joefdiver
Registered
I met Mike deGruy in 1996 in a bar in Grand Turk. It was both by chance and not by chance. I was running a diving expedition using rebreathers so we could witness the birth of a humpback whale. No one had ever filmed a birth so I convinced National Geographic Explorer Television to join our dance with the whales to try their luck at capturing THE event.
My team was on the 110-foot Turks & Caicos Aggressor. We had 16 rebreathers, 4,000 cubic feet of compressed oxygen for nitrox mixing and a truck load of camera gear. I had arranged a decked-out, 60-foot dive vessel from Miami to house the National Geo crew. Before we set out on the 10-hour jaunt to the Silver Bank, home of the worlds largest humpback gathering each winter, I met with the Nat Geo Producer at the hotel bar.
My director will be here shortly, she told me. He our underwater expert.
Soon a shortish, super energetic guy with a mile-wide grin and abnormally thick hair showed up and introduced himself as Mike DeGruy. Within seconds hed picked up on my drawl.
Where are you from, he asked in perfect Californian non-dialectual English.
I live in LA, I smiled. You know, Lower Alabama.
Somehow Mikes grin grew even larger. Im from Mobile, he said. Apparently, a decade or so of living in Santa Barbara had stripped his Alabamian accent clean off of his vocal chords. Within minutes we were laughing hysterically and talking about mutual acquaintances wed run with, shady coasted bars and kick-ass dive sites along the Gulf Coast while his New York producers face glazed over like Mount Rushmore. For at least two hours we guffawed and threw out more yalls than a Kenny Chesney concert.
During the next 10 days we chased humpbacks in a small inflatable raft. I piloted the little craft within feet of giant whales while Mike tried to position the shows host, Boyd Matson, in the frame with a whale. Boyd was good on camera and, amazingly, had even better hair than Mike, but he wasnt an experienced diver. Strapping him in a rebreather and throwing him in with whales was like asking a teenager to do heart surgery. Ever the consummate and patient pro, Mike tried for five days to get the shot. We had dozens of close whale encounters but the stars didnt line up and filming a birth seemed more and more out of reach.
Finally we decided to put a hood on one of the dive masters a stunt double if you will - just to get the shot. Mike, who was one of the planets most talented documentarians, got some insurance footage but we never witnessed a birth, much less got it on film. However, we dove with countless whales, we laughed until we cried, we lived full throttle, and we became friends.
For most photo journalists, working with National Geographic is the pinnacle. But at 44-years old, Mike was just warming up. He went on to do documentaries for Blue Planet, shot footage of the Titanic, won Emmys, and was an expert submarine pilot. He chased the architeuthis (giant squid), filmed deep water thermal vents, and became known as one of the best filmmakers and nicest guys youd ever meet.
When the helicopter he was in exploded in Australia in February of 2012, he was working with James Cameron, the worlds most successful filmmaker, i.e., The Abyss, Terminator, Titanic, Avatar, and Sanctum. Mike not only had incredible talent behind the camera but he was articulate and engaging in from of it too. His intelligence was intense but not threatening. He was a funny, passionate guy who once said he spent more time on the deck of the Titanic than the passengers who died there. He went to the bottom of the ocean and was on the top of the world at the peak of his career when he perished.
Mike started his obsession with the ocean when he took up scuba diving at age 12. For the next 48 years, he pursued his passion with a vengeance. He cared deeply about the natural world and his films delivered it into our living rooms.
We were lucky to have a guy like Mike in our midst and I was lucky to count him as a friend. I mourn his loss but celebrate the amazing stories he revealed to us. I dont know why he was taken from us so suddenly but in his six decades he packed in a lot of living, a lot of diving, a lot of friendship, and a lot of fun.
by Fred Garth for Scuba Sport Magazine (March 2012 issue) www.scubasportmag.com
My team was on the 110-foot Turks & Caicos Aggressor. We had 16 rebreathers, 4,000 cubic feet of compressed oxygen for nitrox mixing and a truck load of camera gear. I had arranged a decked-out, 60-foot dive vessel from Miami to house the National Geo crew. Before we set out on the 10-hour jaunt to the Silver Bank, home of the worlds largest humpback gathering each winter, I met with the Nat Geo Producer at the hotel bar.
My director will be here shortly, she told me. He our underwater expert.
Soon a shortish, super energetic guy with a mile-wide grin and abnormally thick hair showed up and introduced himself as Mike DeGruy. Within seconds hed picked up on my drawl.
Where are you from, he asked in perfect Californian non-dialectual English.
I live in LA, I smiled. You know, Lower Alabama.
Somehow Mikes grin grew even larger. Im from Mobile, he said. Apparently, a decade or so of living in Santa Barbara had stripped his Alabamian accent clean off of his vocal chords. Within minutes we were laughing hysterically and talking about mutual acquaintances wed run with, shady coasted bars and kick-ass dive sites along the Gulf Coast while his New York producers face glazed over like Mount Rushmore. For at least two hours we guffawed and threw out more yalls than a Kenny Chesney concert.
During the next 10 days we chased humpbacks in a small inflatable raft. I piloted the little craft within feet of giant whales while Mike tried to position the shows host, Boyd Matson, in the frame with a whale. Boyd was good on camera and, amazingly, had even better hair than Mike, but he wasnt an experienced diver. Strapping him in a rebreather and throwing him in with whales was like asking a teenager to do heart surgery. Ever the consummate and patient pro, Mike tried for five days to get the shot. We had dozens of close whale encounters but the stars didnt line up and filming a birth seemed more and more out of reach.
Finally we decided to put a hood on one of the dive masters a stunt double if you will - just to get the shot. Mike, who was one of the planets most talented documentarians, got some insurance footage but we never witnessed a birth, much less got it on film. However, we dove with countless whales, we laughed until we cried, we lived full throttle, and we became friends.
For most photo journalists, working with National Geographic is the pinnacle. But at 44-years old, Mike was just warming up. He went on to do documentaries for Blue Planet, shot footage of the Titanic, won Emmys, and was an expert submarine pilot. He chased the architeuthis (giant squid), filmed deep water thermal vents, and became known as one of the best filmmakers and nicest guys youd ever meet.
When the helicopter he was in exploded in Australia in February of 2012, he was working with James Cameron, the worlds most successful filmmaker, i.e., The Abyss, Terminator, Titanic, Avatar, and Sanctum. Mike not only had incredible talent behind the camera but he was articulate and engaging in from of it too. His intelligence was intense but not threatening. He was a funny, passionate guy who once said he spent more time on the deck of the Titanic than the passengers who died there. He went to the bottom of the ocean and was on the top of the world at the peak of his career when he perished.
Mike started his obsession with the ocean when he took up scuba diving at age 12. For the next 48 years, he pursued his passion with a vengeance. He cared deeply about the natural world and his films delivered it into our living rooms.
We were lucky to have a guy like Mike in our midst and I was lucky to count him as a friend. I mourn his loss but celebrate the amazing stories he revealed to us. I dont know why he was taken from us so suddenly but in his six decades he packed in a lot of living, a lot of diving, a lot of friendship, and a lot of fun.
by Fred Garth for Scuba Sport Magazine (March 2012 issue) www.scubasportmag.com
