That's badass man! I used to dive a ton. I had Advanced Open Water and Nitrox certifications. I lived in SW FL and was pretty close to the keys (also had friends who had houses in the keys), so I was diving almost every weekend. I thought I wanted to do something with it in a career sense (at least my diver friends and I always used to talk about it), but I stopped doing it for some reason - college, parties, women, motorcycling, lack of money- all probably had a hand in that.

I'm sure you have some pretty cool stories since you've done it for a living. I wanted to get into the "Search and Recovery" diving (I even shadowed a search and recovery diver with the police in high school for career day). I'd love to hear some stories sometime - I know you have 'em.

What's some of your favorite shipwrecks to do? I've only been on one "famous" or well-known one - Spiegel Grove. I've done a few dives on it - mostly around the bridge and I didn't dive it until the Hurricane had flipped it upright.

 

I dove professionally for nearly 8 years... I dove wrecks all over Florida, including several decompression dives on the "Grove". Mostly deep into the interior... I've done several dives at Ginne Springs, Devil's Ear cave system... I've done wrecks throughout the Atlantic Coast, including the "Andrea Doria"... I've dove all over the Carabeian and Mexico... including some exploration dives into Nahoch-na-chich cave system in the Yucatan Peninsula... Cozumel, Aruba, St. Martian, St. Thomas, Honduras ect... But as you may have guessed, being based in Michigan, I have dove well over 500 shipwrecks here in the Great Lakes... The cold fresh water preserves the wreck, so a wooden ship that sank in the 1800's is still well intact and the Great Lakes are brutal so there are thousands of wrecks... I started my professional career safety diving for my local diveshop and by the end I was safety diving for groups of deep decompression technical divers... I've done dives to 300 ft, having several hour decompression schedules... I've recovered snowmobiles from the bottoms of lakes in the middle of winter (yes, under ice) I've dove with sharks and seaturtles the size of vw bugs... I had a ton of fun with it and got to travel all over to dive with some very serious dive groups... but I couldn't make a long term career out of it... In the end, I was a high end dive bum...

 

Too cool man! I never did any of the fresh water stuff, but I always wanted to. That makes sense about the fresh water not being as corrosive as the salt water.

I take you do all sorts of dry-suit diving if you're going in the winter, right? That's really cool (again - never did any of that, but it looks like a lot of fun). I would have loved to actually have served a purpose diving instead of just spear fishing or sight-seeing. That's gotta be a pretty good feeling to recover a guy's snow mobile, for example, all the while getting to do something that you love. I would think the extra technical aspect to it would add a lot to the experience.

 

I sent you a PM to continue the dive talk... As it would seem that I have jacked my own thread... Wait that don't sound right... Er, boy...

 

My bad. I do tend to go boldly off topic. Still though, keep posting vids of you riding around. I was just buried in snow last night and tonight it's supposed to get down to 6 degrees, I could use the distraction from reality..... My FL thin blood isn't meant for this!