Rating: 
Summary: The Helldiver's Rodeo
Review: Attention "non-divers"!! You too have to read this book. Humberto Fontova takes the reader into a world most people have never experienced. You experience thrills, fear, anxiety, ecstacy, humor, nostalgia, and large doses of political incorrectness. Sounds strange, but this book does not fit into an Amazon category. This guy can flat out write. Caution to environmentalists in California.... this book might change your preconceived notions about the environmental effects of offshore oil platforms. Fish love them......
Rating: 
Summary: Fish Story
Review: Fontava is a Cuban immigrant who scuba dives and spear fishes around the oil rigs that dot the continental shelf around New Orleans. The oil platforms have become artificial reefs that attract sea creatures and consequently, divers. The sport is dangerous, but not insanely so; its enthusiasts have swum and hunted for decades, experiencing plenty of scratches and bites but relatively few fatalities. The author apparently decided to write in the style of the WWF, which I found off-putting. But beneath the macho posturing is his sincere lifelong love affair with skin diving and the friends who share the adventures, thrills, dangers, stories, and parties. Like most hunters, they are conservationists at heart; like many men, they look back at their wild youths and marvel at their survival. Fontava has a nice sense for describing the primal thrill that comes from testing oneself against the forces of nature.
Rating:
Summary: Fish Story
Review: Fontava is a Cuban immigrant who scuba dives and spear fishes around the oil rigs that dot the continental shelf around New Orleans. The oil platforms have become artificial reefs that attract sea creatures and consequently, divers. The sport is dangerous, but not insanely so; its enthusiasts have swum and hunted for decades, experiencing plenty of scratches and bites but relatively few fatalities. The author apparently decided to write in the style of the WWF, which I found off-putting. But beneath the macho posturing is his sincere lifelong love affair with skin diving and the friends who share the adventures, thrills, dangers, stories, and parties. Like most hunters, they are conservationists at heart; like many men, they look back at their wild youths and marvel at their survival. Fontava has a nice sense for describing the primal thrill that comes from testing oneself against the forces of nature.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is more radical than fiction
Review: Great book! It's all true. I'm an ex Sea Scamp (Louisiana spearfishing diving club)and the events depicted are wild, outlandish and true.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent armchair reading
Review: Helldivers' Rodeo provides an account of some of the most extreme sportsmen in recently history: members of a scuba-diving club which dives from off-shore oil platforms to spear the giant fish around them. The Helldivers dive past 200 feet often, grapple with challenges like the bends and shark attacks, and narrate their hair-raising adventures in a satisfying first-person 'you are there' series of action-packed dialogues. Excellent armchair reading.
Rating: 
Summary: In defense of oil rig diving
Review: I also have done a lot of diving and spearfishing under oil rigs albeit off the Texas Coast, not Louisiana. But a triggerfish is a triggerfish and what is written in this book about them is pure fiction. I'm not saying you'll never be nipped by a trigger fish though they're more likely to tug at your hair than bite you. You're certainly not going to climb out of the boat with one hanging on to you. There is great diving around the oil rigs and I would not want anyone to be spooked away from doing so thinking they will be devoured by trigger fish. There's a lot of fiction in this book. It's entertaining and Mr. Fontova's political views are pretty much in line with mine but it does not portray a realistic view of diving and spearfishing around the oil rigs.
Rating:
Summary: Remove
Review: I am the author of this book. Please remove the "Fun, Thrills Laughs" review. It was written by my daughter. I can't get mad at her. She will not be disciplined. But it would be more seemly if this review didn't appear. For proof, please note that the "reviewer" and I used the same e-mail. Thank you
Humberto Fontova
Rating:
Summary: Great entertainment
Review: I bought this book last night. Needless to say I was late to work today from reading all night. I shoot alot of fish in the Fla Gulf, but nothing compares to the environment these guys are hunting in. As a spearfisherman I can imagine what these guys are diving in and some of the stories sent shivers up by spine. What makes the book so amazing is that Fontova is still alive and able to write this book. What a bunch of stupid, idiotic bunch of rednecks. Sounds like my group of friends. A must read for any true sportsman, who puts competition above most everything else.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Story
Review: I gave the book five stars and found Fontova's book thoroughly entertaining despite a somewhat disjointed writing style and the anti-socialist diatribe in the introduction and throughout the book. My thirteen year old son enjoyed it as well. I can't wait for Humberto Fontova to do something as equally perilous and share it with the rest of us!
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!!!
Review: I never knew that so much happened underwater. It is a totally different world down there. I didn't scuba dive before I read this book, but now I am currently working on getting my scuba diving license because I want to be part of that wild and zany underwater world that Fontova describes. He gives many facts along with amazing stories. Fontova and his comrades are wacky, brave, southern lunatics who aren't afraid of the monsters of the deep. This book had my eyes watering with laughter the whole way through. This book is great for anyone. Men, women and children. It is the best book I have read in a long time. You won't get bored for a second!
| 
