Now and then, someone comes along that is bigger than life. When I think of the remarkable people I have known, Mike deGruy is top of mind. Mike was a native Mobilian, and the deGruy family was a family of very athletic boys in my neighborhood. They were all competitive swimmers and divers growing up and well-known around the Mobile sports scene.

Mike was an All-America national diving champion at North Carolina State University, even besting Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis once. He graduated in 1975 with a degree in marine zoology, then moved to Hawaii, entered a Ph.D. program at the University of Hawaii, and eventually became a curator at the Waikiki Aquarium. He later moved to the Marshall Islands, where he was manager of the Mid-Pacific Marine Laboratory.  

Mike became an American documentary filmmaker almost by accident, specializing in underwater cinematography. His company, Film Crew, Inc. filmed for the BBC’s The Blue Planet, PBS, National Geographic, TBS, and The Discovery Channel. Mike began producing as well as hosting films and received many awards including BATA and EMMY and was named Best Presenter/Host at the International Wildlife Film Festival in 2004. He was described as “one of the world’s greatest underwater cameramen” by Andrew Neal of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Mike was also known for his storytelling, including a passionate TED talk about his love for the ocean on the Mission Blue voyage. His notable accomplishments include diving beneath thermal vents in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He was a member of many deep-sea expeditions and was part of the team that first filmed the vampire squid and the nautilus. In 2005, he directed the undersea photography for the James Cameron film, Last Mysteries of the Titanic.

Mike appeared several times during Shark Week, made even more relevant after a 1978 shark attack in Enewetak Atoll by a grey reef shark left him severely injured on his lower right arm. Appropriately, on Shark Week, he counted down the world’s top 10 shark-attack hot spots and assessed your chances of being attacked! He was part of the Deepsea Challenge, where James Cameron went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean trench on Earth. Mike deGruy went where no man had ever been before in the oceans and saw marine life that had never been seen before. He was the deepest of deep divers.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted Mike and he began to shift his focus to environmental activism. He had grown up in the waters around Mobile and this is where Mike gained his enthusiasm for the ocean. He had learned SCUBA diving in the Gulf waters and there was no time when he wasn’t fascinated by and embracing the natural world. The BP oil spill threatened the very waters Mike grew up in, and he passionately set about using all his influence to protect and preserve the waters he loved so much.

Tragically, Mike died in a helicopter accident in Jaspers Brush, New South Wales, Australia at the age of 60 while filming another documentary with James Cameron. In the aftermath of Mike’s death, his wife and film partner, Mimi, produced and directed a documentary, Diving Deep: The Life and Times of Mike deGruy. It is an amazing story of a man who knew no limits, his curiosity had no boundaries, and his passion for the sea and the waters around the Scenic 98 Coastal area was heartfelt and fierce.  

The Alabama premiere of the film was held in Mobile in April 2019 and benefitted the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation. The documentary has won several awards and recognitions including the Audience Choice Award Winner at the Fairhope Film Festival. You can stream  Diving Deep: The Life and Times of Mike deGruy here.