ATTRACTIONS
HARBOR BRANCH’S
NEW BEGINNING
Now affiliated with Florida Atlantic University and
boasting the new Discovery Center, Harbor Branch
has once again opened its doors to the public
The Ocean Discovery Center serves as the public gateway and “window” that offers a peak at science and conservation activities conducted by scientists
and engineers at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University.
BY CAMILLE S. YATES
PHOTOS BY ED DRONDOSKI
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute has seen
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its share of ups and downs. It started on the
upside, with Edwin Albert Link, a dreamer and
an inventor interested in flying and exploring
the deep seas.
As a young man, Link could not have known that he would
help start one of the most prestigious ocean science institutions
in the world. Because he loved exploring the sky, he developed
the first flight simulator in the early 1930s and spent
20 years perfecting it. But Link also had a passion for learning
what lay beneath the water. He sold his flight simulator company
and started a new career in underwater archaeology, an
outgrowth of his interests in sailing and diving.
Link also had a fondness for treasure hunting, and in the
mid-1950s, he built an oceangoing deep-sea explorer called
Sea Diver I. He and his wife, Marion, traveled the world on
that boat and eventually built Sea Diver II. To further his discovery
efforts, Link also designed a submersible decompression
chamber that allowed divers to work and live underwater
for extended periods of time.
The Links’ love for ocean exploration blossomed, and in >>