Sea Salt II

by Cathryn Castle, Bret Gilliam, Douglas David Seifert

Ever since donning a Japanese Ama pearl diver's facemask as a schoolboy in 1936 Stan Waterman dreamed of undersea adventure. After service in World War II and graduation from Dartmouth he was the first in his home state of Maine to purchase and pioneer the new Aqualung underwater breathing system. Casting his sights down Robert Frost's road less traveled, he abandoned life as a gentleman blueberry farmer, converted a fishing trawler into a charter dive boat and angled the bow toward the Bahamas. It was there, in the 1950s, during those heady seminal years of underwater discovery that Stan first carried a movie camera underwater. Thus began a globetrotting life of underwater movie making that has entertained and enlightened audiences with a fertile feast of novel images for over a half-century. For a decade he eked out a living traveling the back roads of America showing his hand-spliced films. In 1965 Stan took his family to live and play in Tahiti. Success was launched when National Geographic purchased rights to their tropical odyssey. A stellar string of ventures followed beginning with his 1968 collaboration with Peter Gimbel on the shark classic Blue Water, White Death. Later he directed underwater photography for the film version of The Deep, followed by 10 years of production work with friend Peter Benchley for ABC's American Sportsman - in the process he garnered five Emmys. His second book, Sea Salt II: More Salt, is the handiwork of a born storyteller with a flair for language as stoked with imagery and insight as his films. Liberally sprinkled with humor, verve and singular turns of phrase, his memories and selected writings deftly portray the joys and travails of living a full-bodied life.