Captain Jeff MacKinnon is a third-generation shipwreck recoverist and owner of Sub Sea Salvage: the sole operation authorized to dive on the thousands of shipwrecks that now rest on the seafloor of Cape Breton’s perilous coast. Born in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Jeff has been on the water his entire life; having worked as a commercial fisherman since he was 12 years old and fished all along the Atlantic coast over his career.

Jeff’s father, Robert MacKinnon, is one of the most famed and successful shipwreck salvagers on the Atlantic coast. He discovered several of Cape Breton’s most profitable treasure shipwrecks and recovered coins from them as valuable as $200,000 USD each, and artifacts which can be seen in museums across the world.

At 14, Jeff joined his father’s dive team as a tender on deck and assisted him in the lab, conserving recovered artifacts and working with the foremost expert archaeologists, geologists, and survey technicians in the field. During this time, Jeff learned his father’s methods of recovery and developed his own highly specialized technique of preserving artifacts, which led to the formation of his own salvaging team. Comprised of military, law enforcement, and emergency response veterans, some of Jeff’s divers have been working with him for almost 30 years and together they have recovered treasure and historical artifacts from dozens of shipwrecks under his leadership.

However, Jeff believes that his greatest achievements are the contributions which he has made to his community of Cape Breton Island and the archaeological world at large. Above all else, he is driven by the goal of preserving and protecting Cape Breton’s underwater culture and heritage through recovering artifacts before the rising levels of ocean acidification cause them to be lost forever.

Captain Jeff’s crew of expert divers and marine archaeologists are considered one of the only teams qualified and capable of braving the treacherous waters of the The Death Coast and maintaining the MacKinnon’s family legacy as the greatest treasure hunters in Cape Breton.