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    The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths
    Unavailable
    The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths
    Unavailable
    The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths
    Ebook530 pages8 hours

    The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths

    By Bernie Chowdhury

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “Superbly written and action-packed, The Last Dive ranks with such adventure classics as The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air.”—Tampa Tribune

    Spurred on by a fatal combination of obsession and ambition, Chris and Chrisy Rouse, an experienced father-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve wide-spread recognition for their outstanding and controversial diving skills by solving the secrets of a mysterious, undocumented, World War II German U-boat that lay only a half day’s mission from New York Harbor.

    The Rouses found the ultimate cost of chasing their personal challenge: death from what divers dread the most—decompression sickness, or “the bends.” In this gripping recounting of their tragedy, author Bernie Chowdhury, himself an expert diver, explores the thrill-seeking, high-risk world of deep sea diving, its legendary figures, most celebrated triumphs, and notorious tragedies.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062196828
    Author

    Bernie Chowdhury

    Bernie Chowdhury is the founder and co-publisher of The Inteinational Technical Diving Magazine. A world-class diver, Explorers Club Fellow, and a recognized expert on extreme sport diving, he also makes documentary films and is a frequent lecturer.

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    Reviews for The Last Dive

    4/5

    15 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Very much a biography of the author, in addition to the story of the father and son dive team. A great supplement to Shadow Divers.
    • 4/5
      I got this book shortly after I became certified in diving... I advise against that. So very sad and scary... I know I won't be cave diving anytime soon! These two men redefined pushing the envelope. Wait until you have been diving for a good year or so before you read this!
    • 4/5
      In ‘The Last Dive: A Father and Son’s Fatal Descent into the Ocean’s Depth’ Bernie Chowdury recounted the tragic story of the death of Chris and Chrissy Rouse in a deep wreck diving off New Jersey. Adventurous and ambitious, Chris Rouse and his son Chrissy embraced the more dangerous branch of sport diving – technical diving – with gusto. Chris and Chrissy started diving in quarry and shallow waters, but the pair wasn’t satisfied with that. They continued with cave diving, deep cave diving, then deep wreck diving. In four years they dived more than 600 dives, many of them to dangerous destinations as caves and deep wrecks. During a dive in foul weather to the mysterious U-boat found off New Jersey the two encountered problem in the wreck and later could not find their decompression gas tanks. They shot up to the surface without decompression and as a consequence experienced the excruciatingly painful decompression sickness, the bends. Chris died right away and Chrissy followed him a few hours later in the recompression chamber. Actually this isn’t the only book written about the sad story. ‘Shadow Divers’ by Robert Kurson also covers the same tragic event. Some people say that Kurson’s book is better. I say they are different. Shadow Divers follows the story of the unraveling of the mystery of the U-boat wreck termed U-who, which is where the Rouses died. It devotes one chapter to the tragic story of the Rouses. Chowdury’s book tells the story of the Rouses (and their other technical diver friends including Chowdury himself) and devotes one chapter to the mysterious U-boat. Kurson didn’t know the Rouses, Chowdury is one of their close friends. Because of the difference the books feel different. Chowdury’s feels very personal, like a diary, a reminiscence of friends. This is one of the reasons that make The Last Dive more difficult to read than Shadow Divers. Chowdury’s book is a continuous rambling and musing of his friends and him and their activities. It lacks clear structure, and jumps from the past to the future then to the past again. It is choked full of names it is difficult to follow who’s who. It seems that Chowdury didn’t want to leave anyone out but it confuses me. He provided brief explanations to remind us who these people are, but it is done over and over again it makes it a bit boring. Apart from that I think the book is an excellent read for divers, especially those who are interested in technical diving. It provides us with a series of account of real dive incidents and accidents, which is often fatal. Many people in the book ended up dead, and those who live know many who did not survive. Chowdury himself experienced the bends, but he survived while many that he knew didn’t. These chronicles serve as lessons and warnings for divers that diving has its inherent dangers and if we don’t poses the necessary physical and mental requirements we can end up dead as well. In the realm of recreation diving little mistakes due to complacency might not be fatal but in the world of the technical diving mistakes can mean loss of lives. In this way the book is useful and interesting.
    • 4/5
      This book was recommended to me by someone who knew I really enjoyed the book "Shadow Divers". This book was almost as good. I enjoyed the father-son story at the heart of the book, and even the author's own story, but, for me, there was a little too much of the technical jargon. I continually glossed over all of the terms and descriptions of equipment. In the first couple of chapters the author gives so much technical information--which is needed to fully grasp what is going on (at least for us non-divers!), but after awhile I found myself wondering, "I wonder when we'll get back to Chris and Chrissy". So, that is my only complaint in this captivating underwater adventure, which left me sobbing.