Diving Into Darkness


Book Description

Finch chronicles the harrowing true story of two friends who plunge 900 feet into the water in South Africa--and only one returns. What happened that day is the stuff of nightmarish drama, but it's also a compelling human story of friendship and of coming to terms with loss and tragedy. 8-page color photo insert.




Voices: Diver's Daughter: A Tudor Story


Book Description

A gripping heart-in-your-mouth adventure told by Eve, a Tudor girl who sets out on a dangerous journey to change her life for the better. Voices: Diver's Daughter - A Tudor Story brings Eve and her mother, who was stolen from her family in Mozambique as a child, from the Southwark slums of Elizabethan London to England's southern coast. When they hear from a Mary Rose survivor that one of the African free-divers who was sent to salvage its treasures is alive and well and living in Southampton, mother and daughter agree to try to find him and attempt to dive the wreck of another ship, rumoured to be rich with treasures. But will the pair survive when the man arrives to claim his 'share'? Will Eve overcome her fear of the water to help rescue her mother? In this thrilling adventure based on real events, Patrice Lawrence shows us a fascinating and rarely seen world that's sure to hook young readers. VOICES: A thrilling series showcasing some of the UK's finest writers for young people. Voices reflects the authentic, unsung stories of our past. Each shows that, even in times of great upheaval, a myriad of people have arrived on this island and made a home for themselves - from Roman times to the present day.




The Diver


Book Description

What could a young girl and a penny have in common? They both have enormous dreams! Emma practices tirelessly to become a great diver, but as competition day approaches, her nerves get the better of her, and her confidence begins to wane. When she picks up a penny for good luck, she has no idea that this little copper coin has dreamed of becoming a diver for his entire life! With a lot of hard work, a little luck advice from Dad, and one big wish, Emma and the penny both live their dreams in their own ways. In this humorous story, we learn that anyone can accomplish their dreams, no matter how small they are, if they practice and aren't afraid to jump.




The Diver’s Tale


Book Description

The Diver’s Tale is an unvarnished account of real British diving, based on the author’s 40+ year experience. Britain is an island nation so, unsurprisingly, scuba diving is a popular British pastime enjoyed by some 50,000 keen participants and just as many of the armchair variety. A carefully-structured programme of training ensures that the British diver is well-­prepared for the challenging conditions which may be encountered beneath our seas. Or does it? How many trainee divers were taught about the perils of high-speed testicular trauma during descent? Or the dangers of having sex in a tent with a deaf person? Why bacon should be in your first aid kit. How to build a space shuttle using salvaged ammunition? Or why the name Valerie is so very special? During a 40 year plus odyssey through the strange and exotic world of British diving, Nick Lyon and his disparate collection of buddies have answered all these questions from personal experience, and many more besides. It may not be pretty, it may not be painless but to those in the know, it’s real British diving. From ill-fitting homemade wetsuits to technical closed-circuit rebreather diving, this book is an insight into the ‘glamour’ and history of scuba diving in the UK by a man who has done it all. The Diver’s Tale is not a diving manual — quite the opposite. How not to do it, why not to do it, when not to do it and who not to do it with. Amusing, frequently embarrassing, often unpleasant and occasionally tragic, the book plunges into the world of the real British diver! Now re-edited and brought back up to date, with a new chapter and a Foreword by Andy Torbet. Acclaim for The Diver’s Tale ‘When it comes to celebrating the depressive/compulsive nature of the British diving condition, there is no writer like the talented Mr Lyon… I cannot recommend it highly enough’— SCUBA. ‘I found it utterly absorbing and so did my budgie, Cyril, as it fitted perfectly in the bottom of his cage’— Alex ‘Woz’ Warzynski, Chairman of the BSAC. ‘A breath-taking triumph that must take its place at the very pinnacle of diving literature, above Cousteau and all them lot. Now will you delete the photos?’— Helen Hadley, Co-owner Orkney and Shetland Charters.




Salvamar


Book Description

A saturation diver with Hollywood looks, Brian Worley was a born risk-taker. A latecomer to the industry, he began clumsily in the London Docks before working his way through the North Sea and onto more exotic locations. Funded by his subsea career while stored in pressurised chambers for weeks, he pursued a playboy lifestyle out of the water, living in France and South America. Regularly working at 300m below sea level with all manner of fellow misfits, the living was good, but the diving was perilous. Encounters with creatures of the deep, human error and inexperience combined regularly with lethal consequences. But with his apprehension rising with each dive, Brian just had to survive to fund his future.Retired from commercial diving at 40, he was salvaging a hitherto undiscovered wreck of historical significance in The English Channel, and running out of money fast, when he received an offer of a return to work in Brazil - a contract he should never have accepted.Salvamar is a biographical novel set between 1970 and 1984.




The Dive


Book Description

A world-champion competitor in the deadly sport of freediving tells the heart-wrenching story of his life with and without his beloved wife, Audrey, who died trying to break his own record. Francisco 'Pipin' Ferreras, a native of Cuba, is a world champion in the dangerous and controversial sport of freediving, in which athletes test the limits of their minds and bodies by diving to unthinkable depths without oxygen tanks. Audrey Mestre was a beautiful French marine biology student researching the physiology of freediving. When she decided to base her studies on the legendary Pipin, a passionate romance was born. Pipin and Audrey soon married and moved to Miami, where she took up the sport herself and proceeded to break the female world record (115 metres). They became freediving's power couple, constantly training together and encouraging one another. of the Dominican Republic while attempting to break the world record -- which was currently held by her husband. Now, for the first time, Pipin tells his own story. He addresses the controversy that has followed him throughout his career and defends his sport and his own records against criticism from peers. And Pipin opens up as never before, providing what no interviewer has been able to capture: a glimpse into the heart of a complex and haunted man. In his own words, he relates the tragic story of his relationship with Audrey -- a unique and complicated tale of love and competition taken to the extreme.




Descent Into Darkness


Book Description

A Navy salvage diver recounts his experience in the effort to save the lives of sailors trapped in sinking ships after the attack on Pearl Harbor.




The Dive


Book Description

An undersea adventure narrated from the suffocating depths of the ocean floor—as time and oxygen are quickly running out—The Dive is the harrowing and heroic story of the rescue of submarine Pisces III. They were out of their depth, out of breath and out of time. Two men, trapped in a crippled submarine. Outside was pitch darkness and the icy chill of the ocean’s depths—and the crushing weight of 1,700 feet of water. On the surface a flotilla of ships and a rescue operation under the command of an eccentric retired naval commander. For three days, the world watched and held its breath. On August 29th, 1973, a routine dive to the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed went badly wrong. Pisces III, with Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson onboard, had tried to surface when a catastrophic fault suddenly sent the mini-submarine tumbling to the ocean bed—almost half a mile below. Badly damaged, buried nose first in a bed of sand, the submarine and the two men were now trapped far beyond the depth of all previous sub-sea rescues. They had just two days’ worth of oxygen. Rescue was three days away. The Dive reconstructs the minute by minute race against time that took place to first locate Pisces III and then execute the deepest rescue in maritime history. Ricocheting from the smoke filled ‘war room’ at Vickers, the world famous ship-building headquarters, in Barrow-in-Furness, to the surface vessels and then down to depths where three separate dive teams and the mini-submarine struggled in darkness, this thrilling adventure story shows how Britain, America, and Canada pooled their resources into a ‘Brotherhood of the Sea’ dedicated to stopping the ocean depths from claiming two of their own. Yet at the heart of The Dive is the human drama is the relationship between Roger Chapman, the ebullient former naval officer, and Roger Mallinson, the studious engineer, sealed in a sunken sarcophagus, with air quickly running out and help a long way off. For three days they would battle against despair, fading hope, and carbon dioxide poisoning, taking the reader on an emotional ride from the depths of defeat to a glimpse of the sun-dappled surface.




The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty


Book Description

From the acclaimed author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers comes a taut, spellbinding literary thriller that probes the essence and malleability of identity. In Vendela Vida’s taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. While checking into her hotel, the woman is robbed of her wallet and passport—all of her money and identification. Though the police investigate, the woman senses an undercurrent of complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities—she knows she’ll never recover her possessions. Stripped of her identity, she feels burdened by the crime yet strangely liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone she chooses. A chance encounter with a movie producer leads to a job posing as a stand-in for a well-known film star. The star reels her in deeper, though, and soon she’s inhabiting the actress’s skin off set, too—going deeper into the Casablancan night and further from herself. And so continues a strange and breathtaking journey full of unexpected turns, an adventure in which the woman finds herself moving further and further away from the person she once was. Told with vibrant, lush detail and a wicked sense of humor, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is part literary mystery, part psychological thriller—an unforgettable novel that explores free will, power, and a woman’s right to choose not her past, perhaps not her present, but certainly her future. This is Vendela Vida’s most assured and ambitious novel yet.




The Island of Sea Women


Book Description

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A mesmerizing new historical novel” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Lisa See, the bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and devastating family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility—but also danger. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook find it impossible to ignore their differences. The Island of Sea Women takes place over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point. “This vivid…thoughtful and empathetic” novel (The New York Times Book Review) illuminates a world turned upside down, one where the women are in charge and the men take care of the children. “A wonderful ode to a truly singular group of women” (Publishers Weekly), The Island of Sea Women is a “beautiful story…about the endurance of friendship when it’s pushed to its limits, and you…will love it” (Cosmopolitan).