Graham Willis - The Dive Spots of New South Wales

00:00:06
Matt Waters: Hey there dive buddies and welcome to the show.

00:00:08
I'm joined today by local dive pro Graham Willis who not only

00:00:12
works in the industry, but he's also co-authored a travel guide

00:00:14
for divers and snorkelers alike covering New South Wales. With a

00:00:18
good buddy of his they've created a book with over 400

00:00:20
images and 100 dive site maps and titled, The dive spots of

00:00:24
New South Wales. It's a must for anyone needing a compilation of

00:00:27
local knowledge for diving in the region. And it's also got a

00:00:31
pretty sexy shark on the front cover to Graham. Welcome to the

00:00:34
show, buddy. How you doing?

00:00:35
Graham Willis: Thanks very much, Matt. No, great. Nice. Nice to

00:00:38
be here. Thanks for inviting us along. And hopefully we'll have

00:00:40
a good chat generally about diving a little bit about the

00:00:42
book, but not too much probably about them.

00:00:45
Matt Waters: Well, the good thing is that come into the

00:00:46
studio, and it's the first time I've had anyone in the studio

00:00:48
since COVID. Ages. So thanks for the beer.

00:00:51
Graham Willis: Oh, no, that's a pleasure. Cheers. Cheers. Indeed.

00:00:56
Matt Waters: Beauty. Okay, let's have some a bit of a background

00:01:00
on you. Before we get into the book, or the books, should I say

00:01:03
this too? Yep.

00:01:06
Graham Willis: So I've been diving for a few years now sort

00:01:08
of certified in only 182 was diving for a bit before that,

00:01:12
and thought should really go and get certified. So So I did. And

00:01:17
I was lucky I was living overseas. My dad worked for

00:01:20
Shell. So we moved all around the world. And I started diving

00:01:24
in Oman. Which time? Yeah, well, at the time, there was no

00:01:27
diamond there at all. Hardly. Nothing commercial at all. So we

00:01:31
we live in a must Gatlin Yeah. Well, we're living in close to

00:01:35
muttrah. So yeah, yeah. north north of that, but

00:01:38
Matt Waters: I was choose to move there when I was 14 years

00:01:40
old. Yeah. My dad was. He was a drilling manager in and based

00:01:44
out of Moscow,

00:01:45
Graham Willis: right. Yeah, that was a good spot. I was. So my

00:01:48
dad was there for a while. And then I worked there as well, in

00:01:51
the oil exploration industry. My G, we weren't anywhere near the

00:01:54
water. We were in the middle of the desert. But that is where I

00:01:58
started diving did a lot of snorkelling spear at the time.

00:02:01
I've got over that now. People started there. And then

00:02:08
travelled around after that with the oil business places like

00:02:11
Somalia, not so good. Madagascar, interesting, which

00:02:15
allowed us access to Mauritius. So like a uni or South Africa,

00:02:21
and actually went off to Thailand to do my licence there.

00:02:24
So

00:02:25
Matt Waters: yeah, yeah. I've got to go battered. Oh, man.

00:02:28
I've not spoken to anyone about a man for years. Yeah. So What

00:02:32
years were you there?

00:02:34
Graham Willis: Good question. Probably 76 to 81. Okay. around

00:02:40
that

00:02:41
Matt Waters: period. Yeah. A little bit before we went to. We

00:02:43
want to go out there. I think it was 88. Right. Yeah. I was a lot

00:02:48
longer than you clearly,

00:02:49
Graham Willis: clearly. Looking as well. But what can I say?

00:02:54
Matt Waters: It was Did they did they have the solace bar was

00:02:57
that? To me? That was one of one of the expats?

00:03:00
Graham Willis: Not that I recall. There was many you might

00:03:03
have. I don't know what was taking you out there. But that's

00:03:07
right. Dad was in the drilling industry wasn't. There was a

00:03:11
vibrant surf club there. With the army. There are a lot of

00:03:17
people out from the UK, working with the Omani forces out there

00:03:21
that was right beneath us. The house so that is handy. And then

00:03:25
there was a club for PDO which was the oil company itself and

00:03:29
they had their own club. So outside of that, that was my

00:03:31
kind of environment

00:03:32
Matt Waters: really. Well shut me out. Man is gonna listen to

00:03:35
this at some point. So they go daddy go oh, man on the show.

00:03:37
Now. See you, buddy. Man.

00:03:39
Graham Willis: We can we can talk about that later. Yeah. He

00:03:42
fell in love with the country. I liked it. I really liked it.

00:03:44
Very, very different from down south and the Jebel and anyway,

00:03:47
all of that sort of stuff. But now quite diving destination.

00:03:50
Yeah. And it wasn't in my day at all.

00:03:52
Matt Waters: Yeah. But when you look at the map, for the dive

00:03:55
in, it's more northern Oh, man. Is it?

00:03:57
Graham Willis: Yeah. So I think it's up at Mussenden, which is

00:04:00
further north as of right, the tip there. But equally down past

00:04:05
Moscow, there's some diving down there. I saw some familiar names

00:04:08
when I code and didn't even know about that. Yeah. And they built

00:04:11
a big Coast wrote there to make it much more accessible. It was

00:04:14
pretty inaccessible. Well, yeah.

00:04:15
Matt Waters: Yeah. I think it's one of those locations that

00:04:18
people don't think about going on holiday, but some of the,

00:04:20
some of the resorts and hotels in Moscow itself are just

00:04:24
insanely good. And they

00:04:26
Graham Willis: they are and I've spoken to people who have been

00:04:28
and they absolutely loved it. It's obviously quite a different

00:04:30
environment. I enjoyed the Arabic culture side and in some

00:04:34
of the more traditional components, but I can imagine

00:04:36
it's a good spot to go

00:04:37
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. They still speak Arabic or is it

00:04:40
dwindled? Yeah, my mind dwindled a few years.

00:04:46
Graham Willis: Yeah. Don't use it much in Wolstencroft and rise.

00:04:52
Matt Waters: Yeah, if I won, I'm sorry. I interrupted you there

00:04:55
as well. So where was where do we go after that?

00:04:59
Graham Willis: So I spent some time in Madagascar a couple of

00:05:02
years there. That's pretty interesting spot. A really

00:05:06
interesting spot. And that let me do quite a lot of diving in

00:05:09
Mauritius and South Africa. Yeah. Which I really enjoyed. As

00:05:13
I said, and I figured out after 70 or $80, I thought I better go

00:05:17
and get certified. So, so I did. And I chose someone nice and

00:05:20
warm and easy to do that in Thailand, which was good fun.

00:05:25
The course it put it this way, the course is much easier if

00:05:28
you've done a little bit of diving, you kind of know what to

00:05:30
expect, but equally is a lot you don't know. So yeah. And, you

00:05:34
know, I think it's a good thing, too. It

00:05:36
Matt Waters: does everything that he does. It does.

00:05:37
Graham Willis: And there's some theory in there, which is, I

00:05:39
think, good to know. And continues to be good to know as

00:05:42
you move on and became a DM or an instructor or whatever it is.

00:05:46
I think it's good to have that theory underneath you.

00:05:48
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. So just thinking back to South Africa.

00:05:52
Did you want to get on the sardine run at all?

00:05:54
Graham Willis: No. Again, wasn't just wasn't really a thing.

00:05:57
Yeah. And I'm not saying that it was no sardine run, but there's

00:06:00
no commercial component and diving component to that. Yeah.

00:06:03
So the diving I did there was a place called sodwana. Bay. Yeah.

00:06:06
Which is just a Justin. Hello. So but yeah, some of the best

00:06:10
visibility have ever seen in my life. Really, absolutely.

00:06:13
Phenomenal. Pretty rough and ready. In those days, it might

00:06:16
still be I don't know, you launched on a rib. And to sort

00:06:20
of zoom around waiting for the right break in the ways off he

00:06:22
went. And then he got deposited. I think, like two three and five

00:06:28
more reef or something like that. Yeah, memories, a bit

00:06:30
scratchy. But the visibility was just fantastic. And there was a

00:06:32
pot of dolphins that was swimming along with us on the

00:06:35
way out. So they stopped the boat said Anyone want to get in?

00:06:38
Yes. No one else did that, which I found quite interesting. So I

00:06:43
had a paddle around with him for a bit and it's, it was fabulous.

00:06:46
And then also down south in the cape, which is an awful lot

00:06:50
colder, I gotta say, you guys called out Bay and a couple of

00:06:54
the wrecks there and the seal colony didn't bump into any

00:06:57
great whites, which is nice. But that was a bit of fun too. So

00:07:03
after that moved actually back to the Middle East to get a guy

00:07:07
going worked there for about a year, year and a half, something

00:07:10
like that. And then I left the industry and came over to

00:07:13
Australia.

00:07:14
Matt Waters: epididymis, I'll just try and check online.

00:07:17
Otherwise Shola might be getting confused. It might is other well

00:07:19
shell said no Sidewinder Bay's itself and then Durban is a

00:07:22
little shell as Yeah,

00:07:23
Graham Willis: so so one is a bit further up. Yeah, I think

00:07:25
the gnarly one, but I haven't dived into one. So yeah,

00:07:27
Matt Waters: no, I did. I did. Did the two together as a

00:07:30
mastermind. It was this 14th A few years ago, just before COVID

00:07:32
actually 2018. So we went into Kruger Park and then down to

00:07:37
sodwana Bay, did a few days there and then move down to

00:07:40
Durban where we met with another couple of mates to go up into

00:07:42
the sardine run.

00:07:43
Graham Willis: I think it's going to be tricky to get over

00:07:45
there for a little bit, especially with new variants

00:07:47
coming out now to seem even worse, unfortunately,

00:07:50
Matt Waters: it's ridiculous. I mean, I don't think we're gonna

00:07:52
be doing any proper travelling for money. Unfortunately.

00:07:55
Graham Willis: Well, hang on. I've got a couple three plan

00:07:57
next year.

00:08:00
Matt Waters: Okay, and my fingers are nuts cross my eye,

00:08:02
but I've got a big Galapagus trip that we've learned from not

00:08:05
2019 to now. 2023.

00:08:07
Graham Willis: Fantastic. I love to do that. Yeah, no, that's not

00:08:10
in the planning. But next year, there was some planning to do.

00:08:13
Indonesia, Philippines and Palau. So we'll see

00:08:16
Matt Waters: 101 and whereabouts in Thailand. Did you do your

00:08:19
training? Was it on Koh Tao? Or?

00:08:22
Graham Willis: I'd have to go and look, I think it was

00:08:24
somewhat salubrious like Pattaya or somewhere like just be out of

00:08:28
there and one of the dive shops there. Yeah,

00:08:30
Matt Waters: yeah. That's quite a while ago anyway, it is.

00:08:33
Graham Willis: It isn't. It isn't.

00:08:35
Matt Waters: And bringing us up to date you're now working at

00:08:39
froglife Sydney. Yeah, so

00:08:40
Graham Willis: I work with the team at Frog dine for instructor

00:08:44
and enjoy that I probably most enjoy the photography side of it

00:08:50
and teaching that but still the more advanced and deepen all of

00:08:54
those components as well. So I really enjoy that they're a good

00:08:57
team to work with. Yeah, and nice to have the pool out the

00:09:00
back, which helps with the the teaching side of it. Yeah, good,

00:09:07
good group to work with enjoy bringing people into the sport.

00:09:11
Remember, I was just doing the confined water. It was an older

00:09:15
gentleman. And at the end of the day, he said that is the best

00:09:19
thing I have ever done. Getting good at the pool. Wow, your mind

00:09:25
is gonna get mad when we get in the ocean. But it's fantastic. I

00:09:28
forget that you dive so much yourself. You kind of forget

00:09:31
that amazement, just being able to be underwater. And and what a

00:09:36
different feeling it is for people

00:09:37
Matt Waters: I think. So better. To be honest. I remember the

00:09:39
first time I put on a Scuba kit. I had no clue what was going on

00:09:43
and just doing it. Like it's like a try dive. And I can even

00:09:48
remember the instructor dragging me around by the tank and the

00:09:51
API hose. But I actually cried on the dive. I was that happy to

00:09:56
be underwater and actually experienced it. It's fantastic.

00:10:00
And you're right, you do forget it. You know, you teach so many

00:10:02
people, it just becomes second nature. And every now and then

00:10:05
there's that little button that presses and goes. Yeah, remember

00:10:08
that?

00:10:08
Graham Willis: Yeah, exactly. And I think someone's just got

00:10:10
to remember that as well. This is a completely new experience

00:10:14
for people. Nine times out of 10 is completely new experience.

00:10:18
It's a completely foreign environment to them. Yes,

00:10:21
they're there for a reason, sometimes slightly the wrong

00:10:22
reason. Why are you here? Well, because my boyfriend's doing it

00:10:25
or because my girlfriend's doing it, rather than because I wanted

00:10:29
to, which is, can be interesting to work with sometimes. Or my

00:10:33
dad said, I had to do it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's, that's gonna

00:10:36
be interesting as well. But generally, people are there

00:10:39
because they want to experience something different, they're

00:10:41
probably going to go off on a holiday or something like that

00:10:44
to Fiji, and they want to be able to dive and it's, it's,

00:10:48
it's, it's a privilege, actually, to be part of the

00:10:50
diving journey, and just introduce them to it, I think,

00:10:53
Matt Waters: yeah, it's a beautiful sport. So tell me

00:10:57
about this. How did this, this this little book come about

00:11:01
Graham Willis: this little book? A little? Well? Well, it is

00:11:04
really compared to some of the times out there. But

00:11:07
nonetheless, well, I was at dive show in in Sydney. And in fact,

00:11:12
I was chatting to a friend of mine who runs a resort in in

00:11:17
Sulawesi to manakin resorts called the Lassa resort. And

00:11:21
Simone Garretson, runs that and has done for years. And she's a

00:11:25
fantastic person, very generous spirit runs a great resort and a

00:11:29
really good part of the world for diving, you haven't been

00:11:31
able to monarchy and sort of yz diving. So that's out of Manado

00:11:35
you need to get over there. Because you can do the walls

00:11:37
have been knocking on one side and you can do the limbo

00:11:39
straights for the macro on the other side. It's just great spot.

00:11:43
Matt Waters: Adam, I'd echo that with the I in fact, I touched on

00:11:46
Ben Acana Lambay. When I was talking to Oh, it was Debbie

00:11:51
from diver planet. Yeah, we were talking about going around the

00:11:54
world. But you hit the nail on the head, to be able to do the

00:11:58
drifts and get the big wide angle shots on the photography

00:12:01
and then pop across the Lambay. And do the macro. Yeah, it's a

00:12:06
fantastic spot

00:12:07
Graham Willis: it is and but even even at limbo, when you get

00:12:09
outside the heads then sometimes called Angels window and stuff

00:12:12
like that. It's completely changed. It's not your macro.

00:12:15
It's the coral. It's wider. It's fantastic. So just love it. And

00:12:19
the pricing is very, very, very reasonable. Yeah. Now I don't

00:12:24
know what's gonna happen to the FAA is post COVID. Singapore

00:12:26
Airlines used to fly in there. That was the best way of getting

00:12:29
there. Yeah, Garuda, the other option there. So I don't know

00:12:33
what's going to happen to the air fares. But I bet it's still

00:12:35
reasonable.

00:12:36
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I think crude is probably a safe bet.

00:12:39
Yeah, I'd stay away from NAD air. Just putting that out there

00:12:41
because they've taken our money and not given us a refund and

00:12:44
not given us a fair enough ticket to book another flight so

00:12:47
they can get bad rep right here right now.

00:12:50
Graham Willis: Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, so So Simone was

00:12:54
at the dive show. And she introduced us to this guy called

00:12:58
yo ambush off whom I hadn't met before. Now, Johan, is from

00:13:02
South Africa. He'd come over a few years previously. And in

00:13:06
South Africa, he'd written a book, dice watts, as Africa does

00:13:10
lots of Mozambique. And then he moved over to WA, and wrote dice

00:13:15
Watsa, wa. And he was he was at the show, and he had his books

00:13:19
there. And someone introduces and said, Well, I don't know

00:13:22
about YouTube. But maybe you want to do something on New

00:13:24
South Wales. Now, yeah, he's never dived in. So it would be

00:13:28
tricky for him to write it. But what he did have was all of the

00:13:33
experience of laying out the book, all of the programmes for

00:13:35
that he had an approach and a methodology. And if you look at

00:13:39
the other two books, he's actually written on that. But if

00:13:43
you look at the other two dice bought books, you'll see a very,

00:13:46
very similar format. And the idea is not to cover every

00:13:51
single dive. So that's impossible. I mean, put it this

00:13:55
way, you throw picking on a boat, and you dive in, that's a

00:13:57
dark spot in your mind. So you can't do that. What you can do

00:14:03
is probably pick out some of the major ones in each of the spots

00:14:08
there. And there'll be disagreement about that song. So

00:14:10
are you left out a left out b? Why did you have a seat? That's

00:14:13
a dreadful diver, whatever it is, that's, that's fine. I'm

00:14:16
happy with the feedback. But there was an opportunity to do

00:14:20
that. We said, Yep, let's let's make it work. Progress was a

00:14:25
little bit slow initially, because I had a full time job

00:14:29
going on as well. But then, with COVID Kicking along, that gave

00:14:35
us the opportunity to work absolutely full time on the book

00:14:38
and crank it out. So that was in March 2020. And then we

00:14:43
published it in July, August 2020.

00:14:45
Matt Waters: Yeah, cuz I think we initially I might have

00:14:47
actually commented on your initial post about the book

00:14:50
launch. Yeah, yeah, I think that's when we start first time,

00:14:53
kind of dhikala checking online or whatever it is commenting,

00:14:56
Graham Willis: actually, I think to be honest, that was the

00:14:58
second It was the kind of relaunch almost been out there

00:15:01
for probably a year or so. Yeah. But interesting launching

00:15:06
anything in COVID Apart from possibly a boat, but, you know,

00:15:13
that's the way it is. And obviously the dive industries

00:15:15
had it much harder than, you know, two of us running book for

00:15:18
goodness sake. So.

00:15:20
Matt Waters: So it's obviously taking a lot of research, I'm

00:15:22
just flicking through the book now. It's beautiful, really is

00:15:24
put together really nicely. Nothing. But it must have taken

00:15:30
an awful lot of time to pull all the photographs together the

00:15:33
information, the text that you've got GPS coordinates for

00:15:36
everything that's in here. You've been a busy boy, isn't it?

00:15:40
Graham Willis: Yeah, it did. It did. It did take a fair amount

00:15:43
of research. And obviously you want it to be correct. Now,

00:15:46
having said that, we don't want people navigating to the spot,

00:15:49
exactly by boat going well, hang on, you're 20 metres out you go.

00:15:54
Okay. And there's a kind of disclaimer to that, but but you

00:15:57
will be pretty much in the zone. And in most cases, you'll be

00:16:00
bang on with that, you know, where can you get your boat in,

00:16:04
in some some cases, because we know that not everyone can

00:16:07
either do a shore dive, or not everyone wants to go with a

00:16:10
commercial operator, because you know, they can get a bit pricey.

00:16:12
So, you know, how can you do this yourself? We know that not

00:16:15
everyone's, yeah, diving. So there's some good spots pulled

00:16:19
out there for snorkelers as well. And it was fun. It was fun

00:16:24
to do. It was a lot of work. But it was it was fun to do that

00:16:27
because it got me off to do some Dausa. I've never done that. I

00:16:29
had to go back and have a look. Again, have a look.

00:16:32
Matt Waters: Exactly. That was my excuse when I started my tour

00:16:35
company. And it's global. So I was going off to Indonesia and

00:16:38
Thailand. And

00:16:39
Graham Willis: why didn't I think, why did I just write a

00:16:41
book. But it was it was it was a great way also of getting, for

00:16:47
instance, down to Eden to do some of the dives down there.

00:16:51
damn cold, really, really cold. We went down there I think was

00:16:55
in March. And thought oh, that's, you know, end of Summit

00:16:59
still we pre warmed the water. So we went outside to do the

00:17:03
first dive. And that was 12 degrees. It's cold, and we were

00:17:08
in wetsuits because I do drive and dive in a dry suit bones. I

00:17:13
thought now it'll still be warm. And then came inside to dive the

00:17:18
chip mill pier there. And it was 10 degrees. Oh, geez. Anyway,

00:17:25
but great, great dives, good operators down there. So that

00:17:28
was nice. And equally likewise, you know, Tweed Heads getting up

00:17:32
to the northern side there. Because there were a couple of

00:17:35
days I hadn't done there as well. I'm sure there's plenty of

00:17:37
darts I haven't done. But there were a couple I wanted to do

00:17:40
there as well. So good excuse to get out.

00:17:42
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And I know we've spoken briefly. But

00:17:46
you had chats every now and then with Michael McFadyen, the old,

00:17:51
the old man that seems to know all of new so

00:17:53
Graham Willis: and he does a tremendous. So Michael stuff is

00:17:56
tremendous resource, end of story. And this is in no way

00:17:59
meant to replace it. So let me know, let me put that out there.

00:18:02
It does not in any way, replace it. It does have more

00:18:05
information about what's available in the area. Rather

00:18:08
than just the dive sites. If you're going there as a

00:18:10
hospital, there is a bank there, you know, those of you. So if

00:18:13
you want to pick it up and travel, then it's a useful one

00:18:18
to use for that. But Michaels done an awful lot of stuff. And

00:18:21
certainly I shot a note off to Michael and I said, Look,

00:18:24
whatever research I do, your stuff seems to come up. And even

00:18:29
if people haven't acknowledged it, it still comes up. Yeah.

00:18:32
Sometimes I've changed the words quite often they haven't, and so

00:18:35
on and so forth. So would you be amenable to us using something

00:18:40
material, Michael came back and he said, Yes. However, if you're

00:18:43
going to do that, then each time you do that, you need to

00:18:46
acknowledge me as the author of that point to the website for

00:18:50
that that was going to be a very cumbersome way of putting the

00:18:53
book together. So it's no disrespect to Michael at all.

00:18:56
He's he's got tremendous knowledge and he's given the

00:18:59
dive industry a lot and certainly my students and I'm

00:19:01
saying that say look at Michael site, if you want to have a look

00:19:04
what's going on, go to Michael site if you bought my book, but

00:19:08
I think they feel slightly different purposes is one, his

00:19:14
research on some historic wrecks and things it's fantastic.

00:19:17
Always read it. Always have a look at it. So no, Michael's

00:19:22
given a lot to the industry and continues to do so.

00:19:24
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And I see you've you've stopped rated

00:19:28
the car as well.

00:19:30
Graham Willis: Yes. Always dangerous. Because, well, it is

00:19:36
a bit because let's face it, you can go to a spot you can have an

00:19:41
absolutely fabulous star if and you go well that's five stars,

00:19:45
but but if you've been there several times and you talk to

00:19:48
people you get that that was the best I've I've ever done there

00:19:51
and I've been diving this for 18 years. Yeah, it's not normally

00:19:54
that. So I you know, of course it's you know, up to us. What to

00:20:00
me writing the book in terms of that, but it's certainly awful a

00:20:04
lot of feedback from people. If you had to write the dives in

00:20:06
the air, what would you say? Is your go to dive? Yeah. And even

00:20:09
in Sydney, there's a bit of North versus South was like, why

00:20:12
would you go north of the harbour or the best dives in

00:20:14
South? There's good dive south and north, I would suggest Yeah.

00:20:18
And obviously, you do more diving, where it's easiest for

00:20:21
you to do that. As simple as that. But I think that most of

00:20:25
the, you know, five star rated dives, the majority of people

00:20:29
would go, I can see why that I can see why that would be

00:20:33
righted that way. You know, if you pick out southwest rocks,

00:20:36
for example, it can be dreadful. Yeah. You might not even get in

00:20:40
the cave. The visibility might be three metres and a raging

00:20:42
current out the front might be dreadful day. On balance, it's

00:20:46
fun started off.

00:20:47
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that particular

00:20:52
locations are cracking example of what it's like in New South

00:20:55
Wales as a whole. Because the biodiversity is just ridiculous.

00:21:00
Yeah, quite frankly. Yeah. You know, if he talking about

00:21:03
Southwest rocks, and you can see everything from nudibranchs to

00:21:05
Shaolin fish, sharks and the, you know, the odd humpback Whale

00:21:09
popping by

00:21:10
Graham Willis: well then I talked about humpback whales. I

00:21:12
was diving down in Jervis Bay, probably four years ago now. And

00:21:17
I had my daughter diving with us as well. And she hadn't done

00:21:20
many dives very comfortable in the water, but probably 30 or 40

00:21:25
times something like that. And had the camera had the rig down

00:21:28
there. And we were diving place called nudie wall. So funnily

00:21:33
enough macro lens on of course, jumping, my daughter points

00:21:37
excitedly into the distance, and I go, what's that and whatever,

00:21:41
it has just disappeared, and I see a white streak and I

00:21:44
thought, Ah, I think that's a sap hanging in the water. I know

00:21:47
what it is. And I've never seen one it wasn't it was the front

00:21:50
edge of the pectoral fin of a humpback. So this baby humpback

00:21:56
sweeps over us, I mean, very close indeed. Very close. Four

00:22:01
times just comes back around and apparently what it did was pop

00:22:05
up have a look at the boat and the two other sets of divers

00:22:07
that had a look at them and then came back again and this was a

00:22:10
baby so five metres or something. And not the seasons I

00:22:14
don't think but previous season mommy. And then mum obviously

00:22:18
said stop playing with the divers and and off it went but

00:22:21
you go macro lens. Thank you. So luckily, a friend of mine had a

00:22:26
GoPro so I've got the I've got the footage to prove it. But my

00:22:29
daughter thinks that's normal. You go down for diver Jervis Bay

00:22:32
and there's some pictures come back. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, five

00:22:36
star die for Yeah. Not surprised. Absolutely. That'd be

00:22:41
take her a while to top that one. It will. It will. I think

00:22:44
she's realised that she hasn't done much diving recently.

00:22:49
Matt Waters: Yeah, but I mean, like, say on the on the

00:22:51
biodiversity side if we we could example that down in Javas bay

00:22:56
or even more locally. Shelly Beach? Yes. generally get I'll

00:23:01
jump in there with a wide angle lens every every time or the

00:23:05
steps that canals that however, I got somewhere like chatter Bay

00:23:09
and we're macro time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't

00:23:12
even bother with wide angle. However, you can see large rays

00:23:16
Graham Willis: there. You do quite often. Some missing a

00:23:19
towel. Yeah, that stump has been around a long time,

00:23:22
Matt Waters: a long time. And I don't know, I will do those

00:23:25
things go.

00:23:26
Graham Willis: I honestly don't know. But that that one's been

00:23:29
around certainly for eight or nine years at least, and

00:23:34
possibly quite possibly a lot longer than that. But certainly

00:23:37
I'm aware of over that over that period of time. Be fair to say

00:23:40
it scares the bejesus out of new diving.

00:23:44
Matt Waters: It made me double take when I was down there as

00:23:46
well. It was my first second dive down there to three major

00:23:49
fairs and just saw that movement out that peripheral vision and

00:23:54
by Christ he was close

00:23:57
Graham Willis: just sweeping amongst the amongst the pilings

00:23:59
there and off it goes. But again the as you say the diversity

00:24:03
Yes, it's a macro site definitely. But again, you get

00:24:07
some of the warmer species come down there as well. You suddenly

00:24:12
find something you go Hang on. I didn't know you got ghosts pipe

00:24:16
fishy. Yeah, example. And normally you don't but

00:24:20
occasionally do

00:24:22
Matt Waters: Did you see those photos that salvo got them? So I

00:24:24
did? Yeah, I had a chat with Sal. Where he got a big shout

00:24:27
out to him as well as just wanna photography award he has

00:24:30
Graham Willis: done tremendously well. I think it took about two

00:24:32
or three awards out. Yeah, it's been greedy

00:24:34
Matt Waters: about bloody time as well. Yeah, I five Silva well

00:24:39
done, son. Now you've given me two bucks, which I'm very

00:24:44
grateful for and we've written on the inside I'll read that

00:24:47
later. But the marine species guide so what's the what was the

00:24:52
former head of dye the dive spots come first and marine

00:24:54
species second.

00:24:55
Graham Willis: So the marine species Guide is a second or

00:24:57
third edition might be third edition actually. So Yohanna had

00:25:01
put that together. And so look, why don't we sort of, you know,

00:25:05
update that I think it'll take. It'll take us a couple of days

00:25:08
to do that. And I, I had a good look at it. And I went, right,

00:25:11
it's not a couple of days to do that there's that, you know, we

00:25:14
need to, it's not just New South Wales fish, nor is it meant to

00:25:18
be looking at coelacanth on page, I think 53 or whatever,

00:25:22
it'll probably tell you that. It is a broader look at marine

00:25:27
species. But I thought it was just interesting, because it's

00:25:30
pretty simple. And you look at the pen and ink drawing above

00:25:34
it, and you go, why would you use that, but actually to

00:25:37
identify fish, by some of the key features and shape rather

00:25:41
than by colour can be pretty useful. Sometimes the

00:25:45
photographs are very helpful, sometimes they're not quite so

00:25:47
helpful. And then just a basic part about the habitat and lost

00:25:52
on where you can find them what they can grow. So I thought it

00:25:54
was a simple guide, that I was happy to help update and also

00:26:02
include more species that we find in Australia. And because

00:26:04
it was originally put together in South Africa, and change out

00:26:08
some of those things. And some of the orders and Genesis had

00:26:12
changed as they do as scientists shuffle, fish around and

00:26:16
nudibranchs around into different given different names

00:26:19
again, so some of the stuff had changed. So it was a good

00:26:21
opportunity for me again, to dive into an area no pun

00:26:24
intended, that, that I'm always interested in, but can always

00:26:28
learn so much more about in terms of species and those sort

00:26:31
of things. So that was the opportunity

00:26:33
Matt Waters: is one of the prime things as well, you never stop

00:26:35
learning when you're looking in the water.

00:26:37
Graham Willis: Absolutely. And that and that is part of it,

00:26:40
whether it be diving and what you do in diving last week,

00:26:45
you're talking with Jeff about technical diving and some of

00:26:47
those components. And there's always more you can do and learn

00:26:50
if that's what you wish to do. But equally, it's I suppose

00:26:55
technically, it's not unlimited, the number of species and stuff

00:26:59
out there, but there's more than I will ever see in my lifetime.

00:27:01
And there's always stuff that we're learning about them.

00:27:04
There's all stuff that we can do to help protect the oceans and

00:27:07
what we're seeing on a day to day basis, because I think we're

00:27:09
privileged to see that, and I hope we continue to see it but

00:27:13
as a race we're doing we're doing our level best to

00:27:15
eliminate I think large components of the Yeah, of the

00:27:19
fish life out there. Unfortunate

00:27:21
Matt Waters: Good job Akaka now,

00:27:21
Graham Willis: yeah,

00:27:23
Matt Waters: I find that I think we've got to kind of view it now

00:27:25
as we've kind of bolstered up, but and it's going to get worse.

00:27:31
But if we can do our very best to slow that rate. Yeah. I mean,

00:27:34
that's the best we can aim for at the moment. Me personally.

00:27:37
Graham Willis: Yeah, I think well, an example would be

00:27:39
humpbacks, for example, you know, we hunted them to near

00:27:42
extinction, Blue was exactly the same. And then there's a

00:27:45
moratorium on whaling for the vast majority of countries in

00:27:48
the world. Japan's really, for political reasons, to be honest,

00:27:52
the young people really don't eat well made. I spent some time

00:27:56
in Japan, and then just not interested, but you still have

00:27:58
the shops for a while, because it's government supported.

00:28:02
Hopefully, they'll they'll come on board too. However, that

00:28:06
aside, the moratorium on whaling has meant that the Whale numbers

00:28:10
have reached now healthy levels in some species really quite

00:28:15
quickly. humpbacks being being probably the best of those, but

00:28:19
I noticed that the blue Whale numbers are increasing markedly

00:28:23
as well, Southern Lights, I don't know enough about monkeys,

00:28:27
I think we're also on the Whale. And that's great. So it can it

00:28:30
can change, and it can change reasonably quickly. And by that

00:28:35
I mean 10 or 1520 years, not two or three. But you're right,

00:28:39
small things that we can do either to slow down the rate of

00:28:43
change, whether that be climate change, or just overfishing in

00:28:46
many cases. I mean, shark finning, for example. Just

00:28:48
ridiculous behaviour. Anything we can do to stop that or slow

00:28:54
that down, I think is of value.

00:28:57
Matt Waters: Well, we can get the Australian politicians to

00:28:59
pull the next and the drum lines out of the water. For starters,

00:29:01
Graham Willis: I completely agree with that.

00:29:04
Matt Waters: Completely with any opportunity to get that one in

00:29:06
there. Oh, well,

00:29:07
Graham Willis: yeah. If you'd like me to second it. I'll

00:29:09
second it. Yeah, go on. Yeah.

00:29:12
Matt Waters: Cool. So what's the third book? What's next car?

00:29:17
Graham Willis: Well, if you want a couple 1000 copies, I've got

00:29:19
them at home. So I'd like to try and move this. These out. First.

00:29:25
COVID has slowed. Not only this down, but obviously the whole

00:29:28
industry down. Luckily, it doesn't really go out of date.

00:29:33
Some of the details about a service station being open might

00:29:35
be out of date, but the actual dive sites don't go out of date.

00:29:39
And that's why we haven't also listed operators and those sort

00:29:41
of things in there because unfortunately, they do change.

00:29:43
Yes, they come and go. We certainly say go and talk to

00:29:48
your local dive off right there are the best people to talk to

00:29:51
about a dive site if you want to die. Don't rely on this. Don't

00:29:54
just rely on feddans guide as well. Go and talk to your local

00:29:59
doctor. Shopping use them. And funnily enough, you'll have a

00:30:02
dive industry for a while, if you buy everything online at the

00:30:06
lowest price from overseas, you're not going to have a local

00:30:08
dive industry.

00:30:09
Matt Waters: And that that's a very good point. And the other

00:30:12
thing I wanted to bring in as well as having a physical book,

00:30:16
it, there's something special about having somebody you can

00:30:18
even refer you can refer to, and I don't know whether it's born

00:30:21
out of me doing a lot of Liveaboards or, or been tripped

00:30:26
later, or that kind of thing. Having a library of books there

00:30:29
that you can actually sit after a dive and find the fish that

00:30:32
you've been down and viewed. And, and if for those old people

00:30:36
who like to log what they've seen. I say old people, yeah,

00:30:41
well, but I still love it. I still Yeah, anything new that I

00:30:44
say I like to make a note of it. And if I'm lucky enough to get a

00:30:47
photograph as well, it's a bonus. But to have a book to go

00:30:50
through rather than just being yet another moment of jumping

00:30:53
onto Google. Everyone seems to jump on the bandwagon of let's

00:30:58
jump on Facebook and ask the question of what this is, well

00:31:01
grab a book and have a look.

00:31:03
Graham Willis: Well, that's right. It is, you know, I don't

00:31:05
I don't but when I see people, or does anyone know goods dive

00:31:08
site, I'll get there's a really good book out that will tell you

00:31:10
that. Yeah. And if you do basic homework, you'll find that on

00:31:14
Michael site, for example, don't talk to your local dive shop,

00:31:17
you'll find out so there's absolutely a place for the for

00:31:20
the community as well, to help because I think the committee is

00:31:22
pretty helpful. When you put something out there where the

00:31:25
people lose something, or they're asking a question about

00:31:27
it. People are keen, keen to help. And I think that's great

00:31:30
as a community personally, and maybe it's because I'm old

00:31:32
fashioned. I'd pick up a book and have a leaf through it. Oh,

00:31:36
what if we went from here to here? What does that look like?

00:31:40
And I think a bookstore has its place, chuck it in the glove

00:31:43
box, you know, you're heading down to where you were up at

00:31:46
Palm Beach. You said? So if you're heading north, okay,

00:31:49
where should I go? I can I nip into Nelson Bay, what happens if

00:31:52
I go there? The only downside? Oh, yeah, three or four?

00:31:54
Fantastic, you know, and then talk to the local dive shop as

00:31:58
well. So again, it doesn't replace that. But I've got a

00:32:04
library full of books about diving and fish ID and teaching

00:32:12
and all of those components hyperbaric medicine, because

00:32:15
it's interesting. Yes, I can probably jump online and get an

00:32:20
article on it. But it's all in one place for me. Yeah.

00:32:24
Matt Waters: And you know, six 610 12 months down the line, you

00:32:27
want to refer back to that article? Chances are, you're not

00:32:30
going to know where you found it online.

00:32:31
Graham Willis: I can't find anything on Facebook about 10

00:32:33
seconds after I've looked at Zoom Zooms off into the basic

00:32:38
find the one I wanted.

00:32:40
Matt Waters: Yeah, they want me doing that there.

00:32:43
Graham Willis: I'm going well, you do need number one. Did you?

00:32:46
I'd like to do would you? Like I'll just reach into my magic

00:32:49
pot. Yeah, he's holding the Coulee box at the moment. There

00:32:53
we go. Thank you very much, sir. I'm doing too much talking. Not

00:32:56
enough drinking. Right. You carry well, I shouldn't mix

00:32:59
diving and drinking.

00:33:01
Matt Waters: It's it's actually it's really nice. To be to be

00:33:06
coming into the studio. And talking to someone face to face

00:33:11
instead of over the internet. Yeah. And predominantly because

00:33:16
of all the crazy lockdowns that we've had here in Sydney and

00:33:19
well, all of Australia. Were there, isn't it? Yeah. So yeah.

00:33:23
Graham Willis: Again, there's a place there's a place for that

00:33:25
medium and allows us to reach people in places that we

00:33:27
wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. Yeah. So there's a plus

00:33:30
to that. But again, I prefer the contact when you said Oh, should

00:33:33
we do this over zoom? And I'm in studio. Yeah.

00:33:37
Matt Waters: Was it? Was it because I said sure. Yeah, we'll

00:33:38
just because I said we could have a beer as well.

00:33:41
Graham Willis: That might have been sorry. Yeah. Okay. I just

00:33:43
omitted that piece here.

00:33:46
Matt Waters: Okay, so dive spots. I want to know, what is

00:33:51
your favourite dive spot of New South Wales?

00:33:55
Graham Willis: Well, whatever I say I'm gonna be in trouble

00:33:57
here. So yeah. Fair enough. Um, the place I'd I'd pick is is

00:34:06
probably Jervis Bay. And the reason I picked Jervis Bay is

00:34:10
because there is such a variety of spots there. Yeah. Pretty

00:34:17
much any weather you can get out in, not always but 99 times out

00:34:23
of 100. You can get out there isn't spectacular dives there

00:34:26
with the seal colonies, both north and south. You've got a

00:34:29
couple of accessible wrecks there. You've got grey nurse

00:34:33
there. You've got a really wide variety of sea life, and just a

00:34:41
fantastic set of sea cliffs and things which are just brilliant

00:34:45
topography, and then you've got the added attraction of the

00:34:47
whales. Yes. And certainly the die. The dive operation down

00:34:51
there died Jervis Bay has has no access yet has a licence to take

00:34:57
people out so they can swim. With the whales. And that's

00:35:02
fantastic as well. But if you're lucky enough to see them diving

00:35:05
like I explained my daughter and I did, it's like, well, what can

00:35:07
top that? As a single dive site? Would it be the best dive?

00:35:13
single site? No, I don't think so. But if you say well, there's

00:35:17
70 or 80 dive spots that you can go to within a within the one

00:35:22
area you go. That's, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's

00:35:26
pretty.

00:35:27
Matt Waters: What jazz my missus and I, we went down to Jabesh

00:35:32
it's gotta be gotta be 1011 months ago now. And we are made

00:35:38
contact with Su Newson from Chris diving. And she operates

00:35:42
however, she's got her operation at the back of our house there.

00:35:44
Yeah, yeah, I was. I didn't, I looked a little bit Javis. But I

00:35:49
didn't pay particularly too much attention when I was doing my

00:35:52
research before going because I knew it was a good location. But

00:35:54
a mate that lives down there. He says he's great. Cool. We're

00:35:57
going to come down and dive in. Yeah. And it was only when I met

00:35:59
Sue and picked up the tanks. And I could see she's decorated the

00:36:03
floor of her dive operation right with a design that shows

00:36:09
the dive sites on it. It's so many that there are I mean, it

00:36:13
was it was lovely. I mean, we only went off one of the very

00:36:16
basic ones homes beach. Yeah, I just have a splash about I think

00:36:19
Jazza just got a new wetsuit, awesome. Tento doing all that.

00:36:23
But it was lovely. Absolutely lovely. And we can't wait to go

00:36:27
again.

00:36:27
Graham Willis: Yeah, there's not there's not so many shore dives

00:36:29
there Himes is is certainly one of the mottos is another one.

00:36:33
Yeah. But there's always there's always somewhere to go. And the

00:36:37
diving, I think can be pretty good. So I think is a

00:36:41
concentrated in an area. That that would that would be my

00:36:46
pick. Because of variety. If you sit down and you can't do that.

00:36:50
You can only have one site,

00:36:52
Matt Waters: this one site.

00:36:59
Graham Willis: It's either one site, Southwest rocks, or Julian

00:37:06
rocks.

00:37:07
Matt Waters: Okay, I've not done one of those. That's Byron Bay,

00:37:10
isn't it? Yeah, yes, yes.

00:37:15
Graham Willis: But both of them can be spectacular. On their

00:37:18
day, both of them are a little ride out. Junior rocks is a

00:37:21
little bit closer, obviously, than surface rocks. So that can

00:37:25
be pretty skimpy. If the conditions are poor, then it's

00:37:27
not a good dive, and so on and so forth. But on that day, they

00:37:30
are spectacular. And that's not meant to diss a whole load of

00:37:33
other good dive sites. It's like, you know, North rocket,

00:37:36
Broughton Island is a brilliant site. Looking Glass is a

00:37:39
brilliant site, as well. So there really are some very good

00:37:43
sites around but if you said okay, well, you could pick one

00:37:45
or two that regularly and turns it on. I pick. I pick two you

00:37:51
see not one. Yeah,

00:37:52
Matt Waters: yeah. Yeah, I like Julian rocks. I like Southwest

00:37:55
rocks as well. Yes. Yeah. There's only there's only two

00:37:58
operators out southwest rocks isn't

00:37:59
Graham Willis: correct. No, I was there. Three weeks ago. Yeah.

00:38:04
Matt Waters: Which one? Which one? Did you die with?

00:38:07
Graham Willis: Se rock star centre? Yeah. And those boys

00:38:10
have been doing that for a long time Pete in the other places

00:38:13
that used to work but frog dive as well. So yeah, him as well.

00:38:17
But the other one has accommodation upstairs and it's

00:38:20
fairly reasonable accommodation. So you're also in a situation if

00:38:23
you have to cancel because it is weather dependent. Yes. If you

00:38:25
have to cancel then they have to cancel their own accommodation.

00:38:30
If you know what I mean. If you go outside for accommodation,

00:38:32
well, you might want to lose that kind of stuff. So just

00:38:35
little things like that make a difference. I think

00:38:38
Matt Waters: we did. We did Byron Bay Chilean rocks last

00:38:41
year. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably 14 months ago now.

00:38:44
Graham Willis: Okay, in some good, some for a small set of

00:38:48
rocks, some quite different dive sites around it and everything

00:38:54
from a more beginner science of tour 40 metres sandy bottom,

00:39:00
always plenty of turtles around. Normally a lot of showing fish

00:39:04
can get mantas there as well on the pinnacles. So it but

00:39:11
greyness and leopards, and lipids, they're all zebras,

00:39:14
since we want to call them swimming. And yeah, well of

00:39:19
course that's doing a lot of places like in Mozambique, but

00:39:23
they're not they're sitting on the bottom. Yeah. But a genuine

00:39:28
rocks. They're moving around. And I think again, spectacular

00:39:32
animals completely unconcerned about you. Just gently flopping

00:39:37
around. Be interesting to see him take off with that massive

00:39:41
tail of those that makes them like a thresher. Which I hadn't

00:39:44
seen them do of any move quite slowly, but I'm sure they can

00:39:47
move quite fast. And then the greyness during the wintertime.

00:39:51
Yeah, in many numbers.

00:39:53
Matt Waters: Why I saw arguably the largest greenhouse I've ever

00:39:57
seen a Chilean rocks, and she was clearly not bothered by

00:40:00
divers, whatever. Another pretty crap when I saw it anyway, but I

00:40:05
was right up in a nose and she was,

00:40:07
Graham Willis: I think people who don't, I'm sure you've heard

00:40:09
this but people who don't dive, think you're absolutely nuts

00:40:12
going looking for sharks. Whereas I think the people who

00:40:16
do dive a bit odd are looking quite often for sharks and we

00:40:21
known some greyness Labradors of the sea, and they've just off

00:40:26
they go and, and they're quite skittish. So if you move

00:40:29
quickly, or do a sudden movement, that you'll hear that

00:40:31
crack of the tail on you, and they'll be off. They'll come

00:40:34
back, but they'll take a little while to come back. So it's not

00:40:37
a case of them jumping on yet. I mean, they're curious, I think,

00:40:41
which is why they come up so close as well. But I've never

00:40:45
I'm respectful of them. And I've never done anything stupid and

00:40:48
trying to touch them or anything silly like that. But they're

00:40:54
very comfortable to come within a metre, half a metre, for sure.

00:41:00
Yeah, I mean, that shot on the front of the book is that

00:41:03
Broughton island that's at North rock, wide angle lens. That

00:41:07
puppy is half a metre from us. Yeah,

00:41:09
Matt Waters: yeah. I got I got a similar shot. But it's all

00:41:12
blurred out, right? Because I think it was it was the

00:41:15
cathedral at Halliwell shall South Africa. And she came over

00:41:21
the top. And just a little feel, shall we say of my strobe,

00:41:29
right. So once you realise it was something that was solid and

00:41:32
plastic, it was kind of a crack at the tail, she was off bang,

00:41:36
just at the same time as I press the shutter.

00:41:40
Graham Willis: But I remember that day that particular shot

00:41:42
was taken, brought in Ireland, and the visibility was just

00:41:47
magical. It was a good 2530 metres visibility. And I've got

00:41:52
a shot there that we counted 27 Sharks and really, it was just

00:41:56
fantastic. Just fantastic.

00:41:58
Matt Waters: So we were unlucky because we were gonna do

00:42:01
Broughton island on the way back down from Byron, but the weather

00:42:05
turned, so there was no way we were going to get out of there.

00:42:08
Graham Willis: We did a dive trip, ma'am. My buddy Matthew,

00:42:12
and, and Barb was with us as well. Up north and we were doing

00:42:16
solitary with Southeast rock solitary islands, etc. We begin

00:42:19
to HMS Brisbane up to wharf rocking back. And as we went up,

00:42:23
it's like one of those tour T shirts, you know, South rocks,

00:42:27
cancelled HMS prison Castle, Wolf rock cancel. For goodness

00:42:32
sake, weather was pretty dreadful. So we had to do a bit

00:42:35
bit of rearranging. But we still had, you know, we probably got

00:42:39
11 or 12 dives in but in a slightly different order and not

00:42:42
all the ones we wanted. But it was you know, weather dependent

00:42:46
on a load of those things. So things like pimpinella Rock out

00:42:50
north of the solid trees well north of the salt trees. I must

00:42:55
have been up four or five times to try and dive that. Not yet.

00:42:58
Matt Waters: What's the attraction to that one because

00:43:00
that's a that's a name I've not heard before.

00:43:01
Graham Willis: It's it's in the middle of pretty much nowhere. I

00:43:04
think it's 40 metre type dive. So you need to be a bit more

00:43:08
experienced on getting it and extremely weather dependent and

00:43:11
you need a full boat to get there. So yeah, I definitely

00:43:15
want to do that. We'll be trying it again. In March. We which

00:43:20
might not be the best time but this time we've got so we'll see

00:43:24
if we can get there but otherwise no Socrates fantastic.

00:43:27
You know, the enemies they're just an enemy Bay's. reputedly

00:43:32
the highest density of enemies anywhere in the world. I think

00:43:36
the work experience kid got to count the money, I'm not sure.

00:43:40
And fish soup as well. Again, there's some really good good

00:43:42
dives there. So if you can't do it, you go. Okay, fair enough.

00:43:45
But but there's there's pretty special diving there anyway.

00:43:48
Yeah, yeah. So there's always There's always more places to

00:43:50
die. Oh, more places to dive.

00:43:54
Matt Waters: Are you are you going to? You're going to extend

00:43:58
beyond New South Wales?

00:44:00
Graham Willis: Well, I don't. I think if there was another book,

00:44:06
it would possibly be sort of top 10 dive sites in each state. I

00:44:10
think that's what I would do rather than pretend I could put

00:44:14
together a book for Victoria. I couldn't I dived in Victoria

00:44:18
shore but don't really know the dive spots. Good excuse to go

00:44:22
down for three or four months. I think my my wife might not be

00:44:26
amused by that but good excuse to do that. Ensure you could you

00:44:31
know, use the local knowledge and talk to people there and do

00:44:33
it. I don't think it's quite the same. So unlikely to do that. My

00:44:37
experience in South Australia says there's some cracking

00:44:39
diving there but possibly quite a short book if you really talk

00:44:43
to people. Yeah, there. Yes. You've got the the leafy sea

00:44:49
dragons which are phenomenal. We've got HMS Hobart you've,

00:44:52
you've got the sinkholes, Yuans, ponds and Kilsby and things like

00:44:56
that, which are pretty good, but there's large areas of Have Not

00:45:00
a lot. Yeah. You've got the kettle of fish and wildlife for

00:45:04
that period of time. So we were lucky enough to do that this

00:45:06
year. We did really great whites, and then came back and

00:45:10
we did wireless Shut up. And then we did rapid buy for the

00:45:14
for the leaf ease.

00:45:15
Matt Waters: You weren't on the same boat as Don Silcock Weir.

00:45:17
Graham Willis: I wasn't no thank God for that. No, no, he

00:45:20
Matt Waters: went, he said, I'm going to go down and do Romney

00:45:21
Fox and I'm going to go into the cuttlefish. And, lo and behold,

00:45:25
Libby Sterling, a mate of mine from Queensland, he was on the

00:45:27
same boat was right.

00:45:29
Graham Willis: No, no, we weren't. And we were lucky

00:45:31
because not only were we lucky with COVID because we just

00:45:34
managed to keep slightly ahead of it. Yeah. But the trip before

00:45:39
us had been cancelled due to rough weather three major seas,

00:45:41
so we were lucky to get it in the seas were half a metre a

00:45:45
metre, nothing. We had great whites on every dive, so

00:45:49
everyone got them, which was great. So really enjoyed that. I

00:45:53
thought the cuttlefish were amazing. And just so accessible

00:45:58
for everyone. snorkelers

00:46:00
Matt Waters: was a did you find a lot of divers at the dive site?

00:46:04
Graham Willis: No. Now we were, we were midweek. Okay. So

00:46:08
deliberately. Yeah. The weekends were a bit hectic. So So again,

00:46:14
talking to people who were there at the weekend, they said Allah

00:46:16
cows were. were everywhere. Yeah, but there's enough for

00:46:20
everyone. I mean, there's any. I think this year the numbers were

00:46:23
down. 220. What? Previous Year 250. So unfortunately,

00:46:30
they reintroduced commercial fishing. Yeah. of them. They

00:46:33
protected them. numbers went up there. Oh, there you go.

00:46:35
Everything's peachy now. Yeah, funnily enough. I've done a

00:46:39
year. I'm sure there's no correlation. So no, we went we

00:46:44
were lucky enough to be able to go midweek again with my mate,

00:46:47
Matthew and Andrew. And it was just obvious we did four dives.

00:46:52
All of all of five metres of water. No deeper than that.

00:46:55
Yeah, kind of run out at five or six metres. And you might think

00:47:00
you're gonna see cuttlefish every dive. But the behaviour is

00:47:03
just fascinating. Yeah, and this is this thing about every time

00:47:06
you go down, you see something different you go. I've never

00:47:08
seen that before. I've seen cuttlefish. But I haven't seen

00:47:11
that sort of behaviour before. And they were fascinating. So we

00:47:13
did four days on enjoyed every single one. Again, lucky with

00:47:16
the conditions and thought yet tick that box. Beautiful On we

00:47:21
go. And I would do that again. Really, I would actually do that

00:47:24
again. I thought it was so different, and so accessible,

00:47:27
that I would go

00:47:28
Matt Waters: yep. Would you do it with a long snorkel and some

00:47:31
weights? No,

00:47:32
Graham Willis: I'd take the tank, because again, with the

00:47:35
end, I remember you talking about this with the free divers

00:47:37
like well, okay, you want to get down and take a shot on but I

00:47:40
can reposition it, I can wait, I can see what's happening, I can

00:47:44
see what the males are doing in terms of a bit of a dance off

00:47:47
with each other, you know, protecting the female and the

00:47:50
female, no sneak off over here, and so on and so forth. So

00:47:54
absolutely, you can snorkel and see it all I think you just get

00:47:57
a different level of appreciation if you're just

00:48:01
sitting there pretty much on the bottom, just looking at what's

00:48:03
going on for an hour and a half. Because it's is not the issue.

00:48:07
Yeah. But take your dry suit. You take it

00:48:12
Matt Waters: I'm an advocate of the high like just positioning

00:48:15
yourself somewhere and let the the sea life do its thing around

00:48:19
you. And if you're if you're lucky enough to see something

00:48:22
nice than you do. And invariably, you are lucky enough

00:48:26
if you're patient and your weight works a tree.

00:48:29
Graham Willis: I agree. I mean, when you see divers, I guess

00:48:33
each their own who are basically charging around everywhere. Yes,

00:48:36
I know they are missing so much. Now they're covering more ground

00:48:40
than me big deal. I never do that. I'm a potter. And make no

00:48:47
apologies for it. Because you see a lot see a lot more. And I

00:48:51
think as a as someone who's keen on the photography side of it.

00:48:55
It pays to slow down. Yeah,

00:48:57
Matt Waters: for sure. It's too slow. Yeah. I've lost count of

00:49:00
how many times I've been on, you know, around the world. And

00:49:03
people come up from a diving i Did you see the turtle? Yeah.

00:49:07
Oh, what about the X fish? You saw that as well? Did you see

00:49:12
the lady Bronk? Did you see the Yeah. The scorpion fish? Did you

00:49:15
see the you know, Indian water? And you know, they miss

00:49:19
everything. Just because they're going too fast.

00:49:21
Graham Willis: I think when you start diving, if it isn't a

00:49:24
metre long, you don't see it. So it's like, Did you see the

00:49:29
octopus? No, because they're beautifully camouflage? Because

00:49:33
I think as you dive more, you see stuff smaller and smaller

00:49:35
and smaller. Yeah. And then when you get into macro photography,

00:49:39
see the small stuff on top of the small stuff? Yeah. So you

00:49:43
see the Emperor shrimp on top of the sea urchin, whereas

00:49:46
previously, it's never been there. Of course, it's been

00:49:48
there. You just haven't seen it. So I think, again, it's one of

00:49:53
those things. I think one's diving keeps evolving. Yes. As

00:49:59
you get more experience Ashworth

00:50:00
Matt Waters: I can't remember I like to give the boys a shout

00:50:02
out for those that get the, the photography moments and there

00:50:06
was one that was recently posted enough, sorry, whoever you are

00:50:09
going to be named. But there was a photo of a Wobbegong. And it

00:50:13
was only in post taking shots and going through his his photo

00:50:17
reel that he saw a nudibranch sat on the forehead of this

00:50:20
bobbin

00:50:22
Graham Willis: I've done that numerous times I've gone back

00:50:24
through processing stuff have gone. Oh, didn't see that. I

00:50:27
wish I had at the time, I would have taken a different shot. So

00:50:30
even even though you're going slowly, just slow down even more

00:50:32
and have a good look. Yeah. And can you please you know, and

00:50:36
keep up to date with the focal quality of the glass in your

00:50:40
mouth. That's a big bonus too. If you haven't got up to three

00:50:43
correcting glass in your in your mask and you need glasses. Do

00:50:48
it. I know it's 400 bucks or so. But it's worth every cent of it.

00:50:51
Matt Waters: Yeah, there's a funny side I was talking to I'm

00:50:55
rubbish with names today. The company that does the lenses

00:50:59
down in. I think it's done in South Australia. But I have a

00:51:04
good old knit and natter on the phone with a woman because

00:51:06
obviously I've got glasses for reading. And I've noticed over

00:51:09
the last 1214 months where I can clearly see the back of my

00:51:15
camera. So I'm taking photos, but I'm not entirely sure that

00:51:18
they're in focus. Yeah. And as the eyes get worse, I've into

00:51:23
try glasses on the outside of the lenses by various ways. And

00:51:26
it's worked when they were just going to go. But now that I need

00:51:30
a glass for for reading all the time. I need to get the glass in

00:51:35
the land in the eye.

00:51:36
Graham Willis: I think once you do it, you'll go I wish I'd done

00:51:39
that a while ago. Yeah, yeah, it really do. Now unfortunately, I

00:51:42
have to keep changing it because your eyes will keep getting

00:51:44
worse. Sorry. Yeah. But worth it. It really is the amount of

00:51:48
diving you do. It's just makes all the difference. Yeah,

00:51:51
Matt Waters: we're gonna get it done. I think I think the missus

00:51:53
is gonna buy in for me for me, but for my Christmas present, is

00:51:56
it there's a Christmas present? Yeah, excellent. We do that once

00:51:59
a year. That's all right. I know what's coming. It timing with

00:52:03
the eyes game.

00:52:03
Graham Willis: So there is I mean there is one in in dy oz

00:52:07
Bob. Yeah. Who did mine done a couple of sets for for me I

00:52:11
don't know if he's personally is retired he would close to that.

00:52:15
But it's a proper opticians business, and they probably

00:52:18
continued it. So it's probably worth look at.

00:52:19
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I was interested fine as well, that

00:52:23
because I was always under the illusion that it was a very

00:52:26
limited amount of mask frames that you could get the Glasper

00:52:30
into. But I was drastically wrong. They can put it in so

00:52:34
many a variety of frames now.

00:52:36
Graham Willis: Some are easier for them than others. Yeah, but

00:52:39
it's not saying you can fit it to everything. But pretty much

00:52:43
you'd be unlucky. If you had a normal mask, you'd be unlucky if

00:52:47
they couldn't fit it, too. Yeah,

00:52:48
Matt Waters: yeah. Well, it's one I used to sell a lot in

00:52:50
Thailand was the freedom seals one and they've got them on the

00:52:54
list. So I might actually jump on the on the back of that and

00:52:57
get one of those with. What's What's your

00:53:01
Graham Willis: god knows only you can say that. Well, I've got

00:53:04
I've got a Hollis mask, which is really nice and soft as well.

00:53:09
But if you said what is it like go? I don't know. Yeah. And it's

00:53:13
interesting. Again, that one, you know, some people are really

00:53:15
into the tech side. And the tech side of it. Oh, yeah. Have you

00:53:18
got the X Y Zed with the new? free flying x y Zed? What is it

00:53:23
again? I have no clue. You know, do I have a good regulator? That

00:53:27
works? Yeah, do I see and it works fine. Is it something

00:53:30
better? Probably. But this works fine. Yeah. So I'm not a gear

00:53:35
for me. Yeah.

00:53:36
Matt Waters: Jeff asked me on the last episode, because we're

00:53:38
looking at the cover off. And he's like, how was that mask?

00:53:41
I'm like, I column. I can't remember the model. Yeah, I

00:53:46
couldn't tell you now.

00:53:47
Graham Willis: Well, one of the Corrections is nice. Yannick

00:53:49
mouse, but I've also got a holiday as a backup as well. So

00:53:51
yeah, but if you said which was Yeah, yeah.

00:53:57
Matt Waters: Almost Jeff got on the shelf for a shadow or a mini

00:53:59
shadow or something like that.

00:54:01
Graham Willis: Who knows? Yeah. So I can give a shout out to

00:54:04
Nick. But not, but not a specific one. I'm sorry, I got

00:54:08
your busy days as well. Which was which are fine. But look,

00:54:12
there's always There's always new stuff coming out. There's

00:54:15
always different stuff. There's stuff that looks smart. And as

00:54:18
you know, sometimes you're looking at people they've got

00:54:21
every piece of gear going and you and you're looking at them

00:54:24
on the way out going. Not sure you know to use that then yeah,

00:54:28
yeah. And in fact, I might have to keep an eye on you know,

00:54:32
you've got all the good items and shots and it's expensive. But

00:54:36
Matt Waters: yeah, that's the thing people eat. You know, you

00:54:39
can have all the money in the world and buy all the good

00:54:41
stuff, but if you don't know how to use it, yeah, it's a bloody

00:54:44
dangerous thing to be doing.

00:54:46
Graham Willis: Yeah, it is. I did have a person no names no

00:54:50
petrol but going out to do deep course and beautiful gear. but

00:55:02
actually couldn't even assemble it. Really? I'm going on, okay,

00:55:07
when we last in the water, and have you actually ever used to

00:55:10
go, you know, I've used this I've done a lot of diving, okay,

00:55:13
fine. And then also suggested that they might wish to take a

00:55:18
seasickness topics is a bit choppy. And we had to go out for

00:55:21
2025 minutes to get a bit of depth and back again, but

00:55:25
decided that that wasn't appropriate. So funnily enough,

00:55:30
didn't do any diving had a dreadful period of in the boat

00:55:33
whilst we're all diving. Throwing up feeding the fish

00:55:38
came back and again, I said, Well, you know, next time, Tiger

00:55:41
sees it and stuff, but he said, I don't get seasick. Okay, what?

00:55:46
Whatever you think? So all the gear no idea.

00:55:50
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. That's in a few in the past. Yeah, I've

00:55:53
actually. Yeah, I did actually put a customer on the boat and

00:56:00
banned them from diving for their own safety before. It's

00:56:04
only one time I've ever done it. But much, much the same. Too

00:56:07
much money. Not enough sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's not saying

00:56:10
that people out there with too much money. I've got no sense at

00:56:12
all.

00:56:13
Graham Willis: No, no, no, I just know, be happy to have more

00:56:15
money. And trade off a bit of sense. Maybe. That's not where

00:56:22
we are at the moment. But yeah, it's just interesting at all,

00:56:26
all types. You've seen hundreds 1000s of people that you were

00:56:30
teaching to dive and there's the people who are just nervous and

00:56:33
talking all the time. There's people with dead quiet and

00:56:35
nervous. There's the people, you know, own all the bits in

00:56:38
between. There's people who tell you how good they are, and how

00:56:39
much time and they've already done and they're on their own

00:56:42
water. And it's possible. But,

00:56:45
Matt Waters: you know, there's a there's a mate of mine. I'm

00:56:48
laughing just thinking of him now. Dino Jenkins, little Welsh

00:56:52
fella. Lovely fella. But as soon as someone starts to mention

00:56:56
numbers, right? I can just picture in his head now going

00:56:59
on? No, you didn't just mention numbers.

00:57:07
But it's funny you say about assembling equipment, because

00:57:10
one of the main mons complaints that I used to get in Papua New

00:57:17
Guinea was because it was a rather lush resort, people had

00:57:20
money. So they came expecting everything to be done for them.

00:57:25
And if it was their first dive with us, I would insist that

00:57:29
they set up their own equipment, so that we can check their

00:57:32
knowledge of the equipment and then the procedures. And it was

00:57:35
always the more well off people that moaned because they've not

00:57:39
done it for years, and probably wanted to avoid embarrassment,

00:57:43
but actually embarrassed themselves more. Whereas those

00:57:46
people that had clearly saved many years to go to a nice

00:57:49
location. Yes. All over it like a drunk puncher. Yeah.

00:57:52
Graham Willis: Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting that you know, that

00:57:55
part as an instructor, isn't it all divemaster or whatever. The

00:57:59
role is just assessing that human behaviour and what you can

00:58:03
do to help yourself, and also, whoever it is you're leading,

00:58:08
not get into a spot of bother, even if they're not willing to

00:58:11
accept the help sometimes. Yes. So

00:58:14
Matt Waters: yeah, it's I'm sure you've seen it Gareth. Lock on a

00:58:19
while ago, or quite a while ago now. Yeah, animate is. There's

00:58:23
buddy up in Newcastle on the last week, who is focusing on

00:58:30
human factors. And he's a, he's a pilot himself, military pilot.

00:58:35
And we got into the realms of talking about safety of diving,

00:58:38
etc, etc. And I think there's the scope for and I hope we say

00:58:41
in our lifetime, that, you know, the safety element gets

00:58:45
increased even more. Glock can't help feeling it has been a

00:58:48
little bit of a drop in it. Due to, you know, having to try and

00:58:54
get the customers through the door to make a coin. Yeah, yeah.

00:58:57
And corners get cut, but those corners get cut. So many times

00:59:01
there, it becomes the norm. So I think the norm might need a bit

00:59:04
of a reset. And that might upset a few people when they hear it.

00:59:07
Yeah, but it's just my it's my opinion. Yeah. I mean, you can't

00:59:11
you can't falter on safety.

00:59:12
Graham Willis: I agree. And we're lucky. Oh, it's an active

00:59:17
decision. Frog diver that we don't run eight to one. Ever.

00:59:22
Yeah. Which is good, because I'm not teaching it to one. Yeah, I

00:59:28
just refuse to do I just don't believe certainly in our waters

00:59:32
here. That you can give people a good and safe experience if

00:59:36
that's what you're working with. You cannot keep an eye I can't

00:59:39
keep an eye on eight people

00:59:40
Matt Waters: know that as an example. A two one, even with

00:59:42
assistance I think is ridiculous. Absolutely

00:59:46
ridiculous. I'd rather In fact, the other chap I was talking to

00:59:51
last week, Ryan. He's got an operation up in Newcastle and he

00:59:55
will not reduce his prices for courses. He refuses to and quite

01:00:01
rightly so good to know. He keeps those prices where they

01:00:04
are and where they're meant to be. And delivers an

01:00:07
exceptionally safe and knowledgeable course. Yeah, he

01:00:10
doesn't have to try and get more bodies through the door as it

01:00:12
were.

01:00:13
Graham Willis: Yeah. Yeah. And as you say, the let's recognise

01:00:17
that there is a trade off the organization's trying to

01:00:21
introduce more people to diving make it more accessible, the

01:00:24
equipment's safer, pretty much every year. Yeah. It's very rare

01:00:29
that you get equipment failure. I'm not saying it's impossible,

01:00:32
but if you look after it, it's very, very rare. Yeah. It's

01:00:35
normally diver era. Yes. That does that. So what can you do to

01:00:38
eliminate the error? Well, you can do better training. And then

01:00:41
hopefully, part of that training is encouraging people to dive

01:00:44
within their own limits. So they don't need that extra

01:00:47
assistance. They look at the water and go, now. I'll come

01:00:50
back next week. Yeah,

01:00:50
Matt Waters: I'm done. Let's go for a coffee down there.

01:00:54
Graham Willis: Exactly. Yes. diver bacon egg roll. Thanks.

01:00:58
Matt Waters: This. Yeah, go for it. Cheers. It's actually a

01:01:00
really nice beer. It is. I've not had this one before.

01:01:03
Graham Willis: Three sheets. So cool. Three sheets. Lord Nelson

01:01:06
brewery. Three sheets is great. Yeah. Can be to the wind.

01:01:10
Matt Waters: It can be to the wind. Yeah, very good. Shot that

01:01:13
beer company. Bob on. Cheers.

01:01:14
Graham Willis: Yeah. local pub in. Just in the in the rocks.

01:01:19
Oh, yeah.

01:01:20
Matt Waters: That place I used to go. Lord Nelson brewery

01:01:22
before before lockdowns. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm just going back

01:01:26
to the book again. Yeah. Each each dive site, as I mentioned,

01:01:34
just we've just been talking about safety is a is that

01:01:36
mention of experiments, levels, that kind of thing?

01:01:42
Graham Willis: I actually can't remember. I think what we did

01:01:47
was basically cut out pretty much all the dives over 30

01:01:52
metres. Gotcha. So, you know, for example, there's, there are

01:01:58
a couple in there over there. And you go, why are those in

01:02:00
there? Because we'd already laid out the book and taken them out

01:02:02
would have caused a massive refund. So to be honest, we

01:02:05
there's a couple in there you go. Well, hang on that one's

01:02:07
over 30 minutes. Yeah. But the way we approach that was to say,

01:02:13
well, we won't put in dives that we know are particularly tricky.

01:02:20
And we're not going to put deeper dives in there to

01:02:22
encourage people to go to the book and go, Ah, well, hang on.

01:02:25
I could go down to 45 minutes and do that wreck. Yeah, so

01:02:28
we're just not gonna put it in there.

01:02:29
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Just flicked open the book. And lo

01:02:31
and behold, I'm on Clifton gardens. Chatterbait. There we

01:02:34
go. And it's, it's not the greatest of visibility, but I do

01:02:39
really enjoy that dive site.

01:02:40
Graham Willis: It is a it is a I think it's a really good dive

01:02:44
site. But I think it's also one that pays to be more experienced

01:02:48
if your buoyancy is not on. Yes. It's just going to be a cloud.

01:02:53
You've also got to be comfortable moving around slowly

01:02:57
and taking your time and it helps if you know what you're

01:03:00
looking at. Now, having said that, we take beginners down

01:03:02
there because we can pretty much all I mean, if you can't get

01:03:05
into Clifton, you can't get in anyway. Yeah, pretty much so we

01:03:08
can do that. And if you dive there enough, you know that even

01:03:12
with a beginner, you're going to show them a seahorse you're

01:03:14
gonna show them an octopus, you're gonna show them a Moray

01:03:16
or we're gonna show them cuttlefish you know, there's

01:03:18
five or six things you know that they're going to see and go wow,

01:03:23
that was great. I've never seen those before. So even that, you

01:03:26
know, makes it a good site for for beginners, but it really

01:03:30
rewards good points.

01:03:31
Matt Waters: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I've got to say

01:03:33
I'm my missus she's not her massive macro fan as it were.

01:03:37
Nice, but we'll do 7080 minutes in there and she'll she'll come

01:03:40
out happy as right as rain, you know? Yeah,

01:03:44
Graham Willis: there's a lot in a small area.

01:03:46
Matt Waters: There. It's yeah, yeah. I mean, the pier itself

01:03:48
only what? 20 metres. 25 metres. Something the diving area.

01:03:52
Graham Willis: Yeah, yep. Yep. And falling apart.

01:03:55
Matt Waters: Yeah. It makes me laugh though. Seeing all this

01:03:58
fishermen on the top. Why the hell

01:04:00
Graham Willis: are they doing they're no clue. And

01:04:02
unfortunately, you know, you see the rays that they've caught and

01:04:06
they've just taken the wings off them and chuck them back in and

01:04:09
you see the the leather jackets found belly leather jackets.

01:04:14
There are significantly fewer there than there were five or

01:04:18
six years ago. Yeah, they just been reached out the water and I

01:04:21
think I think it's a real shame. It is. And occasionally they'll

01:04:25
get a passing kingfish occasionally.

01:04:27
Matt Waters: Yeah. And a blue moon. That's right. Yeah.

01:04:31
Graham Willis: And then all they might think you're going to go

01:04:33
down there and catch kingfish. You know? Salovey Yeah, well,

01:04:38
and the more eyes end up with hooks in them as well. And the

01:04:41
octopus. Yeah.

01:04:41
Matt Waters: Has been. I saw a few there's been a few hook

01:04:44
removal.

01:04:45
Graham Willis: Yep. And and it gets constant cleanups. You

01:04:49
know, as a group, they do great work. And I've joined them a

01:04:54
couple of times in terms of cleanups most people have done

01:04:56
cleanups, they're, you know, I think because there are A lot of

01:05:00
fishes that go down there. And there's also a lot of families

01:05:03
and picnics and stuff and stuff blows in the water and you know,

01:05:07
all of that sort of stuff. So it needs constant cleaning up.

01:05:11
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. I think a little bit of knowledge as

01:05:13
well. I mean, there's those seahorse hotels there as well.

01:05:17
We got buoys on. Yeah. And so let's cast those. Yes. See

01:05:21
what's out there. Well, even better, let more about off them,

01:05:24
you know?

01:05:25
Graham Willis: Yeah. Yeah. So actually, I think some free

01:05:30
divers, unfortunately attached some hoops there to do some

01:05:33
diving through off the off, which is a little bit. I'm not

01:05:36
sure if it's free. Divers are maybe not. I don't know. Whoever

01:05:40
it was. Yeah, silly boys and girls.

01:05:41
Matt Waters: It's definitely something to do with buoyancy.

01:05:44
Buoyancy for divers or diving through for the free divers.

01:05:46
However, I think they got removed a couple of days after

01:05:49
the photos went up. So yeah. Good on you diving this weekend.

01:05:56
Graham Willis: Right? No, I'm not diving this weekend. I'm I'm

01:06:00
teaching the following weekend. I'm doing an advanced course. So

01:06:03
I'm looking forward to this. This weekend. I'm I'm not diving

01:06:08
at the week to actually try and avoid the weekends. Because

01:06:10
everyone else is dying at the weekend. I have the flexibility

01:06:13
to drive during the week. So I mean, the key barrier dog with

01:06:16
Matthew Kempton, we tend to dive during the week. So I'm going to

01:06:21
hop in the water either Thursday or Friday, and things just

01:06:24
settled down a little bit, because it's was pretty average

01:06:27
over the weekend.

01:06:29
Matt Waters: Yeah, we were contemplating diving like

01:06:31
Friday, Saturday, but the weather was just disastrous,

01:06:34
wasn't it?

01:06:34
Graham Willis: Well, I was down. I was actually down in the

01:06:37
Illawarra. On the weekend. So Saturday, I went down to wings

01:06:40
over Illawarra to the airshow there, I've had better weather,

01:06:46
I must admit, I think they managed to get about 50% of the

01:06:50
Flying display in the air. But they did that they tried and I

01:06:55
absolutely get them pushing through because they had to

01:06:58
cancel last year, completely. So they've been in this holding

01:07:02
pattern for a while. So we did that. And then we were going

01:07:06
down to dog Jervis Bay the next next morning. So we were staying

01:07:09
down there incentives, just an extra huskisson. And but we

01:07:15
cancelled it on the Wednesday because they already cancelled

01:07:18
the diving on the Friday and the Saturday and yes, they had the

01:07:21
fingers crossed for Sunday morning. But it's like, even if

01:07:24
you go out. It's going to be an average diver. I'm not going all

01:07:27
the way down there for an average dive inside the boat

01:07:30
Bowen Island, which I'll bet you is where it was. Yeah, rather

01:07:33
than going down to drum and drumsticks which is outside

01:07:35
where the seal colony is and stuff like that.

01:07:39
Matt Waters: And it's that balance isn't it, you're working

01:07:40
out of the all the decidedly averaged dive, and then all the

01:07:44
cleanup of all your gear and all the faff when you get home. It's

01:07:48
a

01:07:48
Graham Willis: long way to go for an average dive yes or no

01:07:50
fault of their own. No conditions just weren't letting

01:07:54
themselves but we went down anyway because we paid for the

01:07:57
accommodation. And they wouldn't give us our money back. So we

01:08:00
went down, had dinner there and then came back the next night.

01:08:02
Yeah, there we go.

01:08:05
Matt Waters: We're popping down to not dive in at all this

01:08:08
weekend. We're going down to Fingers crossed. Victoria.

01:08:11
Graham Willis: Okay. Yeah, well, that's unique. Yeah, well,

01:08:15
Jazz's got

01:08:15
Matt Waters: her family down there and we've not been down

01:08:17
for our crisis. It's it's got to be 18 months

01:08:23
Graham Willis: and heavy dive down there mature. No, no, no,

01:08:27
Matt Waters: I was gonna I was gonna dive Melbourne, and then

01:08:30
COVID hit. So I've not had the opportunity, right. But I will,

01:08:35
we'll have that this weekend. Come in, we'll get down to

01:08:38
Victoria and just do something completely different. So I'd set

01:08:41
the cameras and see if we can get some landscape photography,

01:08:44
that kind of stuff.

01:08:44
Graham Willis: Right? Nice. She has the the piers down there is

01:08:48
certainly in the bay is where the diving is at. And the growth

01:08:53
on them is spectacular. is absolutely spectacular. Have you

01:08:57
died Flinders pier? at Flinders? Yes. Right, Flinders gone down

01:09:02
to 40. I haven't done a lot of diving and I'm not claiming to

01:09:04
Yeah. And Blair Gary. Did that first? Two years ago, I think

01:09:13
again, we just sneaked in and side of COVID did for the spider

01:09:18
crabs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it should come in, if they're coming in

01:09:22
this year that they didn't. And again, it's one of those things.

01:09:26
There's just a whole sale, netting and taking them out of

01:09:29
the water. And funnily enough, they didn't show up this year.

01:09:32
Yeah, it might not be related to that, but it certainly wouldn't

01:09:35
have helped wiping out a few 1000 of them. No. I'm just like

01:09:40
shooting fish in a barrel for goodness sake.

01:09:43
Matt Waters: They climb over themselves. It's amazing, isn't

01:09:45
it? It is it's quite

01:09:46
Graham Willis: amazing. And I really enjoyed that. So that was

01:09:48
the first time I'd seen that. So we were hoping to incorporate

01:09:51
that in the South Australian trip. This year. Having done

01:09:53
humans pons and Kilsby come back through Melbourne but COVID was

01:10:00
getting a bit iffy at that stage. And we could just see

01:10:03
things start to close down. We just went, let's head back to

01:10:05
Sydney. Yeah. And as it happens, the crabs didn't arrive in the

01:10:09
numbers that they had done previously, there might have

01:10:12
been somewhere in the bay, I'm sure but they weren't at the

01:10:14
piers. Yeah.

01:10:16
Matt Waters: I was talking to, because I don't know if you have

01:10:20
been made aware. That Flinders Pier, The Victorian parks, and

01:10:28
whatever it's called, looking at demolishing a section of the

01:10:31
pier. And yeah, it flashed up on my of all things, social media

01:10:37
some months ago, that Sir David Attenborough had written a

01:10:41
letter in defence of, you know, the demolition, or against the

01:10:47
demolition story. Okay.

01:10:48
Graham Willis: I know he's certainly written support for

01:10:50
the spider crabs because there was a thing called Save our

01:10:52
spider crabs SOS. Which is, it's fantastic. So they're certainly

01:10:59
trying to get the rules changed. I think the Victorian

01:11:01
Government, they've got a balance, I guess, you know,

01:11:04
tourism versus shooters and fishers and all of that sort of

01:11:07
stuff. So I kind of get that, but they changed the bag limit,

01:11:11
I think from 30 to 15. It's like, okay, so 10 of you go down

01:11:16
and 15 per day. That's a lot of crabs.

01:11:21
Matt Waters: Yeah. But now this one was more was the fear

01:11:25
itself. Was it? Yeah, they were the sea dragons as well. Right.

01:11:28
Right. Yes. But I noticed in the wisdom, yeah, next couple of

01:11:31
days. The guy that I spoke to was Charles Reese, who is kind

01:11:35
of spearheading the anti demolition front. And they've

01:11:40
got about 40 signatures already going on. Yeah. To push.

01:11:45
I

01:11:45
Graham Willis: have a look at that. I wasn't I wasn't aware of

01:11:46
that.

01:11:47
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I'll tag him in this one. And I think

01:11:51
we'll maybe get him on the show as well getting more detail on

01:11:53
it, because he seems to be carrying for quite well now.

01:11:57
Yeah. So it should, you know, because they I think I could be

01:12:02
wrong, but I doubt it. I think they announced the government

01:12:07
announced that they were going to do the demolitions of the

01:12:10
section of pier. Right. Right when COVID hit. So it was kind

01:12:13
of hidden by the headlines of COVID. So it was it was it was

01:12:20
either perfect timing or just coincidence, but I think maybe

01:12:23
the former than the letter. It's like,

01:12:26
Graham Willis: you know, bringing out new policy on

01:12:28
Christmas Day.

01:12:29
Matt Waters: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Well, I've looked at

01:12:33
that one. Home I'd, I'd like to get down there and dive it. It's,

01:12:37
Graham Willis: it's on the wall. Well, well worth doing. Yeah,

01:12:40
we're doing and I'm sure there's an awful lot of diving outside

01:12:42
of the bay. I haven't done it. So yeah, can't do that.

01:12:46
Matt Waters: Well, we were we were looking at a mate of mine,

01:12:49
who's a film producer. And we were looking at putting him

01:12:55
vited me to be the dive safety officer, as it were, for a kind

01:13:03
of, on the fly, fly on the wall kind of look. daco thing,

01:13:08
travelling from Adelaide to Cannes and diving along the

01:13:12
route. So Flinders was one of the locations, you're going

01:13:16
Graham Willis: to go straight from Adelaide to Kansas, no

01:13:17
diver,

01:13:18
Matt Waters: it's a long way with no diving. But going that

01:13:21
go into cleaning. Right, okay. But a lot of the places that

01:13:27
you've mentioned, yes, well, we've been talking all points.

01:13:31
So we were looking at targeting as well, I thought

01:13:33
Graham Willis: you I was really surprised by Yuans pond. So I

01:13:37
haven't done freshwater diving. So that was interesting to get

01:13:40
in there and the absolute clarity for what it was that

01:13:43
humans pond. So mount Gambia, which is near where Kilsby

01:13:48
sinkhole is and some of the other sinkholes but the

01:13:51
beautiful the beauty of humans is that you can you don't need

01:13:56
special certification to go in there you don't need guides or

01:14:00
anything like that. There's basically three linked ponds.

01:14:04
maximum depth, I think is maybe 14 1511 metres in the first one

01:14:08
and then you go through a small channel that's probably only I'm

01:14:12
just gonna say two metres deep that links the pond and then

01:14:15
into the next one and into the next one. You have to go through

01:14:18
their equivalent parks and wild laughs It's not quite cool,

01:14:21
that's called something else. But you can just book it

01:14:22
yourself pay 35 bucks I think it is and do that and basically

01:14:26
drift down from the top to the bottom. absolutely crystal

01:14:30
clear. You're not in there for the fish life there is actually

01:14:33
some fish life. But that's not what you're there for. You're

01:14:36
there for just stunning clarity. Yeah. And then we also took the

01:14:41
opportunity to dive Kilsby cinco, which was it was a bit

01:14:44
more of a you needed to go with the approved people and all the

01:14:48
rest of it and I I get that because if you noodle down into

01:14:52
the wrong part and get down to 65 Not Not that we're going in

01:14:56
that apart. There's a there's a clear sort of line but I think

01:14:58
it's 2628 so It's still a little bit deep but again, you can look

01:15:02
up and see the platform and the clouds and, and they do a really

01:15:05
good gin. Already they do here. Sinkhole gin it's called. Yeah,

01:15:10
so if nothing else, you can buy that

01:15:13
Matt Waters: which I like a power drink.

01:15:15
Graham Willis: I just, I'm just saying the water is the spill is

01:15:19
the water Sopia that we make gin out of it. But But humans,

01:15:24
humans ponds, I thought was spectacular again, it's one of

01:15:28
those ones I would go back and do, I wouldn't actually do

01:15:30
Kilsby. Again, I've done that. Because it's a big hole, which

01:15:35
you kind of go round and round. And you go yes, it's really

01:15:38
clear. But you kind of circle around for 4045 minutes, and

01:15:45
then you come up and you go, Okay, that's pretty cool. And

01:15:48
the third time you go over the kangaroo bones, you go, Okay,

01:15:51
I've got them. So there's not much else apart from the

01:15:56
experience of doing it. And the clarity of the water, which is

01:15:59
fantastic. So very glad I've done it. I wouldn't do that one

01:16:02
again, myself. But I would go and do urines again, because

01:16:05
it's simple to do. And you go if we had half decent Day, which we

01:16:09
didn't, but if you had a half decent day with some hope just

01:16:12
spectacular.

01:16:12
Matt Waters: Yeah, Spec Tech. That's the thing with stuff like

01:16:15
that as the sunlight coming through your shots of light that

01:16:17
makes it fantastic. Sharp, just

01:16:19
Graham Willis: brilliant. Just and again, you know, rapid Bay

01:16:22
jetty, great spot for the leafy seadragons. But even without

01:16:26
them. It would be just spectacular. Because you're

01:16:30
right under this jetty is in here. They're called the

01:16:33
aquarium for good reason. With the fish on it again. We were

01:16:36
very lucky with the conditions but fantastic. Really, really

01:16:40
good.

01:16:40
Matt Waters: Did you find Salafis? Yes. Well done. Yes,

01:16:43
Graham Willis: we did. Actually H dive that we were there. So I

01:16:47
think on the first time we really happy that we found one.

01:16:51
And that was at the bluff out of Victor harbour, which was an

01:16:55
iffy dive really, but the conditions weren't so good. But

01:16:58
the next day, we thought, well, we've ticked the box. Now let's

01:17:01
try and see what else we can do. And talk to one of the local

01:17:05
operators again, oh, no, no, you need to go here, here and here.

01:17:07
And sure enough, you go here and here without information. There

01:17:11
they are. Yeah, yeah. And the quite big. Well, they look at

01:17:15
Yeah, they're quite, they're quite big. And yet,

01:17:19
Matt Waters: I'd refer back to Don again, don't sell Don

01:17:21
Silcock. And he was saying how difficult they are to find

01:17:24
because they blend in so well,

01:17:25
Graham Willis: that they they do blend in well, but I think it's

01:17:27
like anything else. Once you've seen them and you've got your

01:17:29
eye and you know what you're looking for? Yeah, it's it

01:17:33
becomes a lot easier. But funnily enough, they will

01:17:35
camouflage like the wheelies or world camouflage to once you

01:17:38
know where they are, though. And where you're going to find them.

01:17:42
Chances are you'll find them. Yeah, chances are, you're fine.

01:17:46
It's a bit like stone versus no stone fishing. I'll bet they're

01:17:51
just just don't put your hands down here. Same thing. There's a

01:17:55
dude, I don't know

01:17:57
Matt Waters: what the rules are diver on this. I will. I've just

01:17:59
recently started having a look on tick tock and stuff like

01:18:01
that. And you get through all the crap. All the people dancing

01:18:05
in front of the screen and stuff. And then there's people

01:18:07
that actually mentioned some

01:18:09
Graham Willis: of your interviews. You're a fan. Yeah.

01:18:11
Matt Waters: There's there's the you get through the rubbish. And

01:18:15
there's this chap. I can't remember his name now fine if

01:18:18
next time around, but he's over pathways Western Australia. But

01:18:24
he seems to know everything about every fish and anything

01:18:27
that lives in water whatsoever. So he's finding these amazing

01:18:31
like spider crabs and rock fish and, and putting them on display

01:18:36
for the camera but in the correct fashion. He's not

01:18:39
manhandling them. He's doing it as though he's a biologist. And

01:18:43
I wouldn't be surprised if he is.

01:18:44
Graham Willis: No, I'm saying that. Yeah. Tic TOCs. One of the

01:18:47
other social media platforms that sort of passed me by Yeah.

01:18:52
Matt Waters: Believe me. I'm not going to get into it. There's

01:18:54
too many people dancing around like silly buggers on it. But

01:18:58
I've got to look at everything to what's going on. True. And

01:19:01
I'm sure he's got an Instagram. I'll find it. But I'll yeah,

01:19:05
when I do. I'll tag it. And I'll let you know. Yes.

01:19:10
Graham Willis: So there's always more to learn. And there's no

01:19:13
awful lot more than me about it.

01:19:14
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I find it very interesting. I should

01:19:17
find his name bro. Can't be bothered. That's it. All right.

01:19:23
Well, I think. Yeah, I think I think we'll wrap it up. We've

01:19:27
been going nearly an hour and a half. See Time flies when having

01:19:31
fun and a bit.

01:19:32
Graham Willis: Yeah. And and if you edit it down, you get at

01:19:35
least 20 minutes out of that.

01:19:36
Matt Waters: Hey, Tina, push. Just Just very quickly before we

01:19:41
disappear, where can people get all of your book?

01:19:45
Graham Willis: So a number of the dive shops, stalk them,

01:19:49
which is great frog divers is one of them but dives into many

01:19:52
stocks as well amongst others. So we try and move them through

01:19:57
the dive shops rather than just do them. Essentially, but if you

01:20:01
can't find them, then AWS diver, which is an online magazine that

01:20:06
comes out on a quarterly basis that yo Han is the editor for,

01:20:09
and I'm a contributor to, they have a site and you can get the

01:20:12
books there.

01:20:13
Matt Waters: Okay, nice. All right, well, we'll sort out the

01:20:15
links and stuff like that. I'm literally weeks away from

01:20:19
redoing our website, and it's all brand new Smick, I fives,

01:20:22
all that kind of thing. And I'm more than happy to put a link in

01:20:25
there for you as well. So anyone who's looking for the books, if

01:20:28
you can't find them, and you don't live in Sydney, and you

01:20:30
want to order one, then maybe we can put a link in there for you

01:20:32
as well. Great. So easy. I make absolute pleasure talking to

01:20:37
you. Thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. It's a pleasure. I

01:20:40
thought we'd better go get another beer.

01:20:41
Graham Willis: I think we should. Thanks very much. Happy

01:20:42
Matt Waters: days. Cheers. Thanks. Bye, everybody. podcast

01:20:49
for the inquisitive diver.