Diving Companions: Sea Lion, Elephant Seal, Walrus

by Jacques-Yves Cousteau

By Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Diole - 7x10.5" 304 pages illustrated with 126 photos in full color. Copyright 1974 stated First Edition, cover price $10.95, published by Doubleday & Company.

Genres: Nature, Science, Nonfiction, Animals

304 pages, hardback

Published January 1, 1974

About the author

Born in 1910, was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, and filmmaker, who studied the sea. Although he is most famous to us from his television programmes, he also co-developed the aqua-lung, and pioneered marine conservation as a political and scientific priority.
In the Calypso, an ex-Royal Navy minesweeper, Cousteau visited the most interesting waters of the planet. During these trips he produced many books and films. He gained three Oscars for; The Silent World, The Golden Fish, and World Without Sun, as well as many other top awards including the Palme d'Or in 1956 at the Cannes Film Festival.
Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician". He was in reality a sophisticated lover of nature who found a way of communicating complex scientific and biological concepts to ordinary people. While he was criticised at the time by some academics for failing to express science 'properly', his work permitted many people to explore the resources of the "blue continent". As an example of his influence, in 1975, folk singer John Denver composed the song "Calypso" as a tribute to Cousteau and his research ship Calypso. The song reached the number one position on the Billboard 100 charts.
Cousteau's work did a great deal to popularize knowledge of underwater biology and was featured in the long-lived documentary television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau which began in 1968. On January 11, 1996, the Calypso sank in Singapore harbour. Cousteau died on June 25, 1997 - his work is continued by his son Jean-Michel and his grandson Fabien, who studies sharks from a custom-built shark-shaped submarine.

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I too would like to befriend sea creatures, however large and intimidating they may seem!!!!

PT: diving books, eco books, books I read instead of doing my homework bc honestly YOLO, I LOVE JACQUES COUSTEAU, books in a series, RATW… just… generally?

WIL
1) in case you missed my review of Life and Death in a Coral Sea:


2) I’m so curious: is it universal? The sense of calm this book produces? Does everyone read about life underwater and just feel a million times better instantly? Is it an evolutionary thing? Is the Ordovician part of my brain overriding my PFC? Is is a me-being-me thing?

3) “WHAT IDIOT-“ This two word line is probably going to be my favorite in the whole series. Up to this point, we the readers have only seen Jacques the well tempered clavier leader who is reliably objective, patient, and mild mannered. He leads firmly and kindly and he’ll laugh at jokes, but his head is firmly focused on the task at hand. THIS line is a temporary break from all that. He’s got a temper! He can yell! He gets frustrated with his crewmates but even in doing so it’s with a cheery, joking tone. This just feels really important bc a) it’s one of the wry few lines of dialogue in the series and b) it’s one of the few looks into Jacques as a PERSON, not a writer.

4) IM NOT CRYING YOURE CRYING. DJEBXHWBJDKWXJAKJXBWNNXJANNXNS. BA B Y S E A C R E A T U R E S CJNEKXJWKJXJ. SWI M M I NG WITH BABY SEA CREATURES. BEFRIENDING- They are COMPANIONS to the divers no i cannot calm down MY GOODNESS I LOVE

WIDL
1) didn’t resonate quite as much as life and death in the coral sea, possibly because I was too focused on staring at the wee little animals while trying to push all thoughts of school from my mind.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before David Attenborough, there was Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who helped invent SCUBA gear and used it in expeditions across the globe to explore the unknown right here on Earth: the life of the oceans. The journeys of the Calypso and her exploring minisubmarine resulted in a series of books about whales, dolphins, and the like, but Diving Companion collects Cousteau's adventures with more far-flung creatures: sea lions, elephant seals, and walruses. The book combines a travel diary and nature commentary, throwing in a little Eskimo anthropology as a bonus. Unusually for the series, there''s also a chapter on the coastlines and islands of Alaska, which were studied enroute to the Artic. There, sea otters receive some lingering and affectionate attention.

The stars themselves are a related family, cow-like creatures which at some point took to the sea again. Most of them make their habitat in cold zones, protecting themselves with large sheaths of fat. Their diets vary from species to species; sea lions are quick enough to go for fish, while elephant seals are relegated to less-fleet-footed starfish. Although they are all wary of human contact, being hunted species, the crew of the Calypso found them approachable from a crawl. (The humans literally crawled on the beach and became one with the herd.) In an effort to see how they might adjust to living and working in humans, Cousteau's men attempted to capture test subjects and keep them on the boat, both in a cage and in a large pool. The elephant seals, the grumpiest and most intimidating of the three, thwarted every attempt at capture. Two sea lions were brought on board the Calypso and seemed to adjust to captivity, even keeping near the boat when unleashed, but they exhibited a marked sadness and were eventually freed. An orphaned walrus pup was also adopted, and because of its young age grew very much attached to the humans. Although much of the book is certainly dated now, like the balance established between the Eskimos and the walrus population which nourished them, as well as the increasingly-dangerous state of elephant sea concentration onto one island, these are creatures worth reading about -- especially the beautiful sea lions.