I opened Google to learn that today is the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau.
For many of us, he was our first introduction to the magical world under the sea. He and his hearty crew of adventurers aboard Calypso sailed to exotic places, donned scuba gear, and dove over the side with cameras to film sights and drama like few had ever seen. His expeditions were always interesting. It didn't matter where he was headed, you knew it was going to be a great adventure. "Today, we search for Atlantis." We're going to look for Atlantis? Why not? Who better than Cousteau to take us on a search for Atlantis?
Cousteau was nothing like the entertaining showmen who populate the "green" programming of today's cable TV. He was as serious a scientist as Carl Sagan. He was as avid a naturalist as Jane Goodall. He was as pioneering as Neil Armstrong. He was as innovative as Thomas Edison.
I am sorry he is gone. But I'm glad he did not live to see the damage we have done to la mer. It would break his heart.
Cousteau's work brought the sea to people who lived hundreds of miles from the coast. It was beautiful. It was romantic. It was the stuff of dreams. Sensitized to the magic of the sea by Cousteau, I reveled in her beauty. It's a different world, so far removed from our palid existence trapped behind screens that blot out nature.
Pictures are nice. But they are a poor substitute for the real thing. You can't appreciate the dolphin's sense of humor until you see them frolicking along your bow. I can't describe the glint of sunlight off the wings of flying fish. You have to see it for yourself to truly enjoy the thrill of their sudden appearance. It sounds silly, I know, but I can watch jellyfish for hours. They are mesmerizing and beautiful, like the sea itself.
Once, while crewing on a tall ship, I was ordered aloft to help furl the sails as a storm approached. Fifty feet above the deck, I wrestled with the canvas as the ship pitched and rolled beneath me. Splayed across the yardarm and bracing myself in the footropes, I paused to savor the savage beauty of the approaching storm. Watching the lightning strike the water, I was awed to realize my view was no different from the one sailors a hundred years earlier would have witnessed.
There is no video game that will ever match the sea for sheer excitement. How tragic to think we traded all that simply to make it easier to reach the mall.
Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears,
Like a slow sweet piece of music from the grey forgotten years;
Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thoughts to me
Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be.
- Spanish Waters, John Masefield