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Peter Hunt with Promenade Deck window (1984)
Whidbey Island author Peter Hunt will make a slide presentation on the
history of the famous luxury liner Andrea Doria, both as ship and
shipwreck this Friday in Anacortes and introduce his new book, "Setting
the Hook: A Diver's Return to the Andrea Doria."
Hunt's slide presentation and book signing is this Friday, Feb. 24, at Anacortes Dive & Supply, 2502 Commercial Ave. at 5:00 pm.
The 1956 collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm triggered a night of sheer terror for the Andrea Doria's 1,134 passengers and set in motion one of history's most dramatic rescues at sea. From the moment the Andrea Doria settled on the sea floor in 240 feet of water, skilled amateur divers have risked their lives to simply touch her broken hull.
In 1981, wealthy adventurer Peter Gimbel enlisted the aid of commercial salvage divers to torch open the Andrea Doria's Foyer Deck doors in search of treasure and answers. The unprecedented access to deep within the sunken ship's interior enticed growing numbers of sport divers to explore the wreck in increasingly daring quests for a piece of the "Mt. Everest of wreck diving." Not all returned alive.
Peter Hunt crewed on 5 Andrea Doria diving expeditions during the early 1980s aboard Steve Bielenda's legendary research vessel Wahoo before becoming a Navy carrier pilot and settling in Washington State. Nearly 20 years after first exploring the Andrea Doria - and following twelve months of arduous Pacific Northwest dive training in the newest equipment and techniques - Hunt hugged his wife and children goodbye and returned to New York to dive the Andrea Doria once again. The experience transformed him forever.
Setting the Hook explores the Andrea Doria and extreme diving through an introspective odyssey of memory and history back to the dangerous underwater world of Northeast shipwrecks. Extreme adventure, thirty years of technical diving, and enduring friendships merge in a personal tale of learning to accept life's oldest challenge.
About the author
After leaving the Navy, Peter Hunt continued to fly as a pilot for a major international airline until being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2005 at age forty-three. He is trimix certified, a PADI Divemaster, and has made over 1,000 dives in a wide variety of locations around the country and the world. Hunt holds a Masters Degree from the University of Washington, lives with his wife and two children on Whidbey Island, and still dives despite the progression of Parkinson's disease. He hopes to continue diving a bit longer and to keep the memories forever. His first book, Angles of Attack (2002), is a pilot's account of combat operations during the first Gulf War.
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