On a steamy Florida morning, Seychelle is answering a Mayday call launched from the five-million-dollar Broward yacht called Top Ten. Racing her fiercest competitor for salvage rights, Seychelle has a personal stake in this rescue: Her former lover, Neal Garrett, is the yacht’s hired skipper. But being the first to reach Top Ten will lead Seychelle to a bloody payday. A beautiful woman has been stabbed to death onboard. And Garrett is nowhere to be found.

Even on shore, the pressures are mounting–Seychelle owes money on her boat, and her love life is in shambles. Within twenty-four hours of finding the dead woman and towing Top Ten out of the surf, Sychelle realizes that she has stepped into a lethal business involving some of South Florida’s sleaziest criminals. 

While the police treat her as the prime suspect, Seychelle begins to unravel a tangled plot centered on a strip club where “all the girls are tens on top.” Discovering the sordid secrets of the owner of the yacht she rescued and the fate of the man she had once loved, Seychelle is connecting human predators with innocent victims, and a mystery on land with a mystery buried deep beneath the sea. Now, to find out what really happened to Neal Garrett, Seychelle must retrace his last steps, through two murders and a horrific crime wave, to a final confrontation with someone who may want to kill her . . . or be her salvation. 

Over the past 440 years, weather, war, and chance have claimed several thousand vessels off of Florida's shores. Many of these wrecks are visited by divers on a regular basis. Many more, await discovery by the dedicated, and properly equipped searcher.

In an attempt to relate but a handful of the losses that have occurred, Shipwrecks of the Sunshine State chronicles the tales of over 150 of Florida's maritime casualties.

Hundreds of archival vessel images, underwater photographs, site maps, and pictures of artifacts recovered from these wrecks help to illustrate the drama and the tragedy of these losses.

Make no mistake, however, while only 150 of the stories are told surrounding some of these losses, this book contains GPS and LORAN coordinates to almost 1000 Florida shipwrecks. This book will soon become the “standard” for many divers, fishermen, and historians. If you plan to dive, fish, or research wrecks in the state of Florida - this should be the first book you buy. You can purchase it directly from Barnette. 

Rest assured, Governor Ed Schafer eventually surfaced further down river, but this adventure-packed tale barely lets up.  Underwater journalist Charles Ballinger set out to complete a mid-life dream: to SCUBA dive in every one of the fifty states.  A logistical nightmare and an expensive proposition...he had to take a year off from his remodeling business...this adventure will make you wish you could have joined him.  You would be surprised to hear that there are adventure dives, the "black diamond slopes of SCUBA", in even the most land-locked states, and many are more strenuous than ocean diving...like the North Dakota trip, which started at the tailrace of a dam and led to a helter-skelter sideways drift dive through a raging river.

Some of the more unusual dives include a missile silo in Texas, a flooded mine in Missouri, a sunken town in Montana, and a hot spring in Utah.  He dove quarries, lakes, dams, cow pastures, and wrecks, and found "treasure" in many unexpected places.  He actually found submerged bowling balls in two different states!

Charles met colorful characters everywhere he went.  Imagine meeting a 75-year old owner of a still-thriving dive shop established in 1971 in land-locked Oklahoma, or the "minister of SCUBA" who quotes Bible verses relating to diving, like Job 38.16: "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?" 

As you can imagine, dive conditions ranged from the gin-clear waters of Ginnie Springs to "bumping into feisty crawdads with our dive masks" in Colorado. After his 45th dive, in Kansas, he remarked "At this point, I could finally say there was legitimate diving in every state o the nation."

Ken McAlpine's colorful and informative text provides an honest appraisal of everything a serious diver needs to know along Wu's photographic journey: the best seasons for diving, unique aspects of the geography and sea life found, popular dive destinations within a specific locale, suggestions for getting there, the best time and places for extraordinary species and behaviors, as well as topside tips. Three hundred and fifty color photographs from more than 30 locations illustrate the wonder and diversity that can be found under the sea, from frolicking sea otters to freshwater jellyfish to bad-tempered sharks and coral communities bursting with color. Wu has the unique ability to capture the mood and personality - whether whimsical or fearsome - of his subjects.

This is a splendid book, a must for every serious diver and a great prize for anyone on your holiday gift list. Order through Undercurrent magazine, get Amazon.com's best price and a large chunk of the profit will be donated to CORAL.

He gets tangled up with the Braswells, a powerful Florida family in the high-tech industry.  The Braswells, a dysfunctional family haunted by a blue marlin who took the life of their eldest son, have gotten into a very dangerous business in an attempt to revive their failing business.  While they are docked at an exclusive resort in the Bahamas, with a kidnapped Alzheimer's patient on board, Thorn gets himself invited to fish for the detested marlin and the action doesn't stop until you finish the last page.  If you like adventure stories, you will enjoy Blackwater Sound.  And remember, you can check this page-turning thriller out @your library!

Drawn by the siren's call of adventure, a small but fanatical group of extreme scuba divers has long challenged the Andrea Doria, pushing themselves far beyond the limits of recreational divers, up to the very limits of human endurance. Not all of them have succeeded.  Dubbed "the Mt. Everest of diving," this silt-layered rusty wreck has lured at least a dozen divers to their deaths, including five in one season. Some succumbed to what is called "china fever"—the passion to acquire dinnerware with the Doria logo—and in their excitement they jettisoned their prudence. Others were unlucky, some unhealthy, somecareless—maybe even stupid. 

In Deep Descent, Kevin McMurray, an award-winning journalist and an experienced scuba diver, explains why adventurers continue to brave the strong and unpredictable currents around the toppled hulk of the fallen liner. Fifty photographs show even cowardly landlubbers why men dive headlong into uncertain futures in an unforgiving sea.  Once you start reading Deep Descent, you won't want to put it down.  And remember, you can check it out @your library!

There is plenty of battle of the sexes verbal wrangling, as well as, diving and treasure hunting in the book even if it usually ends with Matt and Tate kissing at the surface ("She tasted salt and sea and man, and wondered if anyone ever sampled such potent flavors all at once."). And there are the expected pop fiction errors-like putting clownfish in the Caribbean and having a school of fish provide "bubbles" for Tate to giddily swim through--but Roberts has done quite well wrapping the dive action around the mushy stuff. 

The plot holds up, the characters are rounded if not voluptuous, and only the love story is painfully predictable. My only major complaint-that there was more promise of and much less actual sex than I thought there'd be.  Check it out @your library!

American marine artist and writer, Richard Ellis, has researched and studied all the mythology and known facts of Architeuthis, more commonly known as the giant squid;  and complied this information in a beautiful 322 page hard-cover book.  Even in our own age of space and deep sea exploration, very little is known about this elusive sea creature,as none have ever been seen, or photographed in their natural environment.  Richard Ellis introduces us to this amazing sea animal with various chapters that include authenticated sightings and strandings; it's known biology, as well as the giant squids' inclusion in folklore, fictional literature, and movies.  There are also many photos of specimens that have washed up dead on shores and illustrations based on both imagination and fact.

I highly recommend this book for divers and anyone interested in marine life and the ocean, or anyone just interested in a true to life sea monster!  You will want to grab onto this book the way a squid would grab onto its prey!

Ordering Information: "The Search For The Giant Squid" by Richard Ellis; ISBN# 1-55-821-689-8; $35.00 & $3.95 shipping, major credit cards accepted. The Lyons Press, 123 West 18th Street, NYC, New York 10011  Phone: 1 800 836-0510.  Or check it out @your library!

During the two-year trip he found a startling array of intriguing characters and parts of America that few of us will ever see.  Stopping in the Keys and The Ten Thousand Islands, discovering the Big Bend of Florida, moving deep into slow changing Alabama and on and on, Peter found people and places as potent and powerful as the places they call home.  The book is filled with photographs of the many lifelong friends Peter made along his journey.  You'll find yourself reluctant to put it down ... and remember, you can check it out @your library!

This is a tale of the fascinating history of one of America's most spectacular and unique environments; of prohibition and rum-runners, of schooners and sailors and the islanders who depended upon them, of the plundering of the islands' natural resources, and of progress and growth, with its rich rewards as well as its heavy costs. I wasn't able to put it down and I'll bet you can't either!  It was written in 1984 so you may not find it at your bookstore, but it is available @your library!

“Shark attacks on human beings generate a tremendous amount of media coverage,” Benchley writes, “partly because they occur so rarely, but mostly, I think, because people are, and always have been, simultaneously intrigued and terrified by sharks. Sharks come from a wing of the dark castle where our nightmares live—deep water beyond our sight and understanding—and so they stimulate our fears and fantasies and imaginations.”

Benchley describes the many types of sharks (including the ones that pose a genuine threat to man), what is and isn’t known about shark behavior, the odds against an attack and how to reduce them even further—all reinforced with the lessons he has learned, the mistakes he has made, and the personal perils he has encountered while producing television documentaries, bestselling novels, and articles about the sea and its inhabitants. He tells how to swim safely in the ocean, how to read the tides and currents, what behavior to avoid, and how to survive when danger suddenly strikes. He discusses how to tell children about sharks and the sea and how to develop, in young and old alike, a healthy respect for the ocean.

As Benchley says, “The ocean is the only alien and potentially hostile environment on the planet into which we tend to venture without thinking about the animals that live there, how they behave, how they support themselves, and how they perceive us. I know of no one who would set off into the jungles of Malaysia armed only with a bathing suit, a tube of suntan cream, and a book, and yet that’s precisely how we approach the oceans.” No longer. Not after you’ve read Shark Trouble...and remember, it's available @ your library!

The railroad ran for 22 years until, in 1935, a hurricane of exceptional force, which would be dubbed “the Storm of the Century,” swept through the tiny islands, killing some 700 residents and workmen and washing away all but one sixty-foot section of track, on which a 320,000-pound railroad engine stood and “gripped its rails as if the gravity of Jupiter were pressing upon it.” 

The photographs included in this book are very interesting, as you see the railway being constructed, crowds cheering its arrival, tourists speeding over the Long Key Viaduct, and its eventual heartbreaking demise.  You won't want to put this one down...and remember, it is available @ your library!

Naked Warriors was first written in 1956 in collaboration with Don Moore. It was re-issued as a paperback in 1995.   From combat in WW2 and Korea to important technological work in the 1950's, this updated edition is both a great read and the best history of UDT. It is the story of the development and the combat experiences of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Teams, who were engaged in a then-new technique of warfare at sea.  Fane's descriptions of underwater combat will keep you glued to the book and lest you wonder if a frogman can be a decent author, know that he later became a journalist and he can spin a tale!  His first-person narrative of the development of the UDT is an important contribution to United States Naval history.

MGM produced a feature movie based on Fane's book, called "The Underwater Warriors".  Dan Dailey played Cmdr. Fane and Zale Parry played Doug Fane's wife.  Cmdr. Fane was Technical Consultant on the film.

After serving 34 months in the U.S. Navy, Lt. JG. Francis Douglas Fane volunteered for ''extra-hazardous duty.''  This turned out to be with the UDT.  Before reporting for training at Ft. Pierce, Florida, the 33-year-old Fane had to learn how to swim.  He earned the nickname of ''Red Dog Fane,'' because of his red hair and toughness.  Fane was Commander of Underwater Demolition Unit One, helped prevent disbanding the UDT, evaluated and developed advanced diving equipment, launched new diving techniques, and shared his expertise in several other aspects of diving and the public.  Cmdr. Fane received many honors and awards during his distinguished career, including numerous military commendations and medals. 

In mid-1949, Lt. Cmdr. Fane searched out the co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung, engineer Emile Gagnan.  Fane convinced him to bring two of his Aqua-Lungs to Little Creek, where Fane and his UDT tested the new underwater air breathing systems called SCUBA.  Lt. Cmdr. Fane was able to get the Aqua-Lung accepted by the U.S. Navy UDT.

Much of the vision and hard work of Cmdr. Fane was the foundation for the U.S. Navy SEAL Team, which was formally launched in January 1962 by President Kennedy.

Most of this information came from Edward C. Cargile, a long-time friend of Fane's and a diving legend in his own right.  Mr. Cargile has e-mailed me lots of biographical information about Commander Fane, and a special page about Fane will appear on our website sometime in January.  You can read more information about Fane by Cargile here at Sport Diver Interactive, or here on the Historical Diving Society website.  Cargile has recently published a book, PIONEERS IN DIVING, which I plan to obtain and read and review early in 2003.  In a recent e-mail exchange, Cargile said "Doug is one of the prime reasons I wrote Pioneers In Diving. There are so many individuals that have contributed so much to the advancement of diving.  It took 22 years to document those individuals and organizations in Pioneers In Diving.

Text following each map tells you the history of the reef (especially in the case of artificial reefs), how it got its name, what it feels like to experience each reef, and typical marine life for that site.  Frink's incredible photography appears throughout the book.

The final 26 pages are  a guide, "The Fish of the Florida Keys," including excellent color illustrations, common and Latin names, and descriptions of each fish including where it may be found.

It's too bad that this excellent 1998 guide to diving our Florida Keys is out of print, but you can check out a copy @your library. 

This wonderful book, by Daniel J. Lenihan, NPS park ranger and archaeologist, and John D. Brooks, u/w photographer and cinematographer for the NPS, is well-organized and contains maps and lots of useful information from history to safety tips rules and regulations to travel information.

Florida parks featured include Biscayne National Park (18 pages), Dry Tortugas (12), and the Gulf Islands National Seashore.  Check out a copy @your library today!
 

There isn't much on Isle au Haut, Maine, located in Penobscot Bay, ''the lobster capital of the world''  -- a post office, a lighthouse and inn, a one-room schoolhouse, a general store and a town hall. Acadia National Park takes up more than half the island's acreage. There are no banks, no fast-food restaurants, no bowling alleys. "Yes we have TV. No we do not have reception," Greenlaw writes. There are only 47 full-time residents, and she's related to half of them. 

She hires her retired 71-year-old father, who has "ties to the island going back four generations," to work the stern of her new boat, the 35-foot Mattie Belle. They set some 500 traps, haul them up, then rebait them. As the season progresses and the lobsters fail to arrive in great numbers, Greenlaw refers to this as "changing the water in the traps." Greenlaw relates the lobster's rise from its beginnings as grub fit only for servants, orphans and prisoners; the creature's mating rituals; and her mother's recipe for lobster casserole. 

This book is a must-read for everyone who loves boats and the ocean (and lobsters), everyone who has ever reached a crossroads in life, and everyone who has wondered what it would be like to live on a very small island. This is a book that proves once again that fishermen are still the best story-tellers around. Check out a copy of this well-written, humourous story @your library.

Buffett is behind the wheel of his Grumman Albatross, safely piloting family and friends through a three-week trip around South and Central America and the Caribbean. He blends gentle scenic narration with rambling, unplugged life stories meant to convey that he's made peace with the whole aging process. For Buffett, turning 50 "can be a ball of snakes that conjures up immediate thoughts of mortality and accountability. (`What have I done with my life?') Or, it can be a great excuse to reward yourself for just getting there. (`He who dies with the most toys wins.') I instinctively chose door number two."

The hardback edition is a hefty 458 pages, but it is an easy and delightful read that you can pick up and put down throughout your busy week.  Check out a copy @your library and take it on your next seaplane adventure!
 

Jack Tagger, once a hotshot reporter, has been demoted to obit writer for a SoFla daily newspaper after shooting off his big mouth.  Tagger becomes obsessed by death, memorizing the ages of celebrities at the time of their demise and hoping he will outlive them.  Jack never gets to break a real news story anymore, and his editor is making his life a living hell.  The first thing that draws his attention to the death of James Bradley Stomarti is his age...a mere 39, seven years younger than Jack.  Yet Stomarti's name is somehow familiar...a database check reveals that he was Jimmy Stoma, lead singer for the Slut Puppies. 

Sensing that he has a breaking news story, Tagger begins his investigation.  Stoma's Courtney Love-esque widow, Cleo Rio, claims her husband died in a SCUBA diving accident.  Jack doesn't buy her story, and begins an investigation through the world of rock-n-roll, drugs, South Beach nightclubs, and music industry wannabes.  Tagger uses a 26-pound frozen lizard to save his life, the widow tries to promote her own cheesy music career, and his editor ends up seeing him in an entirely different light.  So, did Stoma die in a diving accident or did he have a little "help"?  Check out a copy of Basket Case@your library and find out for yourself!

Paul's splendid Reef Creature Identification (420 pages), covers sponges, nudibranchs, octopus, crustaceans, Christmas tree worms and plenty more. His Reef Coral Identification (276 pages) helps you identify all the hard and soft corals, spawning, and even the growth on top of corals, as well as algae and other plant life. Beginners may want to ID only fish, but I'd recommend that all three books be part of every diver's library. And, if you have an old set, by all means replace it. You'll be delighted at the additions and improvements. 

     While each book normally retails for $40, you can get all three for $84 by ordering through Undercurrent's website www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/bookpicks.shtml. You'll get the best prices Amazon.com has to offer, speedy delivery, and the knowledge that a large hunk of the profit will go to the Coral Reef Alliance, which is working to keep our reefs alive and well. To ensure that the Coral Reef Alliance benefits from your purchase, select the book/set directly from the link above.

The adventurers profiled range from Henri Milne Edwards (1800-85), the first scientist to turn underwater observer, to Peter Throckmorton (1928-90), the founder of underwater archaeology.  In between come such relatively well known figures as William Beebe of bathysphere fame; John Haldane, who invented the time tables crucial to preventing the bends; and his son J. B. S. Haldane, a great eccentric as well as one of the greatest biologists, who perfected the mixing of oxygen and helium that makes very deep diving possible. Then there are Guy Gilpatric, who invented spearfishing on the French Riviera; Hans Hass, pioneer of underwater movies; and Frederic Dumas, codeveloper of the aqualung (with Jacques Cousteau, conspicuous in absentia).

The book is filled with wonderful old black-and-white photos and drawings of the men and women who made it possible for us to dive with such ease today. Browse the pages to see that none of these old-timers were "chicken of the sea!"

If you want a factual, bone-dry account of diving's beginnings, read the NOAA Diving Manual.  If you want to laugh and cry while learning about those who paved the way, check out Stars Beneath the Sea @your library today! 

Packed with angling how-to’s and excellent illustrations, these inexpensive paperbacks are small enough to tuck in your tackle box.  The first book has the latest in rods, reels, lines and terminal tackle, the hottest in rigged baits, live baits and lures, and the strongest and easiest knots, leaders and special rigs. 

The second, packed with beautiful color drawings, answers questions like “What is this fish?”  “Is it good to eat?” and “Is it a record?”  Dunaway writes of each fishes’ range, habitats, and fishing methods.  The drawings and descriptions are so good that non-angling divers may wish to purchase the book in order to identify the mystery fish from their last dive. 

During a recent trip to Key Largo, Rick and I found the third book to be very useful after catching several juicy mangrove snappers.   It showed us how to clean and cook the evening’s dinner, and  we’ll use it later for the recipes, fish storage tips, and a diner’s “Guide to Hook-and-Line Table Fish.”  We really enjoyed our tasty fish dinner, but relaxing at anchor with rod and reel, live bait, and cold drinks was priceless! 

Lobster at Home by Jasper White is an excellent cookbook with scrumptious color photographs and information on killing and cleaning your catch.  Although White’s book was written with Maine lobsters in mind, nearly every recipe would be just as delicious with your Florida catch.  Call Broward County Library at (954) 357-7444, ext. 5, to place  a hold on either book...they are wonderful summer “reads!” 

The Great Cruising Cookbook, an International Galley Guide, by John C. Payne, includes rough weather foods, a tropical fruit guide, on board gardening, and home brewing.   This is the book for the serious live-aboard boater. 

Dining on Deck, Fine Foods for Sailing & Boating, by Linda Vail, is aimed at the floating gourmet.  Her menus look more like South Beach than they do Dania Beach.  If you are a nautical Martha Stewart, this book was written just for you. 

Cruising Cuisine, Fresh Food From the Galley, by Kay Pastorius, emphasizes the use of fresh, locally obtained ingredients that are common to the cruising grounds of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific.  There are many Asian, Mexican, and Italian recipes, and a guide to tropical fruits. 

The Meatless Galley Cookbook, by Anne Carlson, is a great alternative not only for the vegetarians among us, but also for those days when you just couldn’t catch dinner.  Check these out @ your library!