Rating: 
Summary: Wreck Diving at a Price
Review: As a life long wreck diver this book, though a bit uneven, riveted me from start to finish. The author furnished a lot of information that was new to me, primarily about cave diving and the Rouses. Some of the other players were people I knew or knew of which made the book doubly fascinating.
One phrase that constantly ran through my head (a hundred times) as I read the book was "Gee, that was stupid". Stupid and diving don't mix.
It was fascinating to read about the dysfunctional Rouses and their motivation for this type of diving. Diving for fame or recognition is asking for trouble. It is like flying, the best pilots and divers are those who pursue their avocation because they love it, all else being secondary.
When I got to the end of the book and read the part about the Rouses fatal accident my skin literally crawled and I cringed in an empathy of pure terror. I know what it is like to be trapped in a wreck with zero visibility. I also know that panic equals death in diving and it must be controlled at all cost. Part of a good divers job is to work diligently at extrication from a problem right up to the end, calmly, and then if you have to die, to die quietly. Reading between the lines a bit I feel that the younger Rouse, after being freed from entrapment by his father bolted from the U-boat and went straight up in wild panic. The father followed.
Also sad was the author's thoughts on the last pages of the book on an expert cave and wreck diver whom he held in high regard as a personal friend. After the book was published this diver, too, died cave diving. By himself.
The book is an utterly fascinating litany of everything not to do as a diver or a dive boat Captain and belongs in the library of every serious scuba diver.
Rating:
Summary: A diver's must-read
Review: As a wreck diver and technical diver in training, I jumped at the opportunity to read The Last Diver. I could not put it down, partly because of the gripping narrative, and partly because I had done so many of the things writting about in the book. But unlike the divers in the book, I am not a cowboy and I am SAFETY all the way. The lesson of the book is that both recreational AND technical diving is still relatively safe as long as you obey the rules of the game. The divers who lost their lives in the book The Last Dive all violated the rules - big time. Do that, and sooner or later you are going to pay the price. Its a lesson that we all need to learn again, whether we are doing our first dive or our thousandth.Dive safe, D. Keith Lamb
Master Diver
Rating:
Summary: A diver's must-read
Review: As a wreck diver and technical diver in training, I jumped at the opportunity to read The Last Diver. I could not put it down, partly because of the gripping narrative, and partly because I had done so many of the things writting about in the book. But unlike the divers in the book, I am not a cowboy and I am SAFETY all the way. The lesson of the book is that both recreational AND technical diving is still relatively safe as long as you obey the rules of the game. The divers who lost their lives in the book The Last Dive all violated the rules - big time. Do that, and sooner or later you are going to pay the price. Its a lesson that we all need to learn again, whether we are doing our first dive or our thousandth. Dive safe, D. Keith Lamb
Master Diver
Rating: 
Summary: Feels empty
Review: Bernie does a nice job of documenting the lives of the Rouses and the events that surrounded their tragic deaths. However, this book reads more like a report than a story. The writing lacks depth and it's nearly impossible to establish a connection with the characters. Non-divers will probably find it unappealing and bland. If you are looking for a book that you have a hard time putting down, where you feel your heart pounding as you read it, where you can experience the emotions and tribulations of the characters, then this IS NOT it.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Essential reading for any budding deep or wreck diver. This book is not a technical diving manual, but rather an account of what not to do when you go diving. The book is well written and you will have difficulty in putting it down. Well worth the money and essential reading for any diver with intermediate experience.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Essential reading for any budding deep or wreck diver. This book is not a technical diving manual, but rather an account of what not to do when you go diving. The book is well written and you will have difficulty in putting it down. Well worth the money and essential reading for any diver with intermediate experience.
Rating:
Summary: Don't expect "Shadow Divers"
Review: I picked up Chowdhury's "Last Dive" after reading --and thoroughly enjoying-- Robert Kurson's excellent book, "Shadow Divers." (see my other reviews) If you read and enjoyed Kurson's book, be forewarned: this book isn't in the same league.
In "Shadow Divers," Chris Rouse and his son Chrissy were among the divers involved in the quest to uncover the identity of a sunken German U-boat discovered in 230 feet of water off the coast of New Jersey. They (along with another diver), lost their lives during the six years it took to unravel the mystery.
The Rouses were interesting characters. Seemingly always at each other's throats, they gave me the impression that watching them was sort of like witnessing a latter-day "Two" Stooges. No one doubted that they loved one another, but their antics and belittling comments to one another while aboard dive boats had become legendary by the time they took their final dive.
Since the subtitle of this book is "A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean Depths," I sort of expected that the book would be about them. Actually, it's focus was seemed to be more on Chowdhury.
Bernie Chowdhury was a friend of the Rouses, and also participated in the extreme sport now known as "technical diving." (As opposed to recreational diving, which imposes some pretty strict limits on depth and time for safety's sake.) Indeed, Chowdhury himself very nearly died, and was lucky to avoid being permanently crippled as the result of a dive accident. He writes rather extensively about this incident... and many others, involving other friends and acquaintances --thus filling a pretty significant fraction of the book's 356 pages.
Don't get me wrong. The Rouse family IS discussed at length. But it seemed that the author was way too quick to go off on a tangent that all too often seemed like he was writing his own memoirs.
As an aside, though I found the deaths of Chris and Chrissy to be a sad case of lives cut short, I can't bring myself to consider the case "tragic." These guys (and those like them), lived life on the edge. They took chances, played the odds, and lost. This was not a toddler with leukemia. They may have been nice guys, good to their friends, and decent, upstanding people, but their actions almost ensured their own obituaries ...and in reading Chowdhury's epilogue, it seems that quite a few people seem hell-bent on joining them.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating stuff
Review: I read the excellent book Shadow Divers after hearing Dick Estelle read from it weekday evenings on public radio, and wanted to know more about Chris and Chrissy Rouse. "The Last Dive" covers their story plus many stories about the history of diving and the stories of many other wreck and cave divers. I did some easy warm-water recreational dives in the 1990's and my instructors and dive masters always spoke of cave diving as being extremely hazardous and something to stay away from. Without intending to, this book strongly reinforced those admonitions.
Although I loved both of these books, I have to strongly question the judgement, common sense and responsibility of the people described in them. Was it really that necessary that all of those hazardous dives be made on the unidentified U-boat, even after three people had died trying? Maybe instead of calling the boat the "yoohoo" they should have called it the "who cares?"
Rating:
Summary: the greatest risk takers don't always survive...
Review: More like two brothers than father and son, Chris and Chrissy Rouse met their fate while exploring a newly discovered German U-boat in deep water off the coast of New Jersey. Far from the normal safe depth of 130 ft for recreational divers, this german wreck split in two on the ocean floor (200+ feet below the surface) lured father and son to explore its deep interior in search of a log book that would reveal its secrets. They had been this deep before, and on normal compressed air instead of safer mixed gas. But carelessness and lack of focus will catch up to any diver no matter how much experience they may have. This book tells the story of such carelessness. Even the author himself, a veteran diver suffered from the bends when he had to abort his decompression stops from making a simple mistake while diving another deep water wreck, the famous Andrea Doria. I really enjoyed this book. Having recently gained my first scuba certification, I am just beginning to explore the underwater world. When I can't be in the water, I can still be learning and gaining precious knowledge that may one day save my life or the life of a fellow diver. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in scuba, or to anyone who likes to read stories about those who take risks doing what they love. The greatest risk takers don't always survive, but it's better to lose your life doing what you love then to never have really lived at all.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Story
Review: Stirs up my desires to dive deeper, but reinstills the fear of what is possible. Bernie does an excellent job of tying in some history with cave and wreck divers into this excellent account of father and son, as well as his own brushes with disaster and death. I would recommend this book not only to scuba divers, but to any adventure enthusiast. However, I would say his writing techniques leaves something to be desired. I had just finished reading the Stand by Stephen King, and the writing abilities were in stark contrast. Nevertheless, I couldn't put this book down, a great read.
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