While his brothers each enjoyed, in their own way, an intense life on the surface, Sand Coco resigned himself to looking after the home. Devoted and melancholic as he was, he began counting down the days to their return with abandoned turtle shells: when one filled with water, it passed to another, and thus its varying size marked the passage of days, weeks or years. When the house flooded, he replaced the water with sand, thus creating the contraption which brought him immortal fame. With the royalties of this patent he gained confidence and resources, with which he set off to discover, like his brothers, the great secrets of the world.