Review 50: In Oceans Deep: Courage, Innovation, and Adventure Beneath the Waves

In Oceans Deep: Courage, Innovation, and Adventure Beneath the Waves by Bill Streever
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a well written book mainly about diving to the deepest depths of the ocean. It begins with one of the deepest dives any human has accomplished, down to the bottom of the the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench at just over 35,700 feet deep, in 1960. The mission was done by the US Navy the one time and would not repeated. Missions like this then ceased..

The book covers the how this dive and other deep dives are accomplished, without getting very technical. Streever interviews one of the men on this dive, Don Walsh, and also other people who work in the diving industry. Streever himself used to work as a diver for an oil company then went back to school and became a writer. A large part of the book talks, not of his work in his earlier days, but instead of his experience as a free diver. Where the goal is to get as deep as possible on one breath. Ironically this is usually accomplished by exhaling as you sink instead of holding your breath.

Streever covers submarines, submersibles, ROVs, robots, scuba diving, different gasses that people breath at great depths, and of course the problems that are associated with being deep in the oceans. We also get the history of how it was figured out to combat decompression sickness, known as the bends. It all written in an engaging way, which made it absorbing and informative. We also learn briefly about the few attempts to have a colony on the ocean floor.

So why not a full five star rating if I enjoyed the book, and like the writing so well? A couple of minor aspects reduced it for me, one being something like what I did right here, where the author talks about the book writing process in the book. It was somewhat awkward, near the end of the book where he discusses how he shifted the ending and writing. The other part was there wasn't enough about how to help fix the problems that affect the oceans now. Streever reluctantly mentions conservation and the environmental damage being done. It seems an important aspect when the book is all about the ocean. It is doubtful that just by having people aware of the ocean, by being in it, will suddenly have them changing their ways. It hasn't worked on land so why would it happen if more people start diving?

Regardless of those points, I would highly recommend this book for anyone who likes a little history, with narratives and a bit of science and technology thrown in.


Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.