Eddie Monat owns, runs and dives for Diver Ed's Dive-In Theater. Join Eddie and his crew on a tour of Frenchman's Bay both on top and beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.  During this two-hour cruise, you will watch an LCD projection of the bottom of the bay while Eddie gives you a underwater tour and gathers sea creatures to bring back to the boat deck to place into the onboard touch tank for some hands-on learning. It is a trip that is fun and educational for the entire family!

I met Eddie in a crowded Take a Break at 12 noon on Halloween. I was excited to see him as I had heard that he had dressed up for the occasion. I was told he was a Drag Queen. He later clarified that he was a "Down East Ho". I was disappointed to find that he had shed most of his costume prior to our interview in order to prepare to take a group of scuba diving students out to sea, but he still had on his make-up - exaggerated blue eye shadow, over-drawn hot pink lips and glittery stick-on eye lashes...I imagine that the complete costume resembled something like Mimi from the Drew Carey show.

Despite Eddie's silly make-up and juxtaposed ripped jeans, black rubber boots and Diver-Ed t-shirt, his appearance quickly faded into the background as he began to share his story of his love for life under the sea and how he has been able to create a career born from passion.

Milja: Are you from around here?

Eddie: No, I moved here to go to COA. I grew up in Plymouth, MA. I lobster fished with my dad down there. I started fishing when I was twelve and then we both took dive lessons together when I was sixteen.  And then when I was 18, I moved up here. You should read my Human Ecology essay sometime.  It is all about my life as a commercial fisherman/diver combo and my perspective on things...it is a little rude and crude...a lot of swears and stuff about things that I didn' t like...but what are you going to do?

Milja: What was your senior project?

Eddie: I built an underwater nature trail. I made a place right out here where people could snorkel ...I moved a whole mess of animals in and made habitats for them. I made it so that people could snorkel and see a whole mess of different things.

Milja: Tell me about how Diver-Ed's Dive In Theater came about?

Eddie: When I was at COA I took the outreach education class and we did the Whales on Wheels program which I enjoyed doing, but I grew up lobster fishing, so my life was in invertebrates... so I just started going around to schools and libraries and stuff and doing education on invertebrates instead of whales. Even after I Graduated from COA I just wanted to keep diving and doing some education...Then, a friend of mine bought a 60 foot wooden boat out of Massachusetts and we decided to try that as a ranger and we ran that out of Southwest Harbor as a similar type thing we are doing now [with Diver Ed's Dive in Theater], except that it had a little teeny TV and camera ... that flopped on its face and then I took the Harbor Master job in Bar Harbor. That was around 1989.

Even though I was Harbor Master we were doing Sea Critter of the Week. Which is kind of the same idea where we collect animals and put them in a 55 Gallon tank - Val Peacock she went to COA and her husband Tobin who graduated from here - Val used to work with me and Jen Literal who works for the Island Institute now...so the three of us used to work at the Harbor Masters office and we did this like educational thing on the side of being Harbor Master but we had a set up in the Harbor Masters office and we called it Sea Critter of the Week. We would print and put up information on different animals for that week.  And then Val and I used to do programs on the dock and on the beach and whenever schools wanted us to do something we would go do it.

So...the Seal, which is the boat that I now own, is the boat that we would use to whale watch and stuff when I was at COA. And I new the boat really well and I new the guy that owned it and I told him if he ever wanted to sell it, let me know...so he walked into the Harbor Masters office one day and said "I want to sell it". So, I said "alright"...so, I finished up my business plan which was pretty much written already and I went to the bank...well it wasn't that easy...I went to a couple of banks...but, that is how I got started. And so when I first started the same people that worked for me as Harbor Master worked for me on my boat. That was seven years ago...since then we have stream lined our work force.

Milja: So in 2000 you started the Dive-In Theater?

Eddie: Yeah, in 2000.

Milja: So, did you feel that because of your passion for the ocean that COA was a good fit for you?

Eddie: When I was at COA we had no boats, we had nothing...every program I did, I made myself. And that was only because I had faculty that was behind me 100%. I think that now, people probably have a better chance at getting out [to sea] ...The Beluga, the boat that the college had originally was in disrepair ...when I came here it was just sitting up on the lawn, rotting away. Luckily, I helped with the summer program for my internship and while I was doing that, Craig Stone was doing research on technical diving and Steve Katona was doing marine mammals and I helped with all of those classes. On top of that, we had an excuse to get an inflatable so we had a big inflatable that we used. And that is the boat we used to do most of my research with...

When I was fishing with Gary Parsons and Wayne Grey and those guys when I was at COA, I didn't have my own...well, I had a couple of them, but...I sank a couple of them...a lot of them were just old clunkers...ones that I used diving

Milja: You sank them?

Eddie: Yeah, I sank a lot of boats. Especially diving for Sea Urchins.

Milja: How did you sink them?

Eddie: We would overload them in bad weather and they would end up on the bottom. In the old days...Urchins, when we would get them, we would only get $.25 or $.30 cents a pound. The most we would ever sell them for was $.40 a pound, so we would dive two days straight and then the third day we would truck them down to Portland...and then when you do that - two days straight is a lot of urchins...we would take a 36 foot Jonesport and have them on the top...on the roof...and everything...

Milja: would the boats sink when anyone was on them?

Eddie: Yeah, when we were on them. They were all full of dive gear anyhow...so we would just dive off...they were all junk...every one of them was a piece of junk.

Milja: You said that there have been a lot of changes in COA since you have been here. What are your feelings about those changes? Are they for better or are they for the worse?

Eddie:You have to realize, that when I came to COA, I was one of three that came right out of high school. And the rest of the students here were all transfer students. So, it was geared towards independent students already. I think that the way that COA is now is perfect for the type of students that are here. But, it is a lot different.

Milja: Do you have a vision of what you would like COA to look like in the future? Or hopes for it?

Eddie: I don't know. I tried to help COA with their vision a long time ago. And everyone laughed at me. Where the Oceanarium is now...at the head of the island...you remember when that was Aqua Land? I tried to get COA to buy that back then so that we could have...I was running the marine animals stranded network at the time....I was dealing with the stranded seals mostly through Northern Aquarium...but, we didn't have facilities...the seals were living in my car with me and stuff...it was a frig. But anyhow...I thought it would be a great place to have Seal rehab, a great place to have an aquarium up there and a marsh area and have the museum and stuff...but ...I think it might be for sale again...COA has grown a lot. I like it. I like it that I can come here

Milja:You have a book written about you and your business by Francesca Robinson. How did that come about?

Eddie: Well, I taught her son how to scuba dive a long time ago before I started the business. He was a little kid...he was like twelve years old...and then a couple of years ago...he had been away for college in Florida and he came up to visit and his mom brought him down to the dock and she was just trying to figure out what we were doing, so I invited them out on the boat. She said, "wow, this is really cool, I need to write a book about this." That is how it came about. She came out a whole mess of times...she took notes and video taped everything...

Milja: So, if people want to get a copy of that how would they do that?

Eddie: They can get it through our website www.divered.com or on board the boat or right from Fran. She has her own website www.francescastudios.com/books.htm. Or Sherman's or Boarders Books.

There's a whole mess of articles that have been written...that have really helped a lot. Family Fun Magazine, Boston Globe...every year we have a couple of people write a couple articles and stuff and they help. Especially, Family Fun. And the Family Fun one was through COA. Even when we weren't at the COA dock, we were here all the time picking up people all the time for the family nature camp and so every Thursday and Friday evening we did a Family Nature Camp cruise...And one family that was on the Family Nature Camp wrote an article for Family Fun magazine about what fun they had and they said the highlight of their trip during the Family Nature Camp was coming on with us...so that helped a lot.

Milja:What do you hope to accomplish for your Dive-In Theater? Do you have an ultimate goal that you would like to accomplish with the work that you do? Besides probably, make a living.

Eddie: My ultimate goal is to educate people about the marine life here and fun at the same time. Obviously I would like to make a living at it. We are on the edge of maybe being able to make it into a living. But, we are also...like right now...I just went to Gordon at the GIS lab to talk about an underwater mapping project to keep an eye on the bay - to tie in exact points in the water and connect video and photo so that we can keep track over time. So Genell Harrison is doing that project for her GIS project and we are doing all of the underwater mapping parts and she is doing all of the computer work. So, we are hoping at some point that will maybe turn into a long term project, maybe not just for us but for a lot of people to keep an eye on the bay, an eye on the ecosystem here and note changes...

That is kind of a long-term goal for us. But, at this point in time, we are somewhat limited to depth and stuff like that. Another goal of ours is to get over the depth hump. The technology is there, we just don't have the money to do it. With the newer technology, you can stay down a lot longer and you can go a lot deeper. But, it is just out of our reach right now. Not that far out of our reach, but it is out of our reach. We still use the same video equipment that we used 7 years ago, underwater video equipment, the same exact stuff. Which works really, really well, but ...Frenchman's Bay is so deep. It is over 300 feet deep and it is spotty for us with what we can do. It is still fine. It is fine for us to look at the shallower spots but it would be really neat if we could hit some of the deeper holes here and there and even if we go deep right now, we could only spend so much time down there. So...as far as the future for us, there are a lot of things that could change. I hope that we can make enough money so that we can afford health insurance someday. That is our goal, or move to Canada or something. That is hard. Having your own business is hard

Milja: Do you have any message that you would like to tell COA alumni?

Eddie:This is our home... This is still our home away from home. We do every thing here...I love having all of the students around and stuff... and plus all of the faculty and staff. We get to see a lot of other alumni on campus. Everyday we run into a half dozen alumni that we haven't seen in awhile. It is a nice community and it is nice to be around people that are working on the same wave length...and plus, my own projects...my brain is full of all of these things that I want to get done and I feel like maybe there are people out there who are also interested and we can kind of work on stuff or I can get students to help...