This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
flabbergasted when I rendered the 500-page first edition to PDF from a single MS Word document. It was one of many lessons learned the hard way. Note to self: hire a graphic designer. I also learned first-hand how much preparation and work goes into tending a booth at trade shows and how exciting it was to meet many of the people that I had written about in the Who’s Who, including such icons as Hans and Lotte Hass and the ever-ravishing Zale Parry. I even traded books with Stan Waterman at the Florida Dive Show. On the next morning, he


jokingly chastised me for keeping him up late because he “couldn’t put the book down.” Although all three print editions from 2007 to 2009 were highly praised, promoting the book was nonetheless difficult. Facebook was nowhere near as popular as today and magazine ads were simply too expensive for our fledgling company. Despite an all-out sales and distribution effort by Rosemary Lunn and Warren Miller, and the incessant work by my closest associate and mother, Patricia Hay, we could barely break even after three years.


Top: Diving


Almanac through the ages


Left: At Beneath the Sea, New Jersey, 2006 Right: With


Who’s Who Zale


Parry at Beneath the Sea, New Jersey, 2009


The economic slowdown and the emergence of digital publishing ultimately forced me to terminate the print edition. I took a breather to rethink the book and focus on my shark research career, which had been left aside for too long. The Diving Almanac, however, was still alive and very much in my mind, so I soon partnered with computer wiz Blaise Barrette to offer key chapters of the book online, namely the diving records and Who’s Who. The website was initially popular but after a few months, readers were writing in to express their


www.divermag.com 55


Photo: Mélina Grondin, Diving Almanac


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