Murray Black’s autobiography reads like a plot dreamed up by a Hollywood script writer and then made into a movie. The only thing is, most of Murray’s stories are real, and his adventurous life actually happened. As he points out in his introduction, “Few people can say they started out setting pins in a bowling alley and ended up blasting immovable objects to smithereens.”
Between the Devil and the Deep is a collection of well-told stories that follows Murray’s adventures from New York’s ivy prep schools, to his stint in the Mediterranean as a radioman in the Navy, and on to Alaska, where he washed dishes to earn the $800 tuition required to attend the world's first commercial diving school.
After diver training, during which he nearly blew up the Sparling School of Deep Sea Diving with an oxygen bottle, Murray tried his hand at fishery diving. He went to sea where he earned $10,000 a year harvesting abalone off California’s Channel Islands underwater reefs. But his youthful and adventurous spirit landed him in a Newport Beach jail charged with piracy.
With his boat confiscated, abalone permit revoked, and heavily fined, he left California and headed east. In Florida, more adventures await him along the East Coast, both diving and also driving a cab. However, when his abalone permit is reinstated, he came back to California diving for the prized mollusks out of Santa Barbara. Coincidentally, it was about then that California’s offshore oil boom begins with most of the oil seekers operating out of Santa Barbara’s little fishing port. Murray made a lucky dive for a drilling contractor he met in the port, and as a result became the third associate of the newly founded Associated Divers, Inc.
Murray is a gifted storyteller, and he keeps the action fast-paced as he moves his new company from Tripoli to the North Sea, with offices in London and Monaco. With newly devised gas mixtures and decompression tables he made a working dive to 525 feet, at that time a spectacular depth with helmet and hose. In just three years, DIVCON International became the world’s largest diving company, operating seven underwater work chambers and employing 150 divers under contract in 23 countries. In the field of oil diving, Murray became a legend.
In introducing the book, he tells the reader, “My life has been a moveable feast. Rewards, blessings, fulfillment - all the positive aspects. And then came Margaret Rose Mulligan..- Mrs. Black. She is the linchpin of this great adventure and to her this book is dedicated, with utmost admiration and love...... Lucky? You’re damn right! Better lucky than good.....Anytime!”
Review by Torrance Parker, Historical Diving Society USA
Between the Devil and the Deep by Murray Black
189 pages, hardbound, $35.00
Murray Black was a famous commercial diver.
