Join Robert Mester as he dives the remains of the Narrows Bridge.
"Adventure can often be found close to home. It is not necessary to travel to china or to the Antarctic in order to have an adventure. Let take a drive to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Millions cross her deck each year dreaming of adventure as they fight their way to and from their jobs. But here lies adventure. On November 7th, 1940 in a windstorm the old Galloping Gertie, as it was affectionately called, fell into Puget Sound. Gertie is the largest engineering failure in the history of engineering, the largest man-made reef on the planet. This surely holds opportunities for adventure.
Having visited the remain of old Galloping Gertie over 200 times in my life I do presentation to groups over the nation telling of my tales of the failure and my diving on the remains. I travel to many foreign places, Russia, Uruguay to the far reaches of the Aleutian chain. Few have heard of Puyallup or Tacoma but mention Galloping Gertie and they all can describe the undulating characteristics of the famous bridge and the colossal failure. In 1991 I did a documentary in conjunction with Nancy Johnson, Municipal TV Tacoma, Washington. That documentary called “Gertie Gallops Again” won an Ace award in 1991. It has shown all over the world and continues to get request for showing in many other countries. Coinciding with the documentary I gathered and produced material for the submission of the collapsed and submerged Tacoma Narrows Bridge to the National Registry of Historical places. The nomination was the first of its type, using sonar imagery as the basis for the nomination. The Nomination was accepted, adding the site to the Federal, State, County and City Registry of Historical Places in 1991."
- Robert Mester