Unique Experiences

Item Description

Lunch or Dinner with Gary Gentile  - author, lecturer, photographer, explorer, and deep-sea wreck-diver  -  inThorpe, Pennsylvania

Gary’s world is one of adventure and thrills tempered by poetry and subtle beauty. Gary has written 58 books, published over 3,000 photographs, discovered more than 40 shipwrecks, and led a life of adventure. Gary has written scores of magazine articles, and has published thousands of photographs in books, periodicals, newspapers, brochures, advertisements, corporate reports, museum displays, postcards, film, and television, and led a life of adventure.

In the early 1990's, Gary was instrumental in merging mixed-gas diving technology with wreck-diving. His dive to the German battleship Ostfriesland, at a depth of 380 feet, triggered an unprecedented expansion in the exploration of deep-water shipwrecks, and the advent of helium mixes as a breathing medium. He wrote the first book on technical diving. In 1994, he participated in a mixed-gas diving expedition to the Lusitania, which lies at a depth of 300 feet.

Gary has specialized in wreck-diving and shipwreck research, concentrating his efforts on wrecks along the eastern seaboard, and in the Great Lakes. He has compiled an extensive library of books, photographs, drawings, plans, and original source materials on ships and shipwrecks. He has conducted surveys on numerous wrecks, and has either discovered or been the first to dive on scores of previously unknown shipwrecks.

Over the years he has rescued from the ravages of the sea many thousands of shipwreck artifacts, making him a leading authority in recovery techniques. He has gone to great lengths to preserve and restore these relics from the deep, and to display them to thousands of interested people, divers and non-divers alike. Throughout the years, these artifacts have been displayed at various museums, symposiums, and club-oriented exhibitions.

Of the thousands of decompression dives that Gary has made, over 200 of them were on the Grand Dame of the Sea: the Andrea Doria. He was the first scuba diver to enter the First Class Dining Room, from which he recovered many examples of elegant china. He also recovered and restored hundreds of items of jewelry and souvenirs from the Gift Shop, located at a depth of 220 feet. More important, he discovered and recovered a number of ceramic panels that once adorned the walls of the First Class Bar. These colorful panels were the work of famed Italian artist Romano Rui.

In 1989, after a five-year battle with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gary won a precedent-setting court decision which forced NOAA to make the wreck of the Civil War ironclad, Monitor, accessible to the public.

There is also another side of Gary's life: that of an outdoor adventurer. In this guise he has climbed rock and mountains, backpacked through country high and low, bivouacked in the snow, and paddled his canoe through rapids and down untamed wilderness rivers - often for weeks at a time. He has captured on film all of these wonderful outdoor adventures, as well as the splendor of nature's colorful scenery. He has given slide presentations to dive clubs, hiking clubs, canoe clubs, elder hostels, church groups, cub scouts, power squadrons, Naval associations, Civil War societies, Masonic lodges, Mensa, corporate functions, scientific organizations, and many, many other groups too numerous to mention. He lectures extensively on underwater topics, and conducts seminars on advanced wreck-diving techniques, high-tech diving equipment, and wreck photography.

http://www.ggentile.com/

Item Special Note

Being auctioned is dinner or lunch with one the world’s foremost shark experts or celebrities. It is a unique opportunity to “talk shark” face-to-face, one-on-one, with a real authority on sharks. 

How it works:

1. Bid on a celebrity, shark scientist or conservationist that lives or works in your area, unless you are willing to drive or fly to meet them in their area.

2. The winning bidder pays for the lunch or dinner and may bring as many guests as he or she wishes.

3. We will introduce the winning bidder to the celebrity, scientist or conservationist. The two of you then set a mutually agreeable  date, time and place to meet within one year of the close of the auction.

All winning bids are charitable contributions deductible from US Federal 2013 income taxes.  Funds raised by the auction will be used to support shark research and conservation programs.