Mike Pelley, a man known as Merman Mike, has combined his innate capacity for empathy with his love of scuba diving. For the last three years his mission has been to dive for trash and treasure in the lakes and rivers that surround him, just outside of Sacramento, California.
Merman Mike is not a typical treasure hunter — his reward is the joy he feels when he can reunite the treasure he finds with its rightful owner. Through his YouTube channel and social media outlets, Pelley attempts to find the owners of each recovered item of value and return it to them. His band of dedicated followers, ignited by his passion and joy, enthusiastically share the Merman’s posts in hopes of being a part of his altruistic mission.
In a recent conversation with Kinute, Pelley talked about the driving force behind this passion project: his grandmother. “She was who raised me. I always think if I had something down there that had memories of her on it or that she gave me, and somebody gave that back to me, it would mean the world to me,” he said. “It’s a very humbling feeling to get to do that for somebody else.”
Merman Mike shows off a haul of recovered trash and treasure. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
Giving back
Pelley’s signature tagline in all his videos is, “I thoroughly believe, you can’t just go for the treasure. You have to go for the trash too.” While he loves reuniting people with their lost valuables, his passion is diving itself. Since he began diving, he has always collected trash as a way to give back to the lakes and rivers that provide him so much joy.
He has used his voice and platform to inspire others to take up this mantra and attitude of stewardship as well. It was his defining message in a recent presentation he made to a group of youth divers, and Pelley’s been receiving messages since. Parents are still writing to him saying that their children now make it their own mission to pick up any trash they see while in and on the water and urge them to do the same.
His stewardship has been rewarded by his own enjoyment of cleaner waterways, but also in unexpected ways. Recounting one of his early dives, Pelley shared, “I thought I was picking up a top to a soda can and it ended up being a diamond engagement ring.”
Valuables recovered from the depths. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
Merman Mike’s spirit of giving doesn’t end with trash cleanup and random acts of kindness. People have also started reaching out to him and asking him to dive, in an attempt to find lost items for them. He tries to keep it within a three-hour radius from his home, but admits that, “If it was something super sentimental, there are not many places I wouldn't go to help somebody.”
A happy beneficiary of Merman Mike’s services. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
At present, Merman Mike is a side project for Pelley, but he has hopes that his popularity could grow to a point to enable him to travel to dive, bringing joy to even more people. “My fuel is that look on someone's face when they're looking at something they thought they would never see again.”
He does not charge for contracted dives but does accept tips and has set up a Patreon account for those who wish to help further his mission. Pelley has never wanted money to be a barrier for someone to reach out for help finding something special to them.
Expect the unexpected
While Pelley relishes the objects of sentimental value that he reunites with their owners, he also delights in the pieces of history and mystery that he retrieves from the depths. All items that can’t be returned and are deemed to be “not complete trash” are put on display in Merman Mike’s Treasure Room.
The Treasure Room is something akin to an antique and obscura shop run by the Greek God Oceanus. It greets all visitors upon arrival at Pelley's home. Favorite objects include a wooden wheel from a 1908 Ford Model T, an iron padlock from 1916 and a child-sized CPR dummy that he said almost gave him a heart attack when he found it.
A section of Merman Mike’s Treasure Room. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
Of course, there are cases bursting with the items one would expect to make their way overboard: sunglasses, phones, fishing lures, watches. But each is catalogued with care — a shrine to adventures and memories.
The only thing that hasn’t made it into the Treasure Room to date is a voodoo doll that was accompanied by a mysterious wax sealed jar — filled with chicken feet and peppers. “My fiancé won't let me bring those in the house, they have to stay in the garage,” Pelley said.
Shortly after bringing that find up from the depths, Pelley was in a truck accident that resulted in him needing shoulder surgery, sidelining him from diving for several months.
Merman Mike emerging with found CPR dummy. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
However, he seems undaunted, as he recently found another voodoo doll that was allowed to join the ranks of the Treasure Room. Of these particularly unique finds, he said, “I try not to look too much into them. The general scope of my job is to get things that don't belong on the bottom of the river, out of the river.”
Some of Pelley’s other favorite finds that he has been able to return to people include a phone that contained over 1,500 pictures of a (since-deceased) mother and daughter’s bucket list adventures, an art teacher’s phone with seven years’ worth of student art and her own children’s baby pictures, and a ring worth $17,000 that had once belonged to the owner’s brother who had passed away.
Finding the wooden wheel from a 1908 Ford Model T. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
The ring retrieval, which had been a contract dive, earned Merman Mike a cameo on the national news and the Kelly Clarkson Show. It also earned him a generous donation from the recipient, that Pelley put towards a new metal detector.
Emerging with the $17,000 ring. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
Of these high points, he said, “I absolutely love making [the unexpected] come true. I can't do it every time, but I'm extremely determined and persistent.” Merman Mike is persistent indeed. He keeps up a regular diving schedule of three times per week, most often accompanied by his fiancé Natasha, who supports him from above the water.
The biggest challenge he often faces when diving is visibility. Sediment from the bottom can easily be stirred up, giving him limited sight range. Diving in rivers, he also needs to be conscious of currents that could pose a threat to his safety. He takes this seriously and tries to stay out of bodies of water that are known to have exceptionally strong currents.
Antiques pulled from the depths. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
Pelley has also had some particularly challenging requests—helping people search for lost loved ones. He has participated in one of these efforts, after he was sure he wouldn’t be interfering with law enforcement’s efforts.
While he did not find the missing person, he approached the memory with his signature empathy and reverence saying, “It's hard to explain the emotions. It's one of those things that you have to realize: it's closure for somebody. It's still returning a valuable.”
A metal love note found on the bottom of a local river. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
The drive to dive
While Pelley’s trash and treasure hunting have garnered him attention in recent years, his interest in scuba diving began in his teens. The prospect of diving on a family vacation in Mexico initially sparked his interest, but the realization of this dream was deferred after he broke his collarbone and was unable to complete certification.
Once healed, he first saw the barriers in his way: no access to the ocean, lack of funds and lack of time. This was until he was inspired by another freshwater diver he was exposed to online. “I realized that I could go diving in my backyard, and I didn't need to be rich to do so,” he said.
Of this realization, Pelley said, “All of a sudden, it put a lot of gas in my tank — within about a month I was certified and had the gear I needed.”
Pelley preparing for a dive. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
This seemed to be a natural alignment for him. “I've always had a really deep-seated fascination with what was under the surface of the water,” Pelley said. “The fact that people could go diving and [continue to] find new species always fueled my fascination.”
Reflecting on the time he lost, while focusing on the perceived barriers in his way, Pelley said, “It's a little sad that it took me so long to find it, but I'm really happy that I finally did. It’s my passion, I absolutely love it.”
Merman Mike emerges victorious once again. Courtesy of Mike Pelley
This passion can be felt emanating from the photos and videos posted on Merman Mike’s media channels — underwater shouts of celebration and wonder literally and figuratively bubbling out of him, the beaming faces of people reunited with things they never thought they’d see again, his own look of satisfaction at a day of giving back to the river through trash removal.
It is this example of burning brightly in this world that gives others the silent permission to light up too — each in our own unique way. A daily practice of choosing to align with our own joy.
Pelley and fiancé Natasha. Courtesy of Mike Pelley