Photographer James D. Watt and a pair of friendly humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, Pacific Ocean. Image # 014522

It is difficult, if not impossible to measure the influence of a life on another. We all do what we do without any real idea as to its effect on each other or the world at large.  Sometimes, as in the case of Jim, we know the worldly influence is great, but still lack, and will forever lack the depth of that influence. For each of us here today Jim’s presence in our lives was dramatic, yet different, characterized by our own perspectives and relationship to him.  As a loving father and husband to wife Jody and children Ian and Jennifer his relationships were one thing, his love for his sister Sharon was yet another, all very personal and really known only to them. His love for the ocean was as vast as the seas he traveled on and those lifelong travels had a significant and powerful effect on the underwater community that for him was worldwide. Yet, within those varied realms of love there existed a common theme, one that we all experienced, though we each absorbed differently.

Jim’s positive nature affected us all from family to friends alike. It was contagious even in the midst of everything contrary to logic and reason. For him everything was possible, and he had little doubt that the next epic whale encounter lay just over the nearest swell, that the next dive would bring an image never before seen, or that a bleak diagnosis of cancer could be overcome. It was this unrelenting attitude that good things were always just around the corner that endeared him to us all. It was this same unbridled enthusiasm that drove him deep into the hunt, first as a young spearfisherman then later as a photographer. The hunt had him in its unyielding grasp, one he could not say no to, he never said no, only yes. Yes, let’s go there, yes, lets hang out with great white sharks and tigers, yes, lets film this volcano underwater, yes, lets go surfing. Yes, yes, yes. Yes to it all. Yes to life.

Personally, Jimmy was the best person I have ever known in that regard. I was more of a maybe guy. I only said yes if prodded enough, and he, god bless him, prodded. He didn’t want me to miss anything almost as much as he didn’t want to miss anything himself. In a world with far too many no’s Jimmy was an anomaly, I don’t believe I ever heard that word from him. He never turned down a dangerous assignment. Once in a while I would hear him say maybe, like when we were in French Frigate Shoals and there were close to a hundred sharks, all pretty worked up darting around our skiff, and the director of the project who hired us asked if it was dangerous to get in the water with so many sharks around, and Jimmy said maybe just before he jumped in.

Margaret and I are here in Hawaii because we said yes, to Jimmy and Jody when they invited us to their home over twenty years ago. I said yes when I followed him out to the White Sand Ridge in the Bahamas with my first housed SLR, you know the one you sold me Jimmy that stopped working after that trip. And I said yes to you after months of maybe’s when you would call to go surfing. Your mark is on me Jimmy, as it is on all of us who have spent time with you in the water. It is the mark of yes! Yes to life in all its adventures, in all its sorrows and now to all of its grief.

You leave with many incredible legacies, uncountable really, but clearly it is the legacy of Yes that has so defined you and the code you lived by.  Everytime I pull off something extraordinary in the water your mark is on me. Like everyone here today I am so grateful for your presence in my life. So whenever we are homebound and struck with fear or laziness, and we  ask ourselves would Jimmy say yes, we already know the answer

My last words to him were “I love you, Jimmy.” And he smiled and looked up to me and said “I love you too” Then I kissed the top of his sweet bald head and said goodbye.

Carlos Eyles.