The Real Life Aquatic With 75-Year-Old Diver Ray Ives

For half a century Ray Ives has essentially lived beneath the ocean’s surface as a commercial diver. He’s recovered wrecks, amassed countless trinkets and forgotten undersea lore

Now retired, the 75-year-old “pirate” divers recreationally, and adds to his collection of bottles, clay bottles, swords, guns, pipes, ammo boxes, cigarette boxes, pieces of silver and even a rapier engraved with Latin from the 17th or 18th century (he found it in a river). As you can see in the video, he’s also managed to assemble an impressive array of diving suits representing the past century. This includes the 1900s-era diving suit that will have more than a few of you thinking Big Daddy from Bioshock.

In Amanda Blugrass’s 15-minute short film, Ray: A Life Underwater, we get a brief but interesting glimpse at Ray’s life so far, and even a peek at what’s to come:

“As long as I can climb in and climb out I’m going to continue on doing it. At 80 I’ll stop and take up real diving, which is done in a pub.” [Vimeo via Daily What]

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