Product Description

Over 35 passages from novelists, journalists, poets, playwrights, essayists, and scientists detail an intertwined passion for diving and the written word in this collection. From Robert Stone's portrayal of a diver who faces the terrorising prospect of his air running out to Clare Booth Luce's search for the treasures of the underwater realm, every passage reveals a perspective of the world that only divers have known. Humour columnist Dave Barry battles a lobster and explains why staying on the ocean's surface is like 'going to the circus and staring at the outside of a tent'. From Rangiroa to the Red Sea, from deep within caverns to the eerie light under ice, from the lethal silliness of nitrogen narcosis to the elation of soaring over unfathomable depths, every selection, like every dive, is a unique experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182080 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

-Rodale's Scuba Diving magazine
"By far the best literary collection about scuba diving."

About the Author
Ed Kittrell et al, Editors

Excerpted from Down Time: Great Writers on Diving by Ed Kitrell. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
An excerpt from Jacques Cousteau, 1953:

To halt and hang attached to nothing, no lines or air pipe to the surface, was a dream. . . . From this day forward we would swim across miles of country no man had known, free and level, with our flesh feeling what the fish scales know.

I experimented with all possible maneuvers of the aqualung-loops, somersaults, and barrel rolls. I stood upside down on one finger and burst out laughing, a shrill distorted laugh. Nothing I did altered the automatic rhythm of air. Delivered from gravity and buoyancy I flew around in space.

Customer Reviews

A great collection
This is a great collection with a variety of writing on diving, great for a begining diver to get into when you can't get in the water. The selections by Cousteau and Barry shouldn't be missed, and while I skipped most of the poetry and didn't finish a few other selections; the rest have something for every kind of diver. I found some of the older articles particuarly fun as you can kind of trace the development of the sport. All in all the vast majority of stories/articles are well worth reading.