Diving Archives - Page 21 of 34 - Books by Eric Douglas

Sea Turtle Rescue now available

July 1, 2013 By Eric Douglas

You can now buy copies of the children’s book Sea Turtle Rescue through Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.

The story: When an injured sea turtle shows up near their home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Jayne and Marie, along with their friends Javier and Monique, search the beach to find the turtle’s nest and protect it from danger. They know the time is getting short and if they don’t find it soon, the eggs might not get a chance to hatch.

This is the third edition of Sea Turtle Rescue. The environmental organization Oceana published the first edition and for the last year and a half it was licensed to the Newspapers in Education program. As an added bonus, this edition of the story is available in Portuguese. Russian and Spanish are coming soon.

Sea Turtle Rescue is a chapter book, aimed at ages 5 to 9.

In celebration of the release of Sea Turtle Rescue, my second children’s book Swimming With Sharkswill be a free Kindle download from July 2 to July 6, 2013.

Sea Turtle Rescue – English: Kindle and Paperback

Sea Turtle Rescue – Portuguese: Kindle and Paperback

If you read an earlier edition of Sea Turtle Rescue, and enjoyed it, please do me a favor and post a review on Amazon. Share this blog with your friends and let them know, too..

Re-release of Sea Turtle Rescue; coming next week

June 27, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Several years ago, after reading the umpteenth Magic Treehouse book with my daughters I decided to write children’s book for them. I asked them what they would like me to write about and I got various answers from fairies to unicorns. After thinking about it for a while, I decided my first children’s book had to be about two little girls and the ocean. I was living in North Carolina at the time and one of my favorite places to visit on this planet is the Outer Banks so it all came together.

My first children’s book was Sea Turtle Rescue. It is an early reader/first chapter book, modeled very much after the Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne in detail and scope.

Sea Turtle Rescue was originally published in cooperation with the environmental organization Oceana. After that, I licensed the story to the Newspapers in Education program and it was published all over the country (and in Bermuda) in serial form by newspapers for young readers. That arrangement has ended and I am re-releasing the story in print and as a Kindle ebook on July 2.

As an added bonus, the story will also be available in Russian and in Portuguese. Spanish is coming soon. (Many thanks to my translators: Daria Tsoukanova, Yanina Pagliara and Luisa Teles Baptista).

The second book in the series of Jayne and Marie children’s books is called Swimming With Sharks. It is currently available in both print and Kindle ebook form and features the same two main characters—two young girls living on the Outer Banks and discovering the ocean.

This is the most recent review for Swimming With Sharks.

Rick C. reviewed Swimming with Sharks

Appreciation and respect for predators in nature June 17, 2013

This is a story for children and grownups too. Eric Douglas dispels a few misconceptions and replaces them with respect for these predators along the way….following a storyline that anyone should like…!!!!

To celebrate the re-release of Sea Turtle Rescue, Swimming with Sharks will be free as a Kindle ebook from July 2-6.

The third and fourth Jayne and Marie children’s stories are currently licensed to the Newspapers in Education program. They are Hurricane! and Fight for Fort Hatteras. Contact your local newspaper and tell them you want them to run the stories..

Water Safety for the summer and year round

June 21, 2013 By Eric Douglas

I’m a water guy. I love being around, in and under the water. Any chance I get, I go scuba diving—don’t really need to see anything special. Sometimes it is fun to just float around and blow bubbles.

I still vividly remember taking swimming lessons at Lake Chaweva as a child in Cross Lanes. We all got in the water at the beach and put our faces in the water to blow bubbles for the first time. Later we progressed to swimming across the lake as part of our more advanced drills. It seemed like I took swim lessons just about every summer.

School has been out a month, but now that we’ve passed the Summer Solstice and the summer heat seems to have arrived in full force, everyone seems to be heading for the water: the beach, the lake, the local pool or the pool in their backyard. And with that comes the danger and nearly inevitable news stories of small children drowning in pools because someone took their eyes off of them for just a few moments. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long and then the parents have to live the rest of their lives with tragedy.

There are some great pool and water safety tips on the Pool Safely website from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. A baby or toddler can drown in just a few inches of water. The water doesn’t have to be over the child’s head.

Here are a few:

· Never leave a child unattended in a pool or spa and always watch your child when he or she is in or near water

· Teach children basic water safety tips

· Have a telephone close by when you or your family is using a pool or spa

· If a child is missing, look for him or her in the pool or spa first

· Learn to perform CPR on children and adults, and update those skills regularly

· Understand the basics of life-saving so that you can assist in a pool emergency

I plan to spend quite a bit of time in the water with my daughters, at the beach and in the pool. I hope to see you out there. Just please, don’t become a news story or a statistic. Be aware of the dangers and make it a safe summer.

Do your part for World Oceans Day

June 8, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Considering that yesterday was National Doughnut Day it seems like there is a “day’ for just about everything any more. I think World Oceans Dayis one we should all celebrate and support, though.

(From the World Oceans Day website) Why Should I Celebrate World Oceans Day?

Generates most of the oxygen we breathe
Helps feed us

Regulates our climate
Cleans the water we drink
Offers us a pharmacopoeia of potential medicines

Provides limitless inspiration!

I like to think of the ocean as “mine”. The last one on the list is especially true for me; all of my novels, most of my short stories and most of my non-fiction writing involve the ocean. It inspires me, calms me and excites me all at the same time. When I’m out on the water (or under it) I find myself smiling. Especially when I’m diving, I often daydream and end up writing portions of upcoming stories while I float along.

You might be saying to yourself, I don’t live anywhere near the ocean. What does World Oceans Day have to do with me? How do my actions affect the ocean? Taking care of water in your own backyard directly influences the health of the ocean. Pollution, chemicals and litter all make it to the ocean through small streams and watersheds.

What can I do? Here’s what other people are doing (again from the World Oceans Day site):

I promise to bring reusable bags to the grocery store
I promise to get a reusable water bottle
I promise to take shorter showers.
I promise to take public transportation to school/work once a week.
I promise to only eat sustainably harvested seafood.
I promise to participate in a litter clean-up.

I promise to not use toxic pesticides on my lawn.

A couple of the things on this list that I do involve plastic bottles and bags. I make a concerted effort to recycle all of the plastic bottles (along with paper and aluminum) that come through my house and I try to always use reusable shopping bags at the store. I have seen those flimsy shopping bags littering pristine beaches and water bottles coating shore lines in my travels. It makes me sick to see them and I don’t want to contribute to the problem.

A good friend of mine always referred to the ocean as “hers” and she has worked her entire professional career to protect it and support ocean causes. That’s where I picked up the phrase and it influences my everyday actions. Honestly, I think we would all be better off if we all thought of the ocean as “mine”.

If you want to learn more about how your own efforts at home can support World Oceans Day and the health of the ocean that provides life for all of us, visit the website and make a promise.

How Christ of the Abyss made it to Florida

May 20, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Update: This story was picked up by the Miami Herald. They used my photos to illustrate the story. You can see Page 1 here. and Page 2 here.

Last week I was in Key Largo, Florida working on a new project when my friend Jim Elliot called and said he had an amazing opportunity for me. Jim is the founder and president of Diveheart, a non-profit organization that takes people with disabilities scuba diving. I know when Jim calls with an opening like that, it is going to be interesting. I was right.

Gabriel Spataro was going to dive on the Christ of the Abyss statue in John Pennekamp State Park. There were two unusual things about this: Spataro is 81 years old and legally blind. He began diving in 1956 with a group of friends who formed the Illinois Council of Skin and Scuba Diving. Reportedly, John Cronin and Ralph Erickson also came together in his restaurant when they were founding the Professional Association of Scuba Diving (PADI), but that’s a different story. A Korean war veteran, he is now suffering from macular degeneration so he needs the assistance of adaptive buddy divers to dive safely. That is where Diveheart comes in.

The second interesting part of the story was Gabe was instrumental in bringing the Christ of the Abyss statue to Florida in 1962, but never had the chance to dive on it. Now, 51 years later, he was going to dive on the statue for the first time. You can hear Gabe tell the story himself in the video Gabe’s Story.

In early 1962 he was asked to be the chairman of the Underwater Society of America’sconvention in Chicago. He found out that the Cressi family was making the statue, the third copy of the 9-foot-tall bronze statue, to send to the United States. Spataro was heading to Italy on a wine trip for his restaurant and met with the Cressis. They told him they were donating the statue, but it was up to him to get it to the United States. Through friends in the shipping industry, Spataro was able to bring it to Chicago from Italy for the convention and then eventually he was able to transport it to Florida. The statue finally found its home in August of 1965. This all happened with no budget, solely on the efforts of volunteers and divers.

To make the dive happen, DJ Wood, owner of Rainbow Reef Dive Centers donated six spots on one of his dive boats. Chuck Baldwin, owner of US 1 Scuba in Pompano Beach, Florida and a Diveheart volunteer, also happened to be a Cressi Dealer so he joined Spataro on the dive and outfitted him in Cressi gear so he could experience the result of his efforts. Baldwin and Wilhelmina Stanton of the Scuba Sirens lead Spataro on the dive and it was an emotional day for him. He spent about 20 minutes touching the statue, feeling the head and holding its hands.

The Christ of the Abyss is often referred to as the most photographed underwater attraction in the world. Every diver who has been to the statue owes Gabe Spataro a debt of gratitude for getting the statue to Florida from Italy.