Martin Connolly - Scuba IQ

00:00:06
Matt Waters: Okay, Scuba IQ. We've not had many people on

00:00:11
from Cairns. And yet we've had Libby has been on Libby

00:00:14
Sterling. But you guys are much more focused on the almost like

00:00:23
a white glove experience, isn't it?

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Martin Connolly: Yeah, I guess, you know, existing in a world

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that, you know, for a number of decades now, up here has been

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very much about, you know, larger volume sort of

00:00:36
operations. That, you know, it's, I guess we're trying to

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slot into that, that narrow little niche where, you know,

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you could have somebody who, you know, maybe wants to get a

00:00:50
slightly more personalised experience out on the rave, you

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know, even though we do use, you know, some of the bigger boats

00:00:56
anyway, you know, we use those space, comfort access to the

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reef, that sort of thing. But, you know, what they're actually

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weighing on, you know, as, as an opportunity to draw on perhaps

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my experience, or, you know, that of the other instructors

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that I use from time to time as well. So, you know, we're, you

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know, we're not, you know, we're not for everyone, you know, if

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you're looking for sort of an overall kind of experience, you

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know, all of the operators up here, I think are quite good.

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But like I say, we're just trying to, you know, take

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advantage of that very narrow band of, of the market.

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Matt Waters: Yeah. So, more focused on people that want

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specific kinds of experiences. Yeah, yeah. Not large, not large

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boats with lots of divers. No. So what, where did it all start?

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I mean, sort of a bit of background on you, actually,

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Martin. We obviously go to the same hairdresser. But we're

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doing originally, often.

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Martin Connolly: Not very often. Well, I'm originally from New

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Zealand, like a lot of the dive instructors who find their way

00:02:04
up here. But yeah, I grew up in New Zealand, British parents,

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actually British born but you know, moved to New Zealand when

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I was very, very young, I joined the military and the sort of

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towards the late 90s, the Navy. And not through being in the

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Navy, as such, but because of a friend that I made, who was also

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in the Navy with me, you know, I got introduced to Scuba diving

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as just sort of a recreation, a little hobby. And it was just a

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thing I did for fun. Normally just with him would go away for

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a weekend or whatever. And then after a few years of serving in

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the Navy, and I left took a bit of time off and was wondering

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about, you know, what I might like to do. And, you know, I

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thought well, you know, Scuba diving was something that maybe

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I'd, you know, considered to take up as a career. And so I

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became a dive instructor in the early 2000s. And worked in New

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Zealand for a time came up to the Great Barrier Reef in my

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early 20s spent some time working here and then left

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Australia and spent eight years working in the Mediterranean.

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Primarily, Spain's, I lived in Spain for a total of about six

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and a half, nearly seven years. And, and then finally made the

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pilgrimage to Thailand, Southeast Asia. And that was,

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that was something that was, you know, was really different to

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the experience that I've had, while being Mediterranean. You

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know, it was, it was like a parallel Scuba diving universe.

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And so I ended up being there for a few years. You know, that

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was where I met met Lou. We stayed for a couple more years

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and then about now seven, seven and a half years ago. We ended

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up back here in final Queensland and and here we are.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, so we're abouts in, Whereabouts in

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Thailand.

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Martin Connolly: We where over on the West Coast PB

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Matt Waters: there. So I never I never worked on PP. I was

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basically okay, like when I was on the West Coast, just covering

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the summerlands and Suriname. It's an amazing place and I love

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Thailand. I love the Thai people.

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Martin Connolly: Yeah, it's one of those ones, I guess, you

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know, there's a an instructor that works with us here as well.

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And he was in Thailand on Kotel for quite a long time at

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Parkview who was sort of part of the team with you know, teaching

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the ADCs and, you know, we sort of, you know, often reminisce as

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you find most instructors have spent some time working in

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Thailand Do you know life is so simple there you know, it's you

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got it, you gotta work you do some diving and then you go and

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socialise you know, and that's, that's pretty much it and almost

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everything you do on a daily basis is It's just fun that

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there's, there's nothing that kind of bogs you down or

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anything like that, you know, the biggest nuisance at that

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time was having to make a visa and every three months, but

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that's about the extent of it.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And packed onto as many books.

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Martin Connolly: Yeah, you know, it was a fantastic, fantastic

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period of my career.

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Matt Waters: Yeah. There's a lot of people, a lot of long term

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people in the industry that have worked in Thailand at some sort

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of point in their career. I think it's a good thing. You

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know, we've all got that, that link through Scuba diving, but

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then to have the, the experience of Thailand as well as a bit of

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a link it's, it's a nice little added bonus.

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Martin Connolly: Yeah, totally. And

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Matt Waters: so you're just gonna say, how did it compare

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to, to Spain?

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Martin Connolly: Well, Mediterranean, you know, look, I

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was there for quite a long time. And, and that wasn't just

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because I didn't have any other any other choice. But, you know,

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I wanted to be there. And I guess, in a way, like Thailand,

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you know, you have a fantastic lifestyle out of the water. You

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know, having an appreciation that the diving is not going to

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be, you know, like you can have in Southeast Asia and Caribbean,

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many other parts of the world. But it was quite a conscious

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decision that took me to the Mediterranean in the first

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place. And most of that came out of the fact that, you know, when

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I became an instructor, you know, still fairly young, early

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20s. And, at that time, on the on the panic website, on the job

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board, you know, a job would get advertised. And then you could

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see every single person that had replied, it would get pasted

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underneath, okay, and so you could get a bit of a heads up as

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to what you're up against. And so you were looking at a lot of

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the good jobs around the world, you know, you've got, you know,

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some Italian guy who's been an instructor for 10 years speaks

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four or five languages, you know, outboard, outboard

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licence, all that sort of thing. And so rather than getting

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disheartened, I thought, Okay, well, it looks like, you know,

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the big thing apart from experience, of course, is one

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languages. So I thought a good place to learn languages,

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especially European ones would be Europe. So, yeah, so, you

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know, I left the Great Barrier Reef, and got to Europe and

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thought, Okay, well, let's focus on one to start with, and, and I

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was in London at the time visiting my sister. And I said,

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Well, I'm ready to leave the UK. I've been here long enough, it's

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time to go back to diving. And I went on the Ryanair website,

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look for the cheapest flight, and it was to Valencia, lift the

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next morning at about six in the morning, about two pounds 99

00:07:55
special or something. And I bought that flight and ended up

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in Spain for for a number years. And so, you know, don't my

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language skills. And that was, even though I'd been teaching in

00:08:07
other places before that for a couple of years. You know, over

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time, I certainly realised that the time I spent in

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Mediterranean is where I really cut my teeth as an instructor

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and, and not just as an instructor, but you know, laid

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the foundation for me to have what I think so far is quite a

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lengthy dive career.

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Matt Waters: Yeah. Good on. Yeah. It's funny that you

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mentioned the, the dive jobs boards. I keep meaning to do a

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post about it. Because all I see in social media at the moment,

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is job after job after job after job. And there's all the rare

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ones are coming out wakatobi Turks and Caicos like bloody

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hell, people. If you're, you know, if you really want to get

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into the dive industry, now is the time to do it. Even if

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you've got no experience as a deep dive master or instructor,

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you can gain that experience. But you're gonna gain that

00:09:00
experience at a much higher level location than what was

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ever possible. And over the last 2025 years, you know, so many

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people have left the industry now that I've had the experience

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and I've been forced back into other industries. That it's it's

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such a wide open industry at the moment and he said, prime

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opportunity for for fresh blood to come through.

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Martin Connolly: Yeah, I mean, it was quite interesting

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listening to some of the other conversations I've had over the

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past few months it was those his name Steve Crosby, guy who you

00:09:35
spoke to mix Mexico. Yeah. You know, so, you know, him talking

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about what, you know, he's, he's been through there and how

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things are looking moving forward. And then no further

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back, there was Marcel Vandenberg and in Koh Tao who

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was talking about that this could be the real you know, the

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time to strike when it comes to getting into the industry. You

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know, it's yeah, like you say, you know, it's these These these

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rare jobs that never come up. And you have, I mean, when I

00:10:06
first came and worked out of cans, you know, I'd been an

00:10:09
instructor in New Zealand for a couple of years, you know, and

00:10:13
taught ice diving, you know, this sort of felt fairly well

00:10:18
equipped, and I got to cancer, the best that I could get was,

00:10:21
was dive deck, you know, it was snorkel guiding and signing

00:10:24
people, and now the water and they were like, You got to,

00:10:26
you've got to prove yourself here first for a while before,

00:10:29
we're gonna let you take paying customers, you know, but you

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didn't. I didn't know you didn't roll your eyes or anything. You

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just accepted that while there's, you know, they found

00:10:39
that this is something that works up here, and maybe they've

00:10:41
been let down in the past, and you're just gonna play that game.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure those routines will

00:10:46
stay, because I couldn't imagine employing anyone without, you

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know, giving them a probationary period and making sure that they

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don't mind getting their hands dirty. However, you know, having

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the much wider spectrum of possibilities now is just

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immense. And I can't see changing for another 234 years.

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I mean, there's people crying out no experience. And sure

00:11:09
enough, from the operators bless them. They're going to have to

00:11:12
make do with people that don't have all that experience of four

00:11:16
languages compressor, rebuild engineer, coxswain. 95 specialty

00:11:23
instructor it's going to have to reduce, but they're going to be

00:11:30
able to mould the future of diving, I think, yeah. So it's a

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good thing. And I just hope that the kids that are out there

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listening and eager to get on board do actually, you know,

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take the jump, do it, they're gonna be much better off here.

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Martin Connolly: I think with that, you know, we, I mean,

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again, I mean, I guess, because it's easier for me to compare

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to, you know, where I started out, that it was a lot more

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about, you know, having good experience, you know, and the

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fact that I'd been an engineer in the Navy, so I had, you know,

00:12:04
the ability to, you know, repair outboard motors and, you know,

00:12:08
various other mechanical things, you know, rebuild compressors.

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And so, you know, those things came in handy for me, but, you

00:12:17
know, you, you certainly see now, probably over the last sort

00:12:20
of five or six years, especially that, you know, a lot more

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employers will be looking for things like, Okay, well, you're

00:12:26
a dive instructor, but I see you're also, you know, you've

00:12:29
set up your own little business, doing social media marketing,

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and all you can build websites, and you know, all of these other

00:12:35
things that will drive a business.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And that's a that's a huge one. I

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mean, I take my dad used to work in Papua New Guinea to few

00:12:44
resort. And it's a bit limited on connectivity while you're

00:12:48
there, and it's a bit difficult to do the social media, but I

00:12:51
see the managers at the moment are trying to post regularly,

00:12:54
however, it's a photo and a little bit of a comment. It's

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not up to speed with what you see all singing, all dancing,

00:13:01
that, you know, kids that know how to use a phone can do in

00:13:04
3540 seconds. It's insane. So that's a huge advantage, just

00:13:09
being able to, you know, assist with the marketing, or leave the

00:13:13
management to get on with the daily job. Yeah.

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Martin Connolly: And I guess, you know, one of the things that

00:13:20
stands out for me, is that, you know, was probably, three or

00:13:25
four years ago, I had a young guy, probably early 30s. He was

00:13:31
from France. And he sent through a CV, just cold calling. And,

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you know, he was relatively inexperienced, but it was like,

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he was really trying to sort of pad out his experience as an

00:13:44
instructor. But if you look at the rest of his CV, you know,

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he'd worked at a marketing company in Paris for 10 years,

00:13:50
get a master's degree in marketing and advertising at an

00:13:53
MBA. And I just messaged him back and said, Hey, look,

00:13:57
there's opportunities with us. But, hey, don't sell yourself

00:14:00
short here. You know, it's great that you're a dive instructor.

00:14:03
But don't be afraid to put, you know, more focus and attention

00:14:06
on to these other things that you've done. You know, you're,

00:14:10
you know, you're employed at one place for 10 years. That seems

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quite a lot. You've got these fantastic skills, you know,

00:14:16
experience with you know, marketing advertising that

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highly desirable for a lot of companies out there. So, you

00:14:22
know, maybe use that as your sort of Trojan horses such.

00:14:25
Matt Waters: Yeah, for sure. For sure, especially to help out

00:14:28
people of our age and further down, then I've got no fucking

00:14:32
clue about it. To be honest. I've got some comments and a bit

00:14:36
of a hashtag and hope that it does the job. And then I'm happy

00:14:39
if it's got over 10 likes blue, blue thumbs up. Happy days.

00:14:42
Martin Connolly: and ya mum Comments on it?

00:14:44
Matt Waters: Yeah. It's usually my dad actually. Hey, one thing

00:14:54
I wanted to talk about is the minkeys. On the website, the

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Minkes come in. Are they there? Yeah.

00:15:05
Martin Connolly: Yeah. So about two weeks ago, there was one of

00:15:08
the, the boats that were set up by Douglas, not one of the sort

00:15:11
of scheduled tour operators, one of the super yachts, they were

00:15:15
on a trip out. And, and they saw a few monkeys out there. So

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you'd probably say normally, you know, being two weeks ago, so

00:15:24
was that sort of early to mid May, that that would be really

00:15:27
early. Yeah. But I mean, whatever. Basically, they're

00:15:32
coming, or they're here. So yeah, it's, it's looking good.

00:15:38
I'm actually going to be going on, on a total of four Mickey

00:15:41
trips this year, there's, there's one that's my own, which

00:15:45
is the one at the end of June. And then there's, there are

00:15:48
three other trips that have been done on the same boat that we're

00:15:50
using. There's one that goes the week before mine, there's

00:15:54
another one that goes a few days later from when we get back. And

00:15:57
then there's another one in mid July as well. So yeah,

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hopefully, we get, we get some pretty solid monkey action.

00:16:04
It's, it's such an amazing thing, you know, that and that

00:16:08
they make you well, not just let you swim with them. But the fact

00:16:12
that you know, you jump in the water and they come to yours,

00:16:15
Matt Waters: as it or worse come into you imagine people that are

00:16:18
listening to this will not have a clue of how the operations

00:16:21
work in Cairns, and what it involves jumping in the water

00:16:25
with whales, what's a, you know, a kind of routine that you go

00:16:30
through.

00:16:32
Martin Connolly: So for, for what we're doing, and you know,

00:16:35
what some of the other operators who have actually changed their

00:16:39
schedules through this time of year do is what the first thing

00:16:44
is, you've got to have a permit, and to to be allowed to swim

00:16:47
with them. And the linchpin is that the monkey bars are pretty

00:16:55
predictable. And there's a spot that's up up towards Lizard

00:16:59
Island, on the Ribbon raves, pretty much without fail year

00:17:03
after year, on their migration, they go and hang out there for

00:17:06
quite a while, you know, two, three weeks, you know, some

00:17:11
interactions, it might just be two or three, and it might only

00:17:14
last, you know, 510 minutes. But over the years, you know, you

00:17:18
can have sort of 1820 Whales at once, and they stick with you

00:17:22
for seven or eight hours. Bloody hell, you know, so you get up

00:17:27
there. So we, on the trip we're doing we leave in the evening,

00:17:31
you know, it's a 1516 hour cruise up to that spot. So you

00:17:36
basically wake up on the ribbons, and you pull up at the

00:17:41
spot, you throw a couple of ropes in, because that's one of

00:17:44
the conditions for being able to swim with them, there's a,

00:17:47
there's a code of conduct in place for swimming with Mickey

00:17:49
Mouse. Here, I gets in my circle fence holds on to the rope, and

00:17:55
you just sit there and wait, and the monkeys come in and hang out.

00:18:00
Matt Waters: So that they actually come to you then you

00:18:03
don't have to go kind of looking for them.

00:18:05
Martin Connolly: You look, you can, you can certainly look for

00:18:11
them. But there are, you know, there are conditions on that,

00:18:17
that, you know, let's say that, you know, there's another boat

00:18:19
that's two miles away. Or let's say, two miles behind you,

00:18:24
you've gone past and they call you on the radio and say, Hey,

00:18:27
we got monkeys back here. You're not really allowed to turn the

00:18:31
boat around and go back to them. Right? Yeah. So, you know,

00:18:35
you're not supposed to sort of alter your course as such, you

00:18:38
know, to go and find them or, or anything else. So, you know,

00:18:44
we're sort of like we aim for these areas, you know, like I

00:18:47
said, up on the northern end of the ribbon reefs, where we sort

00:18:50
of expect that they're going to be and you sort of pull up. And

00:18:55
you know, you have to wait, sometimes you don't have to

00:18:57
wait, you know, if they're not really showing much interest, or

00:19:00
you haven't found any, you know, we've got a lot of dive sites

00:19:03
nearby. So we might say to everyone, hey, look, let's take

00:19:06
a couple of hours out. We have a bit of morning tea, we'll cruise

00:19:09
over to dive site x, we'll go and do a dive over there. And

00:19:14
we'll take it from there, you know, so, you know, you're still

00:19:16
trying to maximise, you know, the time that you're spending

00:19:19
and that really amazing area, you know, but the primary focus

00:19:23
being that you're trying to some of these whales, and

00:19:26
Matt Waters: is it what's the attraction? Are they just very,

00:19:29
very curious.

00:19:32
Martin Connolly: Yeah, I mean, I mean, realistically, they're

00:19:36
like big dolphins. So there'll be very curious they can have,

00:19:43
although display quite a lot of very behaviour, so they're,

00:19:47
they're quite interactive in that way as well. They don't

00:19:48
just sort of swim around and around and around and around in

00:19:51
circles, you know, they'll they'll come up and they'll Spy

00:19:54
Hop, you know, they have we look around on the surface. You know,

00:19:57
they'll they'll grow your hair, they'll roll over onto the Get

00:20:00
back in though some around belly up at the surface. You know,

00:20:04
they'll come up, clap their mouth, you know, there's,

00:20:06
they're all these different things that you might get a

00:20:08
chance to see, and you never get bored of watching it because you

00:20:12
kind of don't know what they're going to do next and, and you'll

00:20:15
sort of see how, you know, over time spent in the water, you'll

00:20:18
see them gradually come closer and closer. And I mean, they'll,

00:20:23
you know, they'll sort of began to cruise past you, and then

00:20:25
they'll literally just slow down an eyeball, you just cruise

00:20:30
right past in front of you. And, you know, other times I've come

00:20:33
up in front of you, and you've you've sort of got swept back

00:20:36
and out of the way to avoid them. It's yeah, yeah, it's,

00:20:39
it's spectacular.

00:20:40
Matt Waters: And it usually doesn't matter, the kind of Age

00:20:43
of them and kids, whether it's the adults, I know, with

00:20:46
humpbacks that the cars get quite curious more so than the

00:20:49
mums. Yeah. Is it similar with the monkeys? Or? Not really? I

00:20:55
think, yeah, look, you.

00:20:59
Martin Connolly: Yeah, it's, you can never really know. I'd

00:21:02
probably say, you know, I haven't seen as many cars or

00:21:06
haven't had as many close interactions with cars over the

00:21:08
years. Because, I mean, not just on these trips, but you know, as

00:21:13
they come through these areas, you know, the reefs off of Port

00:21:16
Douglas or Cannes, you know, they can't be up there as well

00:21:19
for a couple of days. So, you know, one of the day trips, you

00:21:22
might get the chance to swim with them. When that happens, it

00:21:26
is usually just the odd one or two. But But, but these trips,

00:21:31
you know, that they get run up to the ribbon races for the

00:21:34
really sort of, I guess, the more kind of dense, dense

00:21:37
interactions with, you know, greater numbers and for longer

00:21:39
periods of time. How big do they get? They reckon the beers at

00:21:45
about eight or nine metres that they sort of top out about about

00:21:48
a year they hear that they're quite small for a while. Yeah,

00:21:54
second small, second smallest species that baleen Whale. So

00:21:58
Matt Waters: it's small for a while, but it's still monstrous,

00:22:02
isn't it?

00:22:03
Martin Connolly: Yeah. But, but no, it's awesome.

00:22:07
Matt Waters: And that's that you say that's what was the boat

00:22:11
again? Is that the same boat that you use for the diving

00:22:16
liveaboard?

00:22:18
Martin Connolly: Yeah, so MV Argo,

00:22:20
Matt Waters: let's talk about Argo it looks very sexy.

00:22:24
Martin Connolly: Yeah, very cool boat. Look, algo was a boat that

00:22:28
was it was here in Port Douglas for a while and then changed

00:22:33
ownership. And and that's now based just down the road and

00:22:37
yorkeys knob, which is, you know, northern end of Cannes.

00:22:41
Okay. So that lives down there. And the boat overall, yeah, but

00:22:48
I think 2425 metres, something like that. But really nicely set

00:22:54
up at the back, you know, where you where you gear up for

00:22:56
diving. It's, it's right on the duckboard. So you gear up, stand

00:22:59
up. And they're basically do a 180 degree turn and then step

00:23:03
off the back. Yeah. You know, so super easy in that regard.

00:23:09
Inside, it's really large, the cabins are nice. It's a couple

00:23:13
of ensuite rooms, all of the cabins are quite large,

00:23:15
actually. And that's, you know, of course, means that, you know,

00:23:20
guess numbers are quite low. So, you know, we only take 12 people

00:23:23
on these on these trips, you know, it's, again, it's still in

00:23:27
keeping with, you know, with the ethos that we had with Scuba IQ,

00:23:31
you know, we didn't want to change our philosophy, you know,

00:23:34
sacrifice what's worked for us. So still small, it's fully

00:23:38
guided. You know, it's Yeah, trying to be a bit more intimate

00:23:43
and, and have that time with the guests as well out of the water.

00:23:46
Yeah.

00:23:47
Matt Waters: Now, forgive me if I'm wrong. But is this the boat

00:23:49
that Sylvia Earle used a few years back? Sylvia Earle? Did

00:23:54
she not use it going up into some of the

00:23:57
Martin Connolly: AI? Or I'm not sure.

00:24:01
Matt Waters: I need a little Google thinking. My Sylvia

00:24:04
Martin Connolly: Earle might have been on a boat called

00:24:06
beluga. I'm not sure. But

00:24:12
Matt Waters: the first thing that comes up is a cruise ship.

00:24:16
Definitely not that one.

00:24:20
Martin Connolly: But, but it's really cool because, you know,

00:24:23
the boat. I mean, outside of what we do, it's quite busy

00:24:27
anyway, it does a lot of, you know, research expeditions, you

00:24:32
know, support for marine biologists, you know, they do

00:24:36
trips for the turtle nesting up at the very top at rain Island.

00:24:41
You know, they go and help out at the weather station at Willis

00:24:44
Island, you know, ferrying the the attendants back and forth

00:24:49
when they change over. You know, they do all sorts of, you know,

00:24:53
when we approached them about what we wanted to do, you know,

00:24:56
there was, you know, it wasn't really any territory that they

00:24:59
hadn't covered For, yeah, and the big one as well with that

00:25:03
boat, which is really important, as you know, not just the permit

00:25:08
to operate. But there's another organisation up here that there

00:25:12
are quite a few companies that are members and even some

00:25:15
individuals and, you know, formed a number of years ago.

00:25:19
And they basically, you know, set themselves up so that they

00:25:23
could have this network of shared moorings, particularly on

00:25:26
the ribbon reefs. And you know, you could become a member of

00:25:30
that group. And then that meant that, you know, you would have

00:25:32
access to these, you know, amazing dive sites like the

00:25:34
cornhole and Steve's Bommie. And many of these other dive sites

00:25:38
and, and, you know, and without, you know, being a member of that

00:25:42
group, or having that permit, you know, you can plan those

00:25:45
trips, but then it becomes logistically a bit more

00:25:48
complicated, you know, you're going to be anchoring quite a

00:25:50
lot, which you know, you don't really want to be doing, or you

00:25:54
could be on a dive site, and if another member of this

00:25:56
organisation shows up, they can ask you to leave and you know,

00:26:00
you've got no recourse. So, you know, it's, it's a really good

00:26:04
organisation that's in place to try and, you know, make sure

00:26:07
that not only we have these amazing places to dive, but that

00:26:10
they're being looked after, and, you know, the right sort of

00:26:13
vessels are using them, and we're able to get people out to

00:26:15
see these places.

00:26:16
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Everything's on what's the word?

00:26:24
How's it all regulated up there, then? Do I know, I'm just

00:26:27
thinking back to the simulans, that the captains would take

00:26:30
talk to each other to make sure that they're not on the same

00:26:32
dive site? All the boats at once? And I'm assuming the

00:26:36
similar kind of thing occurs there? Is it much more

00:26:39
restricted than that?

00:26:41
Martin Connolly: So with with these sites, so specifically,

00:26:46
these ones on the ribbon reefs, the organisation I mean, it's

00:26:51
not huge. I think it's only got about 14 or 15. Members, I'm not

00:26:55
entirely sure. But you've got basically two tiers. You've got,

00:27:00
you know, a few of the long term players and the top tier, and,

00:27:04
you know, they get first refusal, and then everything

00:27:07
else kind of, you know, slots in wherever. Yeah, so it's all,

00:27:12
it's all pretty easy. The captains, you know, the people

00:27:15
involved, you know, they, they generally know each other. And

00:27:20
so, for example, I mean, when we did our trip to the ribbon

00:27:23
reefs, yeah, well, it's about six weeks ago. Now. You know, we

00:27:29
we got Steve's Bommie. First thing in the morning, we're

00:27:31
planning to make two dives. The spirit of freedom were in the

00:27:35
area. They saw Ron Steve's Bommie. And they just radios and

00:27:37
said, Hey, guys, just so you know. You know, we've booked

00:27:41
Steve's Bommie. From midday onwards, we're like, Yeah, no

00:27:44
worries, we're going to do $2 More leave. And so, you know,

00:27:48
from there, you then sort of you aren't talking to each other as

00:27:51
well, you might want to say, hey, look, we're looking at

00:27:54
using let's say, you know, another dive site nearby temple

00:27:57
of doom or Chinese joy. Hey, we're looking at heading over

00:28:00
this way. How does that fit in with what you guys are doing?

00:28:02
Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, you've you've just got to be

00:28:07
grownups about it, you know, and, and just figure it out.

00:28:10
Yeah.

00:28:12
Matt Waters: So watch the must have a favourite dive site.

00:28:17
Martin Connolly: Look, the easy pick up there is always going to

00:28:20
be Steve's Bommie. Have you been that have no

00:28:25
Matt Waters: no. I've have my was it. Four and a half years in

00:28:30
in Australia now have not once dived in Cairns, yet? The one

00:28:34
time that we came up just before combat pandemic was when it was

00:28:37
the wettest December recorded in history or something like that.

00:28:41
We had nine days of just downpour is ridiculous. Yeah.

00:28:47
Martin Connolly: Yeah, so look, Steve's Bommie it's always an

00:28:49
easy one. I mean, it's just reliably good. And it's sort of

00:28:54
where those things are, you know, you can almost say that if

00:28:57
something can be found on the Great Barrier Reef, you've got a

00:29:01
good chance of finding it there. Okay. But I don't know I've got

00:29:07
a I've got a soft spot for another dive site. That's that's

00:29:10
further up called pixies pinnacle. It is literally just a

00:29:15
small tower. You know, the bottoms are particularly deep.

00:29:20
And the top, you know, it's fairly shallow, but you often

00:29:24
get really clear water out there. And it's just it's just a

00:29:27
really pretty dive site. Nuts. I don't know. I just went in for

00:29:33
the first time I thought how beautiful is this? And again, I

00:29:36
just think it's a fantastic dive. So we get

00:29:39
Matt Waters: biodiversity that

00:29:44
Martin Connolly: look, not as much as Steve balmy. I'd say I

00:29:49
mean, look, you still get a lot of cool stuff. A lot of nudie

00:29:51
Bronx. When you're sort of hanging out a bit deeper away

00:29:55
from the pinnacle itself. You know, you'll say you know,

00:29:58
schools are Barracuda trouble. They, you know, you can see some

00:30:01
big group are out there as well. But it's when you really sort of

00:30:05
tuck in and, and look at all the little nooks and crannies, you

00:30:07
know, you can find lots of pretty cool stuff. You know, but

00:30:12
the, the electric clams, you know, the the flame shells, that

00:30:15
sort of thing. Yeah, it's that it's a beautiful spot.

00:30:22
Matt Waters: I'm just having a quick look on. Pixies, I'll make

00:30:27
another one.

00:30:30
Martin Connolly: And, yeah, the other cool thing as well, you

00:30:33
know, when you do these trips, and pixies Pentacles A good

00:30:36
example is that, you know, when you are in the facility, you

00:30:41
know, of that dive site. You know, it's not just that you've

00:30:45
got this one site on its own, you know, you've, you've got

00:30:48
half a dozen within within a mile of each other, you know,

00:30:51
it's there. So you you've got quite a lot of options when it

00:30:55
comes to trying to pick the right dive site based on

00:30:57
conditions and tides and that sort of thing.

00:30:59
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And right, what's the, what's

00:31:03
the season is like, I mean, is there a particular time of you

00:31:06
that here that you prefer for around your location?

00:31:14
Martin Connolly: I think if you ask most locals up here, about

00:31:18
the best time of year, you'd probably find most people would

00:31:21
say, October, November, okay. The weather's usually fairly

00:31:28
calm, you know, sunny days, you know, the waters, you know,

00:31:35
warming up a little bit. It's usually quite a lot of fish

00:31:38
activity. So it just takes quite a few boxes. So that's, yeah,

00:31:46
that's, that's a bit of a highlight for us as well. I

00:31:49
mean, shows how soft we are up here. But you know, with the,

00:31:53
the winters that we have, you know, we we suffer through sort

00:31:56
of the 20 to 23 degree waters. You know, we we get into

00:32:00
October, November, and we can get back into our three Mills,

00:32:03
you know, and

00:32:07
Matt Waters: I can't remember the last time I dived in or

00:32:08
three more wet so Sydney was bloody freezing at the moment.

00:32:15
But we're men. I think I mentioned the other day, Mrs.

00:32:18
And I just like going across to Indonesia next month. Yeah. Got

00:32:23
a couple of weeks diving over there. And not. I wouldn't say

00:32:26
it's particularly much warmer because, like nature Parinita

00:32:29
there's three converging currents. Plenty of Mantis to

00:32:33
see. And you never know might get lucky with the odd Mola

00:32:36
Mola. Probably the wrong time of year for him, but fingers crossed

00:32:42
Martin Connolly: this thing and Galapagus what's what's

00:32:45
happening there?

00:32:45
Matt Waters: Oh, yeah. Oh, that was. So I planned the Galapagus

00:32:51
expedition for October 2020. And then, obviously, the pandemic,

00:32:59
years, hit in, and we had to cancel and push back and push

00:33:02
back and push back. And it's just kept on rolling. And, you

00:33:07
know, I hate the idea of, of stressing the dive industry out.

00:33:12
But even more so customers. And I hate the idea of, you know,

00:33:16
booking vouchers for different trips, and all that kind of

00:33:18
stuff. So, Master Liveaboards, we're really good. Work with

00:33:21
them. I've got a good couple of mates that work for them. Big

00:33:25
shout out to Alex. He's the man. And we just kept it rolling. And

00:33:30
my customers were patient. And now it's rolled around so that

00:33:34
we've got the booking for next year. But of course we're to two

00:33:39
and a half years on and a couple of people have had to drop out

00:33:42
because of you know, life changes because of pandemic

00:33:44
years, etc, etc. There might even be the pandemic baby boom

00:33:49
or something I don't know. So there's a couple of spaces

00:33:52
opened up. So we're gonna go next year. It's just gone online

00:33:56
now. And it's at a reduced price. It's not this year's

00:34:00
pricing. It's almost the same as it was in 2020. And the people

00:34:05
that are already going on the boat, outstandingly good fun

00:34:08
people and a great divers. So really looking forward to that.

00:34:13
And you know, initially, jazz Mama says she wasn't going to

00:34:17
come on the trip in 2020. But having had two years of locked

00:34:21
down and has not been able to go anywhere. She's jumping on as

00:34:24
well. So everyone who's coming on the boat has got the bonus of

00:34:27
having my missus on the boat who's just absolutely

00:34:30
outstanding lady. She's, she's lovely. So really looking

00:34:34
forward to that. And yes,

00:34:36
Martin Connolly: what's it going to be seven or eight days or?

00:34:38
Matt Waters: It's seven days? Or seven nights? Sorry. So we'll

00:34:41
leave on the 24th of July and then back on the 31st and I know

00:34:45
when you

00:34:46
Martin Connolly: originally planned it was Darwin's arch

00:34:49
still.

00:34:50
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. We're gonna go and see Darwin's

00:34:53
pillars now. Unfortunately, yeah, that's, that's come down,

00:34:59
but we were lucky enough. I have to, to see them back in 2018

00:35:03
when we were there. But it's, I mean, it's an exceptional,

00:35:07
exceptional location in the world. And it's, it's bloody

00:35:10
pricey. But yeah, I I've diver a lot of locations. And the

00:35:18
Galapagos is just, it's out there on its own. And it's, you

00:35:23
know, it's stunning reefs and great visibility and all that

00:35:26
kind of stuff. But the Antarctic waters that come up and the

00:35:29
currents and the nutrients that are in there is, you see a

00:35:32
Whaleshark. In Thailand, it's two to four metres you see a

00:35:36
Whaleshark and Galapagus. They start at 10 metres, you know

00:35:39
that the huge Hammerhead shows 1000s upon 1000s, or

00:35:45
hammerheads, or just sitting in the in the waters and getting a

00:35:49
good clean and asleep sometimes as well didn't know how ahead

00:35:52
sleep on this side. In the current, you'll see him

00:35:56
listening over to one side and they closed down one side of the

00:35:58
brain to go to sleep. And the other one stays awake to control.

00:36:03
Martin Connolly: Yeah, maybe hearing that. Yeah, the one I'm

00:36:06
not sure if the dolphins Yeah, they they sleep one side of the

00:36:09
brain at a time, but I didn't know that about sharks and

00:36:12
Matt Waters: yeah, yeah. Yeah. No. If you die for collaborative,

00:36:17
Martin Connolly: no, it's yeah, it's still one of the many

00:36:20
places that you know, had been on the list that I've never made

00:36:24
it to. And there was a friend of mine that you actually spoke to

00:36:29
him for awhile ago, Marcus Blake. Yeah, no, Marcus for

00:36:35
quite a long time. Hey, Marcus. He, yeah, he went there. Where I

00:36:43
think you met him and Komodo the couple that own that resort, as

00:36:49
kind of like a minor, some sort of wedding anniversary, I think

00:36:52
that they went to Galapagos, and they invited Marcus and his

00:36:55
girlfriend to go with them. Yeah. I think they were there

00:36:58
for a while. Overall, I think they were there for about two or

00:37:00
three weeks, and did something like a seven or eight day trip.

00:37:03
And, you know, he got some pretty good photos out there as

00:37:06
well, just to kind of remind me that it's a place that I want to

00:37:08
get to and, you know, we'll we'll see, you know, life's

00:37:13
maybe looking at calming down a little bit now. Yeah. You know,

00:37:16
so I guess, yeah, try and be optimistic and think that we can

00:37:20
start to make plans like that, again,

00:37:22
Matt Waters: you've got to make I mean, it's life is too short,

00:37:25
you need to get everybody who's into diving, that has some sort

00:37:29
of experience needs to go to the Galapagos as simple as that.

00:37:32
It's, it's phenomenal. I mean, there's locations in the world

00:37:37
where you do negative entry and get out of car and all that kind

00:37:39
of stuff. But there, it's just a completely different style of

00:37:43
diving, you bumped down latch on with a with a hook, and it's not

00:37:47
a it's a reef hook, but it's not a reef per se, a lot of the

00:37:51
structure down there is lava rock. So, you know, you latch on

00:37:57
or nestled down behind boulders or natural topography, and just

00:38:02
watch the show going off, you know, and you just sit there for

00:38:05
as long as you can watch it. And it's outstanding. It's it's

00:38:09
beautiful. And then to do the, the hopping off the boat, you

00:38:14
always jump off the boat a couple of times and head out

00:38:16
onto one of the islands. And it's like, it's like walking in

00:38:20
a different world. It's, you know, you could almost say

00:38:23
you're on the moon, if it wasn't for the blue sky and the oxygen

00:38:26
you're breathing, you know, it's fantastic. Yeah, it is. It's

00:38:31
just nothing else compares to it. It really doesn't. Yeah, I

00:38:35
love the place. And I'm so stoked that we're going back

00:38:38
next year, I can't wait, I really can't like that.

00:38:40
Martin Connolly: And it's cool, you know, where you said that,

00:38:43
you know, you could have a good bunch of people going as, I

00:38:46
guess that was another thing that happened, you know, with,

00:38:50
you know, when we started up, the idea of the dive expeditions

00:38:53
is certainly on the first trip that we ran, you know, to the

00:38:56
ribbons and the mica trip that's coming up. And then also the

00:39:00
corresponding trip that we're doing in November. And already

00:39:04
some of the other trips we've got in the pipeline that will be

00:39:06
you know, sort of announcing probably in the next few weeks,

00:39:09
is, it's, you know, it's more like, you know, Martin social

00:39:13
club, you know, it's basically, you know, and, and the way it

00:39:18
worked out, it's been quite interesting, too, because, you

00:39:21
know, over the last two years during COVID It's been, you

00:39:26
know, sort of amazing how how Australians have have supported

00:39:29
especially areas like like this one up here that are so

00:39:32
vulnerable, because once tourism shut down, I mean, there was

00:39:34
nothing else to fall back on. You know, same as you know,

00:39:40
obviously other parts of Australia but, you know, we felt

00:39:43
they're pretty hard up here, but Australians, they still keep

00:39:46
coming here supporting the area. And pre COVID A lot of my market

00:39:52
was not really domestic, lots of Europeans, lots of Americans.

00:39:57
And so now it kind of opened us or exposed us through this whole

00:40:00
new market here and in Australia, and basically once I

00:40:05
sort of started throwing out the idea to a lot of these people

00:40:08
about these trips, they're like, we will put us down for two

00:40:10
spots. And we'll do this one, we'll do this one. And so, you

00:40:14
know, I almost feel a little three of this year's trips

00:40:16
without any real effort. You know, it was, there was no no

00:40:21
advertising for quite a long time. Just sort of quick phone

00:40:24
call. Hey, look, we're doing minkeys In journey you're

00:40:26
coming. Can I bring in five minutes? I'll let you know.

00:40:29
Yeah, there's four of us. Yep. Cope done. Yeah. You know, and,

00:40:34
and so it's, yeah, it's, it's awesome. And then, you know, the

00:40:38
thing that goes in with that is that, you know, even though I

00:40:42
knew most of these people, were all of them in some cases that,

00:40:45
you know, then of course, getting to meet each other. And,

00:40:47
you know, that's like our, you know, Martin's doing a trip to

00:40:49
Osprey next year. Hey, you're gonna go on that one yet? We're

00:40:51
doing this one. Okay. We'll see you then. And, you know, it's, I

00:40:55
guess it was, you know, one of the driving factors behind

00:40:58
starting Scuba IQ is to become quite a sort of, I guess, can I

00:41:04
put it maybe like, a functioning part of the dive industry?

00:41:07
Again? Yeah, that, you know, you're, you're driving that

00:41:10
social side, which is so important to, to this industry.

00:41:13
And, you know, it can't get lost a little bit up here. You know,

00:41:17
with the bigger volumes, it's just the nature of it. So I

00:41:21
guess we're trying to bring a bit more of that, that kind of

00:41:24
Thailand style, you know, within reason. Yeah. You know, really,

00:41:28
you know, you know, making friends with your divers. And,

00:41:31
you know, I mean, a lot of them, by the time they've come back

00:41:34
here for the second or third time, you know, they're round

00:41:36
hours for barbecues, and, you know, me none, at all sorts, you

00:41:41
know, so it's, it's, it's been really amazing. It doesn't just

00:41:44
feel like you have a business, you know, when when those things

00:41:46
are going on?

00:41:47
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the beauty of it. I

00:41:49
mean, there's, I see it, again, it's social media, everyone's

00:41:52
got an armchair warrior, in whatever group you're in. But I

00:41:56
see people sometimes this in agents, and booking agents, etc.

00:42:01
But there's, there's a real requirement for agents at times,

00:42:06
because if you want a particular experience, you're going to

00:42:09
spend four or 567 $10 on it on a lifetime trip that you're

00:42:14
only going to do, maybe once in your life, you want it to be

00:42:17
special, and you don't want you don't want that one decade on

00:42:23
the boat that spoils it for every one. So if you've got an

00:42:26
agent, who is actually creating not only a great dive

00:42:31
experience, but an environment on the boat, or at the resort,

00:42:35
that everybody is constantly enjoying, and getting on with

00:42:38
one another without the hassle of having, you know, the

00:42:43
armchair warrior on board, then it's worth paying for, quite

00:42:48
simply. You know, I've been in experiences and situations where

00:42:52
there's been one person on a boat that will just kill the

00:42:55
vibe for 25 other guests. And it's horrible. Yeah, horrible.

00:42:59
So yeah, you're right, you're playing that hub of, of

00:43:03
providing everything and creating not only a dive

00:43:07
adventure, but a complete experience. And I think it's

00:43:10
invaluable. It really

00:43:11
Martin Connolly: is. Yeah. And I mean, you know, what we did

00:43:14
before this last trip was, you know, because we left early in

00:43:17
the morning, everyone got to Cairns, you know, the day a day

00:43:20
or two before. And so I threw it out there a week or two before

00:43:23
the trip left that hey, look, it looks like everyone's going to

00:43:25
be in town. You know, how about we go and meet at Hemingway's,

00:43:32
which is, you know, a brewery down by the cruise line, the

00:43:36
port? Yeah. And, you know, and, and I sort of me and one of the

00:43:41
other guys that was coming along with me on that trip, you know,

00:43:45
he was like, hey, Weren't we supposed to be there at 530 in

00:43:48
us about six o'clock, and I was like, it's fine. Anyway, you

00:43:51
know, we got there a bit late. And, you know, and I said it, so

00:43:55
I made it. I was like, Well, that was an unintentional, you

00:43:58
know, I didn't want to be there. And then everyone just sort of

00:44:00
wants to speak to me, you know, I'm going to be intentionally

00:44:03
late, so that they don't have a choice other than to interact

00:44:06
with each other, you know, and yeah, you know, and so I got

00:44:09
there, and they've all sort of started their own little

00:44:12
conversations. And yeah, they're away. So, you know, it's not

00:44:16
that you want to be the focal point of that group. You're just

00:44:19
kind of facilitating that, you know, that opportunity for them

00:44:22
to meet each other and know each other.

00:44:24
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's how I kind of

00:44:26
operate when I'm doing nomadic Scuba trips. And we'll always

00:44:31
aim to turn up at it at the very outside the night before we move

00:44:37
on to the boat or the resort or whatever, just to have that

00:44:40
little gathering at the start. Let people get rested and over a

00:44:43
bit of jetlag, and it works on Windows. And the Galapagos trip

00:44:47
is a great example because, you know, we'll be rocking it two or

00:44:51
three days before the boat leaves and having a couple of

00:44:54
nights on San Cristobal so people can relax and have a chat

00:44:57
get to know each other and possibly get a hang Over out the

00:45:00
way before we go into the diving days.

00:45:05
Martin Connolly: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:45:08
Matt Waters: So where's it? Where's it going from here? Then

00:45:10
you grow in the business. So you're gonna maintain at the

00:45:13
level you're at now?

00:45:15
Martin Connolly: Well, Scuba IQ? I mean, that's, you know, that

00:45:21
is where it started. And that will, that will remain. Yeah,

00:45:26
it's still an important part of what we do. And, you know, like,

00:45:31
a lot of other people that, you know, once COVID came along, and

00:45:33
there was, you know, everyone's favourite word became pivot. I

00:45:38
mean, to be honest, you know, through the first few months,

00:45:41
the biggest question was, you know, in three months, six

00:45:45
months, 12 months time, will I still be a part of dive industry

00:45:48
or not? You know, that was, that was actually the first question,

00:45:51
it was not how can I change my business? It was, Do I need to

00:45:55
leave this business. And, you know, not to hang on to it, you

00:46:00
know, with any sort of false pride or, or anything like that,

00:46:03
you know, just just be really be realistic about it. So, you

00:46:12
know, the, the idea, you know, or the thing that a lot of

00:46:15
people did it cause was, you know, started online shops. For

00:46:19
a couple of reasons, that wasn't really an option for us. And I

00:46:25
guess, over time, it just became well, and I think I sort of said

00:46:29
it to you, when we spoke briefly other day was what COVID really

00:46:32
did for us was not sort of try and go, well, we need to

00:46:35
diversify and, and cover lots of little bases and get little

00:46:39
streams going all over the place. Let's actually just focus

00:46:43
on what's good about what we do. And, and really focus on that

00:46:49
work on that develop. What that is, or was because you also

00:46:54
think that by the time you've been going three or four years,

00:46:56
you've tried a few things, some of work, some haven't. And, you

00:47:00
know, because it's a flurry, you know, you can forget some of the

00:47:03
things you did when you started, but you've, you've, you know,

00:47:06
you've diverted away from those and it's a bit of a reset, I

00:47:10
guess, I thought, Okay, well, that's kind of getting all of

00:47:14
our ducks in a row here. Now, what would be something that we

00:47:17
could offer that that could be really cool. And that would be,

00:47:20
you know, something of interest to the people that have already

00:47:22
died with us, and maybe don't just want to come back and, you

00:47:25
know, do the day trip again, or, you know, they're not

00:47:28
necessarily interested now that they're advanced, open water,

00:47:30
they're not, they're not thinking about becoming rescue

00:47:32
divers, they just want to do good diving. And so, you know,

00:47:38
the idea of the of the expeditions became, you know, it

00:47:42
was, I guess, a fairly natural choice. And having having the

00:47:47
relationship with the boat, making that a fairly easy

00:47:51
discussion, were a good fit. And, and I guess, just applying

00:47:55
that same philosophy that we have with Scuba IKEA, that it's

00:47:58
going to be quite focused and specific. So we're not going to

00:48:01
be doing weekly trips to the Reverend raves, it's going to be

00:48:04
this one here. It's going to be something with monkeys. It's

00:48:08
going to be corresponding in November, and you know, get the

00:48:11
ball rolling with those. And then next year, the can't say

00:48:15
too much at the moment next year is going to be pretty amazing, I

00:48:18
think. Because we're going to start going further afield. And

00:48:25
yes, you know, we're not we're not trying to be all things to

00:48:28
all people. It's like, well, these are what our divers are

00:48:31
kind of saying that they want to do or would like to do. So.

00:48:34
Let's let's do that.

00:48:36
Matt Waters: Are you gonna do them? Like full boat charters?

00:48:40
Martin Connolly: That these are all full boat charters. Nice.

00:48:44
Yeah. So so we say to the boat. Hey, look, corresponding ideal

00:48:50
dates because of the full moon would be here to here. Are you

00:48:54
available? And they go? Yes. Go right. Okay. Well, yeah. So we,

00:48:59
we, we arranged a charter. And then we sell the tickets. Yeah.

00:49:05
Yeah. So that so the boat at the boat is ours? Yeah. They said,

00:49:10
Matt Waters: Do you remember your first one one of the first

00:49:12
time you actually booked an entire boat? It's quite

00:49:18
frightening when you see that invoice come through, isn't it?

00:49:23
Martin Connolly: Yeah, it was. I mean, the one we did in April

00:49:26
was the first one we've done, you know, with these dive

00:49:29
expeditions. When I was in Spain, though, I had like a

00:49:33
little kind of offshoot, because where I was I spent a lot of

00:49:41
time around sort of Ibiza New Yorker menorrhagia. Now there's

00:49:44
a lot of super yachts that go through there. Yeah. And so, you

00:49:49
know, some of them would be contacting your dive centre to

00:49:51
say, hey, our boss or our guests would love to go for a day of

00:49:55
diving. Can we come in and pick up one of your instructors and

00:49:59
then they take is our diving for the day. So you were getting,

00:50:02
you know, quite a lot of work being subcontracted by the

00:50:05
superyacht industry. And after a while, as well, there's a couple

00:50:09
of yachts here that are pretty cool. They weren't set up for

00:50:11
diving, I'm going to speak to them. And, yeah, I mean, I was,

00:50:15
you know, sort of in my mid 20s. And, you know, at that time,

00:50:18
barely scraping by on English, in Ireland. You know, it was,

00:50:24
yeah, like you say, you get that invoice. And there it is, you

00:50:29
know, the 10s of 1000s of euros for a day. And, you know, so

00:50:35
it's, but it's, you know, and that's why I guess, before you

00:50:41
then do those things, you know, you've got to think that you've

00:50:43
got a very, very good chance of pulling it off. You know, that

00:50:48
can't just be caution to the wind. And, you know, and to hell

00:50:52
with it. Hope for the best. No, no. So, no, yeah, just dive

00:50:59
instructors at the end of the day. Yeah.

00:51:00
Matt Waters: Yeah. That's it, we now need to find those

00:51:02
youngsters that can do all the all the good stuff and promote

00:51:05
it properly.

00:51:07
Martin Connolly: So apart from Galapagus, what's, what's the

00:51:10
plan? You got some other trips coming up? Or?

00:51:15
Matt Waters: I keep I keep having people ask me that. At

00:51:17
the moment, what we're doing, or what I'm doing is, much like

00:51:21
you're hinted at earlier on, when when COVID hit? How the

00:51:26
hell do you keep hold of being in the dive industry and nomadic

00:51:28
Scuba, my booking agency just literally had nothing coming

00:51:32
through. So I think I took the right option in putting a

00:51:36
curtain over the website, so that there was no bookings

00:51:39
coming through wouldn't have to deal with, you know,

00:51:41
reservations and deposits that were then getting held by the

00:51:45
operators, because half of them were going out of business, or

00:51:48
god knows what else. So that's been closed off for over two

00:51:52
years now. And in that time period, I picked up a day job,

00:51:57
so I was working, proper, proper stuff, rather than dreaming

00:52:01
about diving. And six weeks ago, I took the plunge jumped away

00:52:07
from that job and back into the Manage Scuba 100% of the time.

00:52:12
So at the moment and working from home, we're having to

00:52:15
update the website, because albeit it was all singing and

00:52:19
all dancing ready to go. Two years later, it's a bit

00:52:22
outdated. So I'm struggling through WordPress and all that

00:52:25
other crap that you need to do to get it up to speed. And then

00:52:30
we'll raise the curtain and get back to booking people's

00:52:35
holidays and creating expeditions. I've got several

00:52:40
mates of mine that have been working in the diver industry

00:52:43
that are super keen to grow and start leading expeditions

00:52:46
themselves as well. So we'll, we'll get that ball rolling. A

00:52:50
couple of them were this podcast, and you know, a little

00:52:53
cheeky little trip to Indonesia to possibly possibly buy a dive

00:52:57
centre. So quite a lot going on right now. That's awesome. Yeah,

00:53:05
the guy might have a little home in Indonesia at some point.

00:53:08
Well, we'll see.

00:53:11
Martin Connolly: Yes. I mean, that was. And that was why I

00:53:15
first got in touch was because I think through the podcast, you

00:53:18
mentioned about the travel agency, no, Medic, Scuba. And I

00:53:21
thought, Okay, well, might be interested in what we're doing.

00:53:25
Yeah. Well, that's Yeah. You know, as you know, like when,

00:53:31
when you're small, I guess it's one of the advantages we have is

00:53:35
that we can be quite agile. Yeah. But you've got to allow

00:53:38
yourself to be agile. You know, you know, pick, pick carefully,

00:53:45
who you would like to work with.

00:53:48
Matt Waters: You're like, I don't want to start it. Sorry to

00:53:50
interject there. But the thing I shot I did, as soon as I

00:53:53
decided, I'm going for it. I believe in Papua New Guinea. I'd

00:53:57
already thought about doing the medic, Scuba, and then jumped

00:54:00
back into Thailand for a season. I thought, right, we're going

00:54:04
for this, I need to see the locations that I'm advertising.

00:54:09
The last thing I want to do is advertise a location for someone

00:54:13
who spend a lot of money on and then come back to me very

00:54:17
disappointed that would just it would eat me alive. So I spent a

00:54:22
lot of money and it was it was a good, Jolly. I spent a lot of

00:54:26
money travelling to different locations and just dive in at

00:54:28
resorts and Liveaboards, all that kind of stuff just so I

00:54:31
could experience it myself and talk with experience to

00:54:35
potential customers. And now I'm you know, comfortably in that

00:54:40
position where I can select who I'm going to advertise. And

00:54:44
those that I don't know. I'll aim to go and see. And it sounds

00:54:50
like all I'm doing is building a little Empire so I can go

00:54:53
travelling and go diving. Well effectively I am but moreover,

00:54:58
my little booster is Being able to get customers to operate as

00:55:05
doors, yourself, for example, I'd be super keen to advertise

00:55:10
your expeditions and get money rolling through your door and

00:55:13
keep the industry alive and do it in a any community feel way

00:55:19
rather than just a corporate way? If that makes sense? No,

00:55:23
yeah. Yeah, the kickback is, you know, I have to take some sort

00:55:26
of wage out of it so I can live and survive. But you know,

00:55:29
that's that's business. Yeah. But if I can, if I can make

00:55:32
people happy and put back into the dive industry was given to

00:55:37
me. All for it. 100%.

00:55:41
Martin Connolly: Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome.

00:55:45
Matt Waters: So yeah, not dive care. And yet, so I might be

00:55:47
coming up to you for a little trip on envy. Algo.

00:55:52
Martin Connolly: Yeah. Let me know. Yeah. If it's not this

00:55:57
year, you know, it was no, but we're trying to be pretty

00:56:01
careful this year, just the three trips. But, yeah, as you

00:56:07
said, there's invoices. I didn't want one of those. rolling into

00:56:11
my inbox every couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, played it

00:56:17
safe. But yeah, next year is next year is looking like it

00:56:20
could be. Yeah, pretty cool.

00:56:21
Matt Waters: Yeah. JFDI may just fucking do it. Yeah, you're in

00:56:25
one of the best locations in the world for diving. Everybody

00:56:28
wants to go the the Great Barrier Reef doors are opening

00:56:31
up again. Do it, do it?

00:56:36
Martin Connolly: Yes, I think one of the things that, I guess

00:56:40
gave me even a bit more optimism was a good friend of mine in San

00:56:44
Diego. He was saying that, you know, a lot of his friends who

00:56:48
had you know, XYZ travel plans before COVID that they weren't

00:56:54
able to get away. You know, they'd been planning to go that

00:56:58
various parts of the world, various exotic locations, but

00:57:02
now a lot of them are changed their turn, and they're like,

00:57:04
Well, we're still going to go away. But we're gonna go to New

00:57:07
Zealand or Australia now. Because if they're things, you

00:57:12
know, things go to gravy again. And we have and we get stuck

00:57:16
somewhere. Let's get stuck in Australia. You say? Something

00:57:21
that's relatively civilised? And, you know, we'll look after

00:57:28
our so yeah. Yeah, so that was quite interesting to hear that

00:57:32
as well. But I guess just the way that people's approach or

00:57:35
mentality around her and travels, gonna be different for

00:57:38
quite a while, I'd say,

00:57:39
Matt Waters: yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I've recently come

00:57:42
back from Thailand. And that was the first trip since the

00:57:46
pandemic hit. And just jumping through the hoops to get into

00:57:51
the country and get back was, it was quite smooth now. And you

00:57:56
can see I was just getting better and better. But it was a

00:57:59
bit of a pain in the ass to figure out and organise. And the

00:58:04
main thing there is the the insurance side of things, no

00:58:09
countries can impose their own restrictions. And like Thailand

00:58:13
did it said, you have to provide proof of 20 US dollars,

00:58:18
cover just for any COVID infection that's beyond anything

00:58:22
else. So on you travel, and you dive insurance, etc. So it's

00:58:28
going to be a pain in the ass. And there's going to be

00:58:30
reluctance for people to take the risk. But at the same side

00:58:33
of the coin, those those locations that haven't been dye

00:58:37
for so many years, and now primed because it's not had the

00:58:42
common regular disruption of many divers in the water. And I

00:58:48
know we mentioned Koh Tao earlier on, I did pop back to go

00:58:51
down for a few days and did a couple of times when we make and

00:58:55
I was actually suitably impressed in the volume of fish

00:59:00
in comparison to what I remember. So I can only imagine

00:59:04
that, you know, the barrier reef itself is probably going to be,

00:59:07
you know, much the same. And a little bit of time to regenerate

00:59:13
and recoup.

00:59:16
Martin Connolly: Yes, yeah, Thailand is definitely on our on

00:59:20
our list. You know, we're trying to get there in the next couple

00:59:22
of years. If we can, it's

00:59:24
Matt Waters: just to to go back and have a look at changes.

00:59:29
Martin Connolly: Well, I don't know. Well, to be honest, one of

00:59:34
the big ones up there. Hopefully in a couple of years, my

00:59:36
daughter will be old enough to get certified. And, you know,

00:59:40
we'd love to take it to the summerlands

00:59:44
Matt Waters: Ya know, Alicia, tell you what, seriously, if you

00:59:47
want to go to the simulans and you want to you could even plan

00:59:51
in your own little Scuba IQ expedition. I'll hook you up.

00:59:56
Yeah, very good mate of mine, Steve vessel. Crazy. judgement.

01:00:00
He's the owner of the junk, which was on the James Bond

01:00:05
movies, and the fantasy. And his time on the junk and affinity

01:00:09
are just outstanding individuals of a lot of them. So as I'm when

01:00:14
she's old enough and ready to dive, you can take her there and

01:00:17
planning an expedition, I'll hook you guys up, and you can,

01:00:19
you can have a drink and those boats, which is really, really

01:00:22
good

01:00:23
Martin Connolly: there, because that's actually been one of the

01:00:25
locations where, you know, once I've been over there and got to

01:00:29
see what it was like for myself, especially the incoming here,

01:00:33
and you know, a lot of people that make it to Cannes or the

01:00:38
Great Barrier Reef early in their career, they, a lot of

01:00:42
them tend to stay here. And they, and they punch out quite

01:00:47
lengthy careers, you know, because it's one of the

01:00:49
locations in the world as a dive instructor, you're, you're paid

01:00:52
well, generally, you've got good job security, as long as there

01:00:58
are no pandemics. And, you know, so people are really building

01:01:05
their lives here off the back of being a dive instructor, you

01:01:07
know, buying houses, and, you know, and all of these sorts of

01:01:11
things that normal people get to do that when you're an

01:01:13
instructor in Thailand. I mean, that's the furthest thing from

01:01:16
your mind. And I sort of say to a lot of them, especially the

01:01:20
younger ones, like, Hey, I mean, you can always come back here,

01:01:23
you know, you're an Aussie, you're a kiwi, you can always

01:01:25
come and work here. Go to Cal lac, go and work for six months

01:01:30
season on the simulans by just go and see another side of this

01:01:34
industry, have fun, you'll save a bit of money because you're on

01:01:37
a liveaboard and, you know, get a bit of experience teaching

01:01:43
courses, you know, get some variety in what you're doing,

01:01:45
you know, because, you know, as you know, people burn out. Yeah,

01:01:50
they get, you know, you get jaded, and I guess, you know,

01:01:54
that was, I mean, I, I had that when I was in the Mediterranean,

01:01:58
I might burnt out, you know, after my first couple of years,

01:02:03
and took a year off. And just, I left my dive gear at my sister's

01:02:06
house in England and said, If I, if I come back and want my dive

01:02:11
gear, or I call you and want you to send it to me, I don't I

01:02:16
don't want to see my dive gear for a couple of years. I just

01:02:19
need to go and think about this. And, you know, it took some time

01:02:24
out and thought okay, I think I'm ready to give it another go.

01:02:28
And, uh, you know, and then look back since you know, I haven't

01:02:31
had a break since then that was, you know, 2002 1008 was after I

01:02:38
took a year off. So, you know, it's yeah, you know, it's I

01:02:44
guess it's one of the running jokes as well up here over the

01:02:47
years as our you know, Thailand instructors, but, I mean, I

01:02:52
would honestly say that some of the best instructors I've ever

01:02:54
known or worked with, have been in Thailand. Yeah. Yeah. You

01:02:58
know, without without a doubt.

01:03:00
Matt Waters: I mean, it's, like I say, I mean, it's, it's one of

01:03:03
those things that gets pointed out Thailand and Honduras where,

01:03:07
you know, a lot of people when they're young to do their

01:03:12
initial Scuba diving training, because it's cheap. It's 30

01:03:16
degree water, there's beer on tap, there's chicks in bikinis,

01:03:20
there's parties. You know, it's got all the attraction of

01:03:23
tourism and excitement. So yes, there are a lot of people that

01:03:26
go and dive in those locations. And a lot of people can say that

01:03:30
their factories. I would kind of agree with that. However, you

01:03:36
can't dish an instructor for being good enough to teach six

01:03:40
people proficiently, and arguably better than people that

01:03:44
have had a career where they've taught one on one for the last

01:03:47
10 years. You need your wits about you if you're going to

01:03:50
teach six people open water and Do it confidently, competently

01:03:54
and safely. So I would, like you said, I would urge young dive

01:04:01
pros, use Thailand, use Honduras use these locations that have

01:04:06
cheap diving, and go and go and experience it for yourselves

01:04:11
have fun, and gain the experience that you get from

01:04:14
someone who can really teach their groups Yeah. at such a low

01:04:18
level. It's it's it just makes the rest of your dive career

01:04:23
relatively simple. It's it's a big tick in my box. I'd never

01:04:29
put someone away that came looking for a job if they'd been

01:04:32
working in Thailand or Honduras in these mega industries. It's

01:04:37
you can multitask if you can do that underwater. It's fantastic.

01:04:40
Martin Connolly: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's like you

01:04:44
know, the, the guy you're talking to last week it said

01:04:46
that, you know, being a dive instructor you basically become

01:04:49
very good at organising a lot of things at the last minute. And,

01:04:55
you know, but again, somewhere like Thailand, that is where you

01:04:59
get that you know, As you might go into the shop in the morning,

01:05:02
it's like, hey, the guys are in the classroom. They're watching

01:05:04
video one. They've done the paperwork, but they're yours.

01:05:08
Okay. Yep. No worries. But once you've been there for a long

01:05:11
enough, you know, getting told that first thing in the morning,

01:05:14
it's, it's not like, Oh, what do I do? It's Oh, this will be

01:05:17
awesome.

01:05:18
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. Because it can nature. It really does.

01:05:21
Yeah, you know, and you get up in the morning, excited to go to

01:05:25
work because you know, you've got work, and you know that it's

01:05:28
going to be good fun. Yeah. I loved it. I loved every minute.

01:05:32
I was in Thailand. And I love every minute I go back to

01:05:35
Thailand. Yeah, that's my second home for sure.

01:05:39
Martin Connolly: And yeah, it was cool that, you know, we're

01:05:42
seeing that you won't listen to you talking to other people that

01:05:45
I know like Libby. You know, Marcus is coming, because you've

01:05:53
spoken to each one of them. But I think it's been about four or

01:05:55
five people on here before that, that I know some of them quite

01:05:58
well, especially Marcus. From Thailand, he he was doing his

01:06:04
divemaster with an instructor I've worked with that was what

01:06:09
2002 1011 I think Marcus did his divemaster. And then I think he

01:06:15
had a couple of years out before he he moved back to Thailand,

01:06:18
sort of 2014 or 2015, something like that.

01:06:21
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. carried on. Well, I met him. 2018 Yeah,

01:06:28
I think 2018 2019 2019 I think I took an expedition to Komodo

01:06:35
diver as our commander resort and Data Dive club. And he was

01:06:39
the guy of ops manager with flow. And we had a fantastic

01:06:43
time. And he's now doing quite alright for himself. He's picked

01:06:47
up a job with Yeah. Was it snorkel venture? And he's just

01:06:53
just come off a boat in French Polynesia, Jami burger. That's

01:06:57
not

01:06:57
Martin Connolly: ice. He's he's had a rough ride, but

01:07:02
Matt Waters: rough ride, he's gone and played with his

01:07:04
motorbikes and and picked up a nice job. He's done. All right.

01:07:09
Martin Connolly: But then I get on. And that's, you know, and

01:07:12
that's what the dive industry is, you know, yeah. There are a

01:07:15
lot of opportunities that, that you don't realise I've been in

01:07:18
front of you or, you know, opportunities you've turned

01:07:20
down. And, you know, and I guess that's one of the things that I

01:07:25
would say, you know, over the years when I've taught

01:07:27
divemaster courses or assistant on IDCs, is that, you know,

01:07:31
almost our biggest problem is that we have too many options.

01:07:35
Yeah. You know, but it's, it takes some work to be able to,

01:07:39
you know, take advantage of some of them. But, you know, it's,

01:07:46
yeah, there's so many things you can do with your career and the

01:07:48
dive industry.

01:07:49
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. And then you can work your way up to

01:07:52
dizzying heights of organising expeditions in Great Barrier

01:07:56
Reef.

01:07:59
Martin Connolly: Yeah, heavy lies the ground.

01:08:01
Matt Waters: Hey, usually, I noticed. We're not even touched

01:08:04
on it. But do are you still doing the dive courses? Or is

01:08:07
the liveaboard starting to take her main front row seat?

01:08:12
Martin Connolly: No, no. So we, we still teach courses? Were

01:08:17
dual agency. So predominantly, Patti. We also teach SDI TDI. So

01:08:28
that's sort of coming through more and more. Scuba IQ has been

01:08:33
built really on teaching courses. And it was one of the

01:08:37
things if not the thing that, you know, when I was starting

01:08:40
the business that, you know, I wanted to get away from, you

01:08:43
know, just guiding and doing intros, you know, which is the

01:08:46
main thing done on the boats here.

01:08:49
You know, get back to teaching again. Yeah. So a lot of open

01:08:54
water courses. You know, and all the others as well, over the

01:09:01
first few years, you know, there were some, you

01:09:03
know, sort of younger locals that were coming through, and,

01:09:06
you know, with the divemaster courses, that sort of thing. So,

01:09:08
the courses are still a really important part. You know, it's

01:09:13
one of the things that I like to do the most. So that's not going

01:09:15
anywhere. Yeah. And so, yeah, so that's, yeah, that that keeps

01:09:20
going. And the expeditions are now sort of a, I guess, in some

01:09:25
regards to separate though.

01:09:29
Matt Waters: Do you want to do you want to Would you like

01:09:31
another string to bow to want to do right as well?

01:09:39
Martin Connolly: Well, it came up I mean, I've you know, I'm an

01:09:44
instructor for a few different agencies, although activity only

01:09:46
for for SDI, TDI and Patti. There was I haven't seen it for

01:09:57
a while. There's a guy up here. It was a great representative. I

01:10:02
don't know if he does all of Australia Steve Bates good. I

01:10:06
think he's because he's got a especially got another very

01:10:08
successful business down in Cannes a printing agency. So

01:10:16
they do like logbooks and mass Tamers and all the other bits

01:10:20
and pieces for us uniforms. So yeah, it did. It did come up a

01:10:25
few years ago. And you know, it's it's bouncing around in

01:10:30
there.

01:10:31
Matt Waters: I would do it. I would do it. It's an ALA back

01:10:35
way back season one I think it was we had Paul Toomer on

01:10:38
President erode. Yeah. Good, my mind. But there now, as long as

01:10:43
you say, five, five people here, whatever level, then there's,

01:10:47
there's no pro fees. There's no dive centre fees, nothing. So

01:10:52
you can actually deliver. And it's all online as well. It's

01:10:55
all digital. So and I'm a big advocate for raid, and when I'm

01:10:59
PADI and SSI as well, but I think the way that raid teachers

01:11:02
and when it's done well, it's fantastic. Teaching really is.

01:11:07
But yeah, well, if you know, Steve, I would, I would urge you

01:11:11
to get back in touch with him and have a little chat about

01:11:15
worth, I guess it

01:11:15
Martin Connolly: sort of the idea of, you know, reemerged

01:11:18
when you spoke to Ryan do chatel A while ago, yeah. Then, I mean,

01:11:26
probably to do with with raid, but also I'd say, you know,

01:11:29
their own sort of core values and principles when it comes to

01:11:31
teaching, but you know, they like to teach the smaller

01:11:33
numbers and, and that sort of thing. So very similar to what

01:11:37
we do here, you know, as, so, for example, I know what, of

01:11:40
course, the most that I'll take on my own now will be three. And

01:11:45
if we have estates, a family of five, I bring another instructor

01:11:48
and yeah, you know, so just to try and break it down even a bit

01:11:52
more. You know, so, you know, it was quite interesting listening

01:11:57
to them. And it's kind of, well, it kind of sounds a little bit

01:11:59
like what we are or what we do as well. So, you know, it's

01:12:03
Yeah. But like I say that, you know, there might even be, you

01:12:09
know, part of that, you know, turn to what rates sort of

01:12:12
principles and philosophies are behind behind good teaching.

01:12:16
Yeah. You know, because that's, you know, it's one thing I've

01:12:21
said, a number of times over the years, especially on IDCs was

01:12:25
that, you know, even though when you first become an instructor,

01:12:30
never we'll do it, because we don't have any other way really

01:12:33
at that stage. But when you teach a course, it's, it's quite

01:12:37
mechanical. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, you go through

01:12:40
the slates, you're checking everything off. You know, you

01:12:46
sort of get to the point is, what I said to these candidates

01:12:49
on a number of times, was that the aim isn't just to teach a

01:12:52
course it's to train divers, you know, and so that, be sort of to

01:12:58
indoctrinated or don't be so caught up in, in the, in the

01:13:01
detail. Just think about what it is you're really trying to

01:13:04
achieve by doing this. And, you know, don't get too carried away

01:13:07
with trying to show how much you know, or, you know, these,

01:13:11
you're just trying to give this person the skills that they can

01:13:13
go away and die without you, they're telling them what to do.

01:13:17
You know, and, you know, it's yes, but more about, about the

01:13:23
function of it, you know, rather than, you know, the form,

01:13:26
Matt Waters: exactly. It's one of the things that I get asked

01:13:29
so often is, you know, should I use paddy SSI right now, we see

01:13:33
myself as a YMCA, whatever, who do I Who do I train under, and

01:13:37
generally, it comes from, you know, newbies, inquisitive

01:13:40
people. And we've got to point out that, you know, people come

01:13:45
in new into the industry that unknowing, they don't know, so

01:13:48
they're looking for that advice. And my advice would always be,

01:13:51
it doesn't matter which agency you're teaching, all learning

01:13:55
under, what is important is the person that's delivering that

01:13:59
information, because that person can be the most experienced

01:14:03
diver in the world. If they can't deliver information so

01:14:06
that it retains it retained, then it's a pointless task.

01:14:11
It's, it'd be a shit course. So your first value is the

01:14:18
instructor that's delivering the information and whether it's

01:14:21
information you can retain. Beyond that. I think the the

01:14:27
agencies are all much the same, they're delivering not

01:14:31
instruction, but recommendations on how to teach these basic

01:14:37
skills to you know, to the recipient. And I think the the

01:14:48
bond between the agencies and the instructor, is where the

01:14:52
differences come in when you're looking at the different

01:14:55
agencies. And and what I mean by that is that I might be able to

01:14:59
tell Each in a raid format better than I do a paddy format.

01:15:04
And you might be able to teach vice versa. So depending on what

01:15:09
our student wants to learn will depend on which instructor will

01:15:13
be able to deliver that in the fashion that they retain the

01:15:17
information. That was a very long winded way of saying it

01:15:21
doesn't really matter about agencies. It's more about the

01:15:24
person that's watching. Yeah. But then, but going on from

01:15:28
that. The only other time that I would recommend people to start

01:15:32
really looking at which agency they're using to learn under is

01:15:36
when they're looking to become a dive professional dive master

01:15:39
and above. Do they want to be working in America? In which

01:15:44
case, the obvious thing would be that they'd be better off being

01:15:47
paddy because there's more PADI dive centres over that? They were

01:15:51
Martin Connolly: not nearly enough present. There's a now

01:15:52
instructor because of that, because now we had a bit more

01:15:55
presence in New Zealand the early 2000s.

01:15:57
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. A perfect example. Yeah.

01:16:01
Martin Connolly: So I totally cut you off there. That's

01:16:03
alright.

01:16:03
Matt Waters: That's alright. You need to sometimes just keep on,

01:16:06
keep on going. But yeah, jump on the road bank bandwagon might as

01:16:10
well worth it. Yeah.

01:16:11
Martin Connolly: Yeah. It's I mean, it's, you know, you end up

01:16:14
in some situations. I mean, not just in courses. But, you know,

01:16:18
let's say you've, you've got some divers for the day. And

01:16:21
they might ask you a question. And, I mean, you try not to

01:16:23
sound dismissive, or like being blase, but they might ask you

01:16:27
about something, and there might be like, their buddy checks.

01:16:31
And, you know, it's almost to the point that you say, Well,

01:16:35
look, if if you consider the fact that each of the

01:16:38
organisations, you know, they don't agree on the sequence that

01:16:41
should be used, but they do agree on what should be done.

01:16:44
Yes. So, so it's not like I can impose, you know, any sort of

01:16:49
particular, you know, idea on to you, all I care about is that

01:16:53
they're done. You know, I don't, it doesn't matter to me how you

01:16:58
do them, but find a way that that you prefer, or that is easy

01:17:02
to remember it, just do it that way every time.

01:17:04
Matt Waters: Have you got emails coming through or something that

01:17:06
keeps pinging

01:17:08
Martin Connolly: aside, there's something going on? I'm not sure

01:17:10
what it is. Do you

01:17:12
Matt Waters: remember what I said the other day? That's a

01:17:15
crate of beer, my man.

01:17:20
Martin Connolly: But like I say, it's a good point, you know,

01:17:23
find the right instructor rather than look for the agency. Yeah,

01:17:26
Matt Waters: yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, it's, if you

01:17:28
rock up somewhere, and you're not really liking the person

01:17:31
that stood in front of you, for whatever reason, I'll just feel

01:17:34
a little bit uncomfortable, then it's probably not the right

01:17:36
place to be. Find someone that you're comfortable with. And

01:17:40
then go from there. Yeah. All right. Well, it's been an

01:17:43
absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for coming

01:17:45
on.

01:17:46
Martin Connolly: Yeah, thanks for having me.

01:17:47
Matt Waters: No worries. And everyone that's listening out

01:17:50
there. Get in touch with Scuba IQ if you wanna hit the Great

01:17:52
Barrier Reef and get on board and have a lot of fun. Thanks

01:17:55
for listening now. Bye, everybody. Got a podcast for the

01:18:02
inquisitive diver.