Explorer of Wrecks

Not everyone would get up at 4:30 in the morning to look at wrecks, but Gregory E. Rodriguez did just that. The wrecks, as it happened, were shipwrecks. He would head out to Brooklyn or Long Island, shrug into scuba diving gear and, with others, explore long- sunken ships. This was wreck diving, and he adored it. He even kept a framed map in his office of where the wrecks were.

The diving made his wife, Elizabeth Soudant, a little nervous. He used to have to call her when he got to Brooklyn, then after the first dive, after the second dive, and when he was leaving. Of course, that meant she had to stay home, chained to the phone. After a while, she calmed down. He had to call only when he got there and when he was leaving.

Mr. Rodriguez, 31, an assistant vice president for information security at the eSpeed division of Cantor Fitzgerald, lived with his wife in White Plains. He always brought a smile to her face with his wit and good humor, she said.

Last Labor Day weekend, they went to Seattle, and Mr. Rodriguez went scuba diving with Ms. Soudant's brother-in-law. Afterward, Mr. Rodriguez said it was his best dive. He didn't see any wrecks, but he saw some wolf eels — fierce-looking things that resembled old men — and they fascinated him. Her brother-in-law intends to go to the spot where they dived, she said, and put a plaque with Mr. Rodriguez's name on it beneath the water.