A Long CALYPSO Friendship: Albert Falco and Doc

June 2012

Albert Falco was the handsome skipper and captain of Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s expedition ship CALYPSO, and featured in just about every film and book about the Cousteau oceanographic expeditions around the world. Doc Edgerton met him during his first collaboration with Cousteau in 1953, and they became good friends even despite the language barrier. In fact Falco took Doc and his son Bob on their very first dive in the Mediterranean Sea that year, at the ancient shipwreck site of Grand Congloué, off the coast of southern France.

Edgerton took hundreds of candid shots, as well as home movies, during his expeditions around the world with Cousteau and his team. But it was only very recently, at the end of 2011, that Falco discovered Doc’s pictures and movies through the EDC website — and he soon plunged back into an ocean of memories. Falco was writing a memoir, together with writer and diver Alain Foret. When they came across the Edgerton Digital Collection Falco ordered several dozen of Doc’s snapshots, and used a good number of them in his book. Titled Sormiou, Berceau bleu de mes souvenirs (“Sourmiou, Blue Cradle of My Memories”), it can be previewed here: http://www.plongee-plaisir.com/fr/Falco.html 

Falco became an avid marine conservationist in his later years. He lived just long enough to see the realization of his dream:  a national park protecting the region of Les Calanques in SE France that includes the newly named Protected Marine Reserve “Albert Falco.”

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