Similarly the US Navy saw delivering the mail to sailors as a huge necessity because of morale. They tasked a commander or a captain to solve the mail delivery problem and promised him command of a battleship if he did despite his age normally being a restricting factor. This was when battleship command still held a lot of prestige. He solved it, was given a battleship, and retired an admiral.
I'm going to hit my dad up for the details when I can, he knows this story way better than I do.
EDIT: My dad got back to me. It was Vice Admiral Charles "Swede" Momsen. The wikipedia article doesn't get into it but it does mention him getting command of a battleship later in the war. My dad said it was in a bio done of Momsen. Going by the comments on the Amazon page it is this one.
Check out “100 Dives of a Lifetime: The World's Ultimate Underwater Destinations”
It is a National Geographic book with beautiful pictures and general descriptions. I wouldn’t call it a travel guide, but anyone can use it as a starting place to plan a trip.
It was a wonderful gift I received last year from a very thoughtful person.
Not a book on SCUBA but I always recommend DEEP by James Nestor. It's non-fiction and very easy to read.
Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves link
Read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Dive-Father-Descent-Oceans-ebook/dp/B006IDG3X6
It is a great book, and describes better than I can the human cost of developing these curriculums, and why cave / tech diving are not universally for everyone. It has no affiliation with GUE fyi.
I recommend Deep by James Nestor
The lines aren't meant for rough handling. You basically just make a 'ring' with two fingers around the rope and focus on diving. Many cave walls, particularly limestone, are easy to groove into. Thick, hard lines can cut their way through walls, which will mean your return trip could lead to the center of a wall.
You might like Submerged by Daniel Lenihan. It's written for laymen but accurately describes the training and preparation for cave diving, as well as their pioneering of underwater archaeology & work for the National Park Service.
Helps you understand why so many people die, how they die, and how even when people have written calm good-bye letters to their loved ones on their diving slate, below the math that shows they'll never make it out alive, they still end up ripping off their fingernails trying to claw their way through rock back to the surface.
I was thinking of that story when I saw this pic because I could have sworn this sub was involved for some reason but Wikipedia didn't seem to indicate that was correct.
Check out this book to read more about it: http://www.amazon.com/The-Terrible-Hours-Greatest-Submarine/dp/0060932775
There was also a TV movie with Sam Neill made about it.
I haven't yet done any Great Lakes diving but my dive instructor told me the Great Lakes are awesome for wreck diving. I'm gonna get out there sooner or later, after I get some cold water training.
There's some great tales in Shipwreck Hunter. There's a lot of books on wrecks in the Great Lakes; I have this one and it's got more wrecks than you can probably dive in a lifetime.