Rating: 
Summary: Tooting your own conchshell
Review: I remembered a lesson of basic diving when reading "Submerged": If you throw up in your regulator, keep on breathing. I'm glad I did, because, as a nautical archaeologist, I choked on a lot of this book. "Submerged" is an opinionated, macho, horn-tooting, self-glorifying piece that focuses not on underwater archaeology, but more on SCRU's "elite" diving stance. Unfortunately, the book opens with an anecdote about a diver communication screw-up that could easily have gone fatal: Not impressive, not very elite. The theme continues throughout: there are a lot of macho cave diving stories and "how deep/dangerous can we go" tales -- the type of butch diver-specific "... envy" stories told to impress high school girls. Serious scientific divers who value cautious diving so they can make it back to the conservation lab alive will find them pretty lame. For the general public, it sets a really bad example of what real underwater archaeology is all about. One wonders what kind of liability insurance SCRU carried, and if retired Dan can tell these tales now because OSHA can't come in and axe his program. But, archaeology is actually pretty dull stuff, even underwater. Reading dusty books about ceramic typologies for 8 hours a day isn't the stuff of a page-turning best seller. Neither are painstaking and protracted excavations that fill gaps in our knowledge of the past. You won't find any talk of this in "Submerged," because Lenihan's SCRU team rapidly surveys and documents wrecks -- mostly very recent steel hulled wrecks -- they don't excavate and piece old wooden hulls back together. Dan doesn't tell the reader much about SCRU's archaeological qualifications for his "most elite" claim, this is a dive story full of his opinions. SCRU has done a lot of good in protecting some of our recent maritime history. However, there are a number of Lenihan's contemporaries who could have their feathers rightly ruffled by such self-appointed elitism. Not macho wreck divers who picked up archaeology on the way, but real archaeologists who learned how to dive because their research led them under the sea.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable adventure
Review: I think people of any age who enjoy adventure writing or history will like this book, which recounts the tales of a National Park ranger/diver. His job, along with his team, for more than twenty years, was to map underwater wrecks and preserve the sites for exploration by future divers. Along the way, he seems to have had a really good time. There is an interesting story in each chapter. I am planning to give the book as a graduation gift to my nephew as I think he will enjoy, as I did, the stories about the joys and mortal perils of cave-diving in Florida, mapping wrecks in the Great Lakes in body-chilling 34-degree water, and close encounters with the slow moving - - but potentially deadly - - lion fish in Micronesia. I also enjoyed chapters that show the author's awareness of the benefits and drawbacks of age in a young person's sport. I haven't gone diving in the English Channel - - 170 feet deep - - to explore a confederate wreck (the Alabama, which sank off Cherbourg, France, in 1864), but I could identify with the author when he realizes that his eyesight isn't, umm, quite as good as it used to be: "As the dive progressed, however, I found myself coming face to face with my own aging process. At depth, I usually enjoyed the advantage that experience grants older divers. I could feel smug as I watched younger and stronger men make those myriad little judgment mistakes to which I am not as prone - having already made most of them myself during a quarter century of mucking about in deep water. Depth was, in a sense, the great equalizer. Then, without breaking our pace over the bottom, I reflexively reached for my gauge console and brought it to my face for a routine check of elapsed time and remaining air pressure. I couldn't read it." By the way, the author copes with this difficulty on the next dive (magnifying glass inside the goggles). Also, if you are browsing through the book, I recommend reading the chapter about diving at the site of the USS Arizona. The author, at first trying to keep his distance, gradually comes to terms with his feelings about the ship and the thousand or so young men who lost their lives on one bright day in Pearl Harbor.
Rating:
Summary: What a life!
Review: I'm left envious of Lenihan's career. Wish I could have read this in my early twenties; for, it may have inspired me to pursue different carrier path! Submerged is an excellent blend of true-life adventure tales, history, and modern archeology. From a diver's view point, this book provides an Archeologist's perspective of the East Coast wreck diver's, "get it while you can", rational behind their practice of recovering shipwreck artifacts - always enlightening to hear both sides of an argument. Overall, an outstanding read. Comparing with dozens, definitely one of the better diving books that I've read.
Rating:
Summary: Armchair Adrenaline
Review: Some of the characters in this true tale of the submerged cultural resources unit will become folk heroes if the world reads this book. "Submerged" reels you in with compelling writing about history, archeology, respect for our resources, and most of all, true adventure. It's "INTO THIN WATER". The best surprise is that Lenihan, a scientist and government employee, is witty. He loves the ocean and respects his colleagues but never gets mawkish. This is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: The Sometimes Extreme Adventures Of An Underwater Ranger
Review: Submerged by Daniel Lenihan is an entertaining book by a National Park Service employee who truly and enthusiastically loved his job - doing recon dives on the underwater treasures owned by the American public. The subtitle of the book - 'Adventures Of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team' - may be somewhat misleading, since Lenihan's adventures are usually tales of the initial dives to evaluate an underwater resource for future recreational divers and archeologists who will follow in his team's wake. This is not a book about the day to day details of underwater archeology, and if you buy it with that in mind, you may be disappointed. That said, Lenihan's tales about the founding and early adventures of SCRU [Submerged Cultural Resources Unit] are fun to read and Lenihan's enthusiasm is catching. It is obvious that Lenihan has a dislike for private treasure seekers and if you don't share his opinion, you may not want to read this book. If you have an interest in diving, sunken ships, the preservation of cultural resources, the National Park Service, or just enjoy rousing good tales of underwater adventure, I can definitely recommend Submerged.
Rating:
Summary: Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite
Review: Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team written by Daniel Lenihan has action-adventure throughout, underwater exploration with intrigue and full of information about early diving and salvage. What I found interesting is that the author takes the reader in with easy going folksy prose and narrative. Which is easy to read with historical facts put in the text that blends the historical and technical details, thus giving the reder a good informative read. An engaging adventure told of shipwrecks in U.S. parks and territorial waters gripping the reader, with well-constructed ending, preserving these sites important to our American heritage. These are truly professionals that tackle astonishing often harrowing assingments including the surveying the Isle Royale, shipwrecks in Lake Superior, exploring ther U.S.S. Arisona in Pearl Harbor, and Investigating the HL Hunley the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War. All in all, this is a book of underwater adventures told with a flair that will keep you interested till the ending.
Rating:
Summary: Real-life archaeological adventures
Review: Submerged: Adventures Of America's Most Elite Underwater Archaeology Team by professional diver and archaeologist Daniel Lenihan is the amazing story of the award-winning Submerged Cultural Resources Unit team of the U.S. National Park Service. Lenihan guides the reader on an incredible tour of the team's finds and the archaeological work accomplished from 1975 down to the present day. In their bid to retrieve the bodies of drowned divers, recover lost artifacts, survey Isle Royale shipwrecks in Lake Superior, and so much more, Submerged provides archaeology students and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in underwater archaeology an incredible window into real-life archaeological adventures.
Rating:
Summary: Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite
Review: Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team written by Daniel Lenihan has action-adventure throughout, underwater exploration with intrigue and full of information about early diving and salvage. What I found interesting is that the author takes the reader in with easy going folksy prose and narrative. Which is easy to read with historical facts put in the text that blends the historical and technical details, thus giving the reder a good informative read. An engaging adventure told of shipwrecks in U.S. parks and territorial waters gripping the reader, with well-constructed ending, preserving these sites important to our American heritage. These are truly professionals that tackle astonishing often harrowing assingments including the surveying the Isle Royale, shipwrecks in Lake Superior, exploring ther U.S.S. Arisona in Pearl Harbor, and Investigating the HL Hunley the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War. All in all, this is a book of underwater adventures told with a flair that will keep you interested till the ending.
Rating:
Summary: Lenihan plumbs the depths
Review: This was a book I just couldn't put down. I found Submerged to be one of those rare works of nonfiction that is every bit as compelling as a novel. Daniel Lenihan manages to educate and entertain at the same time, bringing his intelligence, sense of humor, humility, and poetic observations to bear on his vast experience in the field of underwater archaeology. As a nondiver, it was thrilling to be allowed access to this bizarre and profound environment. After watching Lenihan and his team battle such dangers as freezing waters, sharks, Mexican federales, or just plain bad luck, I came away with feelings of awe, envy, respect, and a deep conviction that wild horses couldn't drag me into this job.
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