The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (Thorndike Press Large Print Adventure Series)

Rating:
Summary: Divers will like it; others may bog down....
Review: This is ostensibly the story of the last dive of a father and son dive team, the Rouses. But that is actually a small part of the book, at the end (and followed by another 50 pages or so of the author's ruminations).

What's not so good: Although there is a lot of detail for divers to (hopefully) learn from, others may bog down in the amateurish writing, repetition, and tedious and unimportant detail. Frankly, I got to a point where I felt like just finishing it would be an achievement. Clearly the author needed an editor to throw away about a third of this book; it would have been twice as good. It should have been better organized as well.

What's good: a lot of information about the technical history of diving, what is involved in cave diving, wreck diving, and why those activities are so dangerous (nitrogen narcosis, how and why of the bends, silt, darkness, obstructions, complexities of different gas mixtures, equipment options, decompression...). All very interesting. Lots of material on how and why many divers have died pursuing the "sport" of technical diving, and many side stories illustrating what's smart and what's not.

And yet, all this -- and the many pages devoted to the author's self-analysis after his own accident -- does not seem to have helped him as much as he claims. He has now gone on to hang-gliding, and plans to return to deep technical diving despite his doctor's warning. What's next? Free climbing? Besides the lack of good editing, that was the biggest flaw in the book: he still doesn't get it. With a few exceptions, virtually all these people died because they were overconfident and underestimated the danger. You only have to do it once. If you do, it doesn't matter how many other times you were meticulous.

Rating:
Summary: Amasing Story
Review: This story is a adventure that went wrong and a 'must read' for all divers and underwater enthusiasts.

Steve Fox Whale Shark Specialists of the Caribbean
www.DeepBlueUtila.com