400 Dives, A Lifetime Underwater, and Why Every Moment Matters

I didn’t start diving in some tropical paradise. Hell, I didn’t even start in a place most people would willingly swim. I got certified in the borrow pits of central Illinois, cold, murky water that smelled like mud and tractor grease, the kind of place where you learn to trust your gear before you ever see a coral reef. I was a country boy who worked hard, and when I finally got the chance to play hard, I took it. Diving became my escape, my reset button, my Jimmy Buffett Caribbean alter‑ego. But it didn’t start that way.

My first real open‑water dive was in Hawaii, and I’ll tell you right now, I learned more in the first ten minutes of that dive than I did in the entire certification course. I’d been trained to enter the water with my BC inflated and snorkel in my mouth, wait for the group, then descend together by switching to my regulator. But excitement makes you forget steps, and I was excited as hell. I kept the snorkel in my mouth and descended anyway. You can imagine how that went. I swallowed half the Pacific Ocean before I realized what I’d done.

Between dives, in 3–4 foot swells and wearing a wetsuit way too thick for Hawaii, that saltwater rolled inside me until I was chumming fish off the side of the boat. The divemaster called for the second dive, and I said, “No way, man. I’m puking my guts out.” He told me, “Trust me. Your regulator can handle it. Once you get below thirty feet, you’ll feel great.” I didn’t trust the regulator to handle puke, so when the moment came underwater, I pulled it out, fed the fish, and put it back in. And he was right, below thirty feet, everything settled. That dive taught me two things I’d learn again and again in life: sometimes you have to push through the rough part to get to the good part,  and don’t make the same bonehead mistake twice.

Over the next thirteen years, I logged more than 400 dives across oceans, lakes, caverns, caves, wrecks, and springs. I didn’t plan it that way. It just happened, one dive at a time, one adventure at a time, one surprise at a time. And the ocean, lakes, and everything in between gave me more than I ever expected.

Freshwater diving gets a bad rap. People think it’s dull, boring, nothing to see. They’ve never been to Table Rock Lake. One dive there turned into a face‑to‑face encounter with catfish as big as I was, slow, curious giants materializing out of the dark like underwater cows. You don’t forget something like that. Another dive in Emerald Bay revealed old‑growth trees rising from the lake bottom all the way to the surface through emerald‑green water. It felt like swimming through an underwater forest. Beautiful, and a reminder to keep your knife handy, because fishing line is everywhere. You learn really quickly that freshwater has its own personality. Quiet, eerie, and full of surprises.

Saltwater, though, saltwater gave me some of the best moments of my life. I’ve swum in formation with 50–60 eagle rays, watched a 15‑foot manta ray circle and play like an old friend, and had open‑water dolphins bump me just to see how I’d react. Dolphins are like teenagers, they test you. I’ve had a green moray wrap around my back like a curious dog, and I’ve watched morays spawn in the Keys, a rare, beautiful sight most divers never see. And I learned early that the meanest fish in the sea is a 2–3 inch damsel. Those little bastards will defend their algae patch like it’s Fort Knox. Sharks don’t scare me. Barracuda don’t scare me. But a pissed‑off damsel fish? You better watch your fingers.

Most of my night dives were solitary macro photography dives. It’s not about covering yards, it’s about detail. Slow breathing, slow movement, and letting the reef forget you’re there. Turn off your lights and listen sometime. The ocean is noisy at night: crackling shrimp, hunting crabs, eels moving through rock, and the soft hum of water pushing through structure. Sweep your hand and the bioluminescence lights up like underwater fireworks. It’s magic, pure magic.

Bluebell Coral and Moon Jelly - photos by Voigt

I also dove the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the giant clams alone were worth the trip. Some of them were the size of a bathtub, half buried in the coral with these electric blues, greens, and purples running through the mantle like something out of a dream. You'd swim past one and it would pull itself shut just enough to remind you it knew you were there. The reef itself was every bit the postcard everyone promises, but it was those clams that stuck with me. Nature doesn't need to move fast to be impressive.

One night on Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman, an octopus tried to steal my old Nikonos IV camera. It wrapped around it and pulled hard. Scary times, if you know anything about that model of camera you change the lens by  pulling out and turning. Over the next ten minutes I pulled back. It pulled harder. I won the tug‑of‑war, kept the camera, and best of all ,it didn’t flood. That octopus had personality and  dazzled me  with its entire repertoire of color changes.  You could see it in its eyes. It wasn’t scared. It wasn’t angry. It just wanted my camera. That’s the kind of thing you remember forever.

My Tug-of-War Antagonist

I dove Bimini once, right on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, and I watched the compasses on the boat go haywire before we even got in the water. Didn't think much of it until it happened. We dove a site called The Barge, right on the edge of the Gulf Stream, where you'd hang onto the reef in a 2.5 to 4 knot current and watch sailfish and tuna cruise by like they owned the highway. From there we moved to the wreck of the Sapona, an old concrete hulled ship from World War I , that had later stints as a floating casino and a rum runners hideaway sitting in shallow water, also used during WWII for Navy target practice. Old ordnance still litters the bottom around it. That same stretch of water is tied to the story of the Lost Squadron, Flight 19, the Navy planes that vanished without a trace. Compasses spinning, live ordnance on the seafloor, and a wreck sitting at the center of one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in aviation history. That's not a dive you forget.

I’ve drifted through hammerhead mating season in San Salvador, right after observing the underwater memorial marking Christopher Columbus’s first harbor in the New World (or so they claim). I’ve swum with tiger sharks rising up the wall in Turks & Caicos on a night dive with no cage. You want to talk about adrenaline? Try hanging over a wall at night with tiger sharks rising from the deep like ghosts. I’ve had a 4½‑foot barracuda tap me twice at sunrise to let me know I was in his hunting lane. And I once swam into a shimmering ball of silversides only to find a 400‑pound jewfish sitting inside it like a king on his throne. That jewfish didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just stared at me like I’d walked into his dining room without knocking.

Florida springs will blow you out like a cork if you don’t respect the flow,  just check out the warning signs at Blue Springs. They’re crystal‑clear, cold, and powerful, a hydraulic test of skill. The cenotes in Mexico give you something different: that surreal halocline moment where cold fresh water suddenly becomes warm salt water. It’s like passing through a membrane resembling vegetable oil into another world. The water shimmers, bends light, and distorts everything for a few seconds. It’s one of the strangest and most beautiful sensations in diving.

The SS Smithmore in Lake Superior is one of the most memorable dives I’ve ever done. Zero visibility in 40‑degree water, then suddenly an eerie golden glow as the wreck appeared at 90 feet, lit by the reflection off the sand bottom. Just as I hit the deck, the boat captain played The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald through underwater speakers. Spooky doesn’t begin to cover it. Cold water wrecks have a silence and stillness you don’t get anywhere else. They feel like time capsules, untouched, preserved, waiting.

Rendition of the SS Smithmore

My favorite diving was on liveaboards. A week on the water, five dives a day, dolphins playing in the bow wake, schools of flying fish, double and triple rainbows from distant storms, and night skies so full of stars you felt like you were floating in space. And the camaraderie,  divers from everywhere, sharing stories, meals, and moments. You meet people on liveaboards you never forget. Those weeks were pure joy. Work hard, play hard, that was my motto, and liveaboards were the “play hard” part of my life.

In the early 2000s, work and home life got busy, and I had to back off diving. The plan was always to start again. Then COVID hit, and I lost the lining in my lungs. For a while I was operating at 60% capacity and being treated like an asthma patient. No more diving. Underwater, my heart rate and breathing always slowed down. Diving was tranquility for me. Peace. A reset button. Losing it was hard.

Things are better now, but I don’t know if I’ll ever swim with sharks again. And that’s okay. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Life’s unpredictable. The ocean taught me that. You never know what the next dive will bring, or the next day in your life.

So, take the time to enjoy the things you love. Family. Friends. Hobbies. Adventures. Whatever fills your soul. Because the water is always waiting, but life doesn’t always give you another chance to jump in.

And if I never dive again, that’s alright. I had my time underwater. I had my catfish encounters, my manta dances, my dolphin bumps, my octopus tug‑of‑war, my tiger shark nights, my hammerhead seasons, my cenote haloclines, my liveaboard stars, and my 400+ dives worth of memories.

Not bad for a country boy who learned to dive in a borrow pit and adopted a Jimmy Buffett lifestyle every time he hit the Caribbean.

Proof my hair has not always been white

Work hard. Play hard. And enjoy every damn moment while you can. Live Life to the Fullest

If you have a diving story or other story you would like to share,  I would love to hear it.

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Grain Guy Fifty