“I hate just sitting around,” says Jonny Cates. “I want to be out there exploring.” And by “out there,” he means deep underwater, searching for Civil War cannonballs, ancient shark teeth, and bottles from centuries past.
Cates’s appetite for adventure started early, stirred by his father’s stories of working at dive shops in Florida to pay his way through school and exploring springs back when scuba was still a fringe hobby. “Growing up, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”
Though Cates’s dad is no longer diving, his influence still echoes beneath the surface. “I’ve never been able to dive with my dad,” Cates says. “If I could go back in time, I absolutely would. He gave me the sense of adventure that still drives me.”
After four years in the Marines—with three deployments and visits to 28 countries—Cates brought that sense of exploration into the next phase of life. “I’d been snorkeling all my life, but for my 30th birthday, I decided it was time to really go for it.” He got scuba certified and started diving in postcard-perfect spots: turquoise water, vibrant reefs, tropical fish. “It’s fun, but I got bored with that after a while.”
The real thrill came when he wandered into Southern Skin Divers Supply in Birmingham. “That shop is like a museum—cannonballs, shark teeth, Indian artifacts, gold—they’ve found it all.” It was there he met Steve Phillips, a nationally respected relic hunter. “Steve said, ‘I’m not gonna be around forever. I want to pass this knowledge down.’” That mentorship, informal but impactful, shaped Cates’s path forward.
Over the past decade, Cates has logged more than 1,500 dives, many through Southern Skin Divers Supply. The shop, founded in 1953 by Bill Tant—a member of the 82nd Airborne—is recognized as the oldest scuba diving training and supply shop in the United States. Now run by the Phillips family and one of Bill’s relatives, including seasoned diver and spearfishing champion Forrest Phillips, the shop continues to thrive as a hub of underwater exploration. With more than 13,000 dives to his name, Forrest says the magic of diving never fades.
“Even after all these years, something new happens almost every time you go down,” he says. “Once people learn to dive, they realize what they were missing. It’s an adventure. You’re exploring the unknown.”
Or as Cates puts it, “When you become a scuba diver, you’re no longer on the outside of the fish tank looking in—you’re in the tank yourself, experiencing everything from the inside.”
Cates follows the water wherever it leads: to Alaska for gold, the Carolinas for fossils, and Alabama’s own Cahaba River for relics. He’s found hundreds of megalodon teeth—some over six inches long. “Some people never find one in their lifetime.” Other finds include a trapdoor Springfield carbine from 1873, a South Carolina Dispensary whiskey bottle from the 1890s, a Civil War Confederate hand grenade, and a six-inch spear point estimated to be 8,000 years old. “Every time I find something, I’m shocked. Out of all the things in the world, you stumble across this one artifact—something a person dropped 150 years ago, or a tooth a shark lost during a meal millions of years ago.”
There have been moments of real tension—close calls, equipment issues, underwater tangles—but some stories, he jokes, are better left untold. “Let’s just say I’ll leave out a few details so my wife doesn’t have to hear about them.” He’s been circled by bull sharks and once encountered a ten-foot alligator on a winter river dive in Florida. “We always say we’d rather run into a shark than an alligator. At least sharks aren’t territorial.”
The kind of diving Cates does—known as blackwater diving—requires endurance, precision, and nerve. “It’s like scuba diving in a cup of coffee,” he says. “You’re lucky to be able to see your hand in front of your face. At best, you might get six feet of visibility—and honestly, that’s sometimes scarier, because then you can see what’s swimming around you.” On one dive, a rubber glove floated toward him out of the darkness. “It looked just like a hand waving hello. Scared me half to death.”
Still, the payoff is worth it. “We’re saving history,” Cates says. “Some people think, ‘Leave everything where it is,’ but if no one finds it, it just rots away in the river. This way, we get to study it, preserve it, and share it.”
“Since the beginning of time, people have unfortunately used rivers as trash cans,” he adds. “Studying that trash can tell us a whole lot about the people who were living there at the time.”
Cates teaches paleontology classes to kids in the community, sharing his finds and encouraging curiosity about natural history. He also helps new divers get their footing—sometimes literally—tethering them to himself for their first dark-water dives to calm nerves and teach what to look for. “When you’re diving, there’s a lot swimming around and things bumping into you. You’re just trying to concentrate—and hopefully find something really cool.”
Alabama, he says, is full of surprises. “We have more water running through this state than any other. A fifth of all U.S. freshwater flows through here. And most folks have no idea what’s sitting on the bottom of those rivers.”
Some of Cates’s adventures begin when someone reaches out with a question or a curiosity. “Sometimes it’s about history. Sometimes it’s a lost cellphone or wedding ring,” he says. “If it’s underwater and matters to you, I’m happy to take a look.”
And while the work is physical and unpredictable, the water brings peace. “There’s a therapeutic side to diving. It reminds me of my time in the Marines—the camaraderie, the quiet, the mission. You’re out there focused. You’re not thinking about anything else.”
These days, he’s looking forward to what’s next—not just for himself, but for the next generation. Just as he once sat captivated by his father’s stories, Cates hopes to pass that same sense of wonder to his daughters. “They’re old enough now to start training,” he says. “When they’re ready, there’s so much I want to show them.”
Discover Cates’s latest finds at facebook.com/RiverRaider.
To learn more about the dive shop that’s been behind generations of adventurers, visit ssdsupply.com.