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National Geo crew. Before we set out on the 10-hour jaunt to the Silver Bank, home of the world's 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's 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 he'd picked up on my drawl.
photo courtesy Mimi deGruy
Remembering Mike deGruy
by Fred Garth
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 HYHU ÀOPHG D ELUWK VR , FRQYLQFHG 1DWLRQDO
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
"Where are you from," he asked in perfect Californian non- dialectual English.
"I live in LA," I smiled. "You know, Lower Alabama."
Somehow Mike's grin grew even larger. "I'm 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 we'd run with, shady coasted bars and kick-ass dive sites along the Gulf Coast while his New York producer's face glazed over like Mount Rushmore. For at least two hours we guffawed and threw out more "y'alls" than a Kenny Chesney concert.
During the next 10 days we chased ScubaSport 5