Bob Brown (The Pirate)
My story began in Saginaw, Michigan where I joined the Air Force at 17. First dive ever was in Malta on the Mediterranean Sea with my beautiful wife Tracy. After getting certified I did a 9 month assignment to Truk Lagoon in Micronesia where I dove over 100 dives off the Aggressor. Odyssey, and Blue Lagoon on the fleet of sunken WW2 shipwrecks. I received my training from the Truk Aggressor staff to Master Scuba Diver status (thank you Captain Stu).
Although I have travelled and dove in many other places in the world I chose to relocate to the Gulf Coast in 2006 for the specific reason of fishing and diving. The Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi Gulf Coast is the best kept secret in the nation for aggressive spear fishing and I made it my home for now.
I was diving quite often but not really getting any better at shooting fish. One winter I decided to start diving with some legends of the coast, names like Alex Fogg and Mark Miller and a few Hell Divers. I wanted to get better at shooting fish. I wanted to be a Hell Diver.
That dream was put on hold when my diving partner Skip and I joined a lion fish tournament and needed a club name. The Deepwater Mafia was born out of necessity. I set aside my dream to join the Hell Divers and develop Deepwater Mafia. We needed 4 people but nobody would seriously commit to diving the tournament. Skip and I recruited Michael "Torch" Mann as our third partner. Torch was a real rookie. I often had my doubts that he would continue to dive with us let alone be the good spearo and great deck hand he is. We shot a lot of fish together and became the perfect team on the Damn Yankee. We dove our brains out back in those days, it was the most fun I ever had diving.
Tracy and I got "saved" right before we moved to the Gulf Coast. We attend Centerpoint Church. After 23 years together she still supports my crazy dreams 100%. To this day when Damn Yankee reaches Graveline Bayou she gets a blank text that means the team will be at the dock in a few minutes where she comes down to make sure everyone is well.