AMAZING LIVES


Don Kincaid | Continued image has to relate to what they see, and it’s the same way when you write. Te person who is read- ing has to take the part of one of the characters in it or put them- selves in it.


VLWhen you came down here, you were looking for something to do and you happened to run into Mel Fisher, right? DK I wanted to do underwater photography, so I went to Te Key West Citizen. I had a background in journalism, and the guy who was the head photographer then didn’t want to hire me because I basically had more qualifications than he did so he was afraid for his job. After that, I went to work in a camera store and soon after I started working there a couple came in with a 60 MM projector that I had fixed for them. When the man went to sign his check, I saw that it said Mel Fisher. I knew who he was at that point, because I had first been turned on to him when I was about 10 years old. He had the very first dive shop in the United States and had advertise- ments in fishing and swimming magazines. Tat was also the be- ginning of the skin diving craze. He was one of the few people that


was out there that was actually selling stuff and I thought to my- self, this guy is doing an interest- ing thing in an interesting place so here’s a good story for me.


VL Did you approach him about work? DK Mel was a professional sales- men and he said that he couldn’t hire anybody that didn’t own stock in his company. I had about $200 in the bank at the time and I wrote him a $100 check and he said, "geez kid you left off a couple of zeros." I told him that was all I had and he proceeded to use my check to pay his bar tab with but he put me on staff. I went out with them a couple of times very close to Ballast Key and did a little diving with some of his crew and got to know him a little bit and then finally quit my job at the camera store and went to work for him full time. I went out to pho- tograph an anchor that they had found and anchors, especially in the 17th and 18th century, all have different designs depending on what country they were made in and depending on what tech- nology was available in the coun- tries. Te Spanish anchors were very distinctive from the French and English anchors and so on.


14 www.konklife.com


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