Life and Death in a Coral Sea Quotes

“For almost forty years now, I have lived on the ocean. I have dedicated myself to the sea, and wholly consecrated myself to it. I have explored depths that, until then, were unknown. I have had good days and bad days. I have dived in the waters of incredible transparency, and I have experienced the violence of waves like those at Europa, which tore the Calypso from its anchorage and battered its aging carcass with elemental fury. But, despite all the dangers, all the fatigue, all the sacrifices, I have never regretted the choice I made. The sea, in the final account, always brought me more joy than pain.
And that was true in this case also; for I had the pleasure of seeing us all together again - our entire team, gathered under a blue sky, on a blue sea. Once more, the sea had refused to exact a price for our audacity and our curiosity; and once more I was grateful to her for her generosity. -P219”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Life and Death in a Coral Sea

“But then we remembered. What did time matter when one was on an endless voyage?... And so we resigned ourselves and cultivated the virtue of patience. Only then did I notice that my back had begun hurting again.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Life and Death in a Coral Sea

“Silner's hut" we called it. There he spent his free time, surrounded by boxes and cans (we use the spar deck to store everything that we have no other space for), doing those mysterious things that all photographers seem to do when left to themselves.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Life and Death in a Coral Sea

“Time and again we have come across phenomena eminently worthy of being investigated - only to have them disappear before we could make eve a visual record... Without being unduly pessimistic, I would say that, for every success we have had in filming or recording a matter of scientific interest, we have had ten failures. - p 46 Life and death in a coral sea”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Life and Death in a Coral Sea

“It is possible - indeed, it is likely - that, unless there is a great change in the near future, disaster will follow. And it will be a disaster of which man himself will be not only the perpetrator, but also one of the victims. - p 46”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Life and Death in a Coral Sea