Question for the under 30 crowd...

[crab]

What about all those dramatic Spare Air rescue scenes from Baywatch. Now there's some inspiration for ya!

Lloyd Bridges and Jaques Cousteau ain't got nothing on the Baywatch crew! As for all of the modern day tech diving giants, they should consider themselves lucky for the opportunity to carry the Baywatch diver's Spare Airs to a rescue site!

 

[JamesK]

Crab, you're not a Baywatch junky are you?

----

I know that the people I listed will not be known to many rec divers, however they are all divers that I have a great deal of respect for. I may not agree with all of them, or like their style of diving, but I respect everything they have brought to and offered the cave diving community. To me that is all that matters.

 

[Amber]

Id have to say the only diver I really think about as being an "icon", it the co-owner of my LDS. Jill (don't know her last name )

Amber

oking:

 

[JamesK]

Id have to say the only diver I really think about as being an "icon", it the co-owner of my LDS. Jill (don't know her last name )

Jill Heinerth. She is one of the most accomplished female cave divers ever. She has been on many exploration dives in the Yucatan, and Florida. She is also Paul's, who I mentioned earlier, wife. Very nice people, both of them.

 

[Kaffphine]

A lot of TV shows in the style of wildlife education or a Bob Ballard type doing an underwater special... that's about as good as it gets. Once I started acutally diving though the list improves dramaticly : Sheck Exley, John Dudas, Evie Dudas, Bill Stone, Dan Crowell, John Chatterton, Wes Skiles.

 

[diveaway]

Maybe James Cameron

He brought the Public ABYSS. One of the last sentences in the movie: "We should be all dead - we didn't do any decompression" (or similar)

And of course TITANIC - the UW footage is still amazing (unlike the rest of the film) with submarines, ROV's ...

Sure, it's not cousteau. But Cousteau didn't have all the cool toys then.

Ray

 

[astrofunk]

I'm 26, and the bulk of the contemporary names in the preceding posts don't mean anything to me. The names I do recognize (e.g. George Irvine, Jarrod Jablonski) just don't resonate the way "Cousteau" does. So if the criterion is "giants who are alive today", then I come up negative.

One exception: is Arthur C. Clarke still alive? That guy gets far less credit than he deserves as a diver. Among the reasons I dive today are his books on scuba which I read as a kid. Believe it or not, Arthur C. Clarke resonates for me in much the same way that Jacques Cousteau does. The guy's all-around amazing.

 

[ckharlan66]

I can't think of any that are alive today. The names that people know of people that dive don't really have the universal appeal (at least for non divers) of the folks from the old days.

Chad

 

[jbd]

but I gotta agree with the youngster known as astrofunk; Arthur C Clarke.

 

[scubatexastony]

Alexandra Cousteau, 25, is the daughter of Philippe and granddaughter of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. A definate icon for the new generation of divers.