Candice LandauLast Updated on April 22, 2026 by Candice Landau
It’s hard to know where to begin when writing about someone’s passing, more so when it happens suddenly, unexpectedly, at least to you.
Though I considered Michael a friend, I never knew he’d been struggling with his health. Perhaps over a call or a beer he mentioned it, but if he did, I don’t remember and perhaps even then he said it in such a way as to pass it off as one of the ailments we all struggle with as we age—back pain, knee aches, exhaustion. He had a way of being one moment deeply serious and then the next irreverent so it’s hard to know.
When I learned Michael had passed I was stunned. It wasn’t the feeling of numbness that comes with losing a loved one but rather the sudden emptiness of losing a friend, a confidant, someone I felt safe talking to, whether about the frustrations with my own work, or the future of dive journalism. I didn’t know what to feel.
As the days went by and more people learned of his passing one thing became clear: Michael touched so many of our hearts in this industry. I’ve never seen such an outpouring of love for anyone as I have seen on Michael’s Facebook page. The posts and comments go for pages.
I only knew Michael for three years but in that time, he had a buoying presence in my life. We talked about writing and magazines, we talked about the dive industry, and we geeked out over dive gear. Michael offered me writing and editing work and I in turn offered him a column about gear in our magazine—he was after all the perfect candidate for the job: deeply nerdy and with incredible integrity. I wouldn’t be getting a hyped-up fluff piece out of him.
When other outlets refer to Michael, they almost always mention him as the person who coined the term technical diving. It’s a sentence that seems to condense Michael’s contributions into a small phrase even though they go so far beyond that, and so initially, I intended to leave it out. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was the fact that Michael always added it to his own biography. I think it was important to him and I’ll respect that and mention it here too. If you don’t know anything of him outside of that though, know this: Michael was a genuine voice in dive media (one of the few who wasn’t just in it for a free trip or free gear or to promote a press trip they’d just been on). He created real unbiased content and he drilled down into the more technical and complex aspects of diving. And that’s all apart from his personality which was warm, welcoming, and kind. Completely free of ego.
I remember an exchange I had with Michael after he read one of my magazine features. He said he loved reading it and then told me that if I’d been writing it for him, he’d have had me get even nerdier. I was after all writing about the technical aspects of mapping a wreck. Though of course the audiences we spoke to were different (a fact that kept me from getting too nerdy) his feedback stuck. I could always delve deeper, get more technical. Some readers out there would value it.
Michael was relentlessly positive. Sometimes I would wonder over it. There are so many times over the years working in the dive industry where I’ve wanted nothing more than to leave it, not for the diving but for the culture that can sometimes surround it. But, I’ve not left and I think I’ll struggle to. I think I’ll always be drawn back, in part because of what it feels like to dive, because it opens one to the other 70% of the world, because it encourages travel, rewards gear-heads, continually feeds my desire to share, educate, and innovate.
The goal now is to help change the industry, like Michael did with Aqua Corps, to carve out a space that is the opposite of these things. I wish I could chat with Michael about it, about all of this, but for now I’ll do my best to honor his memory by writing and reporting with integrity and depth. And by trying to approach it all with a gentle, thoughtful and and honest (if humorous) lilt. Here’s to you Michael, until we meet again.
