The Unforgettable Tragedy: Remembering the 34 Lives Lost aboard M/V Conception-September 2, 2019

In the early morning hours of September 2nd a fire broke out aboard the dive boat Conception as it was anchored off Santa Cruz Island. 34 people lost their

lives and an entire global diving community is doing the best it can to cope , to understand , to unite so the healing process can begin.

The president of AUAS, Dan Orr, had this to say on behalf of our organization and its member...

"The Board of Directors and Fellowship of the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences (AUAS) joins with the global diving world in mourning the tragic loss of 34 of our brethren onboard the Conception. Our collective thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of those we’ve lost."

A memorial was held in Santa Barbara, CA. and other memorials took place as well in Monterey and other Northern California locations so we could all join together to heal...

Pictures from Santa Barbara Memorial

From Hillary Hauser " Thinking hour by hour about our friends lost at sea, I came across this. Tragedies of this magnitude can bear no words – but great artists come close.

When Great Trees Fall By Maya Angelou

When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, ions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.