I would assume if it was recreational it was not a charter.
Here is the story from yesterday's Salem News:
Scuba diving victim was former Salem resident
By Lisa Arsenault
Staff writer
Robert Parisien spent roughly 30 years planting microphones, tracking organized crime and leading investigations as a special agent for the FBI. He was also a father, stepfather, grandfather and a loving husband, his wife, Luz, said yesterday.
"He was extremely honorable," fellow agent Jack DeCourcy said. "He loved his family and his country."
Parisien, 56, died Monday while diving near Kettle Island off Magnolia. He was rescued by Coast Guard crews and taken to Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, where he was pronounced dead, hospital spokesman Shawn Middleton said.
The Salem native and his wife took up recreational diving several years ago. His goal for the day Monday was to catch a big lobster, Luz Parisien said. Within 15 minutes underwater, he had done that and had resurfaced to deposit the lobster on deck because it was too big to fit into his carrier.
Once he got on deck, Parisien complained of exhaustion and collapsed.
It could have been a heart attack, his wife said, but autopsy results have not been released.
Parisien was born in Salem and raised in the Point, which in the 1950s was a predominantly French quarter of the city. Salem police Chief Robert St. Pierre grew up with Parisien. They went to elementary school and high school and had been friends ever since, St. Pierre said.
"Bobby served all over the world in some of the toughest posts and was involved in some pretty sensitive cases, but he didn't talk much about it," St. Pierre said. "He wasn't a guy that was boastful. We were, obviously, great friends."
St. Pierre has been the police chief in Salem for 20 years. When he ran into tough cases, he called Parisien for advice.
Parisien, who retired from the FBI in 1999 and was living in Reading, is credited with planting the bugging equipment that recorded the only Mafia induction ceremony ever to be caught on tape, DeCourcy said.
The recording of mob bosses being sworn in was used in court to prove that the Mafia exists, he said.
"Being in the FBI is not just a job. It's something we always wanted to do and we did it," DeCourcy said. "We thrived on it."
DeCourcy and Parisien met in college at Bentley where they were both interested in the FBI. Most recently, the two ran a private investigation firm together out of Andover called Bentley Associates.
Because Parisien spoke French from growing up in the Point, he was assigned to high-profile cases all over the world, including in Paris and other European cities.
Luz Parisien said she tried not to worry about her husband's safety because he loved it so much.
"He was a true-blue agent," she said. "If something was confidential, he would not divulge it if his life depended on it."
