The Jean-Michel Cousteau Institute and Project Ocean Search

Image Gallery

Yes, you can too take part in a genuine Cousteau ocean expedition this summer!

"I am 39 years old and you could say that I've been studying the oceans all my life. At the age of seven I was pushed overboard off the Calypso with an aqualung on my back and that was my first dive. I took to it very naturally and since that time I've spent every possible weekend, holiday, and vacation exploring the world's oceans ... studying the oceans and the effect that man has had upon them. It has been a very good education."

The man talking is Jean-Michel Cousteau. And just like his famous father-whom he definitely resembles-he is thin, wiry, and exceedingly knowledgeable. Also, like his father, he delivers very powerful and quite insightful environmental statements with a deceptively soft French accent.

"I have been quite lucky. I am one of the very few who have been involved in the pioneering era of underwater research from its beginning. I have been going back and diving in the same places for 32 years, and I have watched them deteriorate before my eyes. Where I used to see a fragile and beautiful marine life ... it is not there anymore. Where I used to see a clean ocean bottom ... it is now plastic bottles and discarded cans and other trash from our throwaway society. I know very well the effect that man is having on this planet."

And it is because he does know so well that Jean-Michel Cousteau—just like his father, Jacques-Yves, and his brother, Philippe—has become one of the planet's most dedicated environmentalists.

Unlike his more famous father and brother, however, Jean-Michel (in the manner of his mother, who is the completely unknown but real captain of the Calypso!) prefers to do his work quietly and behind the scenes.

We've all seen innumerable television specials and movies in which Jacques and Philippe and 25 or 30 other hardy Frenchmen don aqualungs and plunge into this sea or that ocean ... where they then proceed to ride whales, uncover fantastic historic artifacts, or make important environmental discoveries.

Very few of us, on the other hand, have seen the far less dramatic but vitally important day-to-day support work that makes such thrilling adventures possible: Mrs. Cousteau bucking up all those hairy-chested frogmen when they're 4,000 miles from France, have another two-month voyage ahead of them ... and are already homesick. Or Jean-Michel spending weeks and months buried in a processing lab, editing film, coordinating sound tracks, negotiating contracts, and handling the thousands of other "postproduction" details that must be attended to before Jacques and Philippe's exciting exploits can reach the screen.