Jaques Cousteau set a bad example. I hate to discredit the guy, being the inventor and founder of our beloved sport.
BUT GREAT GODS THESE GUYS WERE HORRIBLE !
For someone that had such a great love of the sea and the under water world they certainly had no respect for it. In the episode "Sunken Treasure" They destroyed hundreds of tons of coral reef just to find out they were on the wrong wreck and their was no treasure to be found. Talk about treasure... the coral they destroyed was worth millions on the salt water aquarium market. And in the episode "The Dragons of Galapagos" one of em held an Iguana under water til it drowned just to see how long it could survive. I found it very ironic at the end of that episode when they start talking about those volcanic island paradises and how they were as yet untouched and untainted by human kind and then they continue on raping the sea in the next episode. I loved this show as kid and watched it every time it came on TV, funny how I don't remember them being so destructive.
On the other hand though, it's cool to watch them diving their then "cutting edge" dive gear and how they didn't yet have BCDs nor did they appear to need one. A lesson in buoyancy control for sure. Just goes to show that a BCD failure doesn't have to be detrimental. Perhaps we are to dependent on our BCDs today. Maybe we should practice buoyancy control in a shallow controlled environment without the use of a BCD. I'm not advocating that one should forgo the use of a BCD, but that it would be a nice skill to have just in case of BCD malfunction. Proper weighting is definitely the key. They were definitely pioneiring the sport of scuba diving and laying the foundations for unsafe/safe diving practices we follow today. They seem to have had very little regard for accent and decent rate and if you watch carefuly you can catch them holding their breath while using scuba. I guess having a decompression chamber on your dive boat might make you a little careless.
BUT GREAT GODS THESE GUYS WERE HORRIBLE !
For someone that had such a great love of the sea and the under water world they certainly had no respect for it. In the episode "Sunken Treasure" They destroyed hundreds of tons of coral reef just to find out they were on the wrong wreck and their was no treasure to be found. Talk about treasure... the coral they destroyed was worth millions on the salt water aquarium market. And in the episode "The Dragons of Galapagos" one of em held an Iguana under water til it drowned just to see how long it could survive. I found it very ironic at the end of that episode when they start talking about those volcanic island paradises and how they were as yet untouched and untainted by human kind and then they continue on raping the sea in the next episode. I loved this show as kid and watched it every time it came on TV, funny how I don't remember them being so destructive.
On the other hand though, it's cool to watch them diving their then "cutting edge" dive gear and how they didn't yet have BCDs nor did they appear to need one. A lesson in buoyancy control for sure. Just goes to show that a BCD failure doesn't have to be detrimental. Perhaps we are to dependent on our BCDs today. Maybe we should practice buoyancy control in a shallow controlled environment without the use of a BCD. I'm not advocating that one should forgo the use of a BCD, but that it would be a nice skill to have just in case of BCD malfunction. Proper weighting is definitely the key. They were definitely pioneiring the sport of scuba diving and laying the foundations for unsafe/safe diving practices we follow today. They seem to have had very little regard for accent and decent rate and if you watch carefuly you can catch them holding their breath while using scuba. I guess having a decompression chamber on your dive boat might make you a little careless.