Galapagos & Titicaca & the Blue Holes: Galapagos, Titicaca, the Blue Holes (The Undersea Discoveries of Jacques-Yves Cousteau) (English and French Edition)

by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Philippe Diolé, Cousteau Jacques Yves and Philippe Diole translated from the French by J F Berna

Book Overview

In this far-ranging odyssey through the submarine world, Jacques Cousteau and his renowned team of scientist-adventurers and divers on board Calypso search out and, at great personal risk, explore... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385069219
• ISBN13: 9780385069212
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Steve Zissou?

It recently occured to me that the film "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" (my personal favorite movie) is based largely off of the life of Jaques-Yves Cousteau. Anyone who knows the movie will see immediately the almost comic likeness of himself and Zissou. Besides that though, "Three Adventures" is filled with retro-esque pictures and commentaries about sea life. Sea life! Who doesn't love it? I know of no one.

Three incredible adventures.

For most people any one of the three separate adventures to; The Galapagos Islands, Lake Titicaca or the Blue Holes of Belize and the Bahamas would have been sufficient for a book in it's own right. With Jacques Cousteau, however, this is just another day at the office and once he has made the points he wishes to impart - it's always time to move on. When my own second book "Diving Belize" was being written I had occasion to write to Jacques Cousteau with a number of questions. His personal reply is now framed and hangs on my study wall. It says much about this great man that he found time for such a personal reply. Very few of those who visit the Galapagos Islands have any understanding of the special factors that exist there - factors that must always be conserved. What Cousteau has to say has not diminished with the passage of time. As far as Lake Titicaca goes, few divers get to visit there anyway and the message from this section of the book is probably the only appraisal of diving this high altitude lake. Of course, Belize and the Bahamas are very popular with scuba divers - but I wonder how many of those visitors know exactly what they are looking at when they first set eyes on those underwater stalactites at depths of over 50m (165 feet). I remember returning from one such dive when one of our group let it be known he was very disappointed with the dive. When it was explained to him that it was impossible for stalactites to form in water and exactly how they had been created - then bent!, and then continued to form, he couldn't wait to get back into the water to take another look. This time he was not disappointed. I have also had the privilege of diving inside Ben's Cave in the Bahamas and the same comment applies. Having been required to re-read this series of books for this (and other) book reviews, I am finding them all the more interesting because of the time which has elapsed since I read them last. In short, these books are timeless and I repeat my view that no scuba diver's bookshelf is complete without a copy of this and those other books in the same series. - but be quick, they will not remain available forever. NM