Descending onto USS Spiegel Grove. (Photo by Don Altemus)

I intended to post yesterday and by the time I made it home from a round of meetings, a lovely lunch with friends and multiple errands, I had a string of email tasks to attend to. Anyway, my first session of the morning was with the History of Diving Museum in Islamorada that I have posted about on different occasions. Richie Kohler is flying in next week where we will have a book signing on Wed, 19 Oct 5-7, and he’ll do his presentation at 7:00. History of Diving Museum will also be in Losner Park with us for the Seahunts Festival Sat, 22 Oct 1-5. Anyway, after we knocked out the details for those events, we moved on to something I didn’t know about. 2017 is the 15th anniversary of deploying the mighty USS Spiegel Grove as an artificial reef. Until they put the Oriskany down off Pensacola and the Vandenburg off Key West, the Spiegel was the largest artificial reef in the world (510 feet long). My non-fiction, Islands in the Sand, has a chapter devoted to her and Groupers and Gunmounts: Inside the USS Spiegel Grove is a co-authored, photo-heavy book my friend Don Altemus talked me into. Let’s just say that neither has broken any sales records. However, as with all my books, they were a joy to write and in doing do, I met a lot of interesting people that I otherwise would not have.

I knew about the anniversary, but didn’t know the museum in going all out. They will have a special exhibit beginning in January going through May (the actual anniversary) and that will give the opportunity to highlight both books. It may not lead to anything other than another handful of sales, but who knows, it could also spark a surge.