Böcker av Simon Pridmore

When his country needed him most, Palauan Francis Toribiong came along and helped the Pacific island nation find its place in the world and become an independent, forward-looking 20th century state. And he achieved this, improbably, via the sport of scuba diving.This is the inspiring tale of an absolutely unique life, illustrated with images (black & white in this, the standard paperback version) of the beautiful islands of Palau, above and below the water.Maverick, innovator, entrepreneur, environmentalist and sheer force of nature, Francis Toribiong is the father of Palau tourism, a scuba diving pioneer and an effective, tireless ambassador for both his country and its abundant marine and land resources.He was born poor, had no academic leanings and no talent for diplomacy. Yet he was driven to succeed by a combination of duty, faith, a deep-seated determination to do the right thing and an absolute refusal ever to compromise his values.For his whole life, he has been a devoted friend to strangers and an implacable opponent to anybody who, through malevolence or negligence, threatens Palau's considerable natural treasures. He has also been the perfect host to generations of scuba divers from all over the world, who have visited Palau to see those treasures for themselves.And, as well as all that, he was Palau's first ever parachutist - known by islanders as "the Palauan who fell from the sky".In giving him this title, people were speaking both literally and figuratively. Francis Toribiong was so completely different from all of his contemporaries in terms of his demeanor, his ambitions and his vision, that it was as if he had come from outer space. Palau had never seen anybody quite like him and there was no historical precedent for what he did. He had no operations manual to consult and no examples to follow.He wrote his own life.Francis Toribiong was the first Palauan ever to seek and seize the international narrative. No Palauan, in any context or field, had previously thought to go out into the world and say: -"This is Palau - what we have is wonderful. Come and see!"It is a quite wonderful life story.

Maverick, innovator, entrepreneur, environmentalist and sheer force of nature, Francis Toribiong would have been a unique and significant individual no matter where in the world he was born. As it turned out, he was born in the island nation of Palau in the Western Pacific at just the right time to apply his special set of skills and attributes to the task of helping his country find its place in the world. In the 1980s and 1990s, he arguably did more than anyone to build Palau's economy and help it develop into an independent, forward-looking nation. And, improbably, he achieved this via the sport of scuba diving. Francis Toribiong is a Pacific Islander like no other. He is the father of Palau tourism, a scuba diving pioneer, and an effective, tireless ambassador for both his country and its abundant marine and land resources. He was born poor and had no academic leanings. Yet he was driven to succeed by a combination of duty, faith, a deep-seated determination to do the right thing and an absolute refusal ever to compromise his values. For his whole life, he has been a devoted friend to strangers and an implacable opponent to anybody who, through malevolence or negligence, threatens Palau's considerable natural treasures. He has also been the perfect host to generations of scuba divers from all over the world, who have visited Palau to see those treasures for themselves. And, as well as all that, he was Palau's first ever parachutist - known by his fellow islanders as "the Palauan who fell from the sky". They were speaking both literally and figuratively. He was so completely different from all of his contemporaries in terms of his demeanor, his ambitions and his vision, that it was as if he had come from outer space. Palau had never seen anybody quite like him and there was no historical precedent for what Francis Toribiong did. He had no operations manual to consult and no examples to follow. He wrote his own life. Francis Toribiong was the first Palauan ever to seek and seize the international narrative. No Palauan, in any context or field, had previously thought to go out into the world and say: - "This is Palau - what we have is wonderful. Come and see!"This is his astonishing story.

In Dining with Divers Volume 2 - A Taste for Adventure, Simon Pridmore and David Strike again invite an eclectic mix of diving personalities from around the world to share some memorable underwater moments and a recipe for a favourite meal.You will hear from an international cast of characters, representing virtually the entire spectrum of the scuba diving community. You will meet legendary figures from the dawn of sport diving as well as enthusiastic newcomers. You will follow explorers through vast and difficult cave systems that no human has ever visited and dive down onto shipwrecks from centuries past that continue to bear witness to past glories and follies. You will read about encounters with some of the greatest and most sought after animals in the ocean and also revel in some comic underwater mishaps.This being a cookbook as well as a story book, at the end of each tale, there is a recipe for a dish and you may be delighted to find that the meal options on offer are as varied as the stories. There are curries and chillis, pastas and risottos. There is soul food and sea food, Chinese cuisine and Italian cuisine. There are vegetarian options and dessert options. You will eat mackerel on a Scottish beach and tear lobsters apart on the coast of Maine. You will cook mussels from the English Channel and share a fiery favourite named after a rock band.This is a book that you will come back to time and again, to share a tale of the sea or to plan your own dinner for divers.