History : Remembering Philippe Cousteau Sr.

It is hard to believe that it has been 30 years since my father passed away. To remember the day my mother, my sister, and I are in Lisbon, where he died in a plance accident on June 28th 1979. The Portuguese Navy has done us the honor of doing another ceremony at sea, similar to the one they did when they laid him to rest all those years ago. My father has been with me all my life, though not in flesh most certainly in spirit and I hope that we all will continue his dream of a better world.

I remember a letter my grandfather wrote to my father in eulogy shortly after he died. It was titled Pursuing Rainbows and he wrote of the first time he had taken my father's hand in his to explore these emerald waters, (see below). He wrote of the excitement he felt in exploring the beauty of this new world with his young son and sharing his desire to protect it. That is indeed, how my father lived and died, pursing the rainbows of a better world. And though I will never be able to hold his hand and share that dream, I turn my back on the anger that I feel; anger at being robbed of sharing this with him in person, anger that the world was robbed of a man poised to do so much good, who had so much magic in him, so much potential to help so many. Instead, I like to think that at times like these; in this moment...here...he is with me and we are pursuing rainbows together; connected by a common dream, a common hope, a new generation of father and son united in our search for a better tomorrow.

Pursuing Rainbows

I will always remember that day of July 1963 when you joined the "Conshelf II" expedition along the Shab Rumi reef, in the Red Sea. The sun was setting when you climbed onboard the Calypso from the launch that had driven you from Port Sudan airport. But I would not give you time to relax I was too impatient to show you our "village under the sea" before it became too dark. Hastily, we both donned our aqualungs, and slowly, sensually, we submerged into the welcoming water, as warm as our blood. When we started for an unforgettable stroll with slow strokes of our long stretched legs and breathing deep lungfuls of air I kept your hand in mine to guide you from "Starfish house" where six oceanauts were having dinner, to the onion shaped "diving saucer garage", to the "tool house", the "fish farm", to the "deep cabin" where we observed the two "black masked" oceanauts go to bed...and to the anti shark cages strewn here and there as emergency shelters. I introduced you to Jules, the great barracuda who had adopted us. I showed you the cave in which the large "bump-fish" went to sleep at night, and of course, we met the inevitable sharks who kept cruising around the village. Twilight was turning to sheer darkness, our structures became eerie shadows, the fish were just moving pieces of the sea. I was still holding your hand when we returned to the ladder; I felt strangely proud not of what we had achieved, but because our dreams were always shared so intimately.

Three years ago, I found myself sitting near you in the cockpit of our Catalina, the seaplane you had equipped especially for oceanography and for diving. From years of gliding, handgliding, piloting planes and helicopters, ballooning, you had acquired an unusual expertise. Now you were giving me a ride to the Mexican island of Isabella, in the Pacific. Taking off in sheaves of water, the whole of the plane was an extension of your body, the roar of the motors was the expression of your joy, the clouds that dotted your sky were just other forms of water like our own flesh. I look at you, my guide in the sky as I have been your guide in the sea. I saw your shining face, proud to have something to give back to me, and I smiled, because I knew that pursuing rainbows in your plane, you would always seek after the vanishing shapes of a better world.

I love you JYC