Wild Dives

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       August 18, 2019

 

Author  Nick Roberston-Brown and Caroline Robertson-Brown

Distributor:      New Holland
ISBN:                 9781925546422
Publisher:         New Holland Publishers
Release Date:   July 2019  

FaceBook:   

YouTube:   

Instagram:   

X formally Twitter:   

Nick and Caroline Robertson-Brown are both highly experienced divers, having explored and photographed many underwater locations around the world, capturing through their lenses a rare and wonderful beauty, not seen by all that many. Creating the book Wild Dives is a labour of love as they have, from no doubt a massive archive of absolutely amazing photographs, selected those that are perhaps a little more special to them than many others.

Several of the shots have been captured when the various creatures of the deep have decided to be ‘up close and personal’, especially in the case of some Cape Fur Seals off the coast of South Africa, when they decided they needed to see their reflections in the lens of the camera. They then invited the divers to a game of hide and seek with a bright yellow starfish. There are photographs to prove it.

Seven hours in a shark cage, off the coast of Mexico out of Guadalupe, watching in absolute fascination as the great white sharks simply went about doing business as only they can; swimming, diving, and leaping out of the water after the bait fish, left Nick in absolute awe of creatures of which he was already in awe.

Sea Slugs are not the most a handsome of the underwater creatures but one known as Shaun the Sheep proved to be too much to resist and so Anda in the Philippines, off the island of Bohol was the destination of choice. There they found many, many of these delightfully named, tiny nudibranchs amongst the richness in the waters off Bohol.

Majestic and beautiful Manta Rays captured leaving the scene off the Maldives, the beauty of Whales Sharks at Ningaloo Reef, along the Western Australian coast, oil rig life underwater off the coast of California and a submarine ride, amongst so much more have been complied onto a wonderful journey under the seas, presenting in all their glory just a few of the wonders there to behold.

The final chapter, after the true a very real beauty of the forward chapters, is very sobering, dealing with and presenting yet more pictures of an ocean full of plastic, toxic to the fish and creatures who dwell in the oceans and seas of our world.

The figures are astounding, but are they really? The plea is to stop using plastics, stop the pollution and work tirelessly to ensure there is something left for generations to come, so they too can discover the dwellers of the oceans, as our generations have done and marvel in wonder.

Wild Dives: Twenty-five dives, twenty-five wild adventures, twenty-five stories, with absolutely wonderful photographs to amaze and enjoy.