alive with lobsters. Hundreds of them were backed into niches in the limestone, their eyes glowing like fireflies in the dim light, their antennae flailing as they tried to get a fix on the giant intruder. Cousteau thought about his family and friends in ill-fed France, grabbed a pair of lobsters, backed out of the tunnel, and kicked for the surface. Simone saw him rising, swam down to him, and took their catch the rest of the way to the beach. He made five more trips into the lobster bonanza, Simone shuttled their catch to shore, and Jacques Cousteau became the first meat diver with the enormous advantage of being able to breathe underwater and swim like a fish.
A little over a month later, on July 30, Georges Commeinhes dove to 160 feet off Marseille with his firefighting apparatus modified for use underwater. Cousteau heard about the dive, but he didn’t know whether Commeinhes had been able to solve the problems with the regulator that allowed him to swim free in any attitude with the Aqua-Lung.
6
SHIPWRECKS
DURING THE TWO WEEKS after Cousteau made his first dive, everyone at Villa Barry took a turn with the Aqua-Lung. Simone became the first woman scuba diver, and though the tanks were too heavy for the children to lift safely, they practiced breathing with their heads underwater in the shallows. The Aqua-Lung continued to work perfectly, though the fear kindled by memories of sudden catastrophes with the Fernez pipe and rebreathers lingered. Each uneventful dive added to the suspicion that such astonishing freedom beneath the sea had to come at a higher price. Tailliez requisitioned a compressor from the navy base and with an unlimited supply of air they were making several dives a day. The divers reported on the ease of stalking prey, the delivery of air by the regulator at any attitude, and the utter bliss of swimming free underwater. After Tailliez’s first dive, he led the household in a toast to escaping the world of the land and the abolition of gravity, after which everyone dug into heaping platters of fish and lobster.
“We were living in the middle of a war on pure fantasy and lots of beans,” Tailliez wrote later. “When we got the Aqua-Lung, it was a miracle. We experienced in three-dimensional space the intoxication of diving without a cable. Back on shore, we danced for joy.”
“Tailliez, Dumas, and I had come a long way together,” Cousteau remembered about that time. “We had been eight years in the sea as goggle divers. Our new key to the hidden world promised wonders.”
At the end of June, Cousteau sent word to Gagnan that their invention was working better than his wildest expectations. He asked him to file separate patents on the exhaust port and the air reserve valve immediately, and to send more Aqua-Lungs as soon as possible. With one Aqua-Lung, he could put meat on the table. But theKinamo underwater camera was in good shape, and he and Simone had stockpiled spliced reels of 35 mm film. Cousteau needed more than one scuba diver to make the movie he had been dreaming about for most of his life.
The poster for Cousteau’s first underwater film
(© LAPI/ROGER-VIOLLET )
While they waited for Gagnan to ship them another Aqua-Lung, Cousteau and the other divers of Villa Barry concentrated on putting food on the table. “Tailliez went to the country and returned with five hundred pounds of dried beans, which we stored in the coal bin and ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with an occasional maggot to break the monotony,” Cousteau wrote later. He and the others cautiously stalked fish to supplement their tedious diet, being careful to avoid expending too much energy underwater.
Two more Aqua-Lungs finally arrived at the end of July. The timing was just right. In midsummer the Mediterranean was as warm as a bath, and the occupation troops had fallen into languor because nothing of consequence was being contested on the sultry southerncoast of France. Cousteau continued his
A little over a month later, on July 30, Georges Commeinhes dove to 160 feet off Marseille with his firefighting apparatus modified for use underwater. Cousteau heard about the dive, but he didn’t know whether Commeinhes had been able to solve the problems with the regulator that allowed him to swim free in any attitude with the Aqua-Lung.
6
SHIPWRECKS
DURING THE TWO WEEKS after Cousteau made his first dive, everyone at Villa Barry took a turn with the Aqua-Lung. Simone became the first woman scuba diver, and though the tanks were too heavy for the children to lift safely, they practiced breathing with their heads underwater in the shallows. The Aqua-Lung continued to work perfectly, though the fear kindled by memories of sudden catastrophes with the Fernez pipe and rebreathers lingered. Each uneventful dive added to the suspicion that such astonishing freedom beneath the sea had to come at a higher price. Tailliez requisitioned a compressor from the navy base and with an unlimited supply of air they were making several dives a day. The divers reported on the ease of stalking prey, the delivery of air by the regulator at any attitude, and the utter bliss of swimming free underwater. After Tailliez’s first dive, he led the household in a toast to escaping the world of the land and the abolition of gravity, after which everyone dug into heaping platters of fish and lobster.
“We were living in the middle of a war on pure fantasy and lots of beans,” Tailliez wrote later. “When we got the Aqua-Lung, it was a miracle. We experienced in three-dimensional space the intoxication of diving without a cable. Back on shore, we danced for joy.”
“Tailliez, Dumas, and I had come a long way together,” Cousteau remembered about that time. “We had been eight years in the sea as goggle divers. Our new key to the hidden world promised wonders.”
At the end of June, Cousteau sent word to Gagnan that their invention was working better than his wildest expectations. He asked him to file separate patents on the exhaust port and the air reserve valve immediately, and to send more Aqua-Lungs as soon as possible. With one Aqua-Lung, he could put meat on the table. But theKinamo underwater camera was in good shape, and he and Simone had stockpiled spliced reels of 35 mm film. Cousteau needed more than one scuba diver to make the movie he had been dreaming about for most of his life.
The poster for Cousteau’s first underwater film
(© LAPI/ROGER-VIOLLET )
While they waited for Gagnan to ship them another Aqua-Lung, Cousteau and the other divers of Villa Barry concentrated on putting food on the table. “Tailliez went to the country and returned with five hundred pounds of dried beans, which we stored in the coal bin and ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with an occasional maggot to break the monotony,” Cousteau wrote later. He and the others cautiously stalked fish to supplement their tedious diet, being careful to avoid expending too much energy underwater.
Two more Aqua-Lungs finally arrived at the end of July. The timing was just right. In midsummer the Mediterranean was as warm as a bath, and the occupation troops had fallen into languor because nothing of consequence was being contested on the sultry southerncoast of France. Cousteau continued his
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