60's TV Show 'Seahunt' Leads to Lacey Resident's Lifelong Interest in Shipwrecks

LAceyPatch: 60's TV Show 'Seahunt' Leads to Lacey Resident's Lifelong Interest in Shipwrecks
A chance encounter with a scuba diver in a Florida hotel when he was a child changed Michael Egolf’s life forever and led to a lifelong fascination with shipwrecks.

Egolf, a 40-year resident of the Lanoka Harbor section of Lacey Township, was a young teen when his parents took him to Florida on vacation and met a man in their hotel who agreed to take the family scuba diving.

“When I was 13, I was a big fan of Lloyd Bridges’ Sea Hunt,” said Egolf. “I thought this really looks cool, I want to try this. It looked fascinating.”

That very first dive off of Florida’s west coast town of Crystal River was 90 feet. After listening carefully and doing everything he was told to do, the guy said Egolf was a natural.

At the end of 1966, Egolf enrolled in a YMCA diving course and became YMCA-certified. Then, he passed the National Association of Underwater Instructors course.

In 1967, he had his very first open water dive exploring two shipwrecks off the coast of Spring Lake -- the Dutch barge, Adonis, sunk in 1859, and the steamer Rusland, which was forced onshore in 1877 and ran over the Adonis.

From then on, Egolf was hooked and dived every weekend with friends who had taken a 28-foot lobster boat and converted it for diving.

“A lot of people dive off the coast of New Jersey,” said Egolf. “It depends on how the seas are running, some days the water can be crystal clear, others you can hit the bottom before you see it.”

Another chance meeting, this time at a wedding in Maryland, he met Gretchen Coyle, who was involved with the Museum of New Jersey Maritime History in Beach Haven. They got to chatting and Coyle told him he had to come work at the museum, where he now serves as a docent.

“At the museum, we have the listing of 3,000 sunken ships off the coast of New Jersey,” said Egolf. “During both World Wars, German U-boats were very active off of our coast. During World War I, U-151 sank six U.S. ships off New Jersey’s coast on June 2, 1918, known as Black Sunday.”

Egolf said he’s never been diving to those wrecks since they are in rather deep water, but he has dived to 100 other sunken ships in water anywhere between 30 and 130 feet deep.

“I have a porthole from the general merchandise cargo ship Western World, which ran aground off of Spring Lake in 1853, and I have a couple brass suspender holders and pennies I found while exploring the Delaware, which had burned to the water line and sank off of Barnegat in 1898,” he said.

The most exotic place Egolf ever went diving was to a wreck in Nassau, Bahamas. He said the ship sank during the rebel takeover of Cuba when a cannon it was carrying shifted and went through the hull. Egolf also has been diving in the Great Lakes.

He had yet another life-changing experience in 1996, when his father-in-law invited him to go on the Titanic Expedition. Egolf, was one of 1,600 passengers on the two ships in the expedition, which recorded and documented the wreck in detail and raised a portion of the hull.

During the trip, Egolf got to meet Michel Navratil and Edith Haisman, survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic after it struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage en route to New York City from England on April 15, 1912.

Since then, Egolf has collected Titanic artifacts and conducted at least 50 lectures on Titanic throughout Ocean County. Yesterday was the final day of a display of his Titanic collection at the Lacey Library but he said he plans a larger display at the main branch of the Ocean County Library in Toms River next year, commemorating 100 years since the disaster.

Egolf is now retired. He spent most of his professional life in the retail industry, but also worked in an Atlantic City casino and as a photographer.

Egolf has not been diving since the 1970s but he highly recommends it to those who love history and adventure.

“Take a course, learn and try to go with experienced divers who will show you the ropes,” he said. “And, always dive with a buddy.”

The Museum of New Jersey Maritime History is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through the end of May and opens daily in June. For more information, visit www.museumofnjmh.org.