Captain Steve Gatto has been photographing the deeper offshore shipwrecks for over two decades. He has made over one hundred and sixty dives, spanning nineteen consecutive years, down to the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria. The Andrea Doria sank on July 26, 1956 in 255’ feet of water. His quest to take one-of-a kind pictures and video, leads him deep inside shipwrecks to get a difficult shot, thus chronicling history before it’s lost forever to future generations due to the corrosive action of the sea.

His shipwreck photographs and written articles have appeared in magazines and books. He devotes the winter months to researching shipwrecks and lecturing. He has been deep air diving since 1982 between the range of 200’-290’ feet of sea water. Other shipwrecks he dove include the civil war wreck U.S.S. Monitor, the famed Nantucket lightship, which was sunk by the Olympic (the Titanic’s sister ship) on May 15, 1934, Submarines, Tankers, Freighters, and most recently the first group of divers to dive and photograph the ethanol tanker Bow Mariner which sank on February 28, 2004. Some of Steve’s mixed gas dives include the “Billy Mitchell” wrecks Ostfriesland in 380’ feet of water, and the Frankfurt in 415’ feet of water.

Steve and his dive buddy Tom Packer headed up both tactical and diving operations involving the successful recovery of five missing crew members from the sunken tugboat Thomas Hebert.

Tom and Steve also serve as first responders in vessel accidents like the clamming vessels Adriatic, and Beth Dee BoB in search of crew members. They also worked with the NTSB on these accidents. This prompted Steve to develop the “ETL” Emergency Transmitting Locator. It works like a 911 telephone call, but on ships. When a mayday is called out over a marine radio it also sends a GPS location so that a speedy recovery could be effected. He now holds a patent for this device.

Steve is a member of A.P.C.A. (American Professional Captains Association) keeping his 100 ton Captains license active. He is an associate member of the oldest dive club in the US, the Boston Sea Rovers. The Sea Rovers have just started a new flag expedition program of which he is a committee member along with Captain Eric Takakjian (owner/operator of Quest Marine Services), Brian Skerry (National Geographic Photographer), Patricia Morton (Explorer), and Emory Kristof (National Geographic Society). He is also a member of American Society of Oceanographers, ShipREX, and SNAME (Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers) who donate there time to try and understand forensically why ships sink, new, and old and make recommendations to make shipping safer. He is part of a collaborative effort to write guidelines on how to forensically study a ship after it has sunk.