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Arts & Entertainment

McLean's Deep Sea Adventurer Discusses New Book

Richard Hyman's Travels with Jacques Cousteau Detailed in "FROGMEN"

Former McLean resident Richard Hyman has led two lives—one on land and the other on the sea. It is the latter which he documents in his debut book, “FROGMEN: The true story of my journeys with Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the crew of Calypso.”

Hyman, now a family man who works in the telecommunications industry, spent part of his college years and early adulthood on the boat Calypso and in the employ of Captain Cousteau.

The author will be reading from his book at Dolley Madison Library Thursday, February 9, at 7pm.

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The legendary explorer, filmmaker, and inventor was business partners with Hyman’s father, Frederick; they worked together to create the Cousteau Society for the Protection of Ocean Life, among a myriad of other ventures. With his father’s blessing, Hyman joined Cousteau’s team in 1973, when he was just 18 years old. Hyman’s first responsibility was the unglamorous task of driving a truck from Los Angeles to the Canadian wilderness so the team could film beavers.

It was on that trip when Hyman began to record his adventures in detailed, handwritten journals, which would become vital during the process of the writing of his book.

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“I was so pleased that I kept the journals,” Hyman says from his home in Weston, Connecticut. “They allowed me to share my memories with people who care. I knew that writing this book wasn’t a big commercial endeavor, but it was a labor of love. There is an audience of people who loved Cousteau and want to hear stories about him.”

After the Canadian expedition, Hyman embarked on his freshman year at Furman College in South Carolina. It didn’t take long for Cousteau to distract him from normal campus life. By Thanksgiving of his sophomore year, Hyman was diving in Florida's warm springs with manatees and off the panhandle with stone crabs. When he arrived back at Furman, he convinced the administration to award him an independent study for the remainder of the year; he spent it upon Calypso, helping to film lobsters in Mexico and grouper spawning along the 180-mile Belize Barrier Reef.

In 1975, off the coast of Belize, another American legend joined the ship—singer and songwriter John Denver, a good friend and admirer of Cousteau’s work. Denver dove with the crew, and spent many hours eating, laughing, and singing onboard. Hyman recalls a time when he was on watch, high in the crow’s nest, and Denver joined him, asking questions about Calypso and keeping him company. “We got to know John Denver,” Hyman says. “Both he and Cousteau were dedicated to what they believed in.”

Soon after Denver left, he was inspired to write a song dedicated to the ship and the crew. The result—Calypso, a smash hit that had the world singing about something Hyman held very dear. “To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean/to ride on the crest of a wild raging storm/To work in the service of life and living/in search of the answers of questions unknown... Aye Calypso, I sing to your spirit/the men who have served you so long and so well.” Hyman admits that he still gets chills when he hears Denver’s ode on the radio.

Both Cousteau and Denver died in 1997. “I wish Cousteau and Denver were around for many reasons,” Hyman says. “They had such strong voices for environmental causes.”

After graduating from Furman, Hyman joined a bank in South Carolina. Once again, though, Cousteau and the ocean called, so in 1979 he gave notice to his boss and ventured out for what would be the final journey with Calypso.

Hyman and the crew sailed from Norfolk, Virginia to Venezuela, stopping off the coast of North Carolina to explore the sunken USS Monitor, and Martinique, where they saw skeletons entombed in deep shipwrecks.

It was an arduous journey; Calypso was plagued by engine trouble that threw her off schedule. Afterwards, Cousteau asked Hyman if he would join him on a subsequent expedition. Hyman declined.

“I wanted to pursue a more conventional life,” Hyman says about his decision to give up the nomadic life on the sea. “I wanted to settle down and have family. [Being on Calypso] was a fantastic experience, but it wasn’t the life for me in terms of career.”

In 1980, Hyman moved to McLean to work for the GTE Corporation. He met his wife, Margaret, and they set up a home here, firmly on land. In 1989, the company transferred him to Connecticut, where he had grown up and where his journey with Cousteau had begun.

He carried his worn and decades-old journals with him. His wife, Margaret, knew the value of her husband’s detailed chronicles, so she took it upon herself to transcribe them on the computer. “I thought the journals were all really well written,” she says. “But they were in spiral notebooks that would probably deteriorate. I would be hard to get all the memories back once the journals were gone.”

Going through the journals, she was touched by what she read. “I told him, ‘you should really make this into a book for your family to share these remarkable journeys,’” she says. “Hearing him grow up through his words—that touched me.”

It took Hyman around 10 years, but he finally completed the book in 2011. It was a personal achievement, as well as a dedication to the man who brought light to the deepest parts of our world. “When Captain Cousteau passed away, I wanted to do my part to preserve his memory,” Hyman says. “And I wanted to reinforce his message about the importance of conservation and the environment.”

“The experience with Cousteau infected me in a positive way,” Hyman reflects. “The taste of adventure leaves you with that desire. As an older man, now that I have fulfilled some responsibilities, I am hoping for new adventures.”

“I still have that desire,” he concludes.

“FROGMEN: The true story of my journeys with Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the crew of Calypso” is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Dolley Madison Library, Thursday, Feb. 9, at 7pm. To register, visit Dolley Madison’s event website. More information about the book is also available on Richard Hyman’s website.

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