Some Golden Gate Bridge Images

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/gold...

An Audacious Plan
To build the bridge, workers would have to erect a pier more than 1100 feet out inn thee midddle of the Gate -- the first bridge support ever constructed in the open ocean. Chief engineer Joseph Strauss' bold plan called for workers to first build a giant fender to protect the pier from stray, fog-bound ships. The fender would enclose a football-field-sized area from which water would be pumped out. The concrete tower foundation would be laid inside. Once this was completed, water was to be pumped back into the 40-foot-thick concrete walls of the fender, in order to strengthen the fender against the current.

90 Feet Down
Divers were crucial to the plan. They guided beams, panels, blasting tubes and 40-ton steel forms into position and secured them, striving all the while to avoid being swept away in the current. Workers shot timed black powder bombs deep into bedrock through the blasting tubes, often with such power that dozens of fish would be thrown out of the water and onto the south shore. Divers sometimes ventured as deep as 90 feet below the surface to remove detonation debris. They smoothed the floor's surface using underwater hoses that exerted 500 pounds of hydraulic pressure. To add to the difficulty, divers worked blindly, forced to feel their way due to murky water, fast-changing currents and bulky diving suits.

Danger
Work inside the fender was the riskiest. At any moment, its walls could collapse from contact with a stray ship lost in the fog, or from the intense pressure exerted by the currents. "We were down damn near 50 feet, and every time you go down 29 feet you double your atmospheric pressure," recalled diver Bob Patching. "Well, that's strong enough it can hold you smack against a wall, and you can't move."