A 26-year old American woman lies motionless on the ocean floor after scuba diving on her honeymoon on the Great Barrier Reef. Next to her is the ghost of a massive shipwreck, the SS Yongala that sank in a hurricane in 1911 with 121 souls on board. Tina Watson is seemingly looking up at the fish and still wearing her full dive gear. But a master scuba diver nearby who spots her knows instantly something is wrong. There are no bubbles coming from her regulator. A few strong kicks from his fins and he is on the ocean floor seeking a response from the unconscious new bride. Forty minutes after heroic resuscitation attempts on board a dive boat, Tina Watson is pronounced dead. What happened during the 10 minutes she spent under water on her first ocean dive that morning with her husband Gabe?Tina Watson’s drowning was first treated as a dive accident. But police found inconsistencies in Gabe’s multiple accounts. An emergency doctor, completing his advanced dive certificate, witnessed something strange as he descended to the wreck and saw a terrified expression on Tina’s face. Was Gabe Watson, a trained rescue diver, a blundering coward who simply panicked when he saw his wife floundering minutes into the dive? Or were there more sinister reasons? The post mortem was inconclusive other than finding that she had drowned. Four years after Tina’s death, Gabe Watson was charged with murder. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Despite serving a jail term in Australia, he was charged with two counts of capital murder back in the United States. He was acquitted in Birmingham, Alabama on February 23, 2012. This story has divided nations and families - even the authors of this book. Fatal Honeymoon Dive documents the dramatic twists and sudden turns of the legal and family saga. Written like a detective thriller it invites readers to grapple with what happened under the tropical North Queensland sun on October 22, 2003.
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