Red Gold. [hardcover]. (Extreme diving and the plunder of Red Coral in the Mediterranean - jacket subtitle).

...The true story of extreme deep diving with air and with rebreathers, in which Leonardo Fusco pioneers a new frontier for a centuries old maritime tradition. As friends who also push the limits of this new fron- tier are killed, Leonardo pioneers the use of hyperba- ric and submersible technology, with assistance from his friends Hans Hass and Gerhard Haux. For Captain Leonardo Fusco the discovery of the sea started at the age of nine. Years later while snorkeling off the coast of Palinuro, he discovered a branch of Corallium Rubrum (red coral) that for centuries has been widely traded and highly valued in the jewelry industry. As a result of this discovery, he started to search for coral and soon he became the first coral- laro. The intention of the author in writing this book is to make the nations of the world aware of this sad reality and to promote a universal consensus for the protection of Red and Pink Coral (Corallium Rubrum) and for making trade of all coral illegal. A porti

Leonardo Fusco after being licensed as an off- shore captain in 1950, kept practicing this dangerous and mysterious profession of corallaro (diving for red coral) for over thirty years. He then travelled to anywhere in the world where the presence of red coral was known or suspected: in Sardinia, then Costa Azzurra, Costa Brava, Morocco and for five long years in Tunisia, and finally in Japan. He then started researching and experiment- ing in order to improve both diving safety standards and the survival of the Corallium Rubrum species. In 1953, at Cape Spartivento, Leonardo Fusco made his first Aqua Lung dive, and everything changed. As spearfishing led Hans Hass to an underwater career of science, film and photo- graphy, so spearfishing led Leonardo to an under-water career of coral harvesting, marine biology, mixed gas technology and hyperbaric research.