Full Fathom Five: Ocean Warming and a Father's Legacy

In combining cherished recollections of his upbringing by a playboy turned scientist father with revelations from the Academy’s diving team about climate change-related underwater devastation, Chaplin sounds a very distinctive environmental warning that will affect his readers on many levels. –Booklist

A uniquely personal and intimate portrait [and] an inviting, threatening, and richly informative tale of rarely observed fish community structures in the Bahamas. –Thomas Byrne Edsall, Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and author of The Age of Austerity

Gordon Chapin dives into the past, present, and future of the ocean with eloquence, deep personal insight, and a message relevant for all people everywhere. With care, there is hope that the reefs and fishes that abounded in the Bahamas half a century ago will be as richly diverse and abundant in the seas of the future –Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer in Residence

Gordon Chaplin has given us his inside stories on the many challenges and frustrations of mounting collecting expeditions today and the important scientific insights that the resampling of fishes and coral reef habitats have yielded. –John G. Lundberg, Chaplin Chair and Curator of Ichthyology, The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia

Gordon Chaplin’s new book is a fascinating read. It is both a gruesome memoir and an intriguing account of a science expedition. I loved it. Buy it and put some fun in your life. –Jim Harrison, author of The River Swimmer and other books

Like donning a dive mask and entering a tropical world of color, clarity, and mystique, opening Full Fathom Five is a gateway into another world. . . . . A must read!” –Dr. Carole Baldwin, Curator of Fishes, Smithsonian Institution

Wonderfully written . . . Not only a significant scientific contribution in its own right but the touching tribute of a son’s ultimately successful quest to shoulder his father’s important legacy. –Dr. John E. Randall, Senior Ichthyologist Emeritus, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii

Full Fathom Five is a strange and beautiful specimen pulled up from the deep–part study of fish diversity in the Caribbean, part scientific report on the health of coral reefs threatened by climate change, and part memoir of the author’s father, sister, and wife. Together they make a book that is touching and troubling by turns, but always full of life. –Tom Powers, author of Heisenberg’s War

Gordon Chaplin’s wonderfully written account of updating [his father Charles’s and Jim Bohlke’s] work fifty years later is not only a significant scientific contribution in its own right but the touching tribute of a son’s ultimately successful quest to shoulder his father’s important legacy. –Dr. John E. Randall, Senior Ichthyologist Emeritus, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii

With stunning nautical, observational, and narrative skill, Gordon Chaplin has created a uniquely personal and intimate portrait. . . . An inviting, threatening, and richly informative tale of rarely observed fish community structures in the Bahamas, Full Fathom Five is also an immensely moving recollection of Chaplin’s ultimately triumphant relationship with his daring, difficult father. –Thomas Byrne Edsall, Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and author of The Age of Austerity

[Dark Wind is] A harrowing memoir of adventure, disaster, guilt, and the subsequent anguished search for understanding.

[Dark Wind] is the kind of memoir . . . that makes readers feel they are not just reading a book but reviewing a life.

“[Dark Wind is] A harrowing memoir of adventure, disaster, guilt, and the subsequent anguished search for understanding.”

“[Dark Wind] is the kind of memoir . . . that makes readers feel they are not just reading a book but reviewing a life.”

Stan Waterman is a member of the International SCUBA Diving Hall of Fame, has been called the American Jacques Cousteau, and was the subject of the Nat Geo documentary The Man who Loves Sharks. He is a famous underwater film-maker, and his films include Blue Water and White Death. He has been a lecturer for more than 50 years.