Some of the band members and a few of the crew and staff from the Grateful Dead flew to Kauai right after the 1987/88 New Years shows for a vacation. Jerry said it was his first in 20 something years. He was easily talked in to doing an intro (introductory scuba dive), so I found a dive shop that had the time and space that we could have the boat to ourselves and we headed to the west side where the calmest waters are found during the winter.
![]() dive. It's not easy to look good on your first dive with renta gear and the newness of it all. |
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Bobby, though not |
Much to my pleasant surprise, after they | ||
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On the return trip to complete their certifications they were joined by the drummers, Billy and Mickey, and additional crew members, Big Steve, Ramrod, Kidd and Robbie Taylor and their families. Jerry's affinity for the underwater inhabitants was just amazing, as well as theirs for him. He had a great eye for finding all sorts of critters obscured to most divers by their camoflauge abilities. |
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Jerry, Billy and Kidd never seemed to get enough. Jerry began to return about every 6 months; some days doing 4 dives. Kidd made frequent return trips became an avid U/W photographer and helped us with the installation of the permanent mooring buoys which has helped tremendously in preserving the reefs. The Jerry Garcia Band did a benefit in Hilo to help raise funds for this cause and $10,000 came from the Rex Foundation. After many dive trips in Hawaii, Billy went on to dive around the world documenting his trips on film. He and Bobby helped found Coral Forest, a reef conservation agency, which later merged with Reef Relief. Bobby and his sister, Wendy, are involved with such environmental causes as Reef Relief and co-wrote some wonderful childrens books to promote conservation to all age groups. I have included links to some of the above mentioned enterprises at the bottom of this page. |
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