Best Comprehensive Book on Diving

[pauldw]

Keep in mind, that this was also around the time that the Cousteau team was launching harpoons at whales, in order to track them . . .

I listened to a great presentation a long time ago from people who'd worked on a marine mammal research project, and they needed to tag whales. They had a device they called The Dildo that hung on the end of a boom they'd hold as they approached a whale in a Zodiac, and it had a trigger they would use to fire a barb into the dorsal fin that would hold the tracker in place. He said that one day in a little bit of rough conditions the person holding the boom was tossed about and accidentally lowered The Dildo into someone else's lap, which caused quite a bit of consternation until it was lifted away without having been accidentally fired. So, anyway, there may be legitimate ways to tag things. But not people.

Of course, some of these same people may have been aware of a certain marine worm that has hemoglobin, basically, and one of those people may have stuffed one down his pants and gone into a public restroom, and may have whipped it partway out of his zipper while standing next to someone at the urinals, and may have made some distressed noises and then taken out a knife and sliced the marine worm in half, which would have have looked like something else was happening to someone else just taking a sidelong glance.

Hopefully this isn't too off topic. I don't know. Today I realized I might be senile.

 

[MBinDC]

I highly recommend looking into the SCUBA Compendium books by Simon Pridmore. Those will give you an excellent perspective on all levels of diving. The compendium includes four books: Scuba Fundamental, Scuba Confidential, Scuba Exceptional, and Scuba Professional.

They are available as a bundle or individually on Amazon as e-books here.

Just want to surface this recommendation again. I happened across these while hanging out in Cozumel, and I could not put them down. I'm not sure I'd call them *The* best or most comprehensive book(s) on diving, but there sure was a lot in there, and all eminently readable. (And very cheap as e-books, too.)

 

[JuLe]

Sorry for going (slightly) off topic, but so many have mentioned this that I just could not resist.
Fourth editidion. Got it from my mom when I was a teenager and did a lot of snorkeling with my friends. She had picked it up at a garage sale or a charity flea market and without knowing anything about the topic thought I might find it interesting. She was right, even though it took me many many years before I got into diving. Still look thru it every now and then.