Meet Dive Instructor and Author Hammerhead Philips
Jeffrey “Hammerhead” Philips was at one time an internationally known underwater naturalist and has pursued his passion for being up close and personal with large marine animals like hammerheads, tiger sharks, humpback whales, sea lions, and manatees around the world from Bridgetown, Barbados, Peti-Goave, Haiti, to Lucuala, Fiji.
Where did the name “Hammerhead” come from? No, he was not born with the moniker. Years ago, at a writer’s conference in Berkeley, California, during the “Meet & Greet”, when it was his turn to say who he was, he talked about taking people diving with sharks. No one believed him, and after hunting for a photograph of him leading a group in a circle of hammerheads, the group of writers started calling him the name of the shark.
Twice winner of the Okefenokee Wildlife annual contest for his underwater photography, his photographs often appeared in the pages and on the covers of half a dozen dive magazines. His written articles have appeared in Florida Scuba News and Shark Diver magazine, and his video footage has been used in several documentaries aired on the Discovery Channel. As an underwater naturalist he was often interviewed on TV by CBS affiliate WPEC and NBC affiliate WPTV in South Florida, and nationally, helping to get the word out about the destruction of turtle nesting sites, over harvesting of lobsters, anchor damage on the coral reefs, and giving advice on undersea homeland security issues.
In his former life he was a computer guru, working trouble shooter for Computer Power Inc., the largest mortgage servicing company on the planet. He ran cloak and dagger clandestine computer programs for the FSLIC and FDIC, investigating failing Savings and Loans institutions, and banks, bagging dozens of white-collar criminals and saving the taxpayers billions of dollars.
He chucked corporate America at the height of his career at the turn of the century to make his love of the seas his vocation, taking expeditions of fledgling naturalists on dive trips to educate them on topics such as the coral spawning, turtle nesting, fish dancing, shark rodeos, and other wonders of the deep. On these trips, he survived being bumped by sharks, enveloped by southern rays, stung by crown of thorns, and engulfed in schools of silversides.
Jeffrey married the curviest mermaid of the renowned Mermaid Dive Guides who (he says) is the smartest and most gorgeous blond in South Florida (or anywhere else). She held a 100-ton Coast Guard captain’s license and cultivated rare palm trees and raised show horses in their backyard. She will graduate from Tennessee Technological University with a PhD in Ethnobotany for Cherokee Women.
Their daughter, Alex, he brags, is as smart and as pretty as her mom. Alex is adventurous as Jeffrey and traveled together with their spouses to track the Przewalski’s horses across the Steppes of Mongolia, rode camels across the Gobi Desert, and now have their sights on Antarctica.
In between battening down for hurricanes and taking divers on photo-shoot tours to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, he managed the largest scuba diving charter boat operation in south Florida.
Then he moved to mountains of Tennessee to run some cattle and lead private tours in the remote areas of the forest. In his spare time, he indulges himself in his new passion, writing adventure novels about the ocean, hoping his readers will learn much about the wonders of the world beneath the sea and be entertained as well.
Currently, while sipping on some shine, he is working on the second book in a mystery series that takes place on the plateau of Tennessee.
Where did the name “Hammerhead” come from? No, he was not born with the moniker. Years ago, at a writer’s conference in Berkeley, California, during the “Meet & Greet”, when it was his turn to say who he was, he talked about taking people diving with sharks. No one believed him, and after hunting for a photograph of him leading a group in a circle of hammerheads, the group of writers started calling him the name of the shark.
Twice winner of the Okefenokee Wildlife annual contest for his underwater photography, his photographs often appeared in the pages and on the covers of half a dozen dive magazines. His written articles have appeared in Florida Scuba News and Shark Diver magazine, and his video footage has been used in several documentaries aired on the Discovery Channel. As an underwater naturalist he was often interviewed on TV by CBS affiliate WPEC and NBC affiliate WPTV in South Florida, and nationally, helping to get the word out about the destruction of turtle nesting sites, over harvesting of lobsters, anchor damage on the coral reefs, and giving advice on undersea homeland security issues.
In his former life he was a computer guru, working trouble shooter for Computer Power Inc., the largest mortgage servicing company on the planet. He ran cloak and dagger clandestine computer programs for the FSLIC and FDIC, investigating failing Savings and Loans institutions, and banks, bagging dozens of white-collar criminals and saving the taxpayers billions of dollars.
He chucked corporate America at the height of his career at the turn of the century to make his love of the seas his vocation, taking expeditions of fledgling naturalists on dive trips to educate them on topics such as the coral spawning, turtle nesting, fish dancing, shark rodeos, and other wonders of the deep. On these trips, he survived being bumped by sharks, enveloped by southern rays, stung by crown of thorns, and engulfed in schools of silversides.
Jeffrey married the curviest mermaid of the renowned Mermaid Dive Guides who (he says) is the smartest and most gorgeous blond in South Florida (or anywhere else). She held a 100-ton Coast Guard captain’s license and cultivated rare palm trees and raised show horses in their backyard. She will graduate from Tennessee Technological University with a PhD in Ethnobotany for Cherokee Women.
Their daughter, Alex, he brags, is as smart and as pretty as her mom. Alex is adventurous as Jeffrey and traveled together with their spouses to track the Przewalski’s horses across the Steppes of Mongolia, rode camels across the Gobi Desert, and now have their sights on Antarctica.
In between battening down for hurricanes and taking divers on photo-shoot tours to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, he managed the largest scuba diving charter boat operation in south Florida.
Then he moved to mountains of Tennessee to run some cattle and lead private tours in the remote areas of the forest. In his spare time, he indulges himself in his new passion, writing adventure novels about the ocean, hoping his readers will learn much about the wonders of the world beneath the sea and be entertained as well.
Currently, while sipping on some shine, he is working on the second book in a mystery series that takes place on the plateau of Tennessee.
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Short Bio for Media:
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Jeffrey "Hammerhead" Philips has been scuba diving since 1967. He and his wife, Kitty, operated Seascape Charters, a dive charter service, and Mermaid DiveGuides, arranging international dive trips in the Bahamas, Lands End, Fiji, and other Caribbean destinations. In West Palm Beach, he joined Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures [JASA.] Their team is widely known for its famous shark expeditions, National Geographic photoshoots, and flying boat adventures. But the mountains were calling and now Jeffrey and Kitty live in Tennessee, where they are learning the art of cattle farming, and he continues to write fictionalized accounts of his adventures.
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Hammerhead Philips and an old friend