When I told my high school English teacher in Brentwood, Missouri that I wanted to be a writer, she found my prospects for success so unlikely that she broke into gales of laughter. Nevertheless, I have been writing ever since, not because of the money, but because I love it. Truth is the essential element. I feel the best way to learn to write is to first learn to live well.

Therefore, I have attempted to fill my life with as many new experiences as possible, so as to endow both life and work with the authentic ring of a personal truth. In this endeavor, I owe a great deal to lady luck. "Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come". Fate leads us like a dog on a leash. With all due respect for preparation and education, there is nothing like being in the right place at the right time. I have had the good fortune to have experienced this axiom on several occasions, and it has always changed my life for the better.

In 1950, I met Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau, quite by chance. As a student, I had immigrated to Paris for my "junior year abroad", and I rented a room via a newspaper Want-Ad. By sheer luck, my landlady’s son happened to work for Captain Cousteau as an underwater cameraman.  He invited me to a preview showing of Captain Cousteau’s legendary underwater movie: "The Silent World." The film blew my mind, and I got to congratulate Captain Cousteau in person. This meeting changed the course of my life.  It led me to abandon a promising career in commercial television to follow my dreams of diving for sunken treasure and making underwater films. In 1959, I joined the team of Captain Cousteau aboard his famous ship, The Calypso. Meanwhile, I wrote three of the world's first five books about SCUBA diving. I also presented Cousteau’s lecture films in over 300 cities

When an injury forced my retirement from the shipboard life, I immigrated to a tropical seaside paradise named Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Here, I created a new kind of ecology school that was based on Cousteau’s ideas. It was located on an idyllic point of land that nuzzled into the bay at the end of a beautiful palm-lined crescent of a reef-protected beach. The point still offers surfers one of the best point breaks in the Tropical Pacific. For six years, I promoted personal reintegration with nature according to Cousteau's ideas. For example, I taught SCUBA diving as a means of returning to our aquatic origins in the sea, so we can  consciously re-create ourselves as an integral part of the ecosystem.

Alas, my Nature Study Center angered certain missionaries and politicians because of what I taught. Instead of the support that I hoped for, I was picketed, jailed twice, shot at three times, taken for a one-way ride and finally deported from the country. This convinced me to abandon my ecology school and promote my ideas  about ecology by producing books and DVDs.

My book titled A Prisoner in Paradise, is a truthful account of  what can happen when one abandons a promising career to go chasing after dreams.  If you have ever dreamed about living, working or investing in a Mexican south sea island paradise, as I did for example, A Prisoner in Paradise is a fast, funny and informative preview of what might await you.  The book has 304  pages and thirty six black and white photos.  If interested, please read our customer reviews and comments at the end of this piece.

If A Prisoner in Paradise is the true story of what I did, my book titled Mother Nature, My Nature  is the true story of what I think and what I try to teach. Both are inspired by my association with Captain Jacques Cousteau. Mother Nature, My Nature, is the summation of what I learned from Captain Cousteau combined with what I learned from my students at The Nature Study Center in Zihuatanejo. It covers the full gamut of the human mind, body and spirit as they relate the world we live in and ends with a disturbing critique of the world's major religious faiths.

To view Owen's interview regarding A Prisoner in Paradise on YOUTUBE click here

Captain Cousteau subscribed to the theory that "a problem well defined is a problem half solved." On that premise, Mother Nature/My Nature looks into man’s evolutionary past to find the causes of our present conflicts with Nature and to define the ways that we can possibly solve them. Along the way, you might glean some startling insights about yourself as well. This book has 190 pages.

To view Owen's interview regarding Mother Nature/My Nature on YOUTUBE click here

 

Both Books Are Now on Sale on-line via the following Book Outlets, click on the links below:

Available through Amazon-Mother-Nature  Amazon-Prisoner-in-Paradise  Booksinprint

Or check your local book stores.

To view DVD clips of THE END GAME on YOUTUBE click here

To order The End Game from Amazon click here

This 26 minute DVD documents the true adventures of Owen Lee -- first, as a pioneer treasure diver in Spain, then as an underwater cameraman for Captain Jacques Yevs Cousteau aboard his famous ship, the Calypso and finally, as a pioneer expatriate and activist in Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa, Mexico, were he created a Nature Study Center. The study center taught students how to integrate their lives into harmony with the global ecosystem and thereby create an ecologically viable future for their children. The End Game utilizes stunning undeerwater photography to reveal the intimate relationships between life in the sea and life on land. In the process it documents the many charms and the explosive growth of the fastest growing resort area on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It also documents the successful efforts of the local community to block excessive growth and protect the local ecology.

To order The Treasure Divers of Vigo Bay from Amazon click here

Owen Lee was a pioneer treasure diver in Spain, then an underwater cameraman for Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau aboard his famous ship, the Calypso and finally, as a pioneer expatriate and activist in Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa, Mexico, were he created a Nature Study Center. The study center taught students how to integrate their lives into harmony with the global ecosystem and thereby create an ecologically viable future for their children. This DVD documents the true adventures of Owen Lee, as a pioneer treasure diver in Spain, prior to becoming an underwater cameraman for Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau aboard his famous ship, the Calypso.

 

OTHER WORKS BY OWEN LEE

Mother Nature/My Nature,  Amazon.com A Prisoner in Paradise, Amazon.com

Promises, a novel, Fawcett Publications

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Snorkel and Deep Diving, Doubleday & Company

The Skin Diver’s Bible. Doubleday & Company

The Advanced Skin Diver’s Bible, Doubleday & Company

El Manual del Buceo, Editorial Diana

Owen’s English Guide to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Mexico

On DVD Disks

The End Game, 26 minutes

Treasure Divers of Vigo Bay

The Sea In Your Future, 50 minutes

The Nature Study Center, 30 minutes

Follow the Sea. 30 minutes

Owen’s Bay, Reef & Jungle Tour, 12 minutes

Owen Lee will be available in the U.S. for interviews with video clips on DVs. throughout the summer of 2009. For more information, please Email: owenzih@yahoo.com

READER COMMENTS REGARDING A PRISONER IN PARADISE:

High adventure on a low budget as told by your boyhood buddy in the back room of a local bar.
--Joe Olderworth, Rockhill, Mo.

Yours is the autobiography of a seagoing vagabond who dropped anchor on a forbidden piece of Mexican real estate. 
--Tarka Cordell, London, UK

That chapter on the New Years Eve party is one of the funniest things I have ever read.
--Christopher Grove, San Antonio, TX

Your detailed description of the bumps along the road to dream fulfillment were both enlightening and amazing.
--Ron Mckensie

Greetings Owen,

Wow! Just left Zihua Mx visiting a friend of mine....  he owns a palapa home on the point looking across the bay to your beautiful sanctuary...he shared your book with me , which I read and promptly confiscated. So first off I would like to get another copy of A Prisoner in Paradise as well as your other book he mentioned  of philosophy. Your stories definitely intrigued me. I  just thought I understood Mexico after traveling there for 30 plus years. hear the stories but none with true factual accountability like yours. Your life's philosophies really have inspired me and my family.

 I am  interested in your preservation of the ocean sea life and gardens at Las Gatas. Would love to meet you. When will you be back or in the DFW Texas area. Also how might I get some autographed books from you? Especially one inscribed to my friend so that I won't just be a common thief...

Best Regards R

READER COMMENTS REGARDING MOTHER NATURE, MY NATURE:

Owen Lee's new book takes us on a tour through our evolutionary past to find the reasons why we look, think, act and do as we do today… should be required reading in our schools.
Tanya Scales, San Francisco

Mother Nature, My Nature by Owen Lee pulls no punches. Lee exposes the blind spots in human nature that brought us into moral conflict with Nother Nature and proposes possible solutions.
Stanley Tharp, Chicago, IL

In a particularly bold stroke, Lee encourages the devout to set aside their myriad gods in exchange for proven scientific facets and a belief in Mother Nature.
Douglas Bench, Another Day in Paradise.