Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [92]
My oldest son, Mike, was a flight attendant with Cayman Airlines and also an avid scuba diver. At the time, most airlines had what they called “friends and family passes,” free or greatly discounted travel tickets. I traveled nearly everywhere Cayman Airlines flew, which included many of the islands in the Caribbean, and sometimes Mike came along and joined me on a few dives. It was probably one of the best seasons in our father-son relationship. The diving trips kept me active and in circulation, but, more significantly, they helped me prove to myself that I did not need to have anyone with me, and that I could stay sober and interact with people without slipping back into drinking. I traveled so much on Cayman Airlines that the airline asked me to become an honorary board member.
On one of my many diving trips, I met the world-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle. A born explorer, Sylvia grew up in my home state of New Jersey, in the town of Camden. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University, and later became chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. An outspoken advocate of undersea research, she also hoped to raise public awareness of the damage done to our aquasphere by pollution and environmental degradation. By the time I met her, Sylvia’s National Geographic books and films about the sea were considered among the best.
She was smart, sassy, and easy to look at in a bathing suit. We hit it off immediately. I was diving in Nassau at the same time she was there assisting in the underwater scenes for a James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only. Sylvia invited me to help out on the filming of the shark scenes. My job was basically shooting shark “B roll,” additional film to be worked in as needed later. It was great fun, and I enjoyed helping.
One of Sylvia’s more widely known scientific expeditions took her to the Galápagos, off the coast of Ecuador, an adventure on which she invited me to accompany her. I declined due to other demands on my schedule, and to this day, not going on that extraordinary trip is one of my few regrets.
I did, however, accompany Sylvia on a number of other expeditions, most notably a ten-day trip to the Gulf of Akaba, aboard the Sun Boat, a large dive boat that had staterooms below, a briefing room on the middle level, and an upper observation deck. We dove in the northern part of the Red Sea on the east side of Sinai, then flew to Tel Aviv together, and went down to Elat, where we toured their aquarium. Along with divemaster Amos Nakum, Sylvia was collecting specimens for the California Aquatic Museum in San Francisco, where she was on the staff. She was trying to get pictures of a photoflurethicon, a fish that had fluorescent qualities that could be seen underwater at night. Wed do four dives a day, the last one being at night. By the time our crew pulled off our wet suits each evening, we were worn out, but thrilled.
Besides being a meticulous scientist, Sylvia had a quirky sense of humor, too. When she and I were diving together, she loved to sneak up on divers who were close to the caves, intently looking at some strange formation. Sylvia grabbed their fins and frightened the daylights out of them.
In 1979, Sylvia performed one of her most amazing feats, walking without a tether on the sea floor at a lower depth than any human being had ever previously done. Wearing a pressurized suit that looked more like it belonged on the Sea of Tranquillity, she traveled in a submersible down to a depth of 1,250 feet below the