Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team by Daniel Lenihan

Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team Reviews

• 
  BJ

  I enjoyed this book very much. Tales of and Elite Underwater Archeology Dive Team for the National Park Service. Talks about cave diving, body retrieval, ship wrecks, diving in Hawaii, Florida, Great Lakes, Pearl Harbor, Aleutian Islands, Bikini, etc. Gave a glimpse of how this dive team helps to protect our nation's history. Engrossing.
  
  For MMD 2017 Reading Challenge #1, Reading for Fun #7 - a book in a genre you usually avoid.
• 
  Ky Matthes

  When he's talking about the actual dive adventures, it's fantastic. However everything else is kind of boring and he comes off as an asshole with an overinflated sense of self worth.
• 
  Joe McDonough

  I was looking forward to this book since I've enjoyed many others about diving/shipwrecks and am a pretty big history fan. However, I could barely get through this book. I kept waiting for some amazing discovery or exciting dive but nothing much ever happens. They usually just dive, look at an old boat, map it and leave. For example, they trek deep into a site in Hawaii to explore a lake no one's ever dived. They look around, have some trouble getting stuff back up a helicopter and leave finding nothing, just vegetation. I'm still trying to figure out the purpose of that trip and a couple others the author recounts.
  
  While the formation and purpose of the NPS's SCRU unit is interesting to some extent and learning about how cave diving developed in the 60s and 70s is as well, it didn't add up for holding one's attention through the long book. There's a couple pieces of somewhat interesting history told but nothing earth shattering.
  
  Sorry to have to say this, but this book doesn't offer much for anyone looking for a lot of historical education or an exciting story.
• 
  Chain Reading

  I'm never going to do this myself - dive in caves and underwater buildings and shipwrecks of pirate ships and warships. So I'll just read books like this. This is a book about a life's work written by an archaeologist who headed a special diving unit that was part of the National Park Service. The book is largely in chronological order, which can be a little disjointed, as they skip around geographically, and sometimes visit the same wreck several chapters apart. Despite the lack of literary structure and stylings, he's a good writer, able to convey history without lecturing and paint visual pictures of what the divers actually saw down there. I loved the chapters on the USS Arizona in Hawaii.
• 
  Holly

  Loved this book - anyone who's interested in the preservation of historical sites should read this book. The author has the ability to weave history throughout his modern narrative so that we never forget the importance of the dive sites. If you don't normally read non-fiction I would say make an exception for this book.
• 
  Ian

  My review at
  LibraryThing.
• 
  Kass

  This was an interesting read. Made me wish that I could go diving right now!
• 
  Clare

  I reviewed this book here:
  http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blo...
• 
  Jessica

  3.5 stars. Very readable nonfiction. Exciting at times; too detailed and in the weeds at others.
• 
  Tim Bryant

  Several years ago, I went diving alone to check my gear and clear my head. (That's a big no-no, by the way, don't do it.) There was a yellow school bus in the lake that had been stripped of its benches and windows: a fun place to hang out. The roof was right at 30-feet or so. I lay there on my back—tank removed and resting upside down beside me—watching my bubbles rise while focusing on my breathing and, based on the sound—the only noise down there—make adjustments for Yoga-style adjustments.
  
  A bright red Autumn leaf floated on the surface and, high up from there, three big fluffy white clouds seemed hung like pictures on a bright blue sky.
  
  The water and air were so crisp and still... then a small bass swam over and, next to it (but high up, of course), I noticed the thin chalk line of a jet. On its way ...to where?
  
  A few years later an injury sidelined my scuba diving hobby. I gave my tank and regulator to my roommate in lieu of rent but kept the fins, mask and snorkel for sightseeing, retrieving a lost tool at the dock or cleaning the hull of my sailboat.
  
  Why am I telling you all this before telling you about this book? Because my diving experience, though limited as it was, provided a "sights and sounds" foundation to fascination with Daniel Lenihan's Submerged.
  
  It's the only book about underwater archeology that's ever made me hold my breath.
  
  Subtitled Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team, it tells the true story of his career and exploits developing a new program within the National Park Service: a thoughtful/scientific approach to surveying, preserving and sharing sunken assets while, when needed, also recovering bodies from very dangerous, hard to reach places.
  
  The emotional insights related to risk and death are as captivating as the adventures going deep and dark.
  
  In addition to navigating creepy death traps such as caves, wrecks and the rooms of a sunken power turbine, Lenihan and his people successfully navigate a labyrinth of governmental policy, funding red tape and politics. This peek behind-the-scenes enables an even greater appreciation for what they were able to achieve—with their lives literally "on the line" the whole way.
  
  This one's absolutely a keeper for the beach, boat or hammock.
  
  Not just for divers but also for riders of pool floats in blue rubber pools.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Emma

  This is one of those books where the subject content carries what is otherwise an unremarkable book. The writing is fine, the editing was suspect, and the write was a little too "old boys club" NPS for my personal comfort, but I love learning about things, and the story of the NPS Submerged Cultural Resources Unit is one of those stories that should not be missed!
  
  I didn't even know that the National Park Service had a unit devoted to underwater archaeology, and learning about it was a joy. I would love to know more about what it looks like today, as we have more underwater areas and I imagine the ecological studies have become part of the mission, but this was a great primer.
• 
  Zack

  I liked it. The book seemed to focus on the adventure and the technological improvements of underwater archeology.
  
  Some of the stories felt repetitious. Would have liked to learn more of what was found and learned, not only the swashbuckling aspects. More on results of National Reservoir Inundation Study. The map in the front showing dive locations kinda bummed me out because I want to hear stories of diving in Yellowstone or Glacier, Montezuma Well or Devil’s Hole. I guess I’ll have to read his other book to get that stuff.
• 
  Jessi

  I heard about this book on the
  What Should I Read Next podcast. I worked closely with a Park Service museum at the time and it sounded interesting. And it is... to an extent. The stories do start to sort of run together after a bit but if you are interested in underwater archaeology or even underwater cave exploration, this will be a really interesting book for you. If you don't even like to read about small, enclosed spaces, this would not be the book for you.
• 
  Skip

  What a teaching, and, adventure moment this book is. Few of us get underwater, fewer go into caves. This book takes us there, all the thrills, the dangers, and the incredible underwater world. Outstanding read.
• 
  Rick

  The first half is interesting
  
  The first half is interesting, , both diving and archaeology, then too many stories that seem repetitive (names and places change).
• 
  Brian

  An excellent collection of stories about the National Park Service’s archaeological dive team’s exploits and adventures.
• 
  Terri

  This book wasn't for me but I stuck with it. The one thing that made it enjoyable is that you can stop from time to time to find the YouTube video of the dive you are reading about.
• 
  Lisa

  Fun read about a little known group of park rangers
• 
  Sarah

  Actually, this is a really fascinating account about how SCRU (the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit) was started as a part of the National Park Service in the early 1970s. I loved it because of the diving of course, but I think any adventure seeker would enjoy living vicariously through Lenihan be it cave diving or tropical Micronesian diving. There is also a very touching account of the teams dive aboard the USS Arizona.
• 
  fbz

  I could not get through it. I ditched reading it 7/8ths of the way through. I thought it would be fascinating, as i got my open water diving cert last year. Turns out, this book is so badly written, that it is unreadable.
• 
  Beth

  dnf
• 
  Debbie Menk

  This is probably one of my most favorite books ever. I have read it several times and am always ready for yet another read through.