About Me

Captain Red

25 Years of Experience at Your Service!

My diving career started when I was running dive boats of 30 people as a Dive Master (DM) and as a Captain. I was also assisting instructors with their Open Water classes. I enjoyed helping people see the underwater world in a safe environment. Between being a DM and assisting classes I noticed students and customers gravitated to me. They wanted to learn more about diving from someone they knew wouldn’t sugar coat the truth.

During my 3 years of being a DM on a boat I saw timid, unconfident, careless divers and classes packed with students being pushed through, barley meeting the performance requirements. I had certified divers show up that had never done a boat dive, scared to jump off the boat. Seeing instructors fail to thoroughly educate and prepare their students lead me to the decision of becoming an Open Water Instructor in 1999. My goal was to create better divers by educating people the right way from the beginning.

Instead of sending people through an online class and a quick dip in the water, I wanted them to leave my class knowing they’d be capable of being safe and environmentally conscious divers.

I’m known for my old school teaching methods. You will have several days of repeating the necessary skills until you’ve perfected them. Being able to do a skill successfully once does not make a capable diver. You can’t build confidence in a day. Being able to problem solve and think for yourself is a big part of diving. Knowing how your equipment works along with the dos and don’ts of diving are all thoroughly addressed in my classes.

After teaching for a few years, I became a Dive Master Instructor (IDC) and have held that rating for over 18 years. I’m also a TDI instructor, able to teach technical diving from Cavern all the way through Full Cave. I started technical diving because I enjoyed the skill set. Perfecting all skills to see another part of the underwater world is an exhilarating experience. I decided to start teaching technical diving for the same reasons I got into being an Open Water Instructor. I like being able to help other people improve their skill set and become better divers.

With over 150 safe cave dives I’ve received 2 Wakulla awards. I’m also certified in Wreck Tech, and I teach Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Diving. All of that combined with having my 100 ton Master Captain license I have a vast amount of knowledge to share with people. I’ve worked at Marine Land as a guide and worked as a safety diver for several projects on surveying wrecks like the Commodore. I was also one of 10 divers involved in sinking the Vandenberg in Key West.

In sinking the Vandenburg I was one of three individuals who were trained and rated to disarm explosives underwater. We were tasked with placing and removing 3000 foot of line, leading to 46 detonations. I was the only one on the job with salvage knowledge and was given the responsibility of obtaining lift bags to put the radar arches back on the ship when they fell off. To sum it up I’m in the water almost every day, whether its teaching, recreational diving, or swimming in conditions the average diver wouldn’t consider dive worthy. I am always trying to educate other divers and expand my own knowledge and experience in the process.

As a Dive Professional or “Commercial Diver” I have 25 years of experience. I started my non recreational diving in 1996 raising boats for Sea Tow. Being that I’m extremely comfortable in the water I started dipping my toe into other parts of professional diving.

I’ve raised boats and airplanes from the bottom of the river, ponds, lakes, etc. As of recently I assisted Sea Tow in raising an airplane that went down in Venetian Bay. Other jobs have been sailboats sunk in the river or sunken drill rigs. I’ve assisted with raising boats out of the intercoastal that have been submerged for years or some that were only down for a few months.

The duration underwater and size of the objects I’ve recovered have varied over the years. I helped customers untangle props and anchors and others I found lost belongings they dropped.

With my experience in search and recovery I have had to find lost divers who were in places they weren’t supposed to be. Some of my work you may have seen on the news whether it’s recovering a boat or a person I have the know how to properly execute the job.

In addition to search and recovery and salvage work, I have experience working in and around pipes. You can check out the BlueWaterDiving Facebook page to see a few of the jobs I’ve done.

I’ve worked on many pipes and dove in many hazardous situations over the years. It’s safe to say tight spaces and the traditional concept of undivable conditions don’t bother me. I’ve dove deep and in minus 50 foot visibility.

Anything related to the water I’ve done it and am willing to do.