Books Worth Looking At:

Wreck of the Huron

This is the fourth book in the Mike Scott thriller series:

When the USS Huron went down off the coast of North Carolina in 1877, she took most of her crew with her and a mystery about why they were headed to Cuba in the first place. When a present-day storm uncovers a long-hidden portion of the wreck, including the captain's lock box, international photojournalist Mike Scott and his friends dive on the wreck to find out more.
When the archeologist helping them unravel the contents of the lock box disappears, right after finding a hidden, coded message inside, Mike heads to the Isle of Pines in Cuba, once known as Treasure Island, to discover the secret message that sank with the Huron and the whereabouts of the archeologist. Out of nowhere, a hurricane looms over the island, Mike and his friends are forced to run for cover, both from the elements and the men who are set against them, looking to recover the secret of the Huron themselves.

Sunken Treasure has the first six stories in stock.

Flooding Hollywood

This is the second book in the Mike Scott thriller series:

Criminals in Los Angeles are using their dive equipment to smuggle illegal drugs into the City of Angels. Or are they up to something more sinister? It is up to news photographer Mike Scott to figure it out. And he has to do it before disaster strikes the heart of the city. Beginning as a simple photo shoot to capture glamorous images of an actress enjoying the sport she lovesascuba diving around Santa Catalina Islandathings quickly turn serious. Before it all ends, the two will face danger and fanaticism in the Hollywood Hills..

Flooding Hollywood pits photographer Mike Scott against a group of fanatics bent on destroying Hollywood. The story begins with Mike Scott on a photo shoot with up and coming actress Diane Taylor. They decide to combine some personal recreation with the shoot and spend a couple days scuba diving in an around Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California. On a dive, Scott witnesses another diver picking up stray packages underwater. He doesn't think much about it the first day, but when it happens two days in a row, it gets his mind going. Assuming the divers are smuggling drugs into the city, Scott tips off the police. That act of curiosity and initiative places Scott on a collision course with fanatics bent on imposing their will on the city of Los Angeles. Set underwater around Catalina Island and around the city of Los Angeles, Flooding Hollywood takes readers on a ride from LA Harbor to the Hollywood hills on a fast-paced ride of intrigue.

Sunken Treasure has the first six stories in stock.

Cayman Cowboy: Reefs Under Pressure

This is the first book in the Mike Scott thriller series: the book that started it all.

Diving in Grand Cayman, magazine photographer Mike Scott notices a series of unusual occurrences including the death of a girl, a protest of new development and the systematic destruction of coral reefs. It all comes together when armed men warn him away from a dive site. Investigating, he witnesses a specially-equipped submarine destroying the reef. Before he is able to report the destruction to the authorities, he and his dive buddy, Kelly, are kidnapped–along with Kelly’s girlfriend Tanya. Friends rescue Mike and Tanya, but the assassin gets away with Kelly, taking him to die. They must race against time to save Kelly and bring down the greedy developer putting his own wealth before the beauty of the island and the welfare of the people.

Action, adventure, intrigue and the environment all come into play in this thriller by author Eric Douglas. Set at the beautiful dive resort Sunset House on Grand Cayman, a must-visit, this book highlights the beautiful locations and touches on the potential for abuse as the environment and development fall into conflict.

Looking for a winter read? Sunken Treasure has the first six stories in stock.

The Deep

by Ptere Benchley

A young couple go to Bermuda on their honeymoon. They dive on the reefs offshore, looking for the wreck of a sunken ship. What they find lures them into a strange and increasingly terrifying encounter with past and present, a struggle for salvage and survival along the floor of the sea, in the deep.

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Ghost River

by Jon Coon
"One of America's top writers of modern sea adventures." Clive Cussler, New York Times Bestselling Author
Gabe Jones is not like most underwater criminal investigators--he talks to the dead and the dead talk back. In this crime-thrilling suspense novel, Gabe dives into a watery world of crime and corruption as a paranormal experience helps him uncover the grisly truth of his partner's death. After losing his trooper partner Charlie in a recovery dive, Gabe Jones is not prepared for what he discovers when he attempts to investigate the scene of Charlie's death. In the murky waters of the Florida panhandle, Gabe questions his partner's departed spirit and uncovers an underwater graveyard, along with a dire warning that more deaths are coming if he doesn't stop the killer. In a race against time, the underwater spirits lead him to the incriminating evidence he needs to expose the killer. But when his investigation is discovered, he puts Charlie's family at risk. Will he have what it takes to outwit his adversaries, save Charlie's daughter, and expose the killer, all while navigating the tumultuous waves of relationships he finds himself in above water?

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Reef Smart Guide for Bonaire

A great Caribbean travel book: The ultimate guide for beach and marine activities in Bonaire. The detailed descriptions and illustrations of beaches, coral reefs, shipwrecks, and other dive spots are ideal for divers, snorkelers, kitesurfers and wind surfers. This guidebook will help anyone wanting to make the most of their time on the island and in the water.

Detailed descriptions and map art: Reef Smart catalogues the dive and snorkel sites in Bonaire as well as the beaches, and kitesurfing and wind surfing hotspots. With the help of Reef Smart’s unique 3D-mapping technology, learn all you need to know about the regions' top dive and snorkel sites. These maps provide useful information such as depths, currents, waves, suggested routes, potential hazards, unique structures and species information.

Do not go diving without it: This indispensable resource will help you plan and execute dives without a hitch. Make sure to pack this guidebook with the rest of your SCUBA gear before you visit the shore diving capital of the Caribbean.

This guidebook provides:

• The best locations for diving, snorkeling, kitesurfing and windsurfing, and how to access them

• Detailed 3D maps, graphics and information to help you plan your time in and out of the water

• Species guide to help you identify and understand the marine creatures you will encounter in Bonaire and its surrounding areas

Of course it’s available at Sunken Treasure Scuba Center in Jersey Shore, PA

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Blackwolf

by Jon Coon
Lurking beneath an ocean crevasse near the edge of the abyss, Blackwolf, a deadly high-tech submarine waits to launch an attack of unimaginable horror. Can it be stopped before thousands die? In this sequel to Thief of the Deep, the saga continues as Ex-Navy SEAL Doc Holiday vows to destroy Blackwolf and her evil crew, led by the old Nazi U-boat captain, Hans Behrmann. From the Cayman Islands to the inner sanctum of the White House, follow Doc as he tries to stay one step ahead of Jack Morgan, a power broker and adviser to presidents, who wants it all. Ex-Navy SEAL Doc Holiday's daughter and her boyfriend have disappeared while investigating the sophisticated plunder of Bermuda's historic shipwrecks. After reestablishing his old CIA contacts, Doc begins the hunt helped by Sheri, the shapely leader of a college underwater archaeology expedition. Using his expertise in underwater explosives and high-tech diving, Doc dives deep into the center of a mystery that involves a museum executive, drug smugglers, a revenge-driven police inspector, a desperate old NAZI U-boat captain, and one deadly player that takes Doc by surprise.....Read more and get the book here

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Thief of the Deep

by Jon Coon
Ex-Navy SEAL Doc Holiday's daughter and her boyfriend have disappeared while investigating the sophisticated plunder of Bermuda's historic shipwrecks. After reestablishing his old CIA contacts, Doc begins the hunt helped by Sheri, the shapely leader of a college underwater archaeology expedition. Using his expertise in underwater explosives and high-tech diving, Doc dives deep into the center of a mystery that involves a museum executive, drug smugglers, a revenge-driven police inspector, a desperate old NAZI U-boat captain, and one deadly player that takes Doc by surprise.....Read more and get the book here

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The Lost Intruder

The Search for a Missing Navy Jet by Peter M. Hunt
"Although I owned a boat, I had no sonar, metal detector or any practical method of surveying the ocean bottom. With an incurable illness, no prospect of financial reward, little chance of success, brain surgery looming, and one child in college with another about to start, I was not in a position to spend thousands of dollars on a search. Still, desperate for a distraction, anything to pry my focus away from the disease, I decided-the hell with Parkinson's. I'm doing it." - From THE LOST INTRUDER.

On a windy, Autumn day in 1989, a U.S. Navy A-6 Intruder crashed off the shores of Whidbey Island, Washington. The Navy mounted a comprehensive, four-ship search for the attack jet with advanced sonar systems and remotely....Read more and get the book here

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Reef Fish Identification...Florida - Caribbean - Bahamas

by Paul Humann & Ned Deloach

The 4th edition is packed with amazing marine life photographs of 683 species and enough information to keep fish watchers busy for years. The book includes the latest information on what is known about the taxonomy and distribution of Caribbean reef fishes. The easy-to-use, quick reference format makes it a snap to identify the hundreds of fishes sighted on the reefs, sand flats, grass beds, surf zones and walls of Florida, the Caribbean and Bahamas.

 

Get the eBook here or stop in the store and get a hard copy.

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SS Thistlegorm

by John Kean

The incredible story of WW2's greatest underwater discovery

In the 1990s the scuba diving community of Sharm el Sheikh discovered an amazingly well-preserved World War II British shipwreck lying 100 feet below the surface of the Egyptian Red Sea. ‘Grandad, I think they’ve found your ship’, was a soon to be heard announcement as the SS Thistlegorm exclusive survivors story began to emerge from the 50 year-old hidden time capsule.

SS Thistlegorm was more than just a shipwreck; it held secrets and stories that would captivate and enthrall millions of people for years to come. Grandad was no longer just an ageing relative who ‘Did something during WW2’. The ‘Something’ that these living heroes accomplished was now in national newspapers, magazines and the subject of a full-length BBC television documentary.  Get the eBook here.

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Harry Hawksbill Helps His Friends

by Paul J. Mila

Vibrant photos depicted on high-quality glossy pages sets this book apart from other children's books. Author and diver Paul Mila uses his vivid underwater photos to bring this story to life. Harry the hawksbill turtle discovers that his angelfish friends aren't getting along because they look different from each other. Harry teaches them they are more alike than they realize, while children also learn about sea life. This is a fun book for beginning self-readers or for parents and children to read together.

"This terrific little book has everything. The story is fantasy, but the underwater color photos showing the interaction of reef characters are real. The information about turtles is easy to understand, and the fish learn a great lesson about befriending those who are not always just like you. It even has easy, fun questions at the end to enhance the learning."

Cathy Church, award-winning underwater photographer, teacher, author

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Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving

by Trevor Norton

I In a series of brilliantly detailed portraits, this history of the daring art of diving recounts the eccentric exploits and sense-defying feats of the men who turned underwater adventure into a modern science. Spear fishermen and conservationists, treasure hunters and archaeologists, photographers and philosophers -- these pioneers invented and experimented with all sorts of amazing devices to enable them to explore the secretive and seductive depths of the sea. Among the colorful adventurers from the past two centuries included in this volume stand the likes of Guy Gilpatric, who wrote a film for Humphrey Bogart, invented snorkeling, and shot his wife; Roy Miner, who wore a bucket over his head and stole a coral reef; William Beebe, who sealed himself in a metal coffin to dangle a half mile undersea; and John Haldane, who learned how to control human breathing and prevent bends. If you've never even dreamed of diving, this book will make you wonder why -- and may indeed tempt you to try.

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Where Divers Dare:  The Hunt for the Last U-Boat

by Randall Peffer

In the tradition of Shadow Divers, this is the gripping true account of the search for German U-boat U-550, the last unfound, diveable wreck of a U-boat off the United States coast, and the battle in which it was sunk.
 
On April 16, 1944, the SS Pan Pennsylvania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-550 off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. In return the sub was driven to the surface with depth charges, and then sent to the bottom of the ocean by three destroyer escorts that were guarding the naval convoy. For more than sixty years the location of the U-boat’s wreck eluded divers.
 
In 2012, a team found it—the last undiscovered U-boat in dive-able waters off the Eastern Seaboard ofthe United States, more than three hundred feet below the surface.
 
This is the story of their twenty-year quest to find this "Holy Grail" of deep-sea diving and their tenacious efforts to dive on this treacherous wreck—and of the stunning clash at sea that sealed its doom and brought the Battle of the Atlantic to America’s doorstep

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Underwater Archaeology:  The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice

by Nautical Archaeology Society

Underwater Archaeology: The NAS Guide to Principles and Practice provides a comprehensive summary of the archaeological process as applied in an underwater context. Long awaited second edition of what is popularly referred to as the NAS Handbook Provides a practical guide to underwater archaeology: how to get involved, basic principles, essential techniques, project planning and execution, publishing and presenting Fully illustrated with over 100 drawings and new color graphics New chapters on geophysics, historical research, photography and video, monitoring and maintenance and conservation.

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An American Immersion

by Jennifer Idol

Jennifer Idol became the first woman to dive the 50 states. She flew over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and was moved to raise awareness for local waters through her underwater photography and diving skills. She determined that a journey to document and dive all 50 states would help show how our national underwater world is a treasure that we should care for and protect.

In 2011, she set out on the first steps of her journey. Since this Texas diver’s first dive 20 years ago, she has become a technical diver, PADI instructor, and underwater photographer. She helps others understand the underwater world through her photography, design, and by sharing her exploration.

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The Scuba Diver's Guide to Underwater Video:
GoPro to Professional Film-making

by Jill Heinerth

Professional underwater photographer, filmmaker, and explorer Jill Heinerth shares tips and techniques for SCUBA divers interested in shooting better underwater video. Whether experienced or starting with a GoPro, this book offers specific technical information, entertaining anecdotes, and guidance for improving your underwater filming skills. A regular video columnist for DIVER Magazine, and an award-winning underwater videographer, Jill Heinerth guides you through, and simplifies the remarkable world of underwater filmmaking.

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Scuba: A Practical Guide to Advanced Training

by James Lapenta

Building on his first book, "SCUBA: A Practical Guide for the New Diver", James Lapenta addresses what is most often the next step in diver training. Advanced Level or Advanced Open Water training is often taken by divers to gain additional skills and knowledge. It is also taken to allow them to gain access to more challenging dives and dive sites. These also pose a greater degree of risk to the individual. Unfortunately some advanced classes are no more than a "taste" or "tour" of advanced level dives. The divers do not get the new knowledge and skills required to safely embark on these dives. In order to safely pursue these dives James has outlined the steps to take to reduce the risk of injury and worse. From describing the dives to offering advice on the content one should expect, as well as selecting an instructor, he offers new and not so new divers guidance. Additional sections on equipment options, air supply management, dive planning, and dive selection for maximum learning potential are looked at. Also included is a section on a subject often overlooked in recreational SCUBA diving - the after-effects of a diving accident and rescue/recovery on the rescuer and witnesses to the event. Post Traumatic Stress in Recreational Dive Rescues is a real possibility and one that must be looked at when executing dives with greater risk. Safety in training and after training is the heart of this work and the driving force behind its publication. James has experienced the best in training and that which left something to be desired. He gives examples of both throughout the work. If you do not have his first book, it is highly recommended that you also acquire it as a companion to this one. While they do contain some sections of the same information, there are sections in the first book that are not included in this that are highly beneficial.

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The Deep

by Michaelbrent Collings

2016 BRAM STOKER AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL

There are places we were never meant to go...

• A woman searching for a sister lost at sea.

• A man bent on finding lost treasure.

• A mother who has lost all hope.

• A maniac who believes all life exists for his pleasure.

• The man who would keep them all safe.

Together, they will all seek below the waves for treasures long buried, and riches beyond belief. But those treasures hide something. Something ancient, something dark. A creature that exists only to feed on those that would enter into its realm. A creature... of The Deep

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Dead Men's Silver

by Hugh Edwards

The story of more than sixty years of diving adventures, through starkly contrasting locations and extraordinary advances in technology. From boyhood dreamer to master treasure hunter, Hugh Edwards documents his life through tales of shipwreck and salvage. the story of more than sixty years of diving adventures including his significant find of the Batavia, Hugh Edwards documents his life through tales of shipwreck, treasure hunting and salvage. Brought up on tales of pirates and great treasure hunters, Hugh Edwards never expected to handle 'pieces of eight' himself. But one exciting day off the West Australian coast, that is exactly what happened, when he and his team located treasure lost from the Dutch East Indiaman shipwreck the Vergulde Draeck. It was a moment of astonishment and euphoria, as there in his hand lay a piece of silver with the inscription: PHILIPPUS IIII ... REX HISPANIA ... DG - Philip IV, King of Spain, Dei Gratia (by the Grace of God). the date on the coin was 1654. Nearly fifty years later Hugh Edwards has explored shipwrecks around the world - in the Mediterranean, the Falklands, Cambodia - wherever there is treasure to be found. He has been recognized as 'primary finder' of the 1629 wreck of the Batavia and the 1727 wreck the Zeewyk. He has worked with some of the world's craziest, daring and most successful divers in some of the most beautiful or stormy places on Earth. this is the story of a lifetime of adventure - of dangerous seas, thrilling underwater locations, of pirate diplomacy and empire building, and of modern derring-do. 'Ever since there have been ships and sailors there have been shipwrecks. Each is different, and each is a time capsule, arrested at a particular moment - and they all came to the same unexpected and unscheduled end.' Hugh Edwards

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Shadow Divers

by Robert Kurson

A true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves.

 

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.
But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.
No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location.
Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew.

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Northeast Dive News Dive Guide

The Northeast Dive Guide features an extensive summary of the diving and dive sites in the greater Northeast. Covering from Newfoundland to Virginia and as far west as Ohio, including lakes and rivers in Ontario, the goal of the book series is to help create more awareness of local diving opportunities and promote diving and tourism to these areas.

The Dive Guide is part of a larger book series to cover all of North America and promote local diving on a national scale. The goal of the book series is to promote local diving and the local diving community by helping new divers become more active in the sport - locally, where it really matters

The first in the series of guide books covering all of North America By boat, from shore or by dive, this guide promotes the scuba diving in the greater Northeast.

• Detailed Maps to Dive Sites

• Nautical Chart and Depth Profile

• Understanding Northeast Weather

• Important Dive Safety Considerations

• Annual Calendar of Events

• Local Dive Directory of shops and club

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Diving Almanac & Book of Records

The Diving Almanac is the book every diver should own. First published in 2007 the Diving Almanac & Book of Records is the only compilation of scuba diving industry information of it’s kind.

Previous editions of the Almanac were printed, but the new 2015 Diving Almanac is now a 100% free digital download. Better yet, the publishers have made it a super simple PDF – meaning PC users, Mac users, iPad and iPhone users, and even often overlooked Android users can all download the PDF to their device of choice.

Another fantastic feature of the Almanac is the option to submit an email address and automatically be told of any new updates – which you can also download for free!

Never before has such detailed, varied and concise information been gathered into one place, then made publicly available for free. And if you have a keen eye, you’ll even spot DIVER in there too!

Download your FREE copy now!

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Mystery of the Last Olympian

Well-known underwater explorer Richie Kohler (of Shadow Divers and Deep Sea Detectives) and Best Publishing Company invite you to join the expedition to unravel the Mystery of the Last Olympian: Titanic’s Tragic Sister Britannic.

The book gives you a firsthand account as Richie Kohler takes readers on the intriguing journey from the rise of the magnificent Olympians to the fateful day in 1916. He then moves forward in time through multiple expeditions beginning with the great Jacques Cousteau who located the ocean liner in 1975. Each successive team that risked their lives uncovered new clues, but it was not until 2009 when Richie and his dive partner definitively pinpointed the secret that had eluded them.

Finally, in July 2015, Richie and a small team attained the goal of documenting their findings that answered the century-old question as to why all the engineering solutions built into the mighty Britannic could not save her from sharing the same fate as Titanic.

Experience the expedition as Richie and his team unravel the mystery of the HMHS Britannic:

• With damage to only one compartment, the ship should have been able to stay afloat, and yet she sank twice as quickly as did Titanic. How was that possible?

• Was the hospital ship criminally torpedoed as the British press claimed, or did she ineptly blunder into a minefield, as the Bismarck Government countered?

Violet Jessop survived the sinking of Britannic and Titanic. Experience her intriguing story.

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Pirate Hunters

Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. At large during the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth century, Bannister should have been immortalized in the lore of the sea—his exploits more notorious than Blackbeard’s, more daring than Kidd’s. But his story, and his ship, have been lost to time. If Chatterton and Mattera succeed, they will make history—it will be just the second time ever that a pirate ship has been discovered and positively identified. Soon, however, they realize that cutting-edge technology and a willingness to lose everything aren’t enough to track down Bannister’s ship. They must travel the globe in search of historic documents and accounts of the great pirate’s exploits, face down dangerous rivals, battle the tides of nations and governments and experts. But it’s only when they learn to think and act like pirates—like Bannister—that they become able to go where no pirate hunters have gone before.

Fast-paced and filled with suspense, fascinating characters, history, and adventure, Pirate Hunters is an un-put down able story that goes deep to discover truths and souls long believed lost.

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September 28, 2021/ Rich Best/ Comment

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Rich Best