Dark Descent: Diving and the Deadly Allure of the Empress of Ireland

Although just as terrible as the Titanic disaster, the tragedy of the Empress is often overshadowed by other more widely published and public disasters such as the Titanic, Lusitania, and Brittanic. McMurray has written a masterpiece about the death of the Empress in May 1914, and the rebirth of the Empress as a technical diving haven. McMurray writes about those early Empress pioneers and tells the stories of those divers who never returned from their explorations. Parts of this book will scare the hell out of you. It took me almost a year after a near fatal dive to read this book without having extreme flashbacks.
Kevin McMurray
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Bernie Chowdhury
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Submerged
The author, founder of the U.S. National Park Service Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU), describes some of the fascinating stories of discovery and preservation of America’s sunken treasures. For over 25 years, Lenihan has lead his group of elite divers to find, survey, and preserve these submerged resources.

Along with breathtaking photos of wrecks ranging from Alaska to the Dry Tortugas, Lenihan describes his often times harrowing and scary descents below the surface. Gripping tales of body recoveries, diving with Sheck Exley, surveying the U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbor, achieving impossible dives in Isle Royale, Project Seamark, and dives aboard the sunken fleet at Bikini Atoll, along with many other stories are chronicled here.

This is a fantastic book that has been heralded by Clive Cussler as “An engaging read of true adventure in the depths.”

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Daniel Lenihan
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Fatal Depth
Every wreck diver is familiar with the collision of the Stockholm and the Andrea Doria. Hailed as one of the greatest sea rescues in history, only a handful of people lost their lives. A half a century later the Doria is still claiming lives.

This is the story of the three men who lost their lives while diving the Doria in the Summers of 1998 and 1999. All died on separate dives aboard the dive boat Seeker operated by Captain Dan Crowell.

Joe Haberstroh, a reporter for Newsday, recreates the summer events that made headlines around the world surrounding the diver’s deaths and tells the harrowing, deadly tales of those men who will do anything to recover a piece of china – even if it means their life.

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Joe Haberstroh
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Battles for the USS Monitor
In 1860, the War Between the States erupted – warfare would never be the same. Many technological innovations would come out of that war, but perhaps the most important innovation would come to the forefront of naval warfare.
When the Union learned that the Confederate States had constructed the Virginia – an ironclad vessel specially designed to single-handedly destroy the Union fleet and the Northern charisma – the North quickly responded and built an ironclad of their own – the USS Monitor.

After their historic battle in 1862, in which neither vessel sustained significant damage nor inflicted significant damage on the other, both vessels went their separate ways not knowing of the historic impact their battle had left on the future of naval engagements. During the same year, the Monitor was lost off Cape Hatteras in a gale and the Virginia was destroyed to prevent capture by the Union Army. The Monitor and the Virginia may have survived the first battle of ironclads, but could not survive the war.

More than a hundred years after the loss of the Monitor, her badly disintegrating remains were discovered and identified by an expedition funded by Clive Cussler. A few months after the positive identification, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared the Monitor a National Marine Sanctuary. This sanction imposed by the Federal government prevented divers and historians from exploring the Monitor’s remains unless, of course, you were part of NOAA, even though the Nation Marine Sanctuary was established for the purposes of public awareness.

In 1984, perhaps the world’s most accomplished wreck diver, Gary Gentile, petitioned NOAA to dive the Monitor. A six year legal battle enraged, funded primarily out of his own pocket with Peter Hess as counsel.
In 1990, Gary’s efforts finally paid off as he was granted access to dive the Monitor - the 1990 People’s Expedition, a photographic expedition to document the Monitor as it was before the Monitor succumbed to the forces of the sea – a way that it will never be seen again.
Gary Gentile
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Lusitania Controversies Vol.I
This two-volume series takes you to a place that has been seldom documented before – the history of deep wreck diving and the pioneers who braved the waters to advance the sport where it is today.

The first volume describes the life of the Lusitania from birth until its tragic loss in 1918 by the U-20 and chronicles the humble beginnings of wreck diving – at a time when divers were true explorers.

Interwoven throughout the book is a very honest and intense autobiography of Gary Gentile. He describes in great detail the origins of his passion for exploration, his tour of duty in Vietnam that resulted in a long and painful recovery, the beginnings of his diving career, and the harrowing tales of wreck penetrations gone wrong.

The first volume leaves the reader at the end of the 1970’s – the birth of decompression diving.
Gary Gentile
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Lusitania Controversies Vol.II
Book Two picks up where Book One ends: at the start of the 1980’s with the expansion of wreck diving – often referred to as the decade of the Doria.

Again, Gary continues his honest and intense autobiography describing his brush with the bends, more harrowing escapes, death, friendships gone bad, and delves into the origins of mix gas diving, the discovery of the Billy Mitchell wrecks and many of the incredible and often fatal penetrations into the bowels of the Doria.

All of the details of the trials, tribulations, and hardships involved in the 1994 mixed gas expedition to the Lusitania are described here, as well as the many attempt to sabotage this epic expedition. The book doesn’t end here, but only begins as Gary makes a call for the next generation of wreck divers to make history in a quest to go ever deeper and to “take the torch” the pioneers of the sport have placed before us and not be held down by the limitations before us.
Gary Gentile
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Fatal Treasure
In 1622, hundreds of people lost their lives to the curse of the Spanish galleon Atocha–and they would not be the last. Fatal Treasure combines the rousing adventure of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea with the compelling characters and local color of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It tells the powerful true story of the relentless quest to find the Atocha and reclaim her priceless treasures from the sea. You’ll follow Mel Fisher, his family, and their intrepid team of treasure hunters as they dive beneath the treacherous waters of the Florida Straits and scour the ocean floor in search of gold, silver, and emeralds. And you’ll discover that nearly four centuries after the shipwreck, the curse of the Atocha is still a deadly force.

 

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