Diving Archives - Page 24 of 34 - Books by Eric Douglas

The adventure of scuba diving

July 28, 2012 By Eric Douglas

Sunken boat appearing through the gloom. This might just
show up in a story at some point…

When I’m diving, I’m often writing as well. I love the feeling of weightlessness and enjoy the fact that I can’t hear my phone ring while I’m underwater, but while part of my mind is focused on what I see in front of me (and a part of my subconscious is focused on the act of diving: controlling my buoyancy, monitoring my air supply, and swimming) another part of my brain is writing a story or thinking about an article. Often, I see things and think to myself, I could make a story out of that. I’ve gotten inspiration for several of my novels and short stories while I’ve been blowing bubbles.

My first job in the dive industry, in 1998, was working for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) as a technical writer. That job set me on a career path that has given me chances to see the world and make friends on nearly every continent. (Thank you Karl Shreeves for taking the chance on me when I didn’t have all of the credentials you wanted.)

Dad peering into the sunken boat near winter access.

Yesterday I was diving with my dad for my birthday. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the local lake where we both learned to dive. That gave us a lot of time to catch up and talk. We actually missed one turn because we were talking. And then we made a couple dives together.

Summersville Lake in West Virginia is a pretty good place to dive. Yesterday, even with the thunderstorms that rolled through the night before, visibility was probably 30 feet or so. There was particulate in the water making photography a little tricky, but on the whole conditions were good. Water temperature was in the upper 70s on the surface and low 70s at the first thermocline. We didn’t go deeper than that. There isn’t a lot to see, but it can still be fun. There are some fish, some rock structures to look at and a small boat to dive on.

While we were diving, I was thinking about an article I wrote for The Undersea Journal in (I think) 1999 about diving with my dad. That was the first time we ever got a chance to get in the water together. He learned to dive after I had moved to California to work for PADI, but he came to California and we dived together there. I wrote about it for the UJ and talked about how cool it was that you can share diving with your kids and your parents. I was also thinking about another friend of mine from PADI, James Morgan, who posted recently about taking his young sons snorkeling for the first time and how proud he was to be sharing his passion with his boys.

Diving has given me lots of things: travel, opportunities, and an escape. Probably the coolest thing it has given me, though, is a common ground with my dad and something we can share together. Who would’ve thought a father and son from West Virginia could end up sharing scuba diving as a hobby? I can’t wait until my daughters express an interest in learning to dive. I won’t push them into it, but when they tell me they are ready, I will get them in the water.

Last night, Beverly and I went to the Live On the Levee concert to enjoy some live music. While we were there, a friend stopped by for a minute and introduced me to his 10-year-old son. The boy was working on his scuba certification and would be finished in a couple weeks. The boy was excited about it, but you could tell the father couldn’t have been prouder.

I watched them walk away and thought, “There goes another father and son ready to blow bubbles together.” I hope it’s something they share for a lifetime.

Here are a few more pictures as well..

On my 45th birthday

July 27, 2012 By Eric Douglas

I was born in the“Summer of Love” and “Light My Fire” by The Doors was the Number 1 song on the radio the week I was born. I came of age in the 80s, graduating high school in 85 and college in 89.

When I graduated high school, I remember thinking that people who went to their 25th high school reunions were “old.” I did that a couple years ago. Funny thing is, I still don’t feel old. Not going to lie, my knee bothers me sometimes and there are times the music is too loud. On the whole, though, I still feel like I have a lot of living left to do.

I used to laugh at people my age who referred “mid-40s” as middle age. Statistically, men in the United States live to the ripe-old age of 78.2 years. Statistical middle age is 39.1.

I’ve been fortunate to say that I have had fun in every stage of my life and in every decade. None of it was perfect and less of it was easy, but it has been mine and there were plenty of laughs along the way. That’s all that matters…to me anyway.

So, Happy Birthday to me. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go scuba diving with my dad in Summersville Lake, WV. It’s where we both learned to dive—I learned about eight years before he did.

Dad will be 74 in about two weeks. Do you think I should tell him to slow down? I think he may be past middle age…

Fictionalizing a real event: the Wreck of the USS Huron

July 21, 2012 By Eric Douglas

My fourth novel Wreck of the Huron is now available. It’s been nearly three years since I published my last novel (Guardian’s Keep) and it feels good to be back to telling stories again. But this story came with its own set of challenges. The incident that serves as the catalyst for the book is a real event.

The USS Huron is a real shipwreck located just a few hundred yards off shore in Nags Head, North Carolina. Most of Wreck of the Huron is set in the present day, but there are several scenes that are set in 1877 on board the ship on the day it sank. To tell that story and to make it as realistic as possible, I used quotes and the names and accounts from the men who survived the wreck. Those accounts were recorded in the PROCEEDINGS OF COURT OF INQUIRY ON THE LOSS OF THE HURON held by the NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington DC, Wednesday, December 5, 1877. The wreck happened in the early morning hours on November 24, 1877.

Here is an excerpt for the account of the accident just as the ship ran aground, as retold in Wreck of the Huron:

With each wave that passed, the jarring of the hull against the bottom was lessened — only because the ship was run further aground and was lifted less and less.
“Stop the engines!” Ryan ordered from the bridge. “Palmer, find out if we still have steam in the boilers. I want to see if we can back her out of here before the hull gets holed.”
Master French pulled back on the throttle, signaling the engineer to stop the engines. Palmer left his station to yell down the hatch to the engine room below.
“Can you back her, engineer?” Palmer asked.
“We’ve got full steam on all the engines. Yes, we can,” Chief Engineer Loomis replied.
“Make it happen, Mr. Loomis,” Palmer ordered.
“Mr. French, save the ship’s log. We’ve probably foundered on Nags Head. Mr. Palmer, please sound the distress whistle. We’re going to need some help,” Ryan said, taking charge of the bridge. “Get all hands on deck and batten down the hatches. Get those sails lowered.”
Within moments, French reported back to the bridge that the captain’s office where the ship’s log was stored was filled with water, being on the starboard side.
“Very well,” Ryan acknowledged. “Lieutenant Simons, order the fore mast cut away, please. Maybe we can right this ship without the added weight.”
“I will make it happen immediately,” Simons said, leaving across the angled deck to organize the men. The Huron was over on her side, at about 40 degrees.

To be perfectly clear, aside from my own fertile imagination, the “mystery” around the sinking of the ship portrayed in this story is total fiction. These men died in service to their country and there has never been any suspicion of wrongdoing connected with the wreck. It was a tragic loss of life.
It is wrapped up in the local history of the Outer Banks of North Carolina that this wreck and one elsewhere a few months later persuaded Congress to fund the US Lifesaving Service year-round. At the time of the wreck the rescue boats and other equipment were locked up tight for the winter. That group eventually became the US Coast Guard.

The other historical setting for the story is the situation in Cuba at the time of the wreck. Cuba was in the midst of the first Cuban Revolution against Spain. They had been fighting for nine years at that point, finally calling a truce in 1878. This revolution helped bring about an end to slavery on the island eight years later. Cuba did not gain independence for Spain until the end of the Spanish American War in 1898.

In some ways writing a story like this with that sort of historical backdrop is difficult. While some authors have been known to take liberties with historical events, move things around and change dates and locations, I wanted to keep this story as close to the truth as I could. Obviously, I had to manufacture characters and scenarios. That’s the fun part of writing fiction. But I wanted it to be as true to what really happened as possible.

If you’re interested, you can read the first two chapters of Wreck of the Huron on my website. Unfortunately, neither of those chapters includes any of the historical references I’ve been talking about. To get to that part of the book, you’ll just have to get a copy for yourself.

If you do, I hope you find the mixture of real history and imagination as much fun to read as I enjoyed writing it..

The challenge of writing fiction

July 17, 2012 By Eric Douglas

Final review on Wreck of the Huron

When I tell people that I’m a writer, I usually get a reaction of “I wish I could do that” or “When are you going to get a real job” or some variation on the theme of “I hate to write. Writing is such a chore.”

Let me set the record straight: for those of us who call ourselves writers, be it full time or something we do “on the side” writing is work and it is a chore. It’s just a chore that we choose to take on and a challenge we accept. There are days it sings and it is so much fun. There are also days where you feel like you’re beating your head against a wall.

A less dramatic response, and one I’ve used from time to time is “It helps keep the voices in my head quiet.” That usually gets a half-laugh in response until they look me in the eye and see that I’m not really laughing with them.

I wrote my first novel in 2004 and it was published in 2005. It was the first fiction I’d ever written. A couple more novels followed along with some short stories. Frankly, I think I’ve gotten better at telling “stories” with each book I’ve written. And the act of writing the short stories has helped me refine my craft as well. My last novel was published in the fall of 2009. For various reasons, I lost the fiction spark after that.

In 2010, I had the pleasure of exhibiting a collection of my photographs from Russia in Russia, France and in the United States (including my hometown). That year I also got involved with a documentary project on Harvesting Divers in Honduras and elsewhere around the world. If you look back in this blog, to posts from 2010, you’ll see a lot of travel and thought went into those projects. At the same time, I was going through some personal changes that had me distracted to say the least.

I’ve found that fiction spark again, while not forgetting my documentary/journalism passion. A friend told me recently that she checks this blog from time to time to see what I’ve been up to. She noted that my posts lately have been all over the map. My response was “Welcome to my world…” I’ve got three fiction projects that I am in the final stages with right now. They’ll all be coming out very soon.

Probable cover for the new novel

Wreck of the Huron is my latest novel. It follows Mike Scott on a new adventure that begins on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and ends up off the coast of Cuba. This story will be available in the next couple weeks. I’m planning a couple book signing/release parties as soon as it comes out.
Decisions on a Small Plane is a short story I’ve written for my church to help begin the discussion about salvation and prayer. The plan is for this short story to be posted on the church’s website and be free for anyone who wants to download it or link to it. It should be available in the next week or two. I will post the links when they are available. Also, I’ve just started a discussion with a friend about making the story into a short film.
Racing for Miss Jayne Marie is a short story I’ve written as part of an anthology project called River Town I’m working on with some writer friends. I’ll talk more about it later, but this anthology is set in a fictional place called River Town in 1890s West Virginia. I’ve written period sections in my novels, but this is the first project that is entirely about a “period” other than present day. I’m really excited how this project is beginning to shape up. This project should be done by the end of the year, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve not forgotten the Voices of War documentary project, either. My plan is to have the interviews transcribed and the documentary edited together by Veterans Day, November 11, 2012. I’ve got a few more interviews to conduct and then it is time to begin putting it all together.

Should be a busy summer and fall…welcome to my world. Glad I like to tell stories. And it does seem to keep the voices mostly quiet… 😉.

Connecting to water around us

June 29, 2012 By Eric Douglas

The last few days, I’ve seen the saying being posted on Facebook “Saltwater is the cure for everything. Sweat, tears or the sea.” I’ve seen it before, but I couldn’t agree more. Whenever I get near the ocean, I immediately I feel my heart slow down and my face breaks into a grin. When I’m away from it for too long, I feel the tension in my shoulders.

I recently wrote about my experiences taking my first-ever cruise. Even though we were “on” the ocean, I just didn’t feel the connection. That was until the ship stopped in St. Maarten and I got in the water and rode around the island on a catamaran. I could feel the wind in my hair and the boat rise and fall with the waves. That’s when I realized what I’d been missing. On the last day before we pulled into port, the cruise ship encountered a nor’easter off North Carolina. I spent several hours that day outside on the lowest deck I could find just watching the waves and reveling in the blue of the ocean and the churn of the sea foam. I could feel “my” ocean. I will say, though, the sunset out on the ocean like that are spectacular.

As I’ve traveled, I’ve always (mostly unconsciously) looked for water and tried to connect with it wherever I was. On my first visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, I climbed down to the water’s edge to touch the Gulf of Finland. I tasted it on my fingers to see if it was any different. It’s not all about the ocean, though. I still enjoy going to Summersville Lake in West Virginia where I first learned to scuba dive to blow some bubbles. No, they aren’t the most exciting dives in the world, but it’s still a chance to make that connection to water.

Two acquaintances of mine are doing tremendous work when it comes to demonstrating the importance of water in our daily lives.

Annie Crawley is an underwater photographer who has carved out her niche as an educator, speaker and author on the ocean. She developed Dive Into Your Imagination as a way to spur kids into caring about and understanding the ocean. She has created books and CDs for children (and adults) to help them connect with the ocean on a personal level. Follow Dive Into Your Imagination on Facebook as well.
Jill Heinerth is an underwater explorer, cave diver and filmmaker. She recently created the We Are Water Project to help others understand the connectedness of our water supplies and the world around us. She is developing a documentary on the water systems we use daily to help us all understand that our water doesn’t just come out of a faucet, but it comes from deep inside our planet and it is a finite resource. Jill, by the way, has actually dived inside many of those aquifers and underground streams and can show you amazing imagery of the water beneath your feet. Follow We Are Water Project on Facebook.

As I write this, I’ve just come back from spending the afternoon at the pool with my kids, taking some time to relax in the water. Its 100 degrees and just about insufferable to be outside if you aren’t up to your nose in water. At a time when freshwater supplies and drying up or being used up—the Colorado River no longer regularly makes it to the Gulf of California, for example—and droughts parch the southwestern United States among other places around the world, I’m growing concerned that our connection to water might just be failing. As Jill Heinerth says, “Our bodies are 70 percent water and our planet is 70 percent water. We are water.”

Get out and appreciate the water around you. Connect with it. Love it. Spend time with it. It doesn’t matter if the water you love is a river, a lake or the ocean. It’s all important. Ultimately, what you know and love, you will work to protect.