It is interesting to note that the team of divers chosen for the excavation had many dangers and problems to face. Not only would a diver fear a lack of oxygen, and suffering from the bends (decompression sickness), many divers discovered that there was a "thief" living underwater, taking much of the artifacts and storing them away. An octopus had actually taken many of the remains and stored them happily inside a neck of a broken amphora (Katzev 1970: 853). Now, after finding something of importance, the researchers had to assess whether the product was in its original place or if it was placed there by the eight-armed "squirrel" (Katzev 1970: 853). .
Salvaging this wreck would be difficult and take years to complete, because these divers had only a few months in the summer to excavate. During the winter, the water would be too rampant to perform such delicate work. Since the original sighting of the ship was in the late summer of 1967, the team had to wait and return in early summer of 1968 to begin this expedition. Tons of equipment and an international crew of forty were brought to the site via the Alasia, a newly bought flat-deck wooden barge (Katzev 1970: 847). Katzev understood the extreme importance of safety during the dig, which was planned for each person to work 90 feet underwater for 30-40 minute periods twice a day for three months (Katzev 1970: 847). Katzev then sent overboard a dome of plexiglass to give divers a place to rest in an enclosed area of air and talk via telephone to the operator onboard, hence the name the "telephone booth". The work was difficult, long, and tedious. One diver claimed the seaweed was so thick that it was "like trying to cut an Oriental rug with a butter knife" (Katzev 1970: 847). Using a technologically advanced version of a "Shop-Vac", the divers were able to force compressed air into the sod, thus loosening it, and vacuumed up the excess materials, which gave way to the rich finds underneath.
