Mobilis - in - Mobile

Jules Verne could not visit the sea depths like Nemo, his hero. Although suit-diving was already in existence in 1865 – it was the beginning of the “heavy-feets” - autonomous diving was only to develop with the efforts of Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Frederic Dumas. Later, the founding of the CMAS - Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (World Underwater Federation) was to popularize leisure diving through national federations. The Americans would later split from the CMAS to create the great commercial diving organizations like PADI. This section takes us back to the mid-50s, with two cult movies already mentioned here: 20 000 Leagues Under the Seas and Silent World. The Museum’s keeper – also writer of these lines – was thus able to make two of his childhood dreams come true: gather these toys, the objects of this website, and become a diving instructor, an activity I had to stop for health reasons. From those years spent diving around the planet, I brought back those pictures, taken by me or my diving friends. They illustrate what Verne was never able to see in his life, Captain Nemo’s real world. This section is dedicated to Jeff Tréhiou, former director of the C.I.P.Glénans, to whom I owe a notable part of my training; to Claude Martin, federal instructor and director of the Ecole Fédérale de Cibourre-St Jean de luz, who helped me prepare and pass my federal instructor diploma; to Jean-Jacques David, my location manager at several Club Med villages.

All photographs shown here were taken between 1981 and 1992 in the Mediterranean, Martinique, the Bahamas, Mexico, the Maldives, and the Red Sea. The cameras used were Nikkonos 5, Sea&Sea, Spirotechnique, Fuji HDS. All rights reserved, copy and sale are forbidden. Those pictures were made either by the instructors, location managers and photographers of the villages I stayed at, or by myself. It is difficult to determine the exact authorship, as we used to share the cameras and films, day after day. If they read these lines, they are invited to come forward to claim their rights!