Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

  • Home
  • Mike Scott Thrillers
    • Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal
    • Water Crisis: Day Zero
    • Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters
    • The 3rd Key: Sharks in the Water
    • Oil and Water: Crash in Curacao
    • Return to Cayman: Paradise Held Hostage
    • Heart of the Maya: Murder for the Gods
    • Wreck of the Huron: Cuban Secrets
    • Guardians’ Keep: Mystery below the Adriatic
    • Flooding Hollywood: Fanatics at the Dam
    • Cayman Cowboys: Reefs Under Pressure
  • Withrow Key
    • Lyin’ Fish
    • Tales from Withrow Key
  • Agent AJ West
  • About the Author
    • Publicity and Interviews
  • Nonfiction
    • For Cheap Lobster
    • Heart Survivor: Recovery After Heart Surgery
    • Oral History
      • Batter Up!
      • Memories of the Valley
      • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
      • Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories
    • Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story
    • Keep on, Keepin’ On: A Breast Cancer Story
    • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
    • Russia: The New Age
    • Scuba Diving Safety
  • Free Short Fiction
  • Other Fiction
    • Sea Turtle Rescue and Other Stories
    • River Town
You are here: Home / Archives for diving

Diving opens doors for disabled

May 19, 2024 By Eric Douglas

Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story

Throughout my diving and writing career, I’ve written hundreds of magazine articles, newspaper stories, books and now digital essays. I can say without any doubt that I’ve written well over a million words on the ocean, diving, adventure and the environment. 

Below you’ll find links to some of the more recent essays about the ocean I’ve written on Substack. If you aren’t a subscriber there, I highly recommend it. For me and others. There are a lot of great writers using the platform to talk about a wide range of topics. 

One of my books, though, is probably one of the most amazing stories I’ve written and it is a work of nonfiction. 

My friend Leo Morales lives in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Fifteen years or so ago, he discovered he had cancer. It was in his hip and he had to have his entire leg amputated to get rid of the cancer. 

Depressed and struggling, a friend suggested he try diving as a form of physical therapy. He did and he hated it. But his friend convinced him to try again. At that point, Leo never looked back. 

Leo is a dive instructor. He is also a cave diving instructor as well as a technical diver. That means he can go places and do things most divers never imagine doing. And he does it all with one leg. Leo also travels the world as a motivational speaker. 

In 2018, we worked together to publish a book about his life called Dive-Abled: The Leo Morales Story. Check it out. The ebook is on sale, too. 

Semi-related, I also spent some time working with Jim Elliot, the founder of Diveheart, helping him and his crew develop the training program he uses around the world to teach dive instructors to work with the disabled. He does amazing work and the bravery and excitement from people who use wheelchairs and then are weightless in the water is awe-inspiring to see. It puts my own challenges in perspective. 

It just goes to show that diving opens doors for people who never knew they could even walk through those doors. 

Substack Essays

Some of my recent essays about the ocean and the environment. 

  • ‘You should’ve seen this 20 years ago’ becoming more and more real
  • PFAS is a major problem for the oceans — and us
  • Mourning the loss of 34 fellow divers
  • Shark ‘Infested’ Waters makes me angry

Filed Under: Diving Tagged With: books, disability, diving, nonfiction, scuba

Travel around the world without leaving home with Mike Scott

April 19, 2024 By Eric Douglas

Summer is on its way in the northern hemisphere, but I’m sure some of my friends in the southern hemisphere are happy it is almost over. The heat has been alarming and is leading to severe coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. 

At home, though, it’s almost time to get 60 feet underwater here in West Virginia. Which means I have to get my tanks inspected and refilled. Last year, I ended up waiting until nearly the end of the season to go diving. A whole lot of life things got in the way, but that won’t happen this year. 

I know I’ve been saying this for months, but I am also finally getting back to writing. For real. I’m about a third of the way into what will be the next Mike Scott thriller novel. It’s a good one and a cool story. But I got myself stuck. I finally figured out it was the location. I was trying to put it someplace I didn’t know very well. Once I realized that, the logjam started to open back up. 

Right now, I am reading back through what I’ve written and identifying the places I need to adjust. And getting some new ideas on how to move it forward. Stay tuned. 

Lately, I’ve been doing some more writing on Substack as well. It’s an interesting place where essayists write on a wide variety of topics. It’s taken me a little while to find my voice there. I wanted to make it informative and based on my personal travels and experiences. Below are my two most recent essays. 

  • PFAS is a major problem for the oceans — and us
  • ‘You should’ve seen this 20 years ago’ becoming more and more real

You can subscribe there to get notified whenever I publish a new essay. 

Audiobooks

All of the Mike Scott novels and novellas are now available as audiobooks. Some are read by a professional voice actor; others are read by an AI voice. I’m satisfied with the AI reads, but obviously, they can never touch a human professional. 

Now that spring and summer road trip season is beginning, if you haven’t listened to any of my audiobooks, I invite you to check them out. 

Take a look at all of them. 

And speaking of road trips, if you want to get away, but can’t find the time right now, all of the Mike Scott stories are located on the ocean, on beaches and on islands. 

Locations in Mike Scott stories include:

  • Cayman Cowboys – Grand Cayman
  • Flooding Hollywood – Catalina Island and Los Angeles
  • Guardians’ Keep – Adriatic coast of Italy
  • Wreck of the Huron – North Carolina and Cuba
  • Heart of the Maya – Riviera Maya, Mexico
  • Return to Cayman – Grand Cayman
  • Oil and Water – Curacao
  • The 3rd Key – Florida Keys
  • Turks and Chaos – liveaboard dive boat in Turks and Caicos
  • Water Crisis – Moscow, The Bahamas and Miami, along with a couple shorter stops.
  • Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal — North Carolina and the coast of Mexico.

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: audiobooks, books, diving, Mike Scott thrillers, scuba, thriller novels

PFAS is a major problem for the oceans — and us

April 15, 2024 By Eric Douglas

My day job is as the news director for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Our team reports regularly on the presence of “forever chemicals” in groundwater and in rivers, streams and fish around the state — as well as federal efforts to curb them, now. 

Forever chemicals are commonly referred to as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). The most famous of these is Teflon, but there is an entire category of these substances. They were designed to give materials like paints long-lasting qualities. The chemicals take forever to break down. 

The problem is these chemicals take forever to break down. Even after the paint has deteriorated or the firefighting foam has been cleaned up, to all of its other uses, the PFAS themselves are still around. 

Today, these chemical contaminants have been found in remote corners of the world — in Arctic Sea ice, in fish. 

“A study published in January by the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit scientific organisation, said that PFAS had been detected in the Arctic Ocean at a depth of 3,000 feet (914 meters).”

That’s from an article on Phys.org. 

“From the tiny zooplankton eaten by shellfish, which are consumed by smaller fish and ultimately larger predators, PFAS lurked at every step along the way.

“A 2022 study in Australia established the transmission of PFAS from female turtles to their unborn offspring, while other research found traces in polar bear livers and birds, seals and other animals.”

Exposure to PFAS has been known to cause cancer and other illnesses along with complications for pregnancy. The problem is, there are 4,000 chemicals in the family. Many of them are proprietary so it is difficult to study them. 

Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved to limit six of the most common forms of the chemical from 70 parts per trillion to between 4 and 10 PPT. 

Just last year, a statewide survey in West Virginia found high levels of PFAS in finished drinking water being delivered to homes. 

It’s been 62 years since Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring about the dangers of DDT killing birds and bees. The book met huge amounts of resistance from industry at the time, but it ultimately led to the creation of the environmental movement and for Richard Nixon to ban DDT, sign the EPA and the clean water and air acts into law. That all happened between 1970 and 1972. 

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1972 and it grew out of the environmental movement of the time as well. Today, kids are taught in schools to protect the environment and Earth Day is something they expect to discuss every spring. 

As we approach the 52nd anniversary of the first day, it makes me wonder if PFAS chemicals are our new DDT. There isn’t as clear of a connection between problems with PFAS as there was with DDT — so far. But its pure pervasiveness and resistance to degradation once it is in nature makes it just as concerning. 

Filed Under: Diving Tagged With: adventure, contamination, diving, ocean, PFAS, Substack

Books, diving and everything else with ScubaRadio: Listen now!

March 25, 2024 By Eric Douglas

Over the weekend, Eric had the chance to speak with Greg Holt from ScubaRadio. Eric has been a friend of the show, and Greg’s since nearly the beginning of the show.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted any of these on-air conversations, but this felt like a good clip to post. This segment aired Mach 23, 2024.

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: adventure, adventure fiction, books, diving, Mike Scott thrillers, scubaradio

The mystery of a shipwreck

February 16, 2024 By Eric Douglas

I love diving on a beautiful coral reef, enjoying the circus of colors and fish in front of me. It is warm, relaxing and exciting at the same time. Of course, the topside atmosphere in places with those reefs is just as fun. Warm sand, sun and boat drinks. 

But, what really fires my imagination underwater are shipwrecks. A good artificial reef is fun, too, but I do prefer to dive on true shipwrecks. The ship may’ve been lost in a storm, accident or during war time. When I am diving on a wreck, with nothing but the sound of my own bubbles in my ears, my thoughts always go to the question of what was going through the minds of the passengers and crew at the time. Were they fighting and angry? Were they afraid? 

I’ve dived on shipwrecks from the Carolinas to the Caribbean to California and they are all mysterious and intriguing. My fiction author’s brain immediately goes into high gear and I’ve been known to literally start writing stories in my head during a dive. 

One of my favorite books around a shipwreck is Wreck of the Huron. It went down right off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

That’s what makes this story I read a few days ago in the Washington Post so intriguing. The headline teases it really well. 

A 1940 shipwreck was discovered in Lake Superior. Its mystery endures.

(This is a gift link so it’s free to read.)

The short version is, the captain went down with his ship. But he didn’t have to. The captain should be the last person to leave, but when the crew was safe, he could’ve gotten off, too. It’s easy to speculate what his motivations might’ve been but we will never know. 

Audiobooks 

I sent out a quick note at the beginning of the month about the complete Mike Scott series now being in audiobook format. 

This is an AI reading, and it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. I’d love to hear back from listeners to see what you think.

You can check out the links on my website. The list starts with Cayman Cowboys and there is a link to the audiobook from each one.

Also, most of them are on Audible Plus so you can listen to all you want. The remaining few have been accepted into the program and should be there soon. 

30 free thriller books

I don’t do a lot of these, but I have joined a multi-author promotion full of free thriller novels. It’s a short one, though. When February ends, so does the promotion so download them now!

Filed Under: Adventure Tagged With: adventure fiction, diving, shipwreck, thriller novels

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Real Thugs: A Cult of Murder — Small groups of travelers have disappeared all over the mid-Atlantic without a trace. When bodies turn up with what appear to be ritual markings, FBI Agent AJ West is on the hunt for what might be a serial killer. Or something even more sinister. It’s a race against […]

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