Stephen Fordyce - Sump diving and caving

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

00:00:08
Now before we get on with this week's episode, I just want to

00:00:10
share a quick story with you because I got a call a few weeks

00:00:14
ago from my mate Martin at Scuba IQ.

00:00:17
"Hey, Matt, what are you up to in December? Do you fancy co

00:00:21
hosting a trip with me?" Now of course, I played it cool. "Oh,

00:00:25
yeah. Well might be interested mate." However, it doesn't take

00:00:29
a genius to work out my answer when the trip he's talking about

00:00:32
is in the Great Barrier Reef. "I'm in!"

00:00:36
So we're taking a maximum of 12 guests and we're visiting lots

00:00:40
of hotspots, such as Steve's bommie, The Cod Hole, Lizard

00:00:43
Island, and we may even be attempting the first floating

00:00:46
Scuba GOAT podcast. So if you want to get involved, come along

00:00:51
and have a lot of fun and some awesome diving. Follow the link

00:00:53
in the show notes and grab your spot quick. Now on with the show.

00:00:58
Hey, Steven, hey, what we should do is just introduce you to our

00:01:03
listeners. And so I'll hand that bit over to you because I think

00:01:07
you know yourself better than I know you.

00:01:09
Stephen Fordyce: Well, thanks. So yeah, my name is Steven

00:01:12
Fordyce generally known as Steve, but I'll answer to

00:01:16
anything. I am 36. And I've done quite a bit of stuff in the

00:01:23
diving and other spheres. I'm an engineer and but quite a hands

00:01:29
on one. And I I've come into my little niche in the diving

00:01:35
industry running my small business TFM engineering

00:01:38
Australia. I do custom gas equipment and and things and

00:01:44
I've been noted to tell to explain my customer base as the

00:01:49
sort of people that have their own compressor. So yeah, there's

00:01:54
there's a whole whole series of things around that.

00:01:56
Matt Waters: I did have a look at TFM right, you got an

00:01:58
impressive lineup an impressive catalogue there. I gotta say.

00:02:02
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, thanks. So the idea was that it would be

00:02:05
anything I kind of felt like at the time. My My professional

00:02:10
background, I've got a degree in mechatronics engineering. And

00:02:14
I've been I worked for about six years in industry actually

00:02:19
designing product managing big industrial gas systems, liquid

00:02:23
nitrogen, liquid oxygen giant gas plants and smaller things.

00:02:27
So yeah, we're a lot of people are coming into diving from a

00:02:34
you know, a teaching background or an air background. I come in

00:02:38
from a pure gases, engineering industrial background, which is

00:02:44
kind of interesting. How

00:02:45
Matt Waters: old are you? Because you look so frickin

00:02:47
young to have done all this stuff.

00:02:49
Stephen Fordyce: Well, yeah, I get that. I'm, I just turned 36

00:02:53
I think 1986 That's when I was born. Okay, so I'll be turning

00:02:59
36 yesterday, actually. Something all the debut. I've

00:03:05
just been lost track by now. But um, yeah. And apparently I've

00:03:08
got a baby face, which seems to be it was a bit of a hindrance

00:03:12
early on, trying to try to have credibility. But I've just about

00:03:17
I got to a point in life where old enough to be taken

00:03:21
seriously, and sort of like having a bit of a baby face.

00:03:25
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And how did you get into the diamond

00:03:29
side of life?

00:03:31
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, well, I started off pretty, pretty

00:03:34
young. I guess I was I was 20. And wondering about at Monash

00:03:39
uni, and I saw the Scuba club. And I thought that looks cool.

00:03:45
I'd already done quite a lot of other outdoor things with

00:03:48
bushwalking club. So I've got a bit of a history of picking up

00:03:53
an activity and taking it to some kind of logical extreme. So

00:03:58
does

00:03:59
Matt Waters: logic logical and extreme come in the same

00:04:01
sentence I often? Or

00:04:04
Stephen Fordyce: yeah, in my own head anyway. So back in 2007

00:04:09
ish. I rocked up to Monash open day, I saw the Scuba club, and I

00:04:12
thought Yeah, that's cool. So I went up to them I said, Hey,

00:04:15
guys, give me a pitch. And they talked about how you could rent

00:04:20
gear really cheap and you could go off and they had their own

00:04:22
boat and you could basically that that at that point that was

00:04:26
when I realised that Scuba diving might actually be

00:04:29
affordable for me at that point being a pretty poor tight

00:04:33
Student Yeah, and one thing led to another and two years later I

00:04:39
was the president running the club

00:04:43
Matt Waters: literally at the deep end

00:04:45
Stephen Fordyce: a little bit yeah, I got got a bit carried

00:04:47
away did did my dividing water and various other things. And

00:04:53
yeah, running running club suited me really well. I've

00:04:57
always been a bit of a like to do things by and why and so the

00:05:02
club was a really good way that I could do that. Now they had a

00:05:08
boat and a bunch of uni kids running around with a boat and

00:05:13
all that all the dive gear was was really amazing, fantastic

00:05:17
thing to be part of. And I threw a huge amount of energy into

00:05:22
that and making it really cool. And so I've got, like lifelong

00:05:26
friends that we went through all sorts of trips and things and

00:05:30
everything else. So I was a mad ocean diver for quite a few

00:05:34
years. We took the quad bike, we drove around all over Australia.

00:05:40
So I've done all sorts of weird and wonderful dives. As far as

00:05:44
Perth we also we took the boat to Tassie, we took it up to

00:05:49
northern New South Wales and lo Victoria. So yeah, it was it was

00:05:54
a fantastic thing to do at uni when we we had time not not so

00:05:59
much money. Yeah, we did some fantastic things.

00:06:04
Matt Waters: How'd you manage to do all your study with all this

00:06:06
mega travelling going on? Pretty impressive. Oh,

00:06:08
Stephen Fordyce: they give you they give you so many so many

00:06:10
breaks? And I also probably was guilty of the cramming technique

00:06:15
a bit

00:06:18
Matt Waters: yeah, for one fell on and whether they were in the

00:06:21
sea within the during the ocean recreational But how on earth?

00:06:25
Did you end up taking it into caves?

00:06:28
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, well, that's I am sort of probably

00:06:31
best best known and most most keen on on my que diving and in

00:06:36
fact, a specific niche of cave diving called called sub diving.

00:06:42
I actually, I knew quite early on that cave diving was a thing

00:06:46
that I wanted to do. I did my initial training with ocean

00:06:51
divers in Bentley. And they have a big kind of standing in cave

00:07:01
diving, I do a lot of courses. And some of the some of the

00:07:04
instructors like Jane Barton, who was who was my instructor,

00:07:07
and worked on. They operated out of the shop. And so even as I

00:07:14
was doing my open water and Advanced Open Water, there were

00:07:17
pictures on the wall of people cave diving. And there were

00:07:19
people in the shop that cave dives. And, you know, some of

00:07:23
the other instructors were around cave diving. So it

00:07:27
actually seemed like a pretty natural progression for me. And

00:07:29
I remember even quite early on when I've done 30 Odd dives and

00:07:33
hadn't hadn't done my Advanced Open Water yet that I looked at

00:07:37
it and I'm like, Yeah, that's I'm gonna do that cave diving.

00:07:40
That makes sense. Whereas a lot of other people, I think, sort

00:07:44
of come around to it a bit more slowly.

00:07:48
Matt Waters: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've tried. I think it's

00:07:53
all extremely interesting. But I think I'm one of those divers

00:07:57
that prefers the ocean. After I've tried a few, you know, feel

00:08:01
a little dip through the sun 80s and stuff like that. It's all

00:08:04
interesting, but it doesn't grab me as much as corals and fish I

00:08:09
suppose it's it's each to their own. But you just mentioned that

00:08:12
yours Your kind of flavour is pretty unique being that have

00:08:17
some time in

00:08:19
Stephen Fordyce: it some some diving is it's sort of a quantum

00:08:24
leap. Much much the same as recreational diving to cave

00:08:29
diving. It's it's probably a similar leap from cave diving to

00:08:34
some diving. So to get to get into cave diving, obviously,

00:08:41
there's there's quite a number of different courses in

00:08:44
Australia that the typical path is through the cave divers

00:08:47
association of Australia, the CDA, there's there's three

00:08:51
levels and then the sort of experience building in between.

00:08:55
There's a heap of good, good stuff to do at each level,

00:08:59
typically about Gambia. So there's the crystal clear

00:09:02
sinkholes, and it's sort of culminating up in the seven

00:09:07
kilometres of maze tunnels in tank cave. And then the novel

00:09:13
sort of comes in their own in the mid to high levels. And

00:09:18
yeah, once you sort of achieve that advanced cave level, you

00:09:23
there's there's a lot more things open to and I've done a

00:09:28
bit of dry caving in at uni and dry caving is just sort of

00:09:33
normal caving with sailing and squeezing and climbing and

00:09:38
walking. And I sort of put that on hold while I while I became a

00:09:43
mad diver. And I went yeah, I got a bit of exposure and then

00:09:52
was lucky enough to get get in on some some trips. It were

00:09:57
where we were combining diving and K I mean, and so that's

00:10:01
essentially that's that's the the explanation of some diving

00:10:05
is it's it's the combination of cave diving and dry caving to

00:10:09
further the cave.

00:10:12
Matt Waters: Yeah, so it's not I was just gone. No.

00:10:17
Stephen Fordyce: Yes at some some diving, sub diving is an

00:10:20
exploration tool. So generally it's where where we're not

00:10:24
necessarily diving exactly for the fun of it, but we're diving

00:10:28
to find or to access some more cave beyond the dive and because

00:10:34
you need to be an accomplished caver and a pretty gnarly cave

00:10:39
diver, that that really appealed to me because it was it was such

00:10:42
a nice niche thing. And there were so few people doing it.

00:10:45
Matt Waters: It is very, very niches and I was, I'm just, I'm

00:10:48
looking off camera at the moment, I'm trying to find it

00:10:50
the YouTube footage that you had up of a cold pot belly or

00:10:57
something like that. There's plenty. There was a cave that

00:11:04
you've you've done two and a half, three, three minutes or

00:11:07
whatever, just following through to try and find the end of a

00:11:11
cave.

00:11:12
Stephen Fordyce: There's been a few, a few, quite a few

00:11:14
different projects I've been involved with. Grayling, Swalot,

00:11:17
and niggly cave was a big project in Tasmania. And we

00:11:22
ended up connecting these two caves via a dive. And so that

00:11:27
was a fantastic it's a fantastic example of some diving where

00:11:30
we've got these two caves, they takes about six hours to get to

00:11:33
the water either side. And the two caves are linked by 700

00:11:38
metres of flooded tunnel with a maximum depth about 25 metres

00:11:42
but average depth about probably about eight. Yeah. So connecting

00:11:48
those those two together was a massive team effort. With

00:11:54
southern Tasmania and Kevin is down in Hobart each dive there'd

00:11:58
be six or so people, and everyone would put in a 12 ish

00:12:03
hour day for that on one diver to go and do a sort of two hour

00:12:08
now. nally push dive at the end.

00:12:12
Matt Waters: And what the what's the what's the clarity? Like

00:12:14
when you're when you're in there? I mean, everyone,

00:12:16
everyone would assume that it's it's, you know, much the same as

00:12:19
it was in Lantian caves and coffee brown murky water and

00:12:22
can't see anything?

00:12:23
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, you get, you get a brief period on the

00:12:27
way in have crystal clear or fairly clear water. But as soon

00:12:31
as you touch anything, which you try not to. But as soon as your

00:12:36
bubbles touch anything, the you tend to get a cascade of silt

00:12:39
off the ceiling. So a lot of the time you actually kind of look

00:12:44
ahead, take a mental picture, and then the silt rains down.

00:12:48
And that's sort of it for a while, and then you swim back

00:12:51
into the clear water. So yeah, when you push diving, like that,

00:12:56
where it's undisturbed, it's a real mental focus game. Which

00:13:02
is, which is really cool. It's one of the things that I really

00:13:05
like about it. Maybe not the time, but in an overall sense

00:13:10
of, of achieving something something amazing.

00:13:13
Matt Waters: And it's certainly an amazing, and how do you, you

00:13:17
know, just gotten into the finer details of it because you're

00:13:20
descending? I say 25 metres to eight metres on average. In

00:13:25
coffee, how do you find your way through the merch to find the

00:13:31
the end goal that you're looking for? Is it literally fingertip

00:13:34
and if you come to a dead end, turn around, come back out and

00:13:36
go another way?

00:13:38
Stephen Fordyce: Oh, well, that's there's actually a really

00:13:41
big emphasis on on being able to see. And so if if it's

00:13:45
understood, then you can see you just got to swim fast enough to

00:13:49
stay ahead of the silk cloud. Which is actually it's okay, if

00:13:55
you're swimming with the current coming towards you, then that's

00:13:59
less of a deal. If you're doing a downstream sump, then you stop

00:14:04
and the, the silt cloud goes ahead of you. That's that's

00:14:09
obviously a bit harder. And so you've got to keep moving

00:14:12
faster. But making setting the conditions for the best, the

00:14:20
best possible diet outcome is actually a key part of planning.

00:14:24
So a good example is sesame cave, which is taken up probably

00:14:31
probably a lot more than than the the energy I budgeted for.

00:14:35
I've done two quite awful push dives in there over the last two

00:14:39
years for not much cave but the firt the first one I did

00:14:44
completely blind. So getting to the cave. It's a nasty series of

00:14:50
wrinkles in the water and walking walking in the mud. And

00:14:53
it was completely coffee and so it took the best part of half an

00:14:58
hour to feel my way along about about 40 metres. And I was quite

00:15:06
worried about how long it would take to get out. So I was very

00:15:09
conservative. couldn't read my gauges the whole time. So I had

00:15:13
to sort of kind of guess how much gas there was left. Which

00:15:18
that was that was quite unpleasant. And it took me two

00:15:21
minutes to get out. And I thought, you know, well, it's,

00:15:25
if that's the difference, it'd be much better would be much

00:15:29
better being able to see where the big bit was. So, yeah, I

00:15:32
actually went back and we camped in the cave, specifically, so we

00:15:36
can let the water clear overnight. And that created a

00:15:39
whole huge series of logistics. But um, I can sort of honestly

00:15:44
say that the dive is probably finished now. It's the the

00:15:47
diligence has been done. It didn't it didn't go sadly. But

00:15:50
um, yeah, we threw everything at it. And did it did it properly,

00:15:54
which is a big part of my satisfaction.

00:15:57
Matt Waters: Yeah. And, you know, the logistics and the

00:16:01
teamwork involved in this must be satisfying within itself.

00:16:03
Even if you got a you know, relatively dull lending to the

00:16:07
dive.

00:16:09
Stephen Fordyce: It is and it's actually quite fun being a

00:16:12
supporting person, or I think so anyway, I've probably done most

00:16:16
of the, the push diver role of rate of light in the last few

00:16:21
years, but um, I have been a support quite a lot more fun

00:16:26
because there's, there's no pressure and everything else.

00:16:29
But um, yeah, it's a great atmosphere. And I try and plan,

00:16:35
plan a lot for these things, and plan it down into the finer

00:16:39
details like having a stove, sometimes even having music so

00:16:43
we can chill out and collecting all the little one percenters to

00:16:48
maximise the chance of success. And have fun because, yes, when

00:16:54
you're holding a bag of someone else's dive get out of the cave

00:16:57
at midnight. It doesn't seem like much fun.

00:17:01
Matt Waters: Why the hell am I doing this for him? Yeah. Oh,

00:17:03
Stephen Fordyce: my. I mean, it's meant to be for the good of

00:17:06
everyone. And it's definitely the team shares all the glory

00:17:11
that there's certainly a lot of seats on the push diver

00:17:13
shoulders.

00:17:15
Matt Waters: But it does. I mean, just going to refer to

00:17:18
refer to was a couple of weekends ago now when you did

00:17:21
the found the deepest cave in Australia. Congratulations to

00:17:25
you and the team.

00:17:27
Stephen Fordyce: Thanks. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a pretty

00:17:30
cool thing. It wasn't wasn't diving related. So it was just a

00:17:34
dry series, a series of shafts. We've so we have sailed down 350

00:17:40
Odd metres. And we found we connected to these deep caves

00:17:45
together and set the set a new record for Australia's deepest

00:17:48
dry cave. So it was a bit of a diversion sort of took a lot of

00:17:52
the energy for the last six or eight months. But it was a

00:17:55
fantastic team exercise when we managed to get nine people

00:17:59
involved in the connection trip, eight of whom went all the way

00:18:03
through in one cave and out the other. So it was a fantastic.

00:18:07
It's just fantastic experience to do and share with with all

00:18:11
those people.

00:18:12
Matt Waters: Yeah, I must have made those videos that are out

00:18:14
there. I've been snickered and flicking through them all. And

00:18:19
there seems to be a lot of fun and joviality going on. While

00:18:23
I'm watching it and watching tiny people squeezed through

00:18:26
tiny little holes. And all I can think of is I'd need a

00:18:30
jackhammer and a hammer and chisel just to get get halfway

00:18:32
through this stuff is remarkable.

00:18:35
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, well, the small stuff in the music, I

00:18:37
mean, the musical stuff, we sort of do it. We don't really do it

00:18:41
because we like it. We do it because there's something worth

00:18:43
it on the other side. Yeah. So there's, there's a bit of I

00:18:49
mean, when you're starting out with caving and diving,

00:18:53
sometimes you'll do stuff just for the sake of it or for

00:18:56
training. But it's one of the things I like about the

00:19:00
exploration concept is that you don't have to do things the hard

00:19:04
way. Because, you know, we get to do things the easy way. And

00:19:09
we make them as easy as we can and it's still really hard. So

00:19:13
that's that's also pretty satisfying.

00:19:16
Matt Waters: Don't homeschool I can imagine so. Was it what was

00:19:21
the actual depth of it? Because was it 404 101 metres or

00:19:25
something like that?

00:19:26
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, for 401 is the figure. It's actually the

00:19:30
new entrance is very close to the previous highest entrance

00:19:34
it's, it's within 15 metres in 3d space, but it's four metres

00:19:40
higher. So we know we know that it's definitely four metres

00:19:44
higher than the previous the previous deepest cave was

00:19:48
actually made in three years ago when when I did that very well

00:19:53
supported dive in in niggly Cove to connect it to growling spot.

00:19:58
And I probably should should point out for everyone that the

00:20:01
deepest cave in the world is 2200 metres. But that was kind

00:20:05
of New Zealand's over 1000 Our 400 metres a bit piddly by world

00:20:11
standards, but it's important to us. And yeah, we had a bit of

00:20:16
fun naming. We named the cove Delta variant. And we gave it a

00:20:22
whole COVID team. There's all sorts of silliness around that.

00:20:26
But I

00:20:27
Matt Waters: did notice there's a lot of Disney about it as well.

00:20:29
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, they did a Disney Princesses theme for

00:20:33
when we split up into different teams to make on the connection

00:20:35
through some, yes, as we were saying before, the silliness is

00:20:40
important. And sometimes it's a case of faking it till you make

00:20:44
it. Pretend pretend you're having fun, and everyone

00:20:47
actually kind of believes they're having fun.

00:20:51
Matt Waters: Yeah, and that can revel in that fun when you're at

00:20:54
the proverbial 19th hole of the golf course. So at the end of

00:20:59
the day,

00:20:59
Stephen Fordyce: yeah, some some of these things are the farm is

00:21:03
derived afterwards.

00:21:06
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Hey, I wanted to ask you about that.

00:21:10
The kako buddy cave expedition. Because that looks, I'm just

00:21:15
looking in your in your catalogue, there is a photo

00:21:19
there with all the all the DPS and all the equipment. It looks

00:21:23
like it was an amazing setup. How long did that one take to

00:21:27
put together?

00:21:28
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, copy, that's probably probably one of

00:21:32
the pinnacles of my my cave diving experience. So for those

00:21:37
those that don't know, Coco, btw cave is on the Nullarbor. It's

00:21:41
about It's got about six and a half kilometres of linear

00:21:45
passage. So at the furthest point, you're six and a half

00:21:48
kilometres of diving from the entrance. At one stage, it was

00:21:52
the longest underwater cave in the world. And most of it is big

00:21:57
enough. No, you drive a truck through easily, and there's bits

00:22:01
of it, you can fly a plane through, it's just so big and

00:22:05
spectacular. And it's also got several several dry chambers,

00:22:09
which actually make the logistics really painful. So a

00:22:14
couple of years ago, pre COVID, we, myself, Ryan couch kowski,

00:22:18
Lisa Rogers, who, yeah, we go way back on different projects.

00:22:22
We, we wanted to push the end. So that's that's, you know, the

00:22:27
thing you do in in cave exploration is you're trying to

00:22:30
go a bit further than than previous people have. Building

00:22:34
on the work, of course. So yeah, to do that, we, we would

00:22:41
probably over overdid it a bit. But it was that that same

00:22:46
concept I've talked about earlier of maximising your

00:22:50
chances when you're actually there. So working working back

00:22:54
from that, you can get to the end in one day, it takes maybe

00:23:00
16 to 20 hours. So pretty massive, and you're out there at

00:23:04
the pointy end, knowing that you've you've got to reserve a

00:23:08
whole lot of energy for that, that return. And when you're

00:23:12
trying to solve the, you know, complex logic puzzle underwater,

00:23:17
trying to read the cave, see what's happening where know

00:23:21
where to look, because remembering you've got that

00:23:24
couple of seconds before the visibility ceases. So yeah, so

00:23:29
we said, All right, well, let's if we're going to achieve being

00:23:32
in the best state of mind, we're going to camp in the cave as

00:23:36
close as we can. And we're going to repeat the dive. So we

00:23:40
actually we camped in the cave as close as we could get. We

00:23:43
camped in Toad Hall, which is about three and a half

00:23:47
kilometres in, we can't be there for four nights. And that meant

00:23:50
we could do multiple dives out to the end. So we would do about

00:23:56
a, about a six hour dive in the final section from our camp. And

00:24:03
that mean, we could we could be fresh, we knew that it was only

00:24:07
you know, only two hours diving to get back from the end to our

00:24:11
camp. And we also we did a little things like we took in a

00:24:16
projector. And so each night at our camp, we watched Indiana

00:24:21
Jones project on the wall, it's the sound was terrible, but um,

00:24:27
there was a really, really cool thing to do, just to chill out

00:24:31
and get ourselves in the mood. Now we had good sleep we took in

00:24:37
because we had to take our own water. We didn't sort of have to

00:24:40
worry too much about you know, other things so we could take

00:24:44
drinks and food and you know, we cooked up cooked up good things.

00:24:49
And yeah, and and so we also had a huge mountain of stuff. And

00:24:56
unfortunately that meant that we spent think we're on site For

00:25:00
about 12 days, and we basically spent all except three days of

00:25:06
wonderful diving in the middle, shifting about 500 kilos of gear

00:25:11
from one place to another. Sometimes it was underwater, and

00:25:14
we clipped it all together into a sled and we towed along with

00:25:17
with scooters, dpbs DVDs, and then we'd have to pull it apart,

00:25:22
carry it over a rock pile, put it back together in the water

00:25:24
again, and then tell it through the next section. So I'm not

00:25:29
entirely sure I've got another one of those in me. super glad

00:25:33
that we did it. And the photos of the sled leisurely is took

00:25:37
some fantastic photos of tying this this behemoth and it's been

00:25:42
made into memes on the internet. And it's really cool.

00:25:47
Matt Waters: Yeah, it looks it looks fantastic. It really does.

00:25:51
And we're an adventure. What's, what's next?

00:25:56
Stephen Fordyce: Ah, well, at the moment, it's, I mean, it's

00:25:58
been pretty weird with with COVID. So the Nullarbor has been

00:26:04
sort of off the table for me, it's Tuesday, it's over and, you

00:26:07
know, 30 hours driving, it's a big, big commitment. And I've

00:26:12
been, I tend to get focused on a project and I've been very

00:26:16
focused on on stuff in Tassie at the moment. So there's there's a

00:26:20
particular caving system cave system under mount Field

00:26:24
National Park, and there's what's called the journey

00:26:26
foreign time. People might be familiar with the Junee cave

00:26:31
resurgence. It's got a little Park Reserve around it. Yeah,

00:26:36
and so that's, that's a, the deepest caves in Australia,

00:26:39
quite cold there seven degrees. And there's also a lot of

00:26:44
undisturbed stumps. And so I've been going there for quite a

00:26:48
while, and being not too far away. I've I've spent quite a

00:26:54
lot of time there. In between Melbourne lockdowns and COVID

00:26:57
things. It's also close enough that I can I can fly there for a

00:27:00
weekend without being too horrendous. So I've got a list

00:27:06
of list of SOPs I've been working through and diving had

00:27:10
some some great successes. And there's there's a few left a few

00:27:15
things to wrap up. But it's it's really good. High quality

00:27:21
exploration, you find stuff, you know, nobody's ever been there.

00:27:26
And you get to name it, which is, strangely, one of the things

00:27:30
I quite like is, is naming things.

00:27:33
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's certainly unique. What does

00:27:38
it actually can you express the feeling of, you know, dive in

00:27:45
through somewhere that no one's been or seen ever before.

00:27:52
Stephen Fordyce: I'd like to give it lots of, you know,

00:27:55
wonderful, airy terms, but honestly, it's, it's usually

00:27:59
just a bit scary and alone. A lot of the wall, maybe not it's

00:28:06
controlled, controlled fear. That's a useful thing. But um,

00:28:10
yeah, it's perhaps absorbing is a good word. Because you've got

00:28:16
so much going on. So much focus, that there isn't there isn't

00:28:22
sort of too much time for thinking. Thinking about

00:28:26
philosophies and stuff. So yeah, perhaps a lot of the

00:28:30
satisfaction is afterwards when you're back and safe and

00:28:33
everything. Yeah,

00:28:35
Matt Waters: I suppose the mental come down is quite, quite

00:28:38
big, as well as your focus, like you say, you just mentioned

00:28:41
focus, there must be extremely onpoint. While you're doing

00:28:45
this, and then afterwards, maybe tiring?

00:28:50
Stephen Fordyce: A little bit. But um, yeah, obviously, you've

00:28:53
got to get yourself out. So. And it's surprising, there's very

00:28:57
little sympathy when everyone's been sitting around shivering

00:29:02
for a couple of hours. It's seven degrees in there. And a

00:29:06
lot of the time you get quite quite wet, just getting to the

00:29:09
dive site. So yeah, it's you come back and right. We're going

00:29:14
out to change. He got hot drink. Don't get any. Let's go. Yeah,

00:29:21
yeah. But um, it's certainly a relief to get back. I probably

00:29:25
should mention, I've alluded to two solo diving, which is a bit

00:29:30
of a contentious topic. And actually something that I would

00:29:34
recommend, most people don't do. Obviously, it's got a sort of

00:29:39
implications. Suffice to say that I consider it a tool. It's

00:29:44
a tool for a job and a fairly specialised tool for specialised

00:29:48
job. Practically speaking, with some diving, a lot of the time

00:29:52
you just can't get gear for two people to the water and probably

00:29:57
more importantly, if it's you I want to be tight. And then low

00:30:02
visibility, which is, you know, a fairly safe bet. It's actually

00:30:07
safer not to have somebody else getting in the way. Yeah. And of

00:30:12
course, we plan and train and mentally prepare for for self

00:30:17
sufficiency. So there's a whole series of things around it. That

00:30:22
before anyone sort of puts me up on a cross or anything.

00:30:26
Matt Waters: Yeah, there's always armchair warriors. And

00:30:29
there's there's going to be cavers out there that clearly

00:30:32
know a lot more about the business than I do. However, I

00:30:37
think you hit the nail on the head there, because even for

00:30:40
recreational diver like myself, it just makes common sense that

00:30:44
if you've got two people in tandem, and you're going through

00:30:46
squeezes that have never been seen before, then your

00:30:48
visibility is gonna go to dogshit. And that possibly can

00:30:52
be an issue just in itself, let alone having someone that gets

00:30:54
in your way as well.

00:30:56
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's definitely, it's

00:30:59
definitely not for everyone. In fact, it's quite interesting to

00:31:03
see. See, see the reaction of people when you sort of tell

00:31:08
them what you do. And it's not that so recreational divers,

00:31:13
they're probably worse than the general public, because the

00:31:16
general public sort of doesn't have the fear of knowledge.

00:31:19
Whereas recreational divers, they sort of go oh, well, you

00:31:23
know, that's it. They they really feel it. That allows

00:31:28
extra things that you're doing while you're underwater. So

00:31:31
yeah, get get a few strange looks, looks from them. And and

00:31:35
also the cave is actually because they understand the

00:31:39
caving side of things. They sort of go home. Now you're going to

00:31:42
do all this, and then you're going to dive as well. So I'm

00:31:46
sort of sort of become a bit of a pariah. And in both worlds, it

00:31:51
certainly makes me very tolerant of other people's weaknesses.

00:31:54
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you've got an aptly named

00:31:57
T shirt though. Introverts?

00:31:59
Stephen Fordyce: Oh, yeah. It actually it actually says,

00:32:01
introverts unite, a separate in your own homes. I am, I am a

00:32:08
well, well known introvert that I do right with talking to

00:32:13
people as well. The pandemic was, I was reasonably well

00:32:18
suited to that.

00:32:19
Matt Waters: Yeah, I didn't mind it, to be honest. Couple of

00:32:22
years of not been out and busy and around all over the place. I

00:32:26
quite enjoyed the first six to eight months, to be honest.

00:32:29
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel very lucky to be

00:32:32
able to say that I do. I did. Okay, through a lot of people

00:32:35
struggle. Very bad.

00:32:36
Matt Waters: Yeah. My missus were climbing a wall. Wanted to

00:32:40
get out and go all over the place. Yeah. And we, and when we

00:32:46
got put in touch by by Sue was on the podcast last week. And

00:32:51
you're gonna be down at the Haas tech dive show in October.

00:32:55
Stephen Fordyce: Yes. And I did it. I did actually in

00:32:57
preparation. And as a good thing to do. I listened to Sue's

00:33:01
podcasts yesterday. Yeah, it was great. It was actually really

00:33:04
interesting to find out about someone in a bit more detail

00:33:10
than you normally get. Yeah, so it's really good. And yeah, I'll

00:33:15
definitely I'll be hosting. I have a bit of a regular. And I

00:33:21
was luckily lucky enough to be awarded the Emerging Explorer

00:33:25
last last

00:33:26
Matt Waters: saltstick. Congratulations.

00:33:28
Stephen Fordyce: Thank you very much. Yeah, so that was that was

00:33:31
pretty cool. I mean, obviously, it's a big deal. Definitely in

00:33:35
the technical community technical diving community, but

00:33:38
I just genuinely diving. It's, it's really cool. Yeah, so I

00:33:43
wouldn't miss it. And I'll be I'll be talking about I'll be

00:33:48
doing two presentations. Yeah, one, which is about general

00:33:54
stuff I've been doing since the last little stick. There's quite

00:33:57
a bit of it. So I'll just sort of go here and there everywhere.

00:34:01
And then the other the other one, it'll come out on the

00:34:04
programme.

00:34:05
Matt Waters: So you do know where you're placed in the

00:34:07
programme. You know, if you're talking on a Saturday or Sunday

00:34:10
or both?

00:34:11
Stephen Fordyce: I'm not sure. I don't. I don't think it's coming

00:34:13
out yet. I think had a few things happening. But yeah, I'll

00:34:18
definitely be in there at some point.

00:34:20
Matt Waters: I think they do it as a bit of a secret. So you

00:34:22
can't plan which day you're gonna go. general public, I want

00:34:26
to, I want to go see Steven Ford. I want to see I'm not sure.

00:34:30
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah. It's I just, it's fantastic that I

00:34:35
always go and have trouble figuring out what to see. So

00:34:40
many different people with so many different passions. And,

00:34:44
you know, I don't necessarily have have scope to go and do all

00:34:48
of the stuff, you know, direct diving and other things. It's

00:34:54
not sort of my my, something that I do but it's really cool

00:34:57
seeing people that do it and I also people that record it as

00:35:02
well. So I'm quite, quite passionate about properly

00:35:07
recording and documenting what you're doing. So one of the

00:35:11
things with a push dive is that it's not over, when you turn

00:35:14
around, you do all the all the problem solving and finding the

00:35:19
way on and laying the line as you go in. And then when you

00:35:23
turn around and come out, you've got to actually survey and map

00:35:26
the line on your way back. So every time the line changes

00:35:30
directions, we record depth, compass bearing and the distance

00:35:34
from the previous previous one. We use a put knots in our

00:35:39
guideline and are able to do that. And then we can plot that

00:35:42
later to see where the key is going. So it's

00:35:47
Matt Waters: just just thinking on and doing all that and doing

00:35:51
it by knots in lines, but what about the 3d photography stuff

00:35:55
that might occur and bottom line projects and that do on racks?

00:36:00
Would that not work inside? Some of the shops that you go?

00:36:04
Stephen Fordyce: In? Probably probably would. But it's sort of

00:36:10
make it a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be.

00:36:14
It's actually not that big of a deal to do the survey. Once once

00:36:19
you get the practice and have the mindset for it. And I think

00:36:25
the photogrammetry stuff needs good visibility and plenty of

00:36:30
plenty of photos. Yeah. I daresay one day that they'll

00:36:34
they'll be able to take a GoPro shaky GoPro footage and turn it

00:36:38
into a full 3d map. But um, my understanding is that's a bit of

00:36:42
a way away yet.

00:36:44
Matt Waters: I suppose. Just add to the equipment that you're

00:36:46
taking them with you as well. Isn't

00:36:48
Stephen Fordyce: that to everything's because

00:36:49
everything's carried such a long way. It gets it gets fairly

00:36:53
carefully cold.

00:36:57
Matt Waters: Yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, so austere

00:37:01
Umrah. I almost had my I'm really looking forward towards

00:37:03
tech. The last one I went to was in. I think it was 2018 When I

00:37:09
first visited Australia, and I was pleasantly surprised. So I'm

00:37:15
looking forward to this one as well. And I'm going for the full

00:37:17
two days doing the decompression party afterwards as well. Oh,

00:37:21
yeah.

00:37:21
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, definitely. That's I mean,

00:37:23
that's that's probably the best place for mixing mixing with

00:37:28
people. And it's, I mean, all sticks really cool because it's

00:37:33
the one to one event where you get everyone. You know, the

00:37:41
Western Australians come over in New Zealand has come over

00:37:44
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Iran, everyone sort of generally

00:37:48
makes the effort. Other stuff like the you know, the cave

00:37:52
diver symposium in Mount Gambia. Obviously, you get the cave

00:37:56
divers, but you don't get the wreck divers. You don't

00:37:59
necessarily get the West Australians. Yeah, so I'll take

00:38:04
I mean, it's the spot if you want to want to bail someone out

00:38:08
or catch up or ask a question or ever have a quiet word to

00:38:12
someone.

00:38:15
Matt Waters: I'm gonna be wandering around with a camera

00:38:16
and a microphone, and I'm just gonna be asking a million

00:38:18
questions. Ah, yeah, yeah. And anyone who doesn't want to be on

00:38:23
camera tough.

00:38:28
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, well, I heard on the on Sue's podcast

00:38:30
that they're they're recording them all. All the presentations

00:38:32
this year? Yeah, yeah. So um, yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna

00:38:36
have to watch what I say though.

00:38:39
Matt Waters: I could never have me on stage. That's way too

00:38:41
much. And you've got nothing coming up this year? What about

00:38:48
with TFM?

00:38:49
Stephen Fordyce: Ah, yeah. To see odds and ends. I've got a

00:38:53
few more Tassie trips planned. And I did say, Hold. I'll spend

00:38:59
a couple of weeks over January in Tassie been been doing that

00:39:04
the last few years. And it's really good to get a good a good

00:39:09
a good go at it. Now. The it's quite it's quite hard,

00:39:14
obviously. So if you go for a weekend or even a long weekend,

00:39:19
you really only get one one solid day. And then you're too

00:39:24
rich to do much else. Yeah, we'll we'll do a half day or a

00:39:28
moderate day. But the big big coding projects quite quite one

00:39:35
day and then you need a rest date. Last Last January, we did

00:39:39
discover a new a new section at the end of Niggli code. And this

00:39:48
is Sophie Sophie, the cat's friend of introverts. Yes, at

00:39:55
the end of England cave, we've been hitting it for sort of five

00:39:58
or six years. It's a spectacular cave. It's got two kilometres of

00:40:03
railway tunnel right at the bottom, it's 300 metres below

00:40:06
the entrance. And we're just it we know it goes we know it's got

00:40:11
another five kilometres before it comes out the journey

00:40:14
resurgence. And it should be it should be just as big, but

00:40:18
there's big rock pile at the end. And you know it's 40 metres

00:40:22
high and it's got all sorts little squirrely bits going

00:40:24
around it. So we've been sort of systematically getting in there

00:40:29
and try to map the little bits and push separate leads.

00:40:33
Probably Probably a lot of people have come and gone.

00:40:37
There's there's a few of us still kind of keeping ticking

00:40:39
along. And last January, we found we found a sump and it's

00:40:45
named the Biohazard sump. It's really not very pleasant. It's

00:40:49
not a very pleasant area. Yeah, but it could be it could be

00:40:53
something really cool. So it's probably going to be the most

00:40:57
remote sump dive I've done in Tassie. And we're definitely

00:41:02
will spend three nights underground to make that happen.

00:41:05
Why is

00:41:05
Matt Waters: it called What's it called the biocide? Biohazard?

00:41:07
Some

00:41:09
Stephen Fordyce: it's actually sometimes you gotta be careful

00:41:11
with your naming history. But this one is because Gemma, one

00:41:17
of the discoveries cut her finger on a rock. And yeah, we

00:41:22
there was, we saw the droplets of blood before we saw the car.

00:41:27
And someone said, Well, it's a bit of a biohazard. So either

00:41:32
naming, yeah, the naming is part of the fun. Because I went

00:41:37
through a phase of naming a whole section after Game of

00:41:41
Thrones characters. There's a there's a chamber called the

00:41:46
Business Class lounge. Yes. I've managed to score business class

00:41:50
flight to Tassie that that trip and I was quite miffed that

00:41:55
Hobart didn't have a business class lounge. So I gave them

00:41:59
one. Just got it. You just gotta go. I don't think. No, I'm the

00:42:03
I'm the only visitor. So um, yeah. And then if you go past

00:42:09
the business class lounge, you,

00:42:12
Matt Waters: you get to the chairman's lounge.

00:42:14
Stephen Fordyce: No, no, you're fine. You climb the corporate

00:42:17
ladder, which is a particularly awful slippery climb. And as you

00:42:21
get a bit further, you you hit the glass ceiling, which is at

00:42:24
the end. Unfortunately, I couldn't get I couldn't get past

00:42:27
there. I tried very hard. But I'm a bit further back down in

00:42:31
Boston in messed it up now a bit bit further in the business

00:42:35
class lounge. There's a horrible little hole, and it's it with a

00:42:41
puddle in it. And if you crawl in backwards with one tank off,

00:42:45
that's how you get into this sump. And then you sort of turn

00:42:49
around and go on. And that's that's the lateral higher sump.

00:42:53
Because once you pass that you surface into a nice, nice, big

00:42:57
streamline passage called boss land. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That

00:43:03
after that, the theme, the theme changed and it got to be a got

00:43:06
less good. Eventually, that ends in the bean chicken Haven. Ah,

00:43:12
yes. Yeah.

00:43:14
Matt Waters: The video I saw on YouTube in chicken. Oh, yeah.

00:43:17
Yeah,

00:43:17
Stephen Fordyce: yeah, that was a whole. The theme song of that

00:43:20
trip was was the Ibis song, that song about birds by Bondi

00:43:25
hipsters? It's quite amusing. It's also got some terrible

00:43:29
language. That that was we tend to have theme songs for the for

00:43:34
the trips, especially a longer camping trip like that. So it's

00:43:40
a bit weird, but I'd like to think it helps with morale and

00:43:44
helps distract people. So I'll pick a song and I'll generally

00:43:50
just generally play it a lot. The idea is to get it stuck in

00:43:54
people's heads. So they think about that, rather than how

00:43:59
difficult the caving is.

00:44:02
Matt Waters: I tend to I had a habit years ago, where if I was

00:44:05
leading dives, I just start whistling on the deck because

00:44:08
we're as we're gearing up and the amount of people by the end

00:44:12
of a say a liveaboard would would comment that they'd have

00:44:16
the Star Wars children going through their head or Wizard of

00:44:21
Oz or something like that throughout the entire diving

00:44:23
they couldn't get rid of it.

00:44:24
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, yeah.

00:44:28
Matt Waters: Yeah, but now that that been checking video, I like

00:44:31
that one. It's it kind of it kind of shows that, that that

00:44:36
some dive in and then coming out the other side and the way it

00:44:38
just all opens up.

00:44:40
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, that was a fantastic day, actually. After

00:44:45
I sort of given up on the the business class lounge, you know,

00:44:52
it was It wasn't really worth the effort and the sort of the

00:44:57
cost of negotiating everyone into carrying carrying will dive

00:45:01
you down. That is actually on the trip where we connected.

00:45:05
Grayling, Scotland legally together. So I had all the full

00:45:08
dive gear kit down there. And I realised that I could probably

00:45:13
probably go back and have another look at the business

00:45:16
class lounge. So yeah, having having that second look. ended

00:45:22
up breaking through and going into I ended up doing a really

00:45:26
long day. I think I got go back at midnight, back to camp in the

00:45:29
cave. Found a whole lot of really cool stuff. Just really

00:45:34
sad that it it didn't go it ended in rockfall that I

00:45:38
couldn't find a way through.

00:45:40
Matt Waters: Yeah, it was a sizable that's the one that's on

00:45:42
the video, right. The rockfall?

00:45:45
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

00:45:47
Matt Waters: It's pretty, it's pretty big.

00:45:48
Stephen Fordyce: Possibly. Yeah, my favourite part of that trip

00:45:52
was, as I was, I came back to camp and everyone was asleep. I

00:45:56
started singing the bird song about the irises. And I actually

00:46:01
managed to insert myself into one of the guys dream. So he

00:46:05
started having a weird dream about irises and me and caving

00:46:10
things. And yes, and then he woke up really confused as like

00:46:14
as I walked in.

00:46:16
Matt Waters: Yeah, that's marvellous. I got lucky. Right,

00:46:23
I think we're going to have to scoot in a second. We parked out

00:46:27
the front. And we're the delays that we had at the start, I'm

00:46:30
gonna end up getting a bloody big ticket. TFM let's have a

00:46:34
little bit more about TFM. Because let's plug your

00:46:37
businessman.

00:46:38
Stephen Fordyce: Oh, yeah, yeah, Shameless, Shameless plug. TV

00:46:42
engineering is the small business that I, I pivoted to,

00:46:49
when, when the real world got a bit too annoying. I was doing

00:46:55
more and more project management big, big annoying things with

00:46:59
bureaucracy and paperwork, rather than actually making cool

00:47:02
stuff. To engineering is a vessel that I can use to pursue

00:47:09
all sorts of different things. So I design electronics or build

00:47:13
gas systems. aftermarket stuff for compressors, bits and

00:47:17
pieces. It's kind of whatever I want it to be. I do have a big,

00:47:21
a big catalogue feel confined with all sorts of diving

00:47:24
holdings. And I do bespoke things as well, which is a bit

00:47:29
of fun. 250

00:47:30
Matt Waters: pages catalogue is pretty impressive.

00:47:34
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, it is. Unfortunately, it's quite out of

00:47:36
date. It's 2017. And I haven't had a chance to, to redo it,

00:47:40
because it's, it's such a big job and aren't a bit of a

00:47:43
perfectionist. But it does does the job for now.

00:47:48
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's quite a few

00:47:50
products in here that you've designed.

00:47:52
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, not not everything. Some

00:47:56
stuff is specialist buy and sell. But um, yeah, I like to

00:47:59
think I've at least added value to most things. And some of

00:48:02
them, some of them I've developed from scratch.

00:48:05
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Just having a look at the boosters.

00:48:09
Looks pretty swish.

00:48:10
Stephen Fordyce: Yep. Yeah. Two poses and kits and things. I'm

00:48:14
probably more more focused on not being tied to any particular

00:48:20
brands. Yeah. It's sort of easier. That's a good good niche

00:48:24
that I a little niche that I feel.

00:48:26
Matt Waters: Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot in this just going

00:48:29
through there's a lot in this catalogue that operators will

00:48:35
want pieces that they can't find anywhere. I reckon it's gonna be

00:48:38
in this catalogue. Quite frankly. Yes.

00:48:40
Stephen Fordyce: That's the only Yes. obscure little things that

00:48:42
are that are hard to find. Which I've I've had trouble finding as

00:48:45
well.

00:48:46
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Okay, I think we'll wrap it up there.

00:48:52
And I'll autograph before we get to a parking fine at the front.

00:48:57
Where can people find details? TFM and yourself, and all the

00:49:03
good stuff that you'd have in?

00:49:04
Stephen Fordyce: Yeah, probably Facebook's the best one. You'll

00:49:07
find TFM engineering Australia, search for that. Or Steven

00:49:12
Fordyce, you'll figure out how to spell some somehow. thing

00:49:16
somewhere. Yeah, hit me up. The ordering for to them is

00:49:22
genuinely by sending an email. I kind of like the old fashioned

00:49:25
way of connecting with people and, you know, managing, made

00:49:30
suggestions, everything else. But yeah, you can find me all

00:49:34
sorts of places

00:49:35
Matt Waters: nowadays. And we can we can put links in the show

00:49:37
notes. And maybe we have a chat later and I'll chuck a link up

00:49:41
on our website or something via as well. Fantastic. Yeah. Happy

00:49:44
days. Man. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I

00:49:48
look forward to meeting you in person in October and maybe

00:49:52
having a beer on a Sunday evening as

00:49:54
Stephen Fordyce: well. Yesterday.

00:49:57
Matt Waters: I'll see if I can put a T shirt together with an

00:49:59
introvert sign on it. Okay. Yeah, very good. Awesome sauce.

00:50:05
Thanks, Steven. And once again, congratulations on on your

00:50:08
achievements and big congratulations to the team as

00:50:11
well.

00:50:11
Stephen Fordyce: Fantastic. Thanks, man. It's great. Great

00:50:13
to talk.

00:50:14
Matt Waters: Pleasure, mate. Thanks for listening everybody.

00:50:16
Bye for now. podcast for the inquisitive diver