Teddy Tucker

[Galleon Hunter]

Bermuda legend Teddy Tucker passes - Bermuda Sun

 

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[Vox veritas]

R.I.P. Teddy

 

[aquanut]

One of a kind. He will be missed. Take note arkies, he was a treasure hunter that taught you all underwater archaeology!

 

[PhipsFolly]

Tremendous loss! Wonderful person and phenomenal treasure finder... Godspeed Teddy!

 

[Galleon Hunter]

Well John if you want to get technical, a lot of what he learned as far as archaeology is concerned was taught to him by the late great Mendell Peterson. Teddy was however a walking talking shipwreck encyclopedia. Knew more about shipwrecks in his pinky finger than most people know in their brain. I was fortunate enough to spend two summers in Bermuda doing archaeology on the Sea Venture, Hunter Galley, Virginia Merchant, L'Herminie and several other historical shipwrecks (most of which were originally found by Tucker) We kept in touch over the years and the last time I talked to his daughter Wendy, (probably 6 months ago or so) she told me her dad was still pretty much diving almost every day. So he was still active and doing what he loved doing almost right up until the very end. His life is inspiring on so many levels.

 

[Darren in NC]

Wonderful man. Wonderful legacy to both archies and treasure hunters alike.

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

Sad news indeed, one of the Zodiac Diver Group, Gilles P. dove with Teddy's crew when he was in BDA with the Navy Diving Unit. I spent alot of time in BDA back in the 70s and 80s and he was one of my idols in my early days of diving.
RIP Teddy.

 

[pemarlo]

RIP Tucker you are still teaching us about shipwrecks

 

[Briggs99]

Teddy was the best!

 

[BVI Hunter]

Weird -

I had not heard of Mr Tucker before this thread.

I went on a dive trip yesterday, and got talking to a guy during our S.I time. Got talking about wrecks and treasure etc and one of his conversations went a little like this;

(I just include the highlights)

".......yeah, plenty of wrecks all around the world. A pal of mine lives in Bermuda, name of Tommy Tucker, in fact he lives in Tuckers Town!
He's got a whole museum display of all the stuff he found, simply amazing!
Anyway, you know that film THE DEEP back in the 70's, well that was based on him and he even had a small part in it.
He was the guy who actually found all that morphine!
A friend of his was visiting once and he gave her two vials of the original morphine bottles, you know the bottles that you break the glass top off to open? Well she said I'LL NEVER GET THRU CUSTOMS and he replied, laughing JUST TELL 'EM TOMMY TUCKER GAVE 'EM TO YOU!
And it seems she did just that and was allowed thru!

Now I suppose if he was a close friend he would have heard of Mr Tucker passing, and maybe he embellished this story a little? (if anyone can verify, be good to know!) but Mr Tucker sure sounded like a real character and a man it would have been good to know!

 

[hobbit]

Weird -

I had not heard of Mr Tucker before this thread.

I went on a dive trip yesterday, and got talking to a guy during our S.I time. Got talking about wrecks and treasure etc and one of his conversations went a little like this;

(I just include the highlights)

".......yeah, plenty of wrecks all around the world. A pal of mine lives in Bermuda, name of Tommy Tucker, in fact he lives in Tuckers Town!
He's got a whole museum display of all the stuff he found, simply amazing!
Anyway, you know that film THE DEEP back in the 70's, well that was based on him and he even had a small part in it.
He was the guy who actually found all that morphine!
A friend of his was visiting once and he gave her two vials of the original morphine bottles, you know the bottles that you break the glass top off to open? Well she said I'LL NEVER GET THRU CUSTOMS and he replied, laughing JUST TELL 'EM TOMMY TUCKER GAVE 'EM TO YOU!
And it seems she did just that and was allowed thru!

Now I suppose if he was a close friend he would have heard of Mr Tucker passing, and maybe he embellished this story a little? (if anyone can verify, be good to know!) but Mr Tucker sure sounded like a real character and a man it would have been good to know!

Sounds like your friend might have been exaggerating the level of his friendship with "Tommy" Tucker, but The Deep is one of the all time great forgotten treasure hunting movies. It's worth a watch just to see Jacquline Bisset in a number of wet T-shirt scenes. In her prime, she was NICE...

That movie was the first time I ever heard anyone mention the possibility of shipwreck on top of shipwreck...very cool flick. Good performances from Robert Shaw, Nick Nolte and Louis Gosset Jr. as well. Definitely worth a watch even 40 years later. God I'm getting old...