"It’s more important to know what’s going on — in my opinion — on the bottom of the ocean than floating on the shore."

Curt Bowen has hunted for shipwrecks and lost cities, but he has never had to hunt for fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 54-year-old retired Sarasota County firefighter says that when the current red tide epidemic invaded the Southwest Florida coastline, he knew the tons of dead fish on local beaches only told part of the story of a major disaster in the sea.

Wearing only a wet suit, Bowen recently dove into Sarasota Bay and four spots in the Gulf with a video camera to document reefs, the sea floor and marine life.

Read more at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.