The Rapture of the Deep: And Other Dive Stories You Probably Shouldn't Know

Rating:
Summary: Adventure Travelogue: 10 years overseas as a dive instructor
Review: "Fast paced and fun! Zinsley's unique experiences with divers and diving in exotic places captivate the reader." - Dan E. Bailey, author of World War II Wrecks of the Truk Lagoon

Journey with scuba instructor Michael Zinsley as he dives his way through 16 countries, rubbing shoulders with the locals and mixing underwater adventure with after-hours escapades.

The Rapture of the Deep is fast paced and rich in content, consisting of humorous anecdotes, insightful histories, underwater descriptions, and terrifying close calls. The diving stories relate events seen once in a thousand dives. Native cultures are revealed with an awareness that only someone who has lived in those lands can describe. The book's lighter side is the combination of underwater adventure mixed with after-hours escapades (imagine Cousteau extending his documentaries to include closing time in the local bars). The descriptions of coral reef life are written in a way that non-diving readers will be as intrigued as the experts.

Featuring stories from: Antigua, Australia, Bermuda, Bonaire, California, Fiji, Guam, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Palau, Philippines, Ponape, Saint Lucia, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tonga, Truk, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vanuatu, Western Samoa, and Yap.

Includes over 20 photos and maps.

The book is already receiving great reviews, and one of the chapters was published in Skin Diver magazine. Fatbrain.com featured the title on its home page and also advertised it under its recommended titles list.

For any comments, questions, or wholesale information, contact the author at: [e-mail]

About the Author: Michael Zinsley studied civil engineering and geology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and then studied secondary education in graduate school at the California State University, Los Angeles. A seasoned traveler, he has been scuba diving in twenty-two different countries and has visited over eighty different countries and territories. He is also an accomplished mountaineer with notable ascents on six continents. Michael currently lives in Alameda, California.

Rating:
Summary: I have enough Technical Books - thanks Michael Z.
Review: A great book to take with you while traveling or just lying around and relaxing - what a refreshing read. I can almost here Mike's voice telling the story himself.
All divers, divemasters, instructors, and "tourists" that want to be divers, should read this well written book - and 'learn' to watch how you might be handling yourself (awareness). For that matter 'everyone' should just take the time and enjoy this work. It is a fun read - don't wait for a friend or buddy to finish the book to pass on to you - just buy the thing and enjoy your on copy. Who knows, you may be traveling and run into Zinsley - then you can have him autograph your very own copy!

A few of the many good quotes- "The first sign of a nervous breakdown is when you start thinking your work is terribly important." -Milo

"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it." - Anonymous

"Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference." - Anonymous

Rating:
Summary: Terrible!
Review: As a divemaster that is involved with training students and a diver that loves to have a good time, I found this book a riot!! Mr. Zinsley's writing style was very entertaining and easy reading. Some of the stories were "Boy that sounds like fun" and some were "Oh no! Wanna get away? (like the ATA commercial)" Sound like he had a great time, but nothing was free...

Michael, keep up the good work! I'm invisible and I can't feel my legs! ;^) Buy the book get the jokes! Definitely worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of laughs...some groans!!
Review: As a divemaster that is involved with training students and a diver that loves to have a good time, I found this book a riot!! Mr. Zinsley's writing style was very entertaining and easy reading. Some of the stories were "Boy that sounds like fun" and some were "Oh no! Wanna get away? (like the ATA commercial)" Sound like he had a great time, but nothing was free...

Michael, keep up the good work! I'm invisible and I can't feel my legs! ;^) Buy the book get the jokes! Definitely worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally Entertaining Read
Review: Buy this book, it's worth every penny. Especially good reading for the diver or just someone who likes to travel, even armchair travelers. Mr Zinsley spins some funny yarns taken directly from his own experiences as he traveled and dived throughout the world. This is not just a book about diving. Interesting insights abound regarding various peoples and cultures. I laughed till I cried reading the chapter on the "The Commissioner of Oats". I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Save your money and go diving.
Review: Divemaster gets drunk here. Divemaster gets drunk there. Divemaster gets laid. Divemaster makes fun of fat people.

That's pretty much it. This collection of anecdotal stories has little if any point, and goes nowhere. Rather than the travelogue of interesting dive locales it claims to be, Rapture Of The Deep is little more than the kind of macho posturing you can find in any bar near any decent dive operator, but less interesting.

You won't find idea for dive trips, and you won't find useful insights about diving or divers. If you feel you must read this, at least buy one of the used copies, as I guarantee they've never been read more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Humor Above & Below the Waterline
Review: Even armchair adventurers like me will find this book hard to put down. We are transported to a far away world, live vicariously on a shoestring, and experience the perils and pleasures of exploring underwater caves, reefs, shipwrecks, and sealife. The author writes in a clear, lively, and descriptive style and this book is full of interesting facts, colorful characters, and humorous anecdotes of the remote islanders, scuba students, and divers he has met on his journey through life.

It is better than a plane ticket!

Rating:
Summary: Promise you get the bends - bending over laughing...
Review: Every diver knows funny diver stories - Zinsley's are hard to top! And having visited some of those wonderful exotic, but also extremely laid back and charmingly chaotic paradise islands myself, the book is a hilariously funny deya vu of dive sites & local dive shops and of course the customs of the locals. Promise you will want to book a trip to one of those wonderful Paradise Islands before you finish reading the chapter on the South Pacific. But don`t worry, the book makes wonderful reading on those long plane rides to get there (I tried it)....
If you are looking for a technical dive book: Buy the TDI or PSA manual, if you are looking for a travel guide Planet Out is the better bargain. But if you are looking for a humerous insight into the little things that will make you laugh and annoy you at the same time while traveling exotic destinations not the 5-Star-way, read the book!!

Rating:
Summary: Diver's Revenge
Review: Forget the tourism brochures of exotic isles! Ingore the foreign resort owner's claims of adventure in paradise. This tale tells it as it really is from a professional SCUBA diver's perspective. Although this is basically a journal of his travels to these exotic locales, Michael Zinsley tells the story of his behind-the-scenes experiences in a truly humorous and honestly unabashed style. It's like getting a tour of Disney World's back lot, behind the facade of it's glitzy street-front attractions, and witnessing how the employees really talk and act when they're not with the tourists. In places it's almost like you can see him composing sections of his book while experiencing the very thing he's writing about. A bedtime reader, I would often keep my wife awake laughing so hard it made the bed shake. This book is a dive-travel guide to the Pacific Islands, Bermuda and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia written by someone who actually lived there (not just visited), someone who experienced life among the natives (not only with the beach front resort vacationers). It was an honestly good read.

Rating:
Summary: A Captivating Read! Addicting from the very start!
Review: Give this book just five minutes of your time and read the first few pages...you will not put it down! Not just a book for diving enthusiasts, but a book for the adventurous! A vicarious thrill set in the most exotic locales! Buy this book for a phenomenal summer reading experience