Product Description
On a dense, foggy, late July evening in 1956, the Italian-flagged cruise liner Andrea Doria, bound for New York, was struck broadside by another cruise ship. After an agonizing eleven hours, the relentless sea would drag her down, settling the Doria uneasily into the murky Atlantic ocean floor nearly two hundred and fifty feet below. AmazingIy, due to a daring and fevered rescue operation by her oceangoing brethren, only fifty-one of the more than 1,700 people on board both ships were killed in the collision. Years have passed since that tragedy, yet the Andrea Doria is still taking lives. Deep Descent Drawn by the sirens call of adventure, a small but fanatical group of extreme scuba divers has long challenged the Andrea Doria, pushing themselves far beyond the limits of recreational divers, up to the very limits of human endurance. Not all of them have succeeded. In Deep Descent, an author and frequent Doria diver Kevin McMurray takes you inside this elite club, offering an unsparing and unsentimental exploration ofthose men and women who dare to go deeper, farther, and closer to the edge than prudence or common sense might allow. Considered the Mt. Everest of diving, the Andrea Doria is the ultimate deepwater wreck challenge -- lying in an area long known as the Bermuda Triangle of the Northeast, some fifty miles south of Nantucket Island and two hundred miles east of Sandy Hook, New Jersey. This region, no stranger to disaster, is fog-shrouded and prone to sudden changes of wind, weather, and tide. In addition to many shipping disasters, it has borne mute witness to such recent tragedies as the fatal crash of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s small plane and the mysterious downing of EgyptAir Flight 990. It is an area that guards its secrets well, only surrendering its treasures to the bravest ormost determined seekers. Told with a vivid and startling clarity, Deep Descent is a story of courage and bravado, of the human spirit overcoming human frailty, and of fearsome risks traded for a hardwired adrenaline rush. With each page, McMurray draws us deeper into the cold heart of the unforgiving sea, giving us a powerful vision of a place to which few will ever have the skills or the daring to go.
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Great read -- a real page-turner
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-02-18
After reading "Shadow Divers", I was drawn to read more about the people and about diving the Andrea Doria. "Deep Descent" is a well-written account of the people and dangers of deep wreck diving on the Andrea Doria by an author who has personally dived the wreck several times and interviewed all of the significant players. Once I started, it was hard to put this book down. It is a great read for diver and non-diver alike.
The focus is on the personalities and the emotions driving those involved and how they were a factor in many of the deaths for this dangerous dive. It recounts interesting personalities of the dive boat captains and key Doria divers, their competition, and their concerns. It includes both sides of many issues whose schisms are clear in some of the other books. It is not a travelogue of the ship itself nor is it very technical -- neither detracts from the enjoyment of the book and allows it to retain its appeal for non-divers. He also talks about how advances in diving gases and equipment have made such deep dives safer and reachable for less experienced divers, yet divers continue to die for many of the same fundamental reasons -- driven to the limits of their abilities and beyond.
If you want a book on the technical aspects of deep wreck diving, or accounts of the scenery of the wreck, this is not your book. Otherwise, you will find this a very enjoyable read.
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