Shadow Divers

[yknot]

Is a good read. The book goes a long way toward explaining their mindset and wreck dive philosophies.

While the book talks about the initial animosity between Richie and Chatterton, and talks how they became good friends, I had a hard time understanding how they bridged their differences.

I also had a hard time understanding Richie's motivation for contacting the relatives or families of the dead crew. There may have been something altuistic about it, but I didn't feel that it was clear.

The book also doesn't talk about the rest of the team who were on the boat. I got the feeling that there was very little teamwork in their team. There might have been, but there are no details. For instance, there might have been a team of safety divers at shallow depths to relay information, to stage deco bottles, provide food/drink, etc. But, no mention is made of them.

From what I got out of the book, Chatterton and Kohler became friendlyier towards eachother when it became apparent, thru repeated exposure to each other, that their goals and philosophies weren't as different as they initially thought. I also got the impression that Kohler started to view the wreck as a war grave and that maybe due to his German heritage, had a need for some closure to this part of his life. I got the idea that both of these guys became quite obsessed with the wreck, even to the point of causing or at least intensifiying some personal problems with their home lives. As far as "team diving", from what I've read about East Coast wreck diving, at least in the era dealt with in the book, a diver was pretty much on his own. If you didn't bring it, you did without. I don't think these boats had compressors either so you brought all of the necessary tanks yourself. While divers may have entered the water together, usually at 200+ feet these were considered solo dives anyway. Someone may have been able to jump in with extra gas in an emergency but having team divers meet you with a stage bottle was not normal procedure.