FISHES

In 1969 and 1970 Peter Gimbel led a crew of professional divers on a world-ranging expedition to find and film underwater the great white shark. This was a feat never before accomplished, in part because the beast is rarely seen, in part because it is the most dangerous of all underwater creature. Peter Matthiessen was asked to write the story of this searh, and to serve as a spare hand, both on the surface and below. At intervals over a period of seventeen months he accompanied Gimbel’s crew – from the Caribbean to the whaling grounds off Durban, to various islands in the Indian Ocean, to Ceylon, and finally to eventual success off the bleak coast of South Australia. In these pages he records the awesome experience of swimming in open water among hundreds of sharks at once, the beauties of strange seas and landscapes, and the camaraderie, tension, humor and frustrations that develop when people continually risking their lives dwell in close proximity day after day. Blue Meridian is vivid, fresh reportage of human beings in concert and in conflict, and of acute observations of natural history in exotic areas of the world; it is also a harrowing account of one of the great adventures of our time.

• 204 p. illus. (part col.), colour map (on lining papers), color portraits. 25 cm. Some wear to jacket. First Edition. #020125