The Jean-Michel Cousteau Institute and Project Ocean Search

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In addition to Jean-Michel himself, the core group of each Project Ocean Search',') expedition includes marine scientists, a logistics staff, a guest faculty that has specialized in the locations being studied, a physician, and-of course—a qualified divemaster.

And what does one of the P.O.S. expeditions study? Why, the same things you've seen other Cousteau expeditions study on countless television programs and in Academy Award-winning movies: the natural history of local marine life, the ecology of fishes, sea turtles, kelp forests, global pollution, estuarine ecology, oceanography, plankton, reefs and beaches, coral growths and sponges, salt marsh ecology, sharks, ocean farming, underwater photography, water currents and tides, and a hundred other interesting topics. And talk about flexibility! P.O.S. participants who want to conduct specific studies during a particular expedition are encouraged to contact the Institute well before their trip takes place ... so that the requested project can be incorporated into the program!

Another interesting point: Thanks to the cooperation of the University of Southern California's College of Continuing Education, optional academic credit can even be earned by any P.O.S. participant who chooses to complete certain academic papers at the end of an expedition.

It should be pointed out, too, that although Jean-Michel's Institute itself is a brand-new operation ... the Project Ocean Search expeditions are not. Jean-Michel and his right-hand man, Francois R. Brenot, have been conducting these field studies for five full years now ... and every year's program is always better than the one before. People come away from these trips changed, with a new vision of man's rightful place on the planet and deep insights into the ways in which humankind can preserve the earth, its oceans, its atmosphere, and its myriad forms of life.

Or, to put it another way: The movie Close Encounters has been a moving experience for a lot of folks but it is, after all, only a movie ... a fantasy . . . a made up story that never really happened. If you want the same kind of experience—but FOR REAL—try one of the Project Ocean Search expeditions.

And you've got a nice selection to choose from during the season (summer 1978) that's just coming up: How about ten days on an island off the coast of South Carolina studying, among other things, one of the least touched salt marshes still left in North America? Or ten days conducting a variety of experiments on southern California's Santa Catalina Island? Or three weeks in the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles and/or Gulf of Honduras mixing sun and fun with serious scientific projects? Or a whopper full month in the western islands of the Bismarck Archipelago off New Guinea in the South Pacific, living next to one of the friendliest and most primitive tribes left in the world, enjoying scenery and diving on reefs that few people have ever seen, and studying tropical flora and fauna and sea life that—in some cases-no longer exists in any other part of the planet?

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