DAN schedules new series of FREE webinars

Since the April announcement of Diver Alert Network's new outreach program of offering free interactive webinars to anyone who wanted DAN® to present or lecture to their group, the response has been extremely positive.

The next several webinars have been scheduled, and a few spaces remain for those interested in participating. You do not have to be a member of the organizing dive club; the technology used in the webinars allows for additional participants outside the organizing group.

The upcoming webinars include:

• July 22: “I May Be Bent, Now What?” 7 p.m. EST

• Aug. 3: “I May Be Bent, Now What?” 7 p.m. EST


To take part in a live DAN webinar, the event site (or individual) must have a computer with Internet access and a way to see the screen and hear the presentation. DAN can coordinate webinars for up to 25 attendees. “Attendees” are defined as the number of people or groups actually logged in to the event; it does not pertain to the number of people in the room at a given event site. The webinars are free to event coordinators and individual participants.

For more information, to participate in an upcoming webinar or to invite DAN to your next event, please contact Marty McCafferty via email at mmccafferty@dan.org or by phone at (800) 446-2671 ext.286.

DAN schedules new series of FREE webinars

Under the Sea: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Jacques Cousteau's Birth

The great Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who shared with the world his passion for the sea and all forms of aquatic life, would have been 100 years old this month. Author, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, inventor, photographer, poet, researcher and scientist, “Captain Cousteau” was perhaps the world’s best-known and most beloved marine conservationist. Born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, France, Cousteau died in 1997, leaving a legacy of more than 120 television documentaries and 50 books in addition to his innovations in marine science and deep-sea diving, including the development of the aqualung. His television work was particularly significant in that it enlightened worldwide audiences about the treasures of the ocean and the devastating effects of pollution.

The Cousteau birthday itself, June 11, includes a twenty-hour marathon of documentaries in which he participated. All are TCM premieres, including six episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau dating from 1968 to 1974, and twelve episodes of The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey, an Emmy-nominated 1977 television series featuring the research adventures of the man called “the public conscience of mankind’s stewardship of our oceans.”

Also premiering is an award-winning documentary about Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau: The First 75 Years (1986), directed by John Soh and narrated by Jose Ferrer, documents the explorer's life from birth and childhood to his 75th birthday.

The remainder of the TCM tribute is composed of sea-themed movies from other directors, ranging from Lucien Hubbard’s The Mysterious Island (1929), adapted from a Jules Verne story, to the TCM premiere of Peter Yates’ The Deep (1977), adapted by Peter Benchley from his novel. The latter film, starring Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset as scuba divers who find buried treasure off the Bermuda coast, has gorgeous underwater cinematography by Christopher Challis — worthy of Cousteau himself — that features a variety of exotic aquatic life including moray eels, puffer fish and tiger sharks.

Other deep-sea adventures include Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953), filmed in CinemaScope off the coast of Florida by Edward Cronjager, who earned an Oscar® nomination for his beautiful and innovative underwater photography, and two more Verne adventures, Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and MGM’s Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969). Also included is the original Flipper (1963), which brought wide public interest to the dolphin, a marine mammal that Cousteau championed in his writings and photography.

Under the Sea: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Jacques Cousteau's Birth