any sci-fi movie worth its salt. Even though I understand the simple physics behind the Dredge, I am still in awe of it. In rearranging the ocean floor, it seems like it is defying the will of nature.

KA