15 Fathoms

15 Fathoms Crafted for divers and seafarers alike! 15 Fathoms leads the charge in Diving inspired clothing!

09/03/2026

I lay my head on the west coast but Panama you have my heart, at least tonight! Thank you for the big orders! I threw a few slaps for y’all.
Thank you!

Former U.S. Navy Diver – Thomas “Tommy” McConnell ⚓️🇺🇸Thomas “Tommy” McConnell is a former U.S. Navy Diver who served ni...
09/02/2026

Former U.S. Navy Diver – Thomas “Tommy” McConnell ⚓️🇺🇸

Thomas “Tommy” McConnell is a former U.S. Navy Diver who served nine years on active duty. He joined the Navy in 2011 and completed Navy Diver training at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida. He went on to serve with Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit ONE in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and later worked within Naval Oceanography and the Navy’s unmanned underwater vehicle community.

During his career, McConnell participated in diving, salvage, recovery and maritime operations throughout the Pacific, Middle East and United States. His experience included work surrounding the 2014 HMCS Protecteur casualty and tow, operations involving the USS Arizona, RIMPAC exercises, and a deployment to the Arabian Gulf. In 2015, he was part of the recovery effort for a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet lost at sea, conducting dives at approximately 180 feet.

McConnell later transitioned into the unmanned underwater vehicle community, supporting military and maritime operations in the U.S. and abroad. After medically retiring from the Navy in 2019, he remained in the defense industry, where he continues to work today.

Outside of his defense career, McConnell is the founder and owner of 15 Fathoms, a brand inspired by the history and culture of the Navy diving community. Originally founded while he was still serving, 15 Fathoms takes its name from 90 feet of seawater and draws heavily from the equipment, traditions, humor and brotherhood of military and commercial divers.

Today, 15 Fathoms has grown beyond apparel into a way for McConnell to preserve diving history, tell the stories of the people behind the faceplates, and give back to the community that shaped him.

Founder & Owner of 15fathoms

Square yourself away and prepare to leave bottom.

09/02/2026

The solutions being proposed for the Cove do not solve the actual problem. There are too many people being funneled into one small area.

They don’t just show up on their own. They’re told to go there. Google La Jolla Cove and it’s clear as day why you see so many people forcing their way into a selfie with our wildlife. The precedent is set before they ever arrive. On top of that, tour buses and trolleys drop people just blocks away during the busiest hours of the day.

Ocean-access-only is a great solution that has already worked at Boomer Beach. Adding more park rangers, lifeguards or signage is a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. It doesn’t address the source of the problem. If anything, you’re going to create more tension between enforcement and tourists who arrived expecting the wildlife experience they were sold.
The Cove is a sacred place. Do not punish San Diego residents and responsible ocean users for the actions of a small percentage of tourists.
Start at the source. Rethink how La Jolla Cove is advertised. Stop funneling massive numbers of people into a tiny wildlife rookery and then acting surprised when there’s a problem.
Before taking access away from San Diegans, let’s have a serious conversation about why so many people are being sent there in the first place.
If you’re a city leader, tourism official, local business owner, environmental advocate or San Diegan who wants to actually solve this problem, DM me. Let’s get the right people at the table and protect the Cove without taking it away from the people who call San Diego home.

Just grab that mystery pack. I know you love mystery.
09/01/2026

Just grab that mystery pack. I know you love mystery.

08/31/2026

Proud to put together a pile of 15 Fathoms gear for Mobile Unit 3’s upcoming Khaki Ball silent auction. Hats, shirts, patches, slaps and plenty of Deep Sea goodness headed their way. It’s an honor to give something back and support the sailors carrying the torch today. Hope it raises a few bucks, gets into the hands of some good people and maybe raises a toast or two along the way. HOO-YAH DEEP SEA!

The last post got a lot of attention and definitely pi**ed some people off. I understand how reposting a video of a resc...
08/30/2026

The last post got a lot of attention and definitely pi**ed some people off. I understand how reposting a video of a rescue could be interpreted differently than I intended. The woman wasn’t the point. The conditions at the Cove were.

I love the Cove. I swim there, dive there and want to keep doing that for a long time. But when I’m swimming back to shore and see people stacked 10 or 12 rows deep on a tiny beach I have to ask why. We keep sending more and more people into this little space and then act surprised when something happens.

That’s really where Audit the Cove comes from. I don’t want to close it and I don’t think another sign is going to fix it. I think we need to look at what’s bringing so many people there in the first place.

There are four parts to my idea. Marketing, language, redirection and beach sovereignty.

Stop marketing the Cove as a wildlife encounter or experience. Change the language so wildlife is something you respect and observe, not something you go down there to interact with. Redirect some of those visitors to the hundreds of other things San Diego has to offer. And let the Cove be the Cove. It’s an incredible place to swim, freedive, snorkel and scuba dive.

I’m not trying to take the Cove away from anyone. I’m trying to figure out how we keep it open without loving it to death.

08/28/2026

The one that started it all.
Seen dive-side around the globe, this is the hat that helped put 15 Fathoms on the map. A true staple, one of our most recognizable pieces, and one we’ll never stop making.
Tap in and grab yours from one of the most recognizable names in dive apparel.

PIRATES ARE STILL A PROBLEM. Apparently the scourge of piracy didn’t end with wooden ships and eye patches. Now they dri...
08/28/2026

PIRATES ARE STILL A PROBLEM.
Apparently the scourge of piracy didn’t end with wooden ships and eye patches. Now they drive around neighborhoods stealing packages off porches.

One of our customers ordered a Realtree MK-5 and some stickers. Tracking said it arrived. Customer said it didn’t.

Who knows what happened to it. Lost in transit, delivered to the wrong place, or commandeered by some landlocked porch pirate.
Either way, we sent another one.
Could we have pointed at the tracking number and said, “It says delivered”? Sure.
But that’s not how we want to run 15 Fathoms.
We’re a small business. Every order matters to us, and so does the person on the other end of it. When something goes sideways, we’re going to do what we reasonably can to make it right.
The replacement made it aboard safely, and this review absolutely made our day:
“But dastardly bastards send me another!! And it arrived!! Thank you so much. I was not expecting that. Y’all have class.”

We’ll take it.

Take care of your people. Defend against pirates. 15 fathoms

Does this look familiar? It should.The very patch we’re giving away is the exact same one found on our Watch Cap. Raised...
08/28/2026

Does this look familiar? It should.
The very patch we’re giving away is the exact same one found on our Watch Cap. Raised embroidered border, hook backing, and a clean white canvas face.
We only have 50 left, and they’re going fast.
One FREE with every order while they last.

I drove past an old dive team on my way to the gym the other day.From the road I could see the cranes, trucks and equipm...
08/27/2026

I drove past an old dive team on my way to the gym the other day.

From the road I could see the cranes, trucks and equipment staged on the pier, and immediately I knew what was happening underneath the water. They were installing cylinders.

One of my buddies still works there, so I asked him about it. He confirmed exactly what I thought I was seeing.

I couldn’t believe I could still read the pier like that.

That particular job was one of my favorites. You’re underwater handling a cylinder weighing thousands of pounds, carefully lining it up against a platform and fastening it into place. Delicate work involving very large objects with very little tolerance for mistakes.

I loved it. And I was good at it.

For a second I could see myself doing the entire evolution again. Pulling on a wetsuit. Getting dressed out. Picking up a giant wrench and going over the side.

I’d give damn near anything for one more day of that.

A few days later I was holding an old bulkhead separator, a piece we used during cable runs. We used to call them ninja stars.

For whatever reason, I set it inside a roll of tape and it fit perfectly.

Just looking at it took me right back underwater.
That’s when I realized something.
My hands still remember the work. My brain still sees the job. I can still read a pier.
I just don’t get to be the guy underneath the water anymore. And that fu***ng hurts sometimes.
But I don’t think this is really about diving.
Eventually most of us have something like this.
A team we aren’t part of anymore. A trade our bodies won’t let us practice. Kids who aren’t little anymore. A place we can’t go back to. Some ordinary chapter of our lives we’d give anything to experience for one more day.
The hard part is that nobody tells you when you’re doing something for the last time.
There was a last time somebody punched watches for me. A last time I climbed into the water carrying a wrench. A last time I finished a job, took off my gear and went home without knowing someday I’d desperately miss something that felt completely ordinary.
Whatever chapter you’re in right now, every once in a while, look around.
Pay attention to the people standing beside you.

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