Robert F. Burgess, who grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, built his first diving gear from an old WWII gas mask, gas station air hose, and a gasoline-powered air compressor, to dive down to an old shipwreck near Lake Michigan in 1944. At the end of WWII he served with the 88th Blue Devil Division Ski Troops in the Italian Alps. Later his outfit became the TRUST Garrison in Trieste, Italy, on the Adriatic. After discharge he returned to Europe to study foreign languages in Italy and at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. Returning to the United States he completed his schooling in Journalism at Michigan State University. An active scuba diver and underwater photographer, Robert Burgess has spent his life writing about adventure above and below water. By interviewing treasure hunters, cave divers and scientists, he gained material for writing both factual and fictional books on these subjects. With his wife he motor-scootered across Europe to live on the island of Majorca where he wrote Moving to Majorca. He backpacked through Tunisia on a magazine assignment to find and explore Hill 609, a honeycombed German mountain fortress. While living and writing in Spain for three and a half years, he met Ernest Hemingway in Pamplona and recently returned there to back-track Hemingway into the Spanish Pyrenees for his latest book titled, Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona, Then and Now. The author's books about sailing, shipwrecks, sharks, treasure diving, cave diving, and underwater archaeology are acclaimed for his ability to put the reader in the midst of the action. Between trips, Mr. Burgess resides in north Florida.

Take a look at Bob's PhotoArt