Ray Odor

[HeadHunter]

Sorry to say that Ray Odor has passed away. Ray was a legend in the Tampa Bay spearing community and a good friend to many of us.

I respected Ray for his many achievements in the Diving world.

I'll miss you shallow water buddy.

Thoughts and my best to his family.

Dan

[Marcus]

Damn...he'll be missed.

All the best to his family.

[jfjf]

Thanks for letting us know. What a nice guy.

[Gary Schulte]

Sad news but Ray lived a good life and one many of us would love to have. He was truly brave. Loved his family, especially Shirley his wife of many years. Here's some pics of Ray in action.

[sealark]

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗥𝗮𝘆?

𝗜'𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆.

[Gary Schulte]

I'd guess around 93.

So long Captain

[Spear One]

Very sad news.

[Gary H]

So thankful I got to meet Ray and Shirley and take the shop and house tour - they will both be missed!

[popgun pete]

You realize you are getting older when the names that seemed to be perpetual presences in the diving community start appearing in the Obituary columns. Ray made spears and a whole bunch of stuff including an all metal "Sea Hornet" mechanism, which was of real interest to me as "Sea Hornet" guns first came out just as I commenced spearfishing. Available as a kit from Ray I kept a photo of it somewhere, in fact here it is as I just found it.

My sincere condolences to family, friends and associates.

RIP Ray Odor

[Gary H]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

You realize you are getting older when the names that seemed to be perpetual presences in the diving community start appearing in the Obituary columns. Ray made spears and a whole bunch of stuff including an all metal "Sea Hornet" mechanism, which was of real interest to me as "Sea Hornet" guns first came out just as I commenced spearfishing. Available as a kit from Ray I kept a photo of it somewhere, in fact here it is as I just found it.

My sincere condolences to family, friends and associates.

RIP Ray Odor

That's a photo of my Raygun parts I took in my living room floor

I will always cherish my Raygun and Ray Odor Pole Spear.

[popgun pete]

Originally Posted by Gary H

That's a photo of my Raygun parts I took in my living room floor

I will always cherish my Raygun and Ray Odor Pole Spear.

I thought that you would recognize it, I asked Ray for a close-up photo of it, but he never got around to it. He used to say to me that it would be better to be spearfishing than getting too obsessed with this sort of historical stuff, but then we would lose our history, just as some of it has now been lost with Ray's passing.

[vertical limit]

R.I.P. Ray and all my prayers to your family.

[CuzzA]

I am glad I had the opportunity to meet Ray. I spent some time at his house in August 2016. He was welcoming, as if he knew me for years, showed me around his place, sharing stories, newspaper articles, dead fish pics and shells. Much of our time was spent talking about diving the Gulf of Mexico and like most of us, diving was genuinely a passion of his life. A way of life.

All my best to his family.

[Mobile Diver]

RIP I bought a lot of shafts from him over the years.

[Dbrown]

Echo Gary H and Cuzza. I remember going to his house 5 or 6 years ago and just wanting to grab some spears. Wasn't going to happen! I was getting the tour of the shop, explanations of builds and heat treatments, the house tour, and the dismissive yet polite head shake from Shirley. Ray was at it again! She knew it and it was going to be a few hours!

What a privilege! I feel very thankful to have been able to meet him. My 17 year old daughter that shoots with me remembers meeting him at a SPO tourney. We had talked before hand and he was coming out to say hi and I had told him to bring over some more spears and I'd buy em. He was very kind and encouraging to her when they got to say hello.

Thanks for posting Dan. For a little guy, Ray was a GIANT when it comes to the passion for what we do. Going to grab a drink and toast his long life! Have dreams about his stories of near killing himself diving pure O2 and shooting jewfish in the tail!!

Rest In Peace to our friend and the legend Ray Odor!!