Treasures, Shipwrecks, and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving -- Howard Rosenstein

This is an unusual book any Undercurrent reader will find interesting. Recreational scuba diving is a relatively new activity, which means that many original pioneers are still with us. Howard Rosenstein is one of them. He left his native New York to move to California as a child, where he fell in love with the ocean. Still a teenager, he traveled with his cousin to Israel, and after a brief flirtation with the Mediterranean, where he encountered the wreck of the Farouk, the flagship of the Egyptian navy, he discovered the Sinai, at the time occupied by Israel, and the wonders of the Red Sea.

There were still obvious remnants of the six-day war with Egypt, but undeterred, he explored the entire coastline of the Gulf of Aqaba, from Eilat in Israel to Ras Mohammed, the gateway to the Red Sea proper. In 1972, he booked his first group of American divers led by Ken Seybold. Eventually, in 1973, he moved diving operations to Na'ama Bay, near Sharm el Sheik.

With no peace treaty likely at that time, the Israeli government constructed a road between Eilat and the Bedouin settlement. It was a key strategic location at a time when war was ever likely. He based his initial dive center in an abandoned World War I era railway freight car, and he and his wife Sharon lived in a tiny trailer nearby. Much of the diving was shore-based using an old jeep, and they purchased some basic little boats with unreliable war-surplus outboard motors to give them access to farther reefs. It was very improvised.

Then, war returned in 1973.

Finally, back in Na'ama Bay, Howard, and Sharon picked up where they left off and, by 1974, started attracting American diving heavyweights like Dr. Eugenie Clark and National Geographic photographer David Doubilet to the undoubted marvels of Red Sea Reefs - and even Hans Hass and musical maestro Leonard Bernstein.

The equipment was still basic. Their first real dive boat, Red Sea Diver I, was looked upon as something of a joke by those now used to modern Newtons and the like. But the adventure continued. The Rosensteins were really in at the beginning of what was to become the biggest scuba diving industry anywhere in the world.

Howard tells a gripping tale that will be interesting to anyone curious about the early days of the diving industry, and his story is set in a place experiencing turbulent times. It's a 200-page hardback volume, and there is bound to be a sequel because I'm aware of some adventures yet to be told. Treasures, Shipwrecks and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving by Howard Rosenstein, with a foreword by Dr. Sylvia Earle, is available on Amazon.

- John Bantin