Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac (Gironde) in France. He entered the naval academy in 1930, was graduated and became a gunnery officer. Then, while he was training to be a pilot, a serious car accident ended his aviation career. So it was the ocean that would win this adventurer's soul. In 1936, near the port of Toulon, he went swimming underwater with goggles. It was a breath-taking revelation.
"A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it."
Seeking a way to explore underwater longer and more freely, he developed, with engineer Emile Gagnan, the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, or scuba, in 1943, and the world under the sea was opened up to human beings. After World War II, Cousteau, along with naval officer Philippe Tailliez and diver Frédéric Dumas, became known as the " mousquemers " (" musketeers of the sea ") as they carried out diving experiments in the sea and laboratory. In 1950, Calypso, a former mine-sweeper, was modified into an oceanographic vessel, endowed with instruments for diving and scientific research, and the great adventure began. She and her crews explored the seas and rivers of the world for the next four decades.