Marine Life of the Galapagos: A Diver's Guide to the Fishes, Whales, Dolphins and Marine Invertebrates (Odyssey Guides) [Paperback]

Pierre Constant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

On December 2, 2001, the Galapagos Marine Reserve will officially become a World Heritage Site. Few people are more intimately connected with the Galapagos and its marine life than Pierre Constant, author of the best-selling guide to the Galapagos, also from Odyssey guides. Constant now offers us Marine Life of the Galapagos, a definitive guide that introduces many new species of marine life never before seen, and rich with stunning color photography and underwater shots. This book is geared specifically to divers, an extremely fast-growing market in the archipelago. Dive centers are mushrooming on Santa Cruz Island; in 1991, 5,000 divers visited the islands, compared with 22,000 in 1999 -- currently 25% of visitors to the Galapagos are directly involved in diving activities. In 2000, the Galapagos was voted best dive destination overall in the Indo-Pacific by the US-based Magazine Divers Trust/ Rodale's Scuba Diving. This destination also won best fish life, healthiest marine environment, best big animal dives, and best advanced diving categories. This guide promises to be the bible of diving in the Galapagos.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Pierre Constant studied at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris VI, where he received his degree in Biology-Geology in 1975, followed by a Master's in Geology in 1979. In 1980, he went to Ecuador to work as a naturalist-guide on cruise boats around the Galápagos Islands. After two years living on the islands, he returned to France and published his first book, L'Archipel des Galápagos, and became the recognized French expert on the archipelago. Constant took up submarine photography in 1984 and produced a guide to the fishes, whales, dolphins and other marine animals of the islands. His involvement with the ocean became professional when he obtained his dive instructor certification in 1997. He has been a regular visitor to the Galápagos for the past 21 years, leading trips to the islands annually. His comprehensive knowledge and expertise on the Galápagos Islands has been made use of in various travel and active sports television productions, including French television (TF1: Ushuaia) and the Discovery Channel (XL Productions, 1991). Constant has published over 60 articles worldwide in a range of travel and diving magazines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Odyssey Publications (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9622177115
• ISBN-13: 978-9622177116
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,813,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre book on fabulous place and wildlife, November 24, 2002

By 

JDiver "You haven't lived until you've dived." (Roseville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Marine Life of the Galapagos: A Diver's Guide to the Fishes, Whales, Dolphins and Marine Invertebrates (Odyssey Guides) (Paperback)

For my return to the Galápagos, and as a long time SCUBA diver and marine enthusiast (over 45 years), I was looking for a book that would be an all around field guide to the marine critters. Unfortunately, =this is not that book=. The layout is inconvenient, requiring one to move back and forth between a description of the animal and its photo- which often enough, turns out to be murky and not very revealing. The descriptions are brief to the point of being sketchy and forgetting some vital information, and there are some noticeable typographical errors. Though some of the information and citations are up-to-date, many are so old they verge on misinformation, and important books (Humann and DeLoach's book, for instance, are missing entirely from the non-annotated bibliography. Based on my personal experience diving with sharks and the data available during the last ten years, this book's information on sharks especially is misleading, out of date and overly alarming. Some of the island and dive site maps are crudely drawn- I have seen better drawn on white boards at dive briefings.

Unfortunately, this appears to be THE field-totable book available at the moment on this topic, and that's why I have it. Here's hoping Msr. Constant revises, adds and updates his book- it could be a blessing. I do not recommend buying this book unless you NEED it. ...

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dream come true!, January 15, 2003

By 

Ms. Vivien LI (Hong Kong, China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marine Life of the Galapagos: A Diver's Guide to the Fishes, Whales, Dolphins and Marine Invertebrates (Odyssey Guides) (Paperback)

A good reference book for my dive trip to the Galapagos Is. I could find in the pictures, everything I saw underwater, with all the information a diver needs, from fish and marine invertebrates description, to the dive sites with detailed maps. The photos are very good. The reader can apreciate the efforts done by the author, in the plate drawings, creating an interest to get knowledge about whales or dolphins, for example. A really big improvement from the first edition, this new edition stands out as QUALITY! A beautiful souvenir for my "Dream come true".

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an impressive showcase, January 5, 2003

By 

Pierre Constant (Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, SA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marine Life of the Galapagos: A Diver's Guide to the Fishes, Whales, Dolphins and Marine Invertebrates (Odyssey Guides) (Paperback)

Correction: the book is not 280 pages but 308 pages, does not have 240 pictures but 288 colour photos on fish and marine life.Very few people have dedicated 18 years of their life to achieve such a remarkable piece of work, in both information and photographs. Constant had published a earlier book with the same title in 1992; this one is a considerable improvement. Sure, you could also get a copy of Jack Grove's "Fishes of the Galapagos", over 800 pages and worth a few hundred dollars, with pure rock botom scientific information. Not for the average diver, though.