After randomly receiving a pair of dive mitts for his 18th birthday from his uncle, Doug Cassidy has spent most of his time diving deep into the ocean, swimming with the fish.
“(I thought), ‘Hey, I’m almost there with all my equipment, I got mitts! I’m going to take dive classes.’ And, that’s how it all started,” Cassidy said.
While going to classes at Salem State University for social work, Cassidy would spend his free time scuba diving. Due to this, he earned the nickname Dr. Dougie the Diver. Cassidy said he liked the ring it had, and in business, goes by the name Doug the Diver.
His hobby quickly turned into a job when he realized just how useful the skill was to fellow fishermen.
“A lobster boat came by, ‘Hey Doug, can you clear my propeller?’ I’m like ‘What?’ I had no idea. ‘What are you talking about?’” Cassidy said. “So, I would cut the rope out of his propeller.”
Cassidy started making some money helping out fishermen get rid of hazards underneath the water. Shortly after that, someone told him about diving for urchins and scallops.
Currently, Cassidy and his son, Tyler, are the only people in the area who dive commercially and have urchin licenses.
Tyler is 12 years old, and received his diving license at 10. Cassidy said at 2 years old, Tyler would lay on the living room floor with a mask on, pretending to dive like his dad.
“(At) 5 years old, he was in my in-laws’ pool. He wanted the tank, he wanted the mask, and he was swimming underwater,” Cassidy said. “I’m holding him and he’s underwater, breathing, at age 5.”
Due to Tyler’s eagerness to do the real thing, Cassidy let him take classes and become certified. Now, Tyler dives with his dad almost every day he’s not in school.
“It’s not anything that you could force on a kid. It’s just way too expensive,” Cassidy said.
Tyler said he wanted to dive because of watching his dad.
“(It’s) just him being the only one doing it,” Tyler said. “He knows all about it and nobody else does.”
“I used to go by myself all the time, I didn’t want anyone to go with me. Because, if I find a treasure, I’m not going to share it… And then all of a sudden he starts diving with me… and there he is, bubbles and all,” Cassidy said.
Tyler said the coolest thing he’s seen underwater, so far, is his dad.
Cassidy and Tyler went out on the water one beautiful afternoon on friend David Smith’s lobster boat, Blue Magic. Cassidy’s was hauled in at the moment.
Cassidy always has a tender with him who drives the boat while he and Tyler go underwater together.
The guys suited up, putting on about 120 pounds worth of gear. Tyler jumped off the boat towards his buoy and dive bag, and Cassidy followed suit toward his own. Around 15 to 20 minutes later, the guys popped back up.
Tyler’s bag was filled with urchins, while Cassidy had a few crabs, urchins, scallops, and even a boot that looked like it was in the process of becoming one with the ocean floor.
On a typical diving day, Cassidy said they go through four tanks and usually go out on his 13-foot whaler, the Stuff It.
“(My father) would be out in the water, and he’d wave to people and they wouldn’t wave back. So, he’d give ‘em a bouquet of (middle fingers), (and say) ‘stuff it!’” Cassidy said. “So when he passed, my mom goes, ‘I want to get a boat, I want to name it Stuff It.’”
Cassidy sells most of his urchins and scallops to Patriot Seafoods in Salem.
He said he considers diving underwater therapeutic and can’t imagine doing anything else.
“You can look out at the water like this, oh it’s beautiful. You go underneath it, it’s a totally different world,” Cassidy said. “There’s crabs, there’s lobsters, there’s fish, there’s seals; they come around and play with you in the winter.”
“My boat is our world,” he continued.
Tyler said that when he grows up, he’d like to be a commercial diver, just like his dad.
“I never, ever imagined having my son with me at 50 feet, diving right alongside of me, at 12 years old,” Cassidy said.
