The podcast for the inquisitive diver

Matt Waters – Scuba GOAT host

matt Waters, Hard of hearing, scuba goat logo, Nomadic Scuba logo,
Overview
Matt Waters: A little story on how the Scuba GOAT podcast came about

Matt Waters is a multi-agency scuba diving instructor, travel agency owner and now podcast host.  Matt has certified hundreds of recreational divers and conducted 1,000’s of dives around the world.  With a true passion for the Ocean and its inhabitants, Matt needs little excuse to don his dive gear and get those fins wet and when he’s not submerged he’s generally doing something dive related, wether that be tinkering with cameras, scoping out new bucket-list locations, organising expeditions and bookings or simply catching up with dive buddies.  It’s fair to say that he’s a little bit addicted to the Ocean.

Podcasting, an easy way to keep in touch.  Right?

Forging my way through these uncharted waters seemed quite daunting at first, and so without much knowledge I dived into my first attempts at recording an episode with a good mate, Jason Fondis who is based on the beautiful island of Nusa Penida, Indonesia.  Nusa Penida is contactable, however, two blokes chatting via zoom, with very little experience of recording audio was just plain hilarious! I think it took us 5 attempts to overcome connection issues, background interference, audio drop-outs and blips, my lack of Audacity knowledge let alone knowing how to alter the Loudness or use the effects, generators, analysers and tools.  Thankfully I chose the best person to torture with continuous repeats of the recording efforts, Jase is naturally a hilarious chap and always has something to say, so it was bloody good fun.

Whilst struggling to finalise Jason’s episode a couple of friends reached out as they had exciting news about a shark finning campaign that they were spear-heading in the UK.  Brendon Sing and his wife Elizabeth are the Directors of Shark Guardian and it was a no brainer to include them in the show.  Only 2 recordings this time.  Since recording their episode, Shark Guardian have been successful in their bid to ban the import/ export of Shark fin across the UK borders.

Matt Waters has a podcast…

The word started to get out there and people other than friends started to listen.  Cue Kristian Parton, a marine biologist based in the UK eager to be on the show and talk about his passion, Sharks.  Kristian has written research papers regarding plastics in Sharks, he also founded the Shark and Ray Entanglement Network (ShaREN) which collates evidence regarding, well, entanglement.  Since recording the episode, Kristian has also created his fabulous YouTube channel, Shark Bytes.

Evolution of the podcast content

As I progressed and learned how to use the editing software it was clear that without a real recording studio I would always have an issue in some form or another.  It was with this in mind that I did a little research and found Rod Morri of Sydney Podcast Studios who is only 10 minutes walk from my apartment. Yay, someone who knows what they are doing.  Bye bye Audacity, levels, external sound issues, balancing of voices, editing and hello Mr producer!

A bit of a shock in the mail

Every day I seem to learn something new and quite frankly, I love it.  The guests that have been on the show so far have been interesting, amazingly passionate about their subjects and inspirational.  Scientists, explorers, conservationists, operators, it has become very clear to me that the scuba focus has broadened somewhat and you can imagine my surprise when Dr Sylvia Earle‘s office contacted me wishing to be on the show.  My all-time hero wants to talk to me, she knows of Matt Waters? WOW! What an absolute honour to have hosted Sylvia on the show.

Future guests

I am open to all-comers, anyone who has a passion for our blue world is alright by me.

I am particularly keen to hear from anyone who:

  • Wishes to promote their dive location
  • Would like to talk about any element of the dive industry
  • Supports conservation, science and/ or research

I have developed a step by step process that is easy to follow, I collect all data required, create the cover art and conduct two calls via RiversideFM.  The first runs for 10-20 minutes so I can record the chat and check audio and video quality, we talk about the upcoming recording, nice and easy.  Once that recording has been checked we have the green light to go and record a few days later.  It’s all free, it’s not aired live so we can edit before presenting to the world and the guest gets all the links and embed details and best of all, it’s FREE!

 

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