Graham Willis is a professional dive Instructor operating out of Frog Dive, Sydney, Australia. Having lived in Sydney for over 30 years it's a fair assumption that Graham knows a lot of the dives sites pretty well and during a chance meeting via mutual friends Graham began chatting with a chap about writing books, namely dive books; Johan Boshoff has the experience of creating publications and with Grahams knowledge of New South Wales the book was born.
With 240 dive locations, details about the dive site and considerable detail about the location and local amenities , this book is perfect for the adventurous diver wishing to explore the NSW coastline.
If you would like to purchase a copy of Graham's book you can reach him via Frog Dive in Sydney, via Facebook or the link below. We will also have a link available on the soon to be released new Scuba GOAT website too!
The Dive Spots of New South Wales
Graham on Facebook
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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and actually went off to Thailand to do my licence there.
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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?
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Graham Willis: Good question. Probably 76 to 81. Okay. around
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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,
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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.
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Yeah. And it wasn't in my day at all.
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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.
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Matt Waters: Yeah. I think it's one of those locations that
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people don't think about going on holiday, but some of the,
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some of the resorts and hotels in Moscow itself are just
00:04:24
insanely good. And they
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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.