"Blue Water Gold Rush is about the author and his friends coming up from the Santa Barbara sea urchin fishery down in the Channel Islands in the late 60's into the early 70's. They were just a bunch of beach bum surfers, didn't really have a lot of goals in life, but found a gold rush per se of their own in the ocean and helped build the sea urchin industry all the way up the coast, all the way through the 80's, and made a lot of money, lost a lot of lives. The book is really written form a personal perspective from the author, which is something I like to read.

What I liked best about it, how personal he got in his own life with how he met his wife, how he met his friends, and just basically how he described the journey through his life and unexpected turns and his willingness to take a leap in life. He lost a few friends right in front of him due to shark attacks all over the coast. I think in the back of the book, there's about 20 names of people over about a 20-year span that he knew that died that were good friends of his.

Yes, I do like diving and I do do diving, but I don't know if I'd go to the extent that they did. Even as a diver, it offered insight into a realm of diving in a fishery kind of organization that I had no idea about and just vaguely heard about. It takes a certain breed of human being, and it's interesting to read about them 'cause they're quite crazy. I would give this book five stars out of five."

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