PIRATE HUNTERS {Kurson, 2015}
This one I picked up first on a whim from the bargain shelf last summer. Its cover stood out from the row of Nicholas Sparks paperbacks, plus I've always had an interest in learning more about pirate history. Johnny Depp roles aside, pirates have always — and scared — me: the adventure and treasure and brutality. That same fascination seemed to inspire two treasure hunters, John Chatterton and John Mattera, to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours scouring both historical archives in Spain as well as the ocean floor of the Caribbean.
This is a fast read, relentlessly paced that balances both the history of Captain Joseph Bannister and his 'commandeered' ship, The Golden Fleece, with Chatterton and Mattera's dogged pursuit of its unknown, sunken whereabouts. Bannister was a late 17th Century British Navy Captain who defected to join the pirate life - stealing a ship in the process. I won't give anything away, but I loved the interplay of history and myth in it.
This is a fast read, relentlessly paced that balances both the history of Captain Joseph Bannister and his 'commandeered' ship, The Golden Fleece, with Chatterton and Mattera's dogged pursuit of its unknown, sunken whereabouts. Bannister was a late 17th Century British Navy Captain who defected to join the pirate life - stealing a ship in the process. I won't give anything away, but I loved the interplay of history and myth in it.
SHADOW DIVERS {Kurson, 2005}
Shadow Divers came as a recommendation from Ryan Holiday — and after Kurson's Pirate Hunters this past summer, it was a done deal. The story of a ragtag group of adrenaline junkies, expert fishermen, deep sea welders, and treasure hunters to locate a Nazi U-boat off the coast of New Jersey was an incredibly entertaining and insightful read. And not just because of the guys' sense of humor.
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I loved how Kurson pulled back the curtain with respect to diving in general too. I learned that at 280 ft deep, this Nazi U-boat was an extremely perilous mission. Anything deeper than 200 ft and the drowning probabilities increased exponentially. Of the ten million or so US-certified scuba divers, only 100-200 of them deep sea dive like this. In addition to Nitrogen Narcosis past 66 ft (dizzyness, disorientation, and impaired judgement), these guys had to dive while under the 'Jungle Drums'. At 170-200 feet deep, a person's heartbeat is deafening in their ears and leads to drunkeness and even hallucinations. (There are cases where divers have actually attacked other divers with their knives at this depth, unable to discern reality from illusion).
10-inch visibility in the Atlantic Ocean, keeping track of movement through a three-dimensional space of a shipwreck, silt (oil, dust, sand) blurring your vision even more, the risk of decompression sickness — it's not exactly child's play.
And they risked it all for the 'Holy Grail' of history: excavating an undiscovered piece of WWII history right off the coast of New Jersey.
10-inch visibility in the Atlantic Ocean, keeping track of movement through a three-dimensional space of a shipwreck, silt (oil, dust, sand) blurring your vision even more, the risk of decompression sickness — it's not exactly child's play.
And they risked it all for the 'Holy Grail' of history: excavating an undiscovered piece of WWII history right off the coast of New Jersey.
