For the second consecutive year, the team attempts to drain the triangle-shaped swamp. This time, Craig Tester has hired Pat Campbell and Matt Savelle from Canadian Seabed Research, a geophysical company specializing in underground structure detection. They bring a MALA rough terrain antenna system, a ground-penetrating radar unit that sends electromagnetic pulses through the earth to detect structures, objects, and voids up to 30 feet below the surface. Unlike the metal detection equipment used the previous year, GPR can identify stone structures and wooden objects that would have been invisible to the Deepmax X6. Pat and Craig begin scanning the southeastern section of the swamp where winter scanning indicated the presence of nonferrous metal. The radar reveals a large flat surface with dipping reflectors cutting through it, an anomaly inconsistent with the natural swamp bottom. The team wonders whether it could be the mystery box that Bobby Restall searched for in the 1960s or perhaps the entrance to an underground vault.
Marty Lagina and GPS expert Matt Savelle use satellite positioning technology to mark the precise location of the drill hole where the team believes they contacted the Chappell vault. They then measure exactly 996 feet due west, following the theory presented by Alan Butler during the team's recent trip to Scotland. Butler argued that the Money Pit was constructed by Freemasons as a deliberate copy of the Enochian chambers, the ancient treasure vaults believed to exist beneath King Solomon's Temple. If the model holds, a tenth chamber should be located at that specific distance and bearing, falling on the western edge of the swamp. Marty and Matt mark the spot and name it the Enochian chamber location, planning to run GPR across it to determine whether any underground structure exists.
Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Jack Begley head to the Mercy point at the apex of the swamp, the location identified by Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen as corresponding to a point on the Tree of Life and the spot where the Spanish coin was found the previous summer. Earlier in the year, diver Tony Sampson discovered a flat stone slab measuring roughly three by two feet beneath the murky water. Rick hopes GPR can confirm whether a vault or tunnel lies beneath, but the area remains too waterlogged to support the plywood walkways needed for the radar equipment. Additional pumping will be required before scanning can proceed.
Attention shifts to Borehole 10-X as the team begins serious preparations for a manned dive to the bottom of the 235-foot shaft. Dave Blankenship takes the lead on constructing a wooden platform and dock over the opening. For Dave, the dive carries deep personal significance: his father Dan dug the shaft by hand in the 1970s, widened it to eight feet in diameter, and lined the upper portion with steel casings fabricated from hollowed-out railroad cars, reinforcing the section from 90 to 181 feet with concrete. Dan ran out of money before he could complete the project, and no one has descended to the bottom in more than 20 years.
Rick Lagina is lowered into 10-X in a specially designed steel cage to begin clearing the shaft of rusted metal and rotting timbers that could endanger the divers. Using a blowtorch, he cuts away loose steel casing that has deteriorated over the decades. The interior is in worse condition than expected, with layers of crumbling metal and debris that will require extensive clearing before any dive can safely take place. Rick acknowledges the bittersweet nature of the work: he is deconstructing the shaft that Dan and Dave spent years building, taking it apart in hopes of finding the same answers they were seeking when they constructed it. The team pushes forward, determined to get a dive team to the bottom of 10-X and into the cavern that Dan believes connects to the Money Pit.
