Tim Morrish - SSI Instructor Certifier

 Sun, Apr 21, 2024 3:09PM • 1:34:59

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dive, instructor, diving, diver, ssi, water, certification, specialty, koh tao, programme, training, people, work, give, centre, industry, blue, bit, teaching, buoyancy

SPEAKERS

Tim Morrish, Matt Waters

 

Welcome to the Scuba go podcast with Matt waters. Let's dive right in. Welcome to the show, buddy. Thanks, Matt.

 

much appreciate it.

 

How's the? Are you finding the temperature over there at the minute? Because you're away in Switzerland? And yeah,

 

I am indeed, it's definitely a little bit chillier than than what we're used to for sure. But actually, in all honesty, it's not too bad. It's about 10 degrees today. And cloudy skies, but not too bad. Heading up into the mountains on Thursday, snowboarding for the weekend. So I'm sure that will drop the temperature right off. But it will also be nice to swap the ocean for the mountains for a bit as well.

 

Yeah, it's a little bit of a change still got water involved with the dumpsite cold, right.

 

Exactly that

 

give everyone an idea of where you've come from what how did you get into into diver to start with?

 

I mean, I initially did some try dives back in 96, or 97, I guess. And the Greek islands, obviously, back in the day, where certifications were a little bit less important. So it was very much a Do you know what you're doing? And if the answer was yes, it was, you know, kind of a basic diver try Scuba sort of situation. And I did a few of those always grew up next to the ocean. So surf from quite a young age and obviously was was in and out of the water a lot. Something that just felt felt comfortable, felt natural. And then in 2008, I decided that, you know, I kind of wanted to continue to travel and stay away. How could I make that work? Was there a possibility to make diving into something a bit more? So yeah, I kind of kind of went from there. Did openwater advanced in Dahab, in Egypt to the beginning of 2009. And then met some guys over there that were based out of Koh Chang in Thailand. So I was actually planning on heading back to Australia. I'd been in Australia for quite a bit in 20. Where are we 2000 into 2007 2008? I guess something like that. And they kind of said, you know, why don't you Why don't you stop in Thailand on the way back to Australia and do rescue divemaster? And kind of go from there really? And I guess the rest is history? Yeah.

 

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's a significant transition, coming into the dive industry from the sports that you've done in the past? I think that's fair to say.

 

Yeah, I mean, obviously, yeah, I've been I rode bikes for quite a long time, I had my my fair share of injuries 2008 I lost use of my right arm. So that was, you know, obviously another big reason to try and think about something that I could do to continue the same kind of lifestyle, but obviously, with less impact. And yeah, I mean, it's nicer on the body, for sure. Right. Like, there's, you know, you're not crashing into the floor at 30 miles an hour or whatever. But yeah, so I think, you know, all extreme sports have a have a kind of tribe, right, like, people stick together, you'll see it in Australia, with all the surfers and stuff, it's, it's something that once people get interested in these kinds of things, then yeah, they stick into groups. And I think with with the bikes with the surfing and stuff, like that's a very particular group of people. Whereas in diving, you're exposed to so many different people with so many different backgrounds, you know, different career options, different different walks of life, races, nationalities, or whatever. And for the time that we're underwater, it, it doesn't matter if you're a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, you could be a, you know, a waiter weight, or whatever, it doesn't matter like that. It kind of, I guess, bridges that gap, and everyone becomes equal for however long it is that you're submerged. And that's, that's nice. It's a wider range of people. Obviously, there's a lot of exposure, you've travelled a lot, obviously, with the diving as well. And, you know, there's probably not a major city in the world now that you could go to without knowing somebody that you've either dive with or tall or, or whatever. And I think that's something that's very special about the industry. I don't think that it's something that is super common in other industries, maybe.

 

No, I think you're right there because it's, I mean, it's weird because it's such a bizarre and niche sport. It's when you compare it to, let's say, the mountain biking, there's got to be more riders than what there are divers in the world. And you would imagine, yeah, you would imagine that that scenario of of, you know, being well known and being able to go to different locations and know someone through the sport. You think that it would be role reversed, but I think it is indeed Scuba diving at the top of the list there because You know, you're right. Wherever we go, there's always someone, even if it's someone they can't even remember. And they just start talking to you like, oh, yeah, sure.

 

Well, yeah, of course, I remember. We had a great time. Yeah, man. I mean, I think, you know, it's, it's for sure, it's interesting. And, you know, there's such a wide range range, right? Like, I mean, you can, okay, not at certification level for sure. But you know, you can start diving at eight years old and confined water. And then I think the oldest person I've ever taught was in their late 70s. So, you know, that's, it's, it's across the board, right? Like, you can have people from from a very young age into, you know, into their pension or years that are still super enthusiastic and very passionate about what they're doing. And for people that maybe have, you know, whether or not it's injury, or just bodily wear over age or whatever, once you're under the water, and you're, you're effectively weightless, like a lot of those injuries, a lot of those, you know, maybe bodily woes or whatever become, become less, less important, obviously, condition dependent. If you're, you know, if you're doing kind of easy diving, no currents and easy entries and exits, and whatever, then it's something that is so much more accessible than, you know, the extreme sports or the actions, thoughts that involve us to be in good physical fitness.

 

You know, what I do like about it, when you go into the water, there's no Wi Fi, there's no phones. I'm getting, I'm obviously getting old, because I've just had my 50s but I'm sick and tired of just being in rooms with people that are just constantly on their phone. And you know, there's no communication. There's more communication, real meat communication on dives in and I like yeah, for

 

sure. But you know, instead of a phone on the wall, you've just got a camera that you poke at and look at the screen and ignore everyone around you. So there's, there's a balance to everything, right? Yeah,

 

true. fair one. I'll take that one. Hey, speaking of age ranges, and all that kind of stuff, I do have to just pause for a second to give a huge shout out to ollie Carroll. And he's a he's a young lad that came and saw the world. He dragged his mom along to watch a live presentation with me and Nico, Nicholas Remy. Probably a good eight, nine months ago now. But he's 16 years old. I reckon he's probably the youngest front of the show. And his mum reckons he'll get mental here and his name on it. So Ollie Carol, you got a shout out, buddy. We'll see at the next event. And let's go diving some time. And incidentally, Ollie, we're gonna go back to what Tim has been doing and how he got into or further progressed his career in the industry. But this is the man that can teach you all the way if you want to go into the dive industry, you can pop across to Thailand. And when you're old enough, another couple of years, you can have a few beers with him and learn how to do it properly. And on top of that, Tim, you're the first SSI representative that we've had on the show in 6364 episodes. Really, you're slapping no pressure, but we've had raid we've had.

 

Fair enough. And now you all right, yeah, well, you know, save the best for last, right? Yeah.

 

What do you want to explain where you sit in the SSI structure now? Because obviously, there's different abbreviations for the different kinds of rank structures in the in the various agencies and just try and give a comparison to the other ones?

 

Yeah, okay. So, I mean, my certification level is instructor certifier, which in other agencies, I guess, would sit at the examination level. So it basically means that I freelance for SSI, on Koh Tao in Thailand, which means that once a month, ordinarily, I'm responsible for doing the instructor evaluations along with the full time team based in Thailand, with regards to that, I think, you know, SSI is, is a fast growing agency. Obviously, they've been around for a very long time. 1970 is kind of the birth year, which is very similar to Paddy and in timeframe. But I think as we all know, Paddy has been for a very long time to use their phrase the way the world learns to dive. I started my career as a PADI instructor or didn't, but obviously, once I got to instruct to level I was Patty through and through, across over to SSI in 2012. And to be completely honest, at that point in time, I didn't know very much about SSI at all. It was more wanting to work at a particular location it being necessary. And yeah, I very much bought into the paddy system, as obviously a lot of people do and it was interesting to transition into something different once So I started teaching the system, I think, you know, the flexibility that we have in the way that courses are conducted, how we can move skills we can we can move. Basically, I feel like it's a lot easier to cater to two individuals. From my perspective, what makes a good instructor is somebody that is adaptable. And you shouldn't be teaching the same course, you know, just on a script every single time. Based on the diversity of people that dive that we've kind of already touched on, I think if if you have the ability to change the way that you construct a course change the way that you deliver your information, it should be based on the people that sit in front of in front of you. And SSI, in my opinion, gives us far more scope to be able to do that successfully. So I kind of made my way up through the rankings. I did my instructor trainer in 2015, which is my PADI course director equivalent, working alongside Simon Garrity, who at the time was the most certified SSI professional in the world. And, you know, we we taught and trained a lot of very competent and capable professionals. From there, you know, I bounced around the world a little bit for a while, dipped my toe back into the paddy pool for a little while and I just, I didn't feel like I could teach as good a course within that system anymore based on the rigidity of how things work in a lot of instances. I then went on to work for Siam diving enterprises in 2019. They were in charge at the time up until recently actually have SSI International in Asia, also Marez. So I was responsible for for Maurice for the equipment sales, both to dive centres and to the retail market as well. But as part of that, I I then move forward and did my my certify with SSI in that timeframe as well. So I was over in Phuket with Brian Knight, Neil Francis, Ronnie Kane, who's the head of training for SSI was there as well. And we ran a big instructor trainer seminar. At which point I yeah, I did my did my certifier started doing the instructor evaluations back in 2019. With Brian on cotyledon. So yeah, that's kind of where we are, um, I'm only with them now. You know, as and when they need me. It's, it's pretty busy right now. So it's been every month for the last four or five, I guess now at some point. And then yeah, the rest of the time I'm, I'm a big blue.

 

Yeah, we're just just a classroom, your path? Yeah. To anyone who's listening and thinking about going on to do their Instructure instructor certifications. You go through the Dive Master programme, then your instructor. So your course directors or your PADI equivalent course directors are the guys that teach you how to become an instructor. So you generally have a couple of weeks course with them. And then at the end of the course, you have a couple of days, where someone like Tim comes in to evaluate that training that's gone on and to certify independently and say, Yes, this person is good enough to be an instructor crack on congratulations. So that's just simplifying it a little bit. I didn't realise actually, Tim, that you got to Big Blue. Not long before me, to be honest, I think I got there in the February of 2013. So

 

when was I there? I think I started in October of 2012. The whole house. Okay. Yeah. So it wasn't a huge amount before did my crossover in either late October, early November, I think. Yeah.

 

How did you get there then? Because were you at Crystal as well?

 

Yeah, I did some work at Crystal for a bit. And then quite a few of the staff that were were, you know, very successful at Crystal is a great dive shop. It's still a great dive shop at had moved over to big blue and you know, all of a sudden we're hearing whispers of, of SSI. And, you know, all of the flexibility that surrounded that. So some friends of mine, people that you'll remember well, Guy and Petra, Richard Todd had made that transition Nick bufton. Yeah. And yeah, they kind of said, you know, big blues, looking for instructors, Big Blue was very much on the up at that point in terms of growth. So yeah, I kind of went down and I had a chat with Simon and sort of, you know, inquired as to what all of this was about and what they were looking for. And yeah, they kind of said, you know, if you do the crossover and you fit into The team, it was a big team at the time and there was obviously a lot of people at that point fighting to go into all of the big dive shops on Koh Tao. As you know, and I think this is true of a lot of the dive centres on kotel if the if there are course directors in the paddy centres if there are instructor trainers in the SSI shops, we we want to employ the people that we've trained right like, you know, my opinion divemaster training is effectively a two month job interview. And if those people move forward into that instructor training and they've they've made a good impression they've been professional, they've you know, shown they're capable, it's far easier to help those people to develop and to move them into the system than it is just to read a CV, which you never really know, you know, when when people are telling the truth or if something has been elaborated on or no, do they actually hold the level of certification that it says that they have. And what I mean by that is, you know, obviously, to a certain degree diving is a pyramid scheme, right? Like you qualify as an instructor, you can teach the base level courses or whatever, then you have to specialise to go into different areas. There's then recognition levels recognition ratings, within SSI, there's a master Scuba diver, trainer, IDC, staff, instructor with Patty and so on. I feel like a lot of these things these days are done through internships, they're done through team teaching. And we ended up with people with with very, very impressive CVS that have effectively never taught a course on their own at any level, let alone at these now elevated levels that that they hold these ratings in. And you know, from my perspective, that kind of dilutes the quality of the market, if you've got an IDC staff instructor rating, or if you've got the equivalent with exercise system, instructor trainer, that's it's a lot of work, it's a lot of time, and just ticking the boxes and signing the paperwork is not something that that interests me in any way. I think people need to gain the experience they need to learn through, you know, through exposure to different types of people. I think it's very, very easy when done well with great students, but how do you manage when everything goes wrong? Right? It's it's a straightforward thing to do when everything is going right. And people are speaking your native language, and they're have a level of intelligence where they understand how everything goes. But that's not reality. I think it's incredibly important that even at you know, basic diver open water level, we always emphasise to our instructors that there is never going to be any pressure from from us to certify somebody that hasn't met the requirement and isn't going to be safe. Of course, they should give them more time if that time is available, they should try and continue to develop those skills and make sure that they are comfortable. But yeah, until that, you know, we can say that somebody is is an autonomous diver, they are they are comfortable and capable to hold a an open water certification or whatever level of certification is, you know, the requirements must be met. And that becomes infinitely more important when you're looking at di professionals that are then effectively responsible for people's lives every single day. Yeah, so yeah, I think employing from within being able to spend time with people to develop to see whether or not the personality fits is very, very important for for us and you know, for you. Obviously, coming into big blue, you did the same room as me you crossed over. And we started at the bottom of the pile right and we had to prove that we were we were good another way that we would fit in and, and whatever and that that's something that takes time and there's it involves a lot of patience. You know, you'll remember picking up the last minute causes when all the other staff are busy and you end up all of a sudden you've got your first six pack open water course for example. And then someone wanders in and wants to do a patty specialty and you're the only person that can do it. So you're running around trying to trying to change you know, your plans and your tracks and I think 2012 1314 15 There was an exceptionally capable team at Big Blue and it was a it was a difficult egg to crack. Yeah. I've worked at a lot of dive shops and a lot of locations around the world. I honestly believe that the people that we had at the dive shop at that time were the best I've ever seen.

 

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

 

Because you know in turn, well there you go, man. I didn't want to kind of blow smoke or anything but there you are. But you know, having having those people around you and having to push into a team of such quality makes you raise your game. Yeah. I think

 

one of the things that we had there as well was the people didn't mind if you cherry pick, you could quite happily sit there as an instructor on a boat, teaching a six pack the same as five other instructors that are on the boat teaching six packs, but the more experienced guys would be approaching subjects in a slightly different way to what you probably did yourself. And you could cherry pick from what they were doing and mould it and create your own style of of tuition. And I think that's one of the key elements that a lot of people miss when they look at Koh Tao. And I'm going to broaden that out a little bit to kowtow and get on my little soapbox for a second because I get the the old The old adage of armchair warriors, that that that cast aspersions on the likes of Koh Tao and call them factories. Yes, I'm sure you could call it a factory in comparison to many locations in the world because of the sheer volume of people that go through there. But the quality of the majority of the dive professionals that are on such a location that are teaching all the time, every day, 365 a year. The reason that they they're there is because they're bloody good at what they do. And with all of that tuition that they're providing, they're only getting better. Now, that's not 100% of the people, for sure. There are some loafers as waiters, but quite frankly, and the time that I was on the island, you didn't see them last long.

 

No, I mean, it's Yeah, I mean, as you said, I've been in a lot of locations around the world I have heard in interviews in, you know, in during my time in different places, oh, we don't normally employ people from Thailand. And my response to that is, maybe you should because, you know, the I've worked with some fantastic instructors all over the world. I've worked with some, some very, very poor instructors, and the poor consistently have been outside of Thailand. And I've worked on Koh Chang I've worked ko li Bay, worth Koh Tao. And Koh Tao, by far and away have been the best instructors. They have to be you know, there's it's a huge market, there's so many people that are, you know, are scratching for, for everything that they can pick up, post COVID world things are perhaps a little bit difficult. And a lot of other people that were have a high level of experience if they weren't owners, or, or course directors and instructor trainers or whatever it may be found other ways to make money. And, you know, sadly, a lot of those people have not returned to the industry. So it was almost a clean slate. And, you know, we very much what we pretty much started again, at Big Blue. There were a handful of staff that were that was was still survived through COVID. And in you know, thankfully, decided to remain in the industry and hope for the best. But the way that things are now is somewhat different. There's a lot of newer instructors on the island as perhaps less of the kind of middle core, if you like of the very, very experienced people that were perhaps teaching the divemasters at certain locations and whatever. Yeah, for sure the the quality must be high, because there's always going to be 1015 2030 people sitting behind you wanting your job. And that should be nothing other than motivation to continue to improve. We're in our team, almost entirely of people trained within, within our training programmes right in house. And it's a great atmosphere and ours a super nice group of people. It's, you know, it's a pleasure to be around. It's a really, really nice place to be again, which is which is fantastic. And hopefully that continues to move forward. But yeah, for sure. I think if you speak to any of the instructor trainers, course directors on the island, obviously they're going to favour the people that they've spent the time with that they know things about they can trust words on a page with no backup. How much it is a reality. Yeah. So yeah, I think in that aspect. The quality must, must remain high. Yeah. Yeah. And

 

that's, I mean, that's the one of the things as well, that points out usually is that, you know, people say it's crap diving. Well, it's not. I mean, just look at the photos I got last month, you know, I came back for a couple of weeks last month. It's not crap diving. It's just it's not Komodo. It's not Raja Ampat. What it is, is a safe environment with good, good conditions for for training and intuition. And it just happens to Have some epic dive in, when it kicks off. And, you know, you can't really argue when a Whaleshark come through quite regularly just to say hello. But it's all on balance. You know, for me, it is probably one of the training makers of the world when it comes to dive in because it's got everything that you need to be able to learn in a in a controlled environment, that's not going to put you under undue stress unnecessarily. Would you agree with that?

 

Yeah. 100% you know, I think I know, you know, as you've said, you've got your chimp on Pinnacle's, your southwest Sam ran sail rock, you know, on a good day, I would say that they are world class dive sites. For you know, training perspectives, we have a lot of a lot of Bay dive sites, which obviously are very, very convenient. And there's plenty of sand for you know, beginners that potentially are going to touch the bottom or maybe crash into something, obviously, you know, ideal world. Everybody's training now in neutral buoyancy, which is fantastic. But again, let's be real, not every single person that is going to learn to dive is going to be capable of going straight into neutral buoyancy on dive one. So having these these locations that you know, we're not having a huge impact on the environment. You know, we've got calm conditions, yeah, of course, that's going to make people feel more comfortable. You know, having taught a lot of open mortar students at this point in my career, I've taught over more to students all over the world, and Koh Tao for, for conditions and for convenience and for diversification of dive sites that are suitable down to 12 metres is great man limit and you've got plenty of dive sites with 12 metres at the bottom. You know, you discover Scuba diving you basic divers, and so on and so forth. It's it's set up perfectly for that. There's dive sites with 18 metres at the bottom, there's dive sites with 30 metres at the bottom, you know, all of these things are super helpful. But then obviously, you have the option for taking people on, for example, dives three and four to some of the oceanic dive sites. And starting to practice that buoyancy when there isn't a bottom directly below how the courses are set up, how the courses are structured, will obviously vary slightly between dive shops, but you know, absolutely, if conditions are okay, we'll be looking to go out to one of the oceanics to dive three. You know, obviously, understanding how to control buoyancy without direct reference to the environment is incredibly important. And having those options in conditions that are not going to challenge people too much at that level. I think it's it's a great situation. Yeah,

 

yeah. I mean, it lends itself to being able to focus on what they really require. And I say the buoyancy first for sure. You know, if you're in murky, filthy coffee, water and freezing your tits off, you're not really going to be bothered about whether you've just kicked a pile of sand or not. You know, there's too many external stresses there. So yeah, anyway, that's that's my opinion on count out yet again. If anyone doesn't like it tough shit. Alright, so working, working past open waters. In fact, let's start with the island for a little bit. Obviously, it's getting back to being busy again. And you know, I saw from a distance and and maybe that one quick spell when I came back, what 18 months ago, for a couple of days. There seems to have been a lot of growth again. You find in a hectic there, or is it all, you know, controlled madness? What's the what's the lifestyle? Like if someone was to be coming to possibly stay for a while and do their divemaster? Are they going to be rabbits in headlights? Or is it all under control?

 

Everything is under control? For sure. Obviously, I think you know those is kind of a general question right? You know, subject to the people. From a divemaster training perspective, obviously we like to to have numbers around the dive shop divemaster trainees are now a conduit if you like between your open waters, your specialties, your stress and rescue courses and so on so forth. I think they're extremely important as a link between students and maybe the the instructors and the higher level professionals. They create a good atmosphere obviously, they're super enthusiastic about diving if they've taken that step towards obviously the first level on the professional ladder. So I think yeah, the more the more people that we have and the more people that that are coming through those programmes, the more it then encourages other people to come through those programmes. You know, like if someone And depending on obviously the style of sales tactics, you were, you know, very successful with your continuing education and with your, with your equipment and so on when you're a big blue, not everybody is, is particularly strong in those areas. And I'm sure you've heard, I'd I can't even count how many instructors that I've heard over the years say, Well, yeah, but I'm a Scuba diving instructor, I'm not a salesman. I disagree. I think that one comes hand in hand with the other. And, you know, we've both worked with some very gifted instructors that perhaps weren't the strongest in sales, we've worked with people that are very strong in sales that were perhaps not the most gifted instructors. So building a balance between the two is important. I think people that are doing the professional training, the divemaster, Assistant, instructor, instructor courses and so on, you know, can can have a huge impact on whether or not people actually continue to dive. And from anybody that is, is looking for a career as a DI professional or has a career as a DI professional, the number one focus for us is to train safe, calm, competent, comfortable divers that will continue to dive within the industry, right. People will argue all day long about which agency is best and which situation is better. And whatever, I don't really think that that matters that matches, you know, the industry as a whole. You know, I could sit here and, and tell you a million reasons why I believe SSI is the best training agency in the world, you could sit down with a paddy course director, they'll give you exactly the same reasons why they feel like Paddy is the best it doesn't, it doesn't really change the outcome. Yeah, we want to, we want to train high quality professionals, we want to train high quality divemasters as instructors and you know, beyond. And their job is to encourage more and more people to stay within the industry and to keep diving.

 

And do it safely.

 

100% I mean, that should be the forefront of everybody's teaching. Right. And this is, you know, going back to what I said earlier, we're never going to we're never going to pressure instructors to sign the paperwork, people pay for a course they don't pay for a certification. You know that the Adel age old analogy of you know, if you crash your car into a wall during your driving test, are you gonna get a licence? You know, so yeah, for sure. People need well, maybe I suppose, depending on where you are in the world. You know, people need to understand that the time needs to be given to the students at every single level of training. And that's the instructors responsibility, in my opinion. But at the same time, it's also the instructors responsibility to make sure they're 100% comfortable to certify their diver. And doing that in a way that encourages them to continue to die, if that encourages them to, you know, stay within the dive community is, is obviously part and parcel of all of those things. Yeah, yeah.

 

And you know, going beyond what you get as an as an instructor or divemaster, when you assist someone who's getting, you know, nerves or has a little stumbling block to get to that goal. If you get them to that goal, though, the feeling that you get have a little bit of pride, and a major satisfaction in assisting someone getting to do something that they thought they might dip out of for whatever fear. I used to. I used to love that.

 

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, there's a huge amount of satisfaction in helping people to reach their goals, right. And it doesn't again, it doesn't matter at what level this is. Now, I've watched open water students that have finished a course. And you know, no matter how amazing they've been under the water, no matter how much they've developed during the course, it just isn't for them. And then you get people that will struggle every single step of the way. And, you know, they're absolutely over the moon at the end. And I don't feel like that stops just when people start diving. You know, how happy people are when they when they reach every level in diving or any level in diver. And from a from an assistant point of view from a certified assistant from an instructor perspective. Surely that's the reason we do this right is to help people to develop to give people an opportunity to see the 72% that they don't normally see. Yeah,

 

for sure, for sure. So on a day to day basis, Timothy Yeah. What are you doing it Big Blue. Let's let's talk about blue row for a moment.

 

Yeah, so on a day to day, I'm responsible for training, basically everybody at a professional level within the dive centre. So right now we have about 19 or 20 divemaster trainees that are within their programme. We have a few people kind of primed and ready to move forward into instructor training. Sorry and assistant instructor and instructor in the next month or so once I returned from Switzerland so when it comes up to the instructor levels, it's it's me or my own. With the divemasters. We have the owner who you know very wealthy owner Campbell. She's my partner with regards to the training of all of the divemasters. That one was a no brainer for me because her husband, obviously again, you know, Andy, Andy Campbell's one of the most successful TDI technical diving instructors in the world. We have big blue technical department on site. And Fiona splits her time between teaching technical diving courses and then imparting the infinite wisdom on our divemasters. So we have a much more diverse programme than perhaps what is written in the instructor manual is written on paper, we want to be able to offer people obviously the chance to do to do everything that they want to do, we're now very, very focused within the shop on specialties rather than, you know, the standard kind of Route Advanced Adventure programme if you like. And then yeah, you know, big blue Tech is a is a toy shop full of all these fun different TVs and rebreathers. And, you know, twinset, sidemount, setups, and whatever. And having Feodor on board has been a massive help with allowing people to transition into sidemount, diving into deeper diving into nitrox, at different levels, and so on. So, I think that what we can offer is broad, you know, we have people that are teaching, you know, gasp lender courses, we're teaching equipment maintenance courses now, everything that people will need to be an active functional working, working dive master or higher. You know, it's not about the bare minimum, it's about offering people every opportunity they can to bulk the CV to gain the level of experience that will make them you know, an employable competent professional. Yeah, yeah. And it's very much a ramp, excuse

 

me. And it's very much a CV that you've got to pack out because a lot of operators around the world when you when you dream of being a dive Pro and being sat somewhere like silky sands of Maldives or Papua New Guinea, you need a substantial CV that isn't just dive in, you know, you've mentioned the gas blend in and fill in tanks and, you know, Reg service in, etc, etc. You know, all of these competencies are what are going to assist you get that job that you want, because a remote location needs, you know, they can't employ five people to do five different jobs, they need one person to be able to do all five, and be able to work across the teams. So I like that. I like that approach there. Because there was very limited kind of tech introduction for divemasters in the past. And that sounds like they've really gone to town in pushing it forward. So to give them an extra leg up as it were.

 

Yeah, for sure. I'm you know, think, you know, we've always had the technical department at Big Blue, perhaps there was in the past a little bit of a you know, who's gonna be it's almost like there was a fight for business people coming from divemaster training. Obviously, the tech department is very, very interested in manoeuvring them into technical diving, the pro department was, was very interested in moving them on to become instructors. And perhaps that wasn't always the smoothest transition. I feel like now, there's a there's a very, very good relationship between the two. And, you know, we sit down with people and we counsel people as to what their options are, and what is most suited to them. You know, we're all under the same banner, it's under the same roof. At the end of the day, does it really matter which direction they go in? At some point? Everyone ends up in the same place anyway, right. Like most of our instructors, now, our outside man qualified our extended range, perhaps advanced nitrox divers. So, you know, there are so much more opportunities for people, when everybody just gets along and goes in the same direction. Can you know from an atmospheric point of view, it's just it's just a really, really, really nice environment to be around. And there's so many people now with so many different walks of life with so many different levels of certification levels of qualification. One thing I think that is often lost within the dive industry is you know, we should be constantly learning. And I very much strongly feel that the day that we get into the water and we don't learn something is the day that we should take a break and get out. And, you know, for the new divemasters for the new instructors, we've we've got a team of very different levels of experience. And that's not to say that they should be looking at the people with more time under their belts. We've got some fantastic instructors that have been teaching less than a year. But the more people that you can, you can watch the more people that you can listen to it, as you said earlier, right that you can start to develop a style that works for you. You might hear somebody say one thing During a briefing or somebody say something different during a debriefing. And if you if you absorb everything that the big blue has to offer, you will be very well rounded. It's impossible not to be with the staff that we have now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

 

I picked up there you are on about the advanced adventurer. And the specialities now, just to just to backfill that for for literally, the the norm in the past of years gone by used to be, you do your open water, and then you stay on to do your advance for two days. And then you're an advanced diver and you can go to 30 metres blah, blah, blah, blah. And you go away with two tickets. So I picked up on that because that intrigues me. Can you delve a little deeper into how that's changed someone?

 

Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, SSI has been, it's been the same for for a long time in the sense that as a certified Open Water diver, the Advanced Adventure programme with SSI is an optional certification. It exists to stay in line with with the other agencies and the way that you know, things have been done in the past. And as a result of that, it's quite a difficult nut to crack because you know, people do get into the routine of this is the way that things are right. Like we do open water we go on to advanced, the Advanced Adventure programme is built up of five adventure dives, one of which it doesn't have to be but in order to make the certification valid is your adventure deep dive, which as you correctly said, certifies people to dive to 30 metres. And yeah, as a result of that, after the five adventure dives are completed, you you get a certification that the adventure dives that you have done within that certification are listed on the back of the digital certification card. And for most people, the third to me certification is the motivation to continue on to do that. And it's been the same way for a long time. Within the SSI system, as a certified Open Water diver, you can go directly on to the specialty pathway. And that means that you can spend more time purely focused on areas of interest. Think it allows people you know much more in the way of, of picking and choosing where they feel like they need to develop or perhaps where they want to develop. So for us now, for the last couple of years, we've been very much focused on on encouraging people to go down that route. For example, deep and nitrox is, is a fantastic combination with SSI, you can combine specialties. And, you know, the deep diver course certifies divers to go to 40 metres rather than 230 metres. It's also done in in a in a progressive way. So rather than going directly towards 30 metres perhaps on an Advanced Adventure programme things are taken at the students pace. You know from a from a standards perspective, in order to become qualified to sit for 30 metres on an advanced or ventricles technically you just need to go past 18 metres from the standpoint of most instructors, you know, they're not gonna want to do a 90 metre dive and then certify somebody to dive 11 metres deeper than that. So I think with the specialties the deep specialty with SSI is a three dive programme is number one, the requirement is deeper than 18 no deeper than 30 metres so you can do things a little bit more slowly. Obviously there's much more in the sense of academic requirements of teaching requirements from the instructors so the knowledge development is obviously there as well. And I feel like people are safer divers when when they have more knowledge they're safer divers when they do things more progressively. So dive to of the programme the requirement is to be deeper than 24 metres and no deeper than 30 metres and the requirement for dive number three is deeper than 30 no deeper than thought everyone will have a slightly different opinion of that obviously you know when I'm kind of talking about this with instructors, I will always say right you know your aim is 31 Once you get towards that depth depending on you know whether or not anybody is experienced any kind of nitrogen narcosis any kind of anxiety, any stresses that maybe becoming apparent. Obviously you wouldn't push any deeper but if conditions are good, visibility is clear. And everybody's calm and comfortable then yeah, okay, of course you can you can manoeuvre that dive a little bit further down towards the 40 metre mark but let's think about what's going to keep the situation you know, the safest what's going to keep people having a solid understanding of the difference between diving at these two different levels. You know, the For the 90 metres being level number one, deeper than 30 metres being level number two, safety is always going to be, it's going to be the top priority. So, you know, aside from the fact that the training has specialty level is far more comprehensive, there's more time spent in the water actually practising the skills that are required to do this. Well. nitrox obviously, you know, we all know the benefits, right? So I mean, being able to dive on nitrox being certified to dive 40 metres is a fantastic way to spend the same amount of time as you would doing an Advanced Adventure programme but gaining not one but two certifications. Yeah. Within the SSI system, we also have the recognition ratings, the recognition levels so there are free certifications for people that go down the specialty route when they hit certain milestones. So specialty diver is the first level you you need to have logged 12 dives you need to have completed two specialties and then that will give you a free recognition rating which will appear within the app certification which then will list the two specialties that you that you have completed at that point in time. And from there, exercise, Advanced Open Water is for specialties and 24 Lug dives. So you know, everyone can you know there's no specific specialty that you need to do at this level there just needs to be for for us the most common route is deep nitrox perfect buoyancy and navigation. And I think we can all agree that that buoyancy is a key to being a competent safe diver. Again, focusing on that in in a way where you know different equipment configurations can be tried. You know, we have different types of things that can be used, we've got the seas with integrated weight systems, for example. So allowing people to try different equipment to try different configurations of equipment and to purely focus on their buoyancy is a great stepping stone and obviously navigation wise I don't think anyone likes to feel lost under the water. So again, a more focused approach to giving people an understanding of, of, you know, how to do all of these things safely as an autonomous diver and again, one of the one of religiousness just just

 

to interject there. So, all the specialities are three types.

 

Not all of them no. So, I mean, without going into too much detail to keep it simple, we have sort of knowledge based specialties which have no diving related requirements, that's things like you know your nitrox courses, react right first aid and oh two provider is no in water requirements. We have ecology bass specialties now which which are really kind of starting to take off which gives people obviously a very good understanding of different areas of marine life of coral identification, so on so forth, again, now in water requirements, those then open water specialties which covers things like you know, your navigation, your deep diving and so on, we have confined water specialties. So things like full facemask perfect buoyancy photo and video for example can be done in confined water Bay like area of swimming pool no deeper than five metres. You know, doing a buoyancy specialty in shallow within five metres of water is far more beneficial than doing a buoyancy specialty in the open water. In my opinion, it's harder to control buoyancy obviously have less pressure. You know, these are all things that can be adapted to suit suit the customer suit the student based on you know what it is they want to do. Yeah, and then we have things like overhead environments and specialised equipment. So specialised equipment specialties will always have a confined water session, because obviously an introduction to any kind of different equipment, things like dpbs, and scooters, things like recreational sidemount, and whatever, we'll all have a confined water aspects. And then depending on the specialty, it's between two and three dives for the most part. The new advanced rec programme is four dives. But again, you know, these are these are minimum requirements. So generally speaking, we're always going to add more dives, depending on timeframe. ipados It's certainly

 

moving on pretty well. And I must, I must add in that I think, again with the lead towards or the lean towards the tech side of things. It's going hand in hand with what I'm seeing in recreational dive in now with more and more people getting into the technical side of dive in and when you come down to Sydney hasn't when you come here well, we'll take you for a dive so you can get cold. And the amount of rebreathers and twin sets that you see is just beyond yeah, there's not it's got to be a good 40% of what you see recreational diving is it his technical setups?

 

Yeah, it's interesting for sure, I guess, you know, obviously, maybe the cold water environment has something a little bit to do with that as well. You know, like if you're spending time getting into different kinds of exposure protection, you're using more weights. Now there's, there's perhaps a little bit less concern with spending spending that time to obviously set up sidemount back mount rebreather equipment and stuff. It's been quite a long time since I dived in Sydney. I think you know, how I feel about getting in and out of wetsuits, I'm very much a rash vest and boardshorts kind of guy, whereas wherever possible.

 

Well, just so everyone knows, just so the world knows. Tim and I went to Nusa Penida a few years ago. And I've made that point. Because similar, they've been very unfortunate. I've never come across a mentor underwater until until this point. So we went to Manta point. And it was like 2021 22 degrees, something like that. But this guy, he's like a lizard. The guy's blood just isn't. It's not warm at all. It's ice cold. So two, five mil wetsuits, and we get into the water. About three and a half minutes into the dive, and if anyone's dived Manta point in vanilla when he's going off. You know, it's it's filamentous. So we're down there three and a half minutes in this little nudge on the arm. And as Tim signalling, okay, I've seen a Manta, I'm cold. It's time to go.

 

Yeah, he didn't let me though, did you? No, no. It was good. I did stay. It was good. Yeah, that's good trip. Hey,

 

Scuba going. So let me share something pretty fantastic with you. A while back, my eyes started to give me some trouble, and it made it hard to focus on my camera screen during dives. I tried countless dry fixes to attach glasses to my mask, but it made no change to the quantity of blurry images I found in my camera roll. Then, I discovered as Bob Scuba at sturdy eyes optometrists in mono bail. Rob Hamilton and his team have been crafting custom Scuba masks with precise prescriptions for over 35 years. And I'll tell you this, their mass lenses are tough. I've put mine through the wringer for almost two years now. And it's still going strong, capturing awesome shots with virtually no blurry Camera Roll images post diver. So if you're struggling with vision on your diet, check out us Bob Scuba and sturdy eyes optometrists. Get yourself kitted out, capture some awesome shots. And don't forget to tag me so I can see the results. Stay focused, my friends, the SSI app description about this because quite honestly, I've never really used it until I was coming to see you guys over in Thailand. And I thought I better have a look at this because Timo Baalak. Me if, if I don't know how to use it, thankfully, he didn't ask me about it. But I wasn't, I was impressed by it. And it must make the certification or proving there of a damn sight easier nowadays than what it was relying on people keeping hold of a piece of paper or plastic card.

 

Yeah, absolutely. I think you know, I mean, SSI started to develop the digital system back in 2014, you will remember the little hub that we had at Big Blue that had all of the training materials and the first version of the app, we'd have to, obviously download the materials from from the kind of external hard drive onto there. And I think, you know, even from, from the early days of the app, it was, it was quite intuitive. It was it was a really, really good idea. Obviously back in those times. We didn't have the best Wi Fi on kotel people weren't perhaps quite as reliant on on technology is what they are today. Yeah, but, you know, the system now is fantastic. You know, the the website and the app work almost seamlessly, I would say between one another. There's a huge amount of information on the app about all aspects of you know, SSI system about all aspects of diving. There's some very interesting, you know, articles about different dive destinations, you know, what kind of things you can see in different locations around the world at different times. And now from the perspective of training, all of the training materials, the digital training materials are are accessible through the app. We as instructors can see student progress. It's very, very easy to navigate. SSI are constantly working really hard to update and change the programmes to remain current. You know, from from a professional standpoint, as long as we pay our fees every year when we're in active status. We have unlimited free downloads of all of the latest materials. So we're always teaching for the most current the current materials that are that are available to us. And it means you know that everybody's on the same Ah, everybody's teaching from from the same from the same materials and back in the days of, you know, print runs for, for paper manuals, and so on and so forth. It was an expensive process trying to, to have a library of, of everything that we needed. And, you know, in a lot of instances, that was the responsibility of the instructor rather than the dive shop. And it was, it was hard going and now having everything literally at your fingertips, you know, all of the standards manuals are in there, every manual for every course that SSI has is available through the website through the app in downloadable areas with and without videos, depending on obviously, how much storage you want to take up on your device. And it's, it's, it's made things a lot easier for sure. Constantly, obviously, working on the app as constant updates. There is, you know, from, from my perspective, very little about that, that I would ever change. It just It works very, very well. And, you know, as you said, from from a certification standpoint, everything is in one place. Yeah. You know, the digital logbook is fantastic dives and are verified via QR codes. I mean, you will remember the days of having infinite paper logbooks that, you know, either get wet or get damaged, or get misplaced, or whatever, and this just goes straight up into a cloud. So even if you do lose your device, no problem, you know, you've got a unique login, you've got a unique email address attached to the attached to your SSI profile. And, and that information is always there. Yeah, we've talked a little bit obviously about the specialty diver, the Advanced Open Water recognitions, there's also free certifications, when people hit certain milestones with numbers of dogs, you will know that actually, Matt, you've got one recently didn't, you know, your I did. Your 5000 dives. And I think, you know, all of these things are really nice for people to have, you know, a lot of the recognition ratings and other agencies, you know, even when you've met the requirements, you you still don't have to pay for that something that costs you X amount of dollars or whatever, for a digital certification and SSIs giving these out when people have hit these milestones. You know, kind of touching a little bit again, on the difference between doing your Advanced Adventure in your Advanced Open Water with SSI, you know, if you get to the Advanced Open Water level, you have effectively earn a minimum of six certifications. Because you have the four that are required from the specialty standpoint, you're gonna hit through specialty diver which remain number five. And then once you've got the Advanced Open Water, you've now got six, you're also going to get, you know, those log dives will go towards the recognition levels when the first one being century diver, 100 dives. And then you get a you know, a new free digital certification for that. We all know that there's a lot of a lot of certification collectors in diving, people want to see their progress and see how they're moving forward. And I think this is something that SSI have done extremely well. Yeah, within this digital system. Now one way that it works.

 

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I was I was impressed. And it also it also, you know, I've kind of just because my little app has got got my one of my best mates, little Tim Mauritius certified me doing my update.

 

Oh, there you go. It's taken a while. But yeah, it literally popped through on the app. And it's like, oh, look, oh, as to his name. Brilliant.

 

There it is.

 

There it is. Yeah, it was very, now safer around you than they were before. Definitely, definitely.

 

What do you see? What's What's your long term goals? Because I mean, at the moment, you could, you could arguably say that you're quite quite near the top of that pyramid of there's, there's not a lot of room left to go upwards Is that

 

what's the to be completely honest, like there isn't really one at the moment, I think, you know, the focus for the last couple of years has obviously been been trying to redevelop big blue and rebuild big blue, you know, post COVID I feel like we're, we're well on the way to, to obviously doing that now. And yeah, there's you know, there's still some things that I'd definitely like to achieve within the shop and within the training. Very happy now with the with the SSI situation in Thailand. You know, we touched a little bit earlier on so I am diving enterprises. were in charge of that franchise for the last 10 years SSI and now have now taken over themselves, which I think will will definitely increase the exposure of the agency and will give us an opportunity to really kind of you know, try and develop and push forward with, with how everything is working within, within Thailand within Asia itself. So yeah, you know, I don't want to say that I'm static, I have got a couple of ideas about things that I'd like to do within the next year or two. But for now, the focus is definitely on, on continuing to grow the divemaster programme continuing to grow the instructor programme and, and yeah, pushing Big Blue forward with with regards to the quality of training that we can offer.

 

And so that means that you're gonna be bouncing between coats and Switzerland quite a lot, then I

 

mean, probably know more than I normally do, right. But I'm normally in Switzerland for sort of a couple of months of the year, I think we're probably definitely going to be bouncing a little bit more between Koh Tao and Cadillac. Gonna start trying to, to do some more kind of, you know, divemaster focus liveaboard. So that people are, you know, getting to experience different types of diving, like, we all know that the west coast of Thailand, you know, as far as Thailand diving, going is probably the pinnacle for, for what we can, what we can achieve. You know, obviously, diving from from Liveaboards, from ribs is very different to the way that diving and Koh Tao is done. You know, as you said, we've coated Chai, you've got your subject to current, a little bit more CO bond, similar kind of situation, obviously, there's some deeper dive sites. So if we have the opportunity to, you know, to take the dive master trainees to take the new instructors off Island and give them the experience of diving in some perhaps more challenging conditions and thing that can only be a positive. Right. So yeah, definitely looking to kind of bridge that gap between the two a little bit more often. I know that boots is kind of keen to get some professional training kind of working over there. So perhaps I'll, you know, maybe do a do an ITC a season or a couple of ITCs a season over uncollapse. Yeah, you know, just I think the COVID reset for me was was just a very good opportunity to kind of get things moving forward, you know, I'm sure that you've experienced in all the places that you've diver around the world now, and the expeditions that you've run, obviously, the stuff that we've done together with the more remote location diving, there's very much a kind of, yeah, but this is how we've always done it attitude, I think, yeah. And I think, you know, kind of hitting that reset button post COVID is a great opportunity to, to change how things are done and to use the materials that we have to use the system and the structure that we have to kind of elevate what we can offer. Not only a student level, a professional level, giving people a broad skill set, giving people a broad base, you know, being able to offer diverse diving conditions, diverse certifications, you know, different income equipment, configurations, and so on and so forth. I mean, you know, when we've que so when we were on the liveaboard in cow that last month, you know, I mean, I had a problem last day was it with my with my regulators, I Nick says equipment, that's the first time that I've been in a sidemount configuration for for for quite some time. You know, he's he's diving the monkey configuration, which I've never done. You know, it's nice to sort of try something different and to see how you know, how the different equipment configurations, how the different setups can impact the different kinds of diving and conditions that we're in. And I think the more than we can, we can step out of the every day offerings of a lot of the dive centres around the world, the more attractive that is going to become. Yeah, and I think you know, from a training perspective, it's a positive move forward from obviously from a business perspective you know, how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd? You know, we know there are a lot of very very successful dive centres on Koh Tao there's a lot of exceptional trainers on Koh Tao you know what what can I do to set myself apart what can I do to set big blue pro apart to set the blue diving apart you know, the day to day now trying you know obviously very hard to monitor how things are being done within the staff system. How people are teaching the courses you know, how we can we can better improve the schedules for the course is the way in which we set things up to overall enhance the customer experience and you know, obviously my focus is to keep people diving a big blue if we want to look at the small focus but the the main focus is to train quality people that stay within the industry. So for now, that's kind of enough for me at the moment. Not saying that there aren't opportunities out there I'm I'm always ears to the ground. And you know, there are obviously times when When I'm asked to do certain things as and when something comes up that that really tickles my fancy then yeah, okay, maybe there's a conversation to be had about where I'll go in the future, but kind of look into you at the moment a little bit. Let's get nomadic kicked off again. And you know, like you said, it's been a while since we were in PNG, so yeah, it'll be super, super nice over there. You know, one of the questions that I was looking at from from your your list was? Where is it?

 

Oh, can you share a medical diving out to you as the best you've had? Yeah, well,

 

I curse I cursed you when I read that, to be honest. You know, you're you're probably familiar with this question as well. Right. Like, you get people that are constantly especially newer divers. So what's the best I've ever done? Yeah, what a horrible question demand. You know, I think, you know, for everybody, that's, that's, that's a difficult question, right? Obviously, like being in the industry for quite some time. Now we've got, you know, hundreds, maybe 1000s of different, different experiences that we've had. But I think for me, the remote location stuff has always been the biggest draw, you know, obviously, coming from, from a situation where I did quite a lot of adrenaline based sports before diving is not an adrenaline sport to me. So, you know, finding, finding ways to, to make that more, more interesting and more exciting and more enjoyable. And for sure, you know, the remote location stuff is what does that for me, you know, going to locations that perhaps you know, very few, if any people have ever been to is the most exciting way to dive and when you come down to you know, single dives, I think that's very, very difficult one but now if you want to stand out then I think the dive that we did on the blackjack would would be something that that always springs to mind you know, as not a huge number of people that have ever been there that was what a 14 hour round boat trip from one of the most Roma remote locations on on Earth anyway. Yeah, so yeah, I think you know, from a from a standpoint of moving forward and from from keeping the industry interesting and from keeping you know, the passion if you like for actually being under the water. It takes quite a lot for me now to to want to go diving if I'm if I'm not actively involved in somebody's training. Yeah. And yeah, those kinds of trips are definitely something that would would spark my enthusiasm and make me want to want to spend some more time in the water for sure.

 

Now, what was it? What was it that was rememberable? About the blackjack? Was it this magnificent wreck in a beautiful location and White Sands? Or was it was it been knocked off your tests at 4445 minutes?

 

Well, I don't know about you, but I didn't feel like I had any kind of narcosis whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, Ogopogo village was was was an incredible place, right? Like, I mean, I would say, land wise, that's probably the most remote that that I've ever been for sure. But your conditions were amazing as well. Right? I know. It's weird.

 

Between the time that I last dove the blackjack, and we went and dived it at the end of 2018 the villages there. They keep a log a written log of the divers that come because they charge 20k And just as a local local fee, but they've been alive divers. So in the 19 months, between me dive in it, and then taking you guys back and dive in again. They've been five divers in 19 months.

 

Yeah, it's just I mean, it's the kind of stuff that you want to see right I mean, you know that condition wise that's that's a very very straightforward dive okay, there's depth to take into consideration obviously there's still footage right on YouTube. I think there was a little bit a little bit of backlash from some of the dive community about the fact that we were at 48 metres on single tanks

 

behind the cameras and all that the tank set up

 

Well, exactly and you know, this was this was kind of where I was gonna go next. So you know, obviously, when you are in a in a location that remote obviously ideally, I would much rather have done that dive on a side mount set up with with to two first stages, two tanks and redundancy. But as you say, you know, people don't see what goes on behind the camera. They didn't see the multiple different tanks slung at different depths. Obviously, the planning that went into that dive with groups dropping at different you know, different timeframes and a different day So that there was always going to be, you know, that kind of safety margin for us. And it's, you know, it's very easy to sit behind a keyboard and criticise what people do. But if you don't know, the big picture, and if you don't know, the whole, the whole process that went into planning a dive like that, then, you know, kind of wind your neck in to be completely honest. But, you know, I mean, obviously, we spent quite a lot of time planning the logistics of how that dive was going to work. And, you know, obviously, what you wanted to get with regards to the footage and so on. And, and, you know, like you say, if there's five people in a 19 month period, like, there's got to be very, very few people in the grand scheme of things that have actually done that dive and been on that location. And, you know, I'm a big fan of wreck diving in general, I love the history behind you know, how things happened and why things are there. And, and yeah, for, for remote location, and for, you know, I mean, what the visibility was, as far as your eyes could see, you know, 4546 metres. So, yeah, those are those are definitely the dives and the things that I think stick to memory the most. Good, I'm glad they do. And just in case you forget them in your old age,

 

it's on YouTube. I'll stick a link in the show notes. A speaking about those, those questions that I had and put to you. So that's what that's one of them answered, have another one. Let's see, if someone wanted to pursue a career similar, similar to yours. What advice would you give them?

 

It's a track. That's think that's a tricky question as well, I think it's incredibly, incredibly person dependent, right. I also think that there can be a lot of expectation. And a lot of you know, almost what word am I looking for? I mean, you know, for, from my experience of training divemasters. And from training instructors, I think that a lot of people just expect that when, when they qualify, they're, you know, they're some kind of in some kind of entitlement or guarantee that they're going to going to be employable, and they're going to get a job. And I think it's a very fine balance between trying to encourage people to take those steps and to move up those levels in the industry, but also to, to manage that expectation, to make people understand that, you know, an instructor fresh out of an instructor evaluation and instructor examination is perhaps not the most employable person in the world. So important, obviously, to do your research and to spend the time thinking about things like, where are you going to train? Why are you going to train in that location? Who are you going to be trained by? What agency? Are you interested in? Do you have future goals of certain locations? Because, you know, in in some locations, you know, one agency will be will be much stronger than, than another agency, for example. So, you know, what do you have to do to, to get to the end goal, and I think, you know, obviously, we know that dive training is not cheap. When know that, that there are levels and you know, there are experiences levels that people are going to expect when they are advertising for jobs. And you know, you were saying earlier that especially in the police places like Papua New Guinea, the remote locations, they can't employ maybe five people to do a job that they can expect one person but then there's also the double edged sword there, right as a lot of the stuff that you see on dive jobs worldwide or whatever, it's, you know, dive guide somewhere and they want you know, a degree in, in marine biology or marine science and they want you to be able to drive boats and vehicles and repair compressors and maintain equipment and work every hour under the sun for for accommodation and food for example. So I definitely feel like this is you know, I mean, no argument, right? Like you're still in the industry, I've been in the industry a long time, it's the best job in the world, but I don't think it's ever going to make you rich. So I think, you know, having enough money set aside to complete the training to to maybe go through internships, if that's something that's offered in the location that you're in, but also to be able to sit down with people and have an open and honest conversation about what the goals are, you know, what the goals are for the candidates what the goals are for, for for the future and and how the trainers can help these people get to that point. You know, in the sense of competition, for example, that it's fierce, especially on Kotel, you know, there's As a lot of PADI course directors, there's a lot of SSI instructor trainers that, you know, that are pushing for those for those people to come and do their training with them. There are a lot of people on Koh Tao that are exceptionally strong in their marketing, they're getting big numbers every month. My focus is a little bit different I, you know, I've K numbers are great, like, that equates to more money. But I think you know, from from the standpoint of being able to develop competent, capable people that that are going to last in the industry and going to help develop the industry. And big blue as a business as a whole is far more important to me than then churning out, you know, people that are perhaps a little bit less prepared and maybe get through their instructor training, they then don't have enough money to get proper visas to get work permits, and so on and so forth. And it's an expensive process. Yeah. But I would say, you know, just just to be patient and to manage expectation to keep the lines of communication open with the person or people that are going to train you. And you know, to understand that just because you hold a level of certification, that isn't going to perhaps set you apart, think about what is going to make you employable for a training centre, what is going to make you valuable from a student standpoint, is that, you know, something that you can offer the training centre, the dive centre, is it something that you can offer as somebody that is an amazing teacher? Yeah, for sure. Communication. And understanding that, yeah, just because you've qualified as an instructor that, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be guaranteed employment straight out of the gate. You know, people need to to earn their stripes. And I think we can all agree that in a lot of instances, there's quite a lot of arrogance in the industry. I'd love it if that wasn't the case. But that's the reality of the world that we live in. So yeah, I think, for sure, communication is the most important thing. And, you know, spending time with people and explaining what it is that we can offer as a training centre, what I can offer as a trainer. And you know, it's not going to work for everybody. And sometimes it doesn't work for me. Yeah. If there's, you know, a personality clash or a difference of opinion. Yeah, maybe I'll sit down with them and say, Look, you know, okay, so this is what I can offer you, this is what I'm willing to put in, I can also introduce you to, you know, whoever down the road, that may be a better fit. And I think if we all work together to a certain degree, then then people will get more from the training people will be, you know, receiving training from people that perhaps suit them in a in a better way.

 

Yeah, I think I'm all for collaboration. I think collaboration is key in, in so many aspects of our industry. And I'm glad, I'm glad you said that might well then. Okay, if you could change anything about the dive industry careful, or Scuba diving in general, what would it be

 

that we can refer to my notes I think probably to a certain point, you know, the recognition that we actually receive, I feel like, you know, we've talked obviously, about the expectations that a lot of dive centre owners managers and just people in the industry generally have with people being able to do you know, so many different jobs for for often not a huge amount of financial reward. And I think that sometimes it's lost on people that every single programme that we teach everything, every single course that we develop, you know, every single decision that goes into how to set up that training programme to give the students and the customers the best possible experience and you know, what sets one person aside against the other is, is you know, how much time and effort that they put into something and I know, obviously, from the from the time being a big part of of helping big blue to redevelop after COVID It's long hours, it's long days. And you have to be passionate about the industry and you have to be passionate about what you want from the end game otherwise, it's never gonna work right? Just because the shop is closed, it doesn't necessarily mean that the work has stopped. You know, there's there's still communication to be made, whether that between staff or whether that be between customers, you know, answering emails, inquiries, and so on so forth. And I'm not saying that my situation is big blue, that big blue is bad at all, but I've definitely worked in locations in the past where there's been an enormous amount of time and effort put in which just almost seems to be expected. Above and beyond what what the job description pay that is. So, you know, I think that in the world that we live in now, it's it's very, very important for us and especially, you know, for, for me being involved with the management of a company to, to give the staff the recognition that they deserve. And to to appreciate how much effort and how much time does go into giving people a very, very strong experience. And, you know, the only other thing really with regards to what I would change, and I know, it's not something that is particularly possible, it's been talked about for a long time is it would be great if if the agencies actually employed people or a person in each location to make sure that that standards are being followed. And I think, you know, within the SSI system, obviously, we have the affiliation programme, right. So to work as an SSI professional, you must be affiliated to a centre, every centre has has a Quality Management System Manager, and it's that person's job to, you know, make sure that standards are maintained, and to make sure that things are being done well, in any location in the world, you know, there is there is an element of will, we'll just get it done in a lot of situations. And obviously, you know, we have, we have rules and regulations, we have standards to follow for a reason. And I think it'd be great if if there was, you know, sort of a higher body that could maybe govern that in certain instances, especially where service centres are present. Or, you know, there are a lot of certifications going on. One or two people that can perhaps, you know, manoeuvre themselves around the dive centres jump into the water from, from time to time, and just make sure that everything is being done in the way that it should be done. Whether or not it will ever happen, obviously, we'll I guess we'll see in the future. But I understand that, you know, as professionals, everybody goes through the same training, everybody goes through the same system, but I think we've all experienced people do things under the water that make you go, Oh, you know, what, where's your thought process there. So, you know, obviously, it's a big part of our responsibility as instructor trainers and whatever to try and train, you know, the best instructors that we can possibly train. And for sure, at Big Blue, we spend time making sure that we're in conversation with people, if, if people are doing things perhaps in a way that could be in any way questionable, that's addressed immediately. But that's definitely not the case everywhere I've worked and everywhere I've been so you know, kind of a little bit more of a, of a standardised approach to make sure that the people that perhaps are cutting corners are held accountable for that, which will then you know, minimise the risk a little bit further and minimise the impact of potentially having problems with with student divers.

 

Okay, what are your thoughts on ways to minimise human impact on the oceans? Um, okay, I

 

guess, again, again, a very complex question, but I would start with education, right. I think you know, from from an education standpoint, a lot of people have, you know, very limited understanding of the impact that we as, as human beings have on the ocean and have on the environment. And, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about, obviously, all of the ecology programmes that our society now have available, I'd say that that's a, that's a fairly solid, solid starting point. And obviously, everybody that comes into, into the dive industry as a new diver will be given obviously information during their basic diver open water training or whatever about the impact that we can have. And, you know, obviously, the rules that we follow in diving with the whole minimising our impact on the dive environment, you know, no touching things, no, no hands anywhere, you know, not resting on coral resting on the bottom, managing buoyancy and so on, so forth. I think, you know, from my experience of teaching, when you start talking about the impact that humans have on the environment, people genuinely seem quite shocked. So yeah, just just being able to educate people, a lot of the dive centres now obviously have conversate conversate, conservation programmes and so on and so forth. And I think all of those things are a very important way of trying to deliver this information to divers. I mean, as far as getting that broader into the community, obviously, it's a little bit different. But if we can encourage people to change perhaps you know, even some basic personal habits, you know, minimising one use plastic recycling at home, you know, any any small amount at a personal level is then going to change maybe at a higher level than So, yeah, making sure that that we as instructors, we as trainers are delivering information about what to do to minimise the impact on the environment as a diver. You know, perhaps somebody doesn't know that pollution in a river on one side of the world is eventually going to end up in an ocean and another side of the world. So you know, how, how are things where you're from? And what can you do in your daily life? Perhaps when you're not on vacation? Or perhaps when you're not travelling to do your diving? What can you what can you do that will not impact your life, usually, but could make a very, very small difference. And I think making people understand that small differences still a difference, a difference? You know, it's very, very easy to say, oh, yeah, but that's not going to make any, you know, that's not going to make a change in the grand scheme of things is, there's a very easy way out. But if everybody has that attitude, they'll never be any change. Yeah. So I think, you know, educating people and helping people to understand how much of a difference we can make and how much a small difference will actually impact the larger picture is important. So yeah, delivery of information is for sure going to be where I would start.

 

Yeah. And is there a particular conservation effort that you're passionate about? If so, which one and why?

 

I mean, it's easy to say blue oceans from an SSI standpoint, right. blue oceans initiative is something that we incorporate into every single course that we teach at Big Blue. You were talking about your SSI application earlier, I don't know if you've noticed this. But if you open the app, and you go into the courses feature, there is a blue oceans programme. And that programme is a free programme to take. There's a huge amount of information about, you know, the impact that we can have on the environment, whether it be single use plastic, whether it be impacting our our carbon footprint, how we work, you know, underwater, obviously, with regards to to good diving practices. And it's yes, it's in every single person that has the SSI app, and has a has a profile. It's free to do it's, it's very comprehensive, it's informative, and once completed, there will be a recognition card or digital certification that appears to say that you've done this. So you know, offering these things without any any costs, I think is a very cool thing to do from from the agency. So yeah, we're constantly talking about that with with all of our students to try and give them a an easy opportunity to, you know, learn more,

 

especially get on there and have a look at it.

 

You probably should.

 

Nearly there of the many safety procedures we have in the industry, if you had to choose one as the most important, which one would it be? And why?

 

I think you've got to start at the beginning, right? So predive safety check. You touched on this earlier. I think that you know familiarisation with obviously your personal equipment and familiarisation with any kinds of redundancy in your body's equipment is incredibly undervalued. Very, very easy, especially in you know, maybe more experienced divers or people that are diving regularly the you know, the checks or maybe often overlooked. And you can go through any Scuba diving forum online, where people have talked about experiences and problems and you know, most of these problems occur when people are diving on unfamiliar equipment or they're diving with configurations that perhaps have a slightly different what they've used in their training or they've used before but you know, equally if not more importantly what is going on with the the equipment of the person that is going to be diving with you is your button. So, yeah, I think for me, making sure that the predive check is comprehensive that you understand how every single component of not only your own equipment, but the person or people that you're diving with has to be for me and I'll start at the beginning. Why are we talking about safety procedures underwater when we we haven't even completed the one that we can do when we can verbally communicate on land. So yeah, for sure, familiarisation with with every aspect of what somebody's using. Where is you know the spare air source where is the alternate are we using you know, long hose short hose configurations, what what is the situation and if familiarisation isn't, isn't complete before the water then why are we going in the water?

 

Well set your mind well said. Nice easy one for you to finish with well Maybe not an easy one. What are your five top bucket list destinations?