Emmanuel Blake - Contributed

While many Jamaicans fear the sea, some can't imagine their lives without it. Residents of Port Royal are among those whose lives are linked to the sea in more ways than one.

Emmanuel Blake, a Port Royal resident and fisherman for more than 50 years, makes his living from the sea and has helped uncover some of its hidden secrets.

Blake is one of the divers who years ago joined an expedition to retrieve items from the bottom of the sea that were buried there after the great earthquake of 1907 that caused a large chunk of Port Royal to sink. Much of the artefacts from the area now on display at local museums were retrieved by Blake.

During the late 1960s to early 1970s, Blake joined Robert 'Bob' Marx, an undersea archaeologist, to assist in pumping and retrieving anything that told tales of the history of Port Royal from their muddy burial ground. The 1907 earthquake, followed by several natural disasters, according to Blake, caused an underground shifting over time, constantly burying the pieces farther.

city under the sea

During his four years of diving, Blake said his salary was a mere $1,300 fortnightly but he and two other Jamaicans, Wayne and Popeye, loved diving and were even more fascinated with the city that existed under the sea.

Blake never went far beyond primary-level schooling. He once worked as a chef aboard a cement research ship he calls Karence, which is now itself buried at the bottom of the sea. After that, he did work on show boats, carrying tourists around the island. Blake also spent sometime as a researcher at the University of the West Indies, garnering information on plankton and fish roe for his employers.

Soon, Marx would make him an offer he couldn't refuse. He was asked to be one of the divers on an expedition to recover the sunken pieces of the past buried at the bottom of the sea in Port Royal.

Blake, more than his Jamaican partners, brought to shore many items such as chalk pipes, onion bottles, gold and silver coins, utensils, silver plates, swords and clay pipes.

The challenges he and the team faced included lack of proper equipment, which was often the cause of his ear drums bursting from the pressure under sea. He often suffered bleeding eardrums, but he loved what he was doing.

Eventually, Marx furnished him with a scuba tank and frog mask. However, other challenges arose, such as the numerous times the buildings under the sea caved in on him.

love/hate relationship

He and Marx enjoyed a love/hate relationship. Marx actually fired, then rehired him 21 times. Blake claims he once managed to save Marx's life while under sea, when one of the sunken buildings caved in on him.

Blake said once he got the air tank, he would dive from seven in the morning until one in the afternoon. Before that, he would only dive for five minutes at a time.

Now several years later, Blake is a stanch advocate for the preservation of the Port Royal area. He believes that more needs to be done to spread intelligence on the area.

Though Blake's role in helping answer some critical questions on Jamaica's history is not widely known to the people of Port Royal, he is a hero. Blake's work in Port Royal is mentioned in a handful of history books on the area.