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In prince or pugilist, the underwater world stirs strange rapture. Writers of ages past, from the author of the Book of Jonah to Matthew Arnold, few of whom had ever been under water in their lives, have been inspired to imaginative fantasies about life in the depths. One modern writer who has been there is Clare Boothe Luce, playwright turned diplomat. In a memorably lyrical series for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, she reported her experiences: "What fishes like flowers, what stones like trees. The coral reefs are a golden girdle of dead and living cities, which dwarf in their age and beauty all the cities of man." Says Ray Hoaglund. a 34-year-old electrician and one of the nation's 200,000 free divers (world total: 350,000): "We're looking for something—God knows what it is. It's not adventure and thrills. There are certain words that come close to describing it—mystery, intrigue, beauty, silence, freedom. Diving has a hold on its adherents as no other sport does. It's almost hypnotic."
Pioneer & Prophet. As any skindiver will readily admit, his sport is almost the singlehanded creation of a lean (6 ft., 154 Ibs.). visionary Frenchman named Jacques-Yves Cousteau. He is, all in one. its pioneer, foremost promoter, prophet, and poet. As the developer of the Aqua-Lung, he set divers free to roam in the kingdom of the fish. With his book The Silent World (1953). he became diving's foremost philosopher. The prizewinning film made from the book opened the world's eyes to the magic world under the sea, sent both scientists and pleasure seekers hustling for masks and fins to see for themselves. When 130 delegates from 17 nations met in Barcelona last week for the second annual meeting of the World Underwater Federation to exchange scientific data and draw safety rules, the president and presiding officer was, naturally, Jacques Cousteau.
Under Pressure. At 49, Cousteau looks as if he might be either an esthete or an ascetic, and he is somewhere in between. His face, hollow-cheeked, cleft by the lean curve of an aristocratic nose and scoured by furrows, might have been carved by the sea itself. His body is gnarled. "My!" said one fluttery female admirer, "have you been shrunk by pressure?"
But pressure has done nothing to repress his spirit. Cousteau can delight in eccentric garb ranging from crimson sweaters to Russian astrakhan hats. Or he can turn serious, hold an audience rapt as he talks of his vocation: "I used to dream of flying—the classic attempt to get away from the reality of earth. But since I have been diving, I have not had the dream. Diving is the most fabulous satisfaction you can experience. I am miserable out of water. It is as though you had been introduced to heaven, and then found yourself back on earth. The spirituality of a man cannot be completely separated from the physical. But you have made a big step toward escape simply by lowering yourself under water."