Pete Mesley - Lust 4 Rust / Shock and Awe Diving

Today, we are thrilled to have a distinguished guest with us a man whose passion for diving spans over three decades and has led him to become one of the most skilled technical divers and instructors in the southern hemisphere. Google the name of Pete Mesley, and you'll find his namesake website, which contains his passion in life, two of which are the list first and shocking or big animal diving. And if that's not enough, you'll also find a rundown of all the technical training he has on offer. As a member of the Explorers Club, Pete's love for Wreck diving has taken him to some of the most historically significant sites across the globe, where he has documented them through his stunning photography and his work as a safety diver. Today, we have the pleasure of hearing firsthand from Pete about his experiences as an adventurer, and his unique perspective on the world beneath the waves. So sit back, relax, raise a glass and join us for an unforgettable conversation with Pete Mesley on the Scuba GOAT podcast.

Links:
Lust4Rust website - http://www.lust4rust.co
Shock and Awe diving - http://www.biganimaldiving.com 

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Matt Waters, Pete Mesley

Matt Waters  00:00

This is the podcast for the inquisitive diver. Welcome to the Scuba GOAT podcast where we take a deep dive into the captivating world of Scuba diving and ocean exploration. Today, we are thrilled to have a distinguished guest with us a man whose passion for diving spans over three decades and has led him to become one of the most skilled technical divers and instructors in the southern hemisphere. Google the name of Pete Mesley, and you'll find his namesake website, which contains his passion in life, two of which are the list first and shocking or big animal diving. And if that's not enough, you'll also find a rundown of all the technical training he has on offer. As a member of the Explorers Club, Pete's love for Wreck diving has taken him to some of the most historically significant sites across the globe, where he has documented them through his stunning photography and his work as a safety diver. Today, we have the pleasure of hearing firsthand from Pete about his experiences as an adventurer, and his unique perspective on the world beneath the waves. So sit back, relax, raise a glass and join us for an unforgettable conversation with Pete Mesley on the Scuba GOAT podcast. Could I pick a domain?

Pete Mesley  01:10

That's probably one of the best introductions I've ever heard in my life. In fact, I'm gonna probably record that. And yeah, you've created a foundation, which I don't think can be taught. Thanks very much for those kind words. Oh, my pleasure. 

Matt Waters  01:28

My pleasure. Man, it's well deserved. And I'm glad I got it out in almost one piece

Pete Mesley  01:33

It's good to be hear mate. It's good.

Matt Waters  01:41

Well, I mean, we've got a lot to dive into. And I'm sure there's plenty of people listening them that know your name and obviously know your face as well. And possibly your drinking habits and maybe even your grasshopper in the background.

Pete Mesley  01:57

Be trying to kill that bugger for the last couple of days now. So. So it's not an added soundbite where it was, you know, this this silences that you have any tweeting, Tumbleweed going past. Hopefully we won't have any of those.

Matt Waters  02:13

Exactly. There's a there's a good buddy of mine, actually from America. Is that a cracking photographer? And he is he's one of those people that just larger than life and everybody loves him at runny and he does that noise on his own. A whistle is like a cricket and you'd be sitting in a buy. THE FUCK IS THAT? Running

Pete Mesley  02:38

is that I'm trying to kill someone's conversation as the conversation is getting to a crescendo of, of deadly silence.

Matt Waters  02:48

Hey, when we have some deadly silence in here, then at least we've got in the back of your support in the background. Okay, so there's obviously going to be other people on the on the show or listening in but haven't got the foggiest who you are. So when Pete Why don't you just give us a little bit of a rundown on yourself?

Pete Mesley  03:10

Well, after that intro, there's not much more to say really, I slept a struggling diving instructor who, who's tried to make it in the industry for the last 30 odd years. And basically just kicking and screaming my way through to try and earn a some sort of wage and an income from from the diving industry. And to be honest, like I just cannot complain at all, you know, but the biggest part about my job is is duck being diverse and dynamic. Because like my training alone, it's very difficult to feed my family with just the training alone. So then my trips the same thing with it and I do a lot of film safety work and in contract photography and each one of their own in their own right won't be able to earn me a full time living but collectively it's basically brought me into where I am today and to be honest man I just I just couldn't think of doing anything

Matt Waters  04:16

Yeah, I hear what you're saying it's a struggle I'm and it's a constant theme that comes up on the podcast about the the lack of income within the dive industry. But I think you're one of the people that is a good example on you know putting in the hard effort and the hard work and like you say diversify and you can make it and you can make it an enjoyable lifestyle

Pete Mesley  04:40

I've totally MACD obviously there's there's two types of wealth that I believe and obviously money is one of the areas of wealth, but the other area of wealth this is just, you know, surrounding yourself with with with good people and doing some cool stuff, you know, and if I were to have a philosophy in my life, or a life goal is to do cool shit with cool people. And a, you know, like, and maybe this is fighting talk coming from me now because I've got a really, really friendly understanding who's got a very good job and the mortgage, the mortgage gets paid every month. And so hence, if I was led to, to make sure that I was to pay the mortgage every month we'd be living out. But, but we wouldn't be rich in other aspects of it. But it's not, I'm very, very lucky. And, you know, it's all the people in the background, I in my wife that, that keeps the home fires burning and to do a job that I'm doing is is is extremely hard on the family life. And, you know, when you've got a good woman mate, you've got to look after them, you've got to hold on to them. So we've organised roll the poor guy to colour look after the missus, while I'm away, and we don't have a pool. But, um, um, she hates it. But now but like, I'm very, very lucky to be in a position where I am. And, and, you know, just meeting some really cool people along the way. And, and that's, that's one of the biggest things is because, you know, we all struggle through our lives, right? So, you know, we struggle with work, we've got to pay the bills and all the rest of it. And then the other struggle is is is what we want to get out of our lives and you know, that that big clock is ticking and obviously I speak for myself because you are in your youthful years. I am in my late I'm not

Matt Waters  06:59

that far behind. The stunning good looks failure.

Pete Mesley  07:07

Luck, that to say that you had a face for radio, actually realise that the true man lucky really is for radio. So this is I think podcasts are are a very important thing that you're going to

Matt Waters  07:21

you're going to be relying on. Yeah, the voice works well.

Pete Mesley  07:25

But no, it does. It's it's, yeah, I can't help but feel mildly aroused when

Matt Waters  07:33

your eyes are painted on. Hey, actually, how old are you? How far ahead of me are you?

Pete Mesley  07:43

53

Matt Waters  07:44

So you're only three years ahead of me.

Pete Mesley  07:46

Yeah. 69 Baby, you know, so you know, born and bred in Zimbabwe, which is obviously most people know that. That know me but yeah, I met my wife when I was living in England and that's where I cut my teeth were limited by been in in done in the southern end of England and obviously, you know, spent the first couple 100 hours on my diving Korea the first couple of years. diving run Cornwall, X, Bournemouth. Bava St. Started Cove,

Matt Waters  08:26

yay.

Pete Mesley  08:29

I learned to dive there. And, you know, that was some of the earliest recollections of making me want to buy a dry suit, which I had no money for. And our first recollections was sitting sitting in the bottom of stony Cove and four degrees of water in in in January, doing a water course and I had a obviously all my gear was hired out and and I remember sitting there freezing my proverbial sort of a in a desperately needed to go for a weekend and it's one of the most single beautiful moments of my life which turned into the worst moment of my life with what I had when I had away and it's all this beautiful warm water just came up through my wetsuit all matches up and threw into my hood, and then just turned stone stone cold and that's the first time I ever, ever winter my wetsuit and, and that prompted me to to go to the dive of my local bike shop the next the next weekend and plead with him to to sell me a dry suit and I actually applied for a credit card about 30 times and got denied each time and obviously they got the visa company took pity on me and it can be a credit of 500 pounds and a and I've never cleared my credit card since that was a that was a 1998 I've never looked back since. What was it? What

Matt Waters  10:06

was it that got you in the water? Then what? I mean, hold on, let's back it up a bit how the hell have you gone from Zimbabwe to the UK? What made that move?

Pete Mesley  10:15

You know, it's, I guess it's kind of a usual story with with with most people are living in sort of like third or fourth world countries like when I left school and we went to a rugby tour to to Dublin in Ireland and, and I come from a single parent family and money wasn't thrown around as easily back in the day and so I've decided to stay in the UK and, and my mum is from Belfast, just north of Belfast. And so after my rugby two, I actually turned 18 on the plane. And and after my rugby tour, we got the train up to Belfast and spent a couple of years in Belfast and the guy my cousin who was who took me on took me under his wing and he taught me how to be a tradesman, a painter and decorator which actually helped pay my way through my diving career. And he was running low on work so he says, Look, if you're not come with me, I'm going to England to go and get some work so I thought Yeah, man, let's just work whatever luck let's let's go for gold. And so I went over to the UK with him and I probably got five fired the first week on the job anyway but so I probably got another job and ended up staying with some friends of mine some ex schoolmates in London and South London and and that's where I met my wife or my future wife and I was playing rugby for a local dive club there and, and yeah, and then that's where I learned to dive in. And in 1990 and we, the rest is history after that. And then you know, I'll miss us because I've always wanted to go to Australia to look Australia's the place for diving and all the rest of it. So we ended up heading off to Cannes and it's probably the worst thing that I've ever done in my life, you know, the most the most disappointing diving I've ever done, it was absolutely horrid. And, you know, we went up there I was super excited. We went out to Cannes and we went with a local dive store there one of the largest dives toward zero and unbeknownst to me, like the local government there only sell the local dive stores, so many mooring sites so so even though we're on the Great Barrier Reef, these dive sites have been dived like a kajillion times and for the uninitiated, you know, people are want to go and see Nemo and and you know, a couple of reef fish and some pet fish that eat all the food scraps and leave the boat that they love it you know, but, but I spent the last eight months in the Red Sea and so I knew what tropical diving was in. We spent four days in on the barrier reef and, and sigma, this is terrible. And you didn't

Matt Waters  13:23

get to go further out then I'm assuming it was all the local dogs.

Pete Mesley  13:26

So So thankfully, now I've got friends or I've got friends in Australia and heading way up north lizard you know, all the way up there and the gut the gut has said that diving they're spectacular. So I've got I've got to make to answer. Oh, he doesn't own it. Mike borlange That boat but he is a is a captain of one of the one of vessels and he says look, come come you know this. This place is super special. And so hopefully I can get some time you know, before I

Matt Waters  14:03

do it. I mean, I was at the our last November I went out with Martin Connolly from Scuba IQ. We went up into the ribbon reefs. So he he passed by all the local ones where you've got 2 million people doing tribes every day. Yeah. And then once you hit the ribbon reefs, it's it's actually really pretty and there was I wouldn't say a massive abundance of fish. It's not nothing like Papua New Guinea, but there's certainly enough to get in on with and the night dogs will good. Lotta sharks. Yeah,

Pete Mesley  14:34

a mate of mine, summer Mitchell. He just was absolutely raving about a trip that he went up with. I made a trip Jackson bought off Spoilsport. And I don't exactly know where they went, I think was lizard, Lizard Island, Ireland and the images that Simon got from that trip was just stunning and you've got this massive walls just full have absolutely jam packed full of massive gorgonians and beautiful big soft corals. And so, yeah, I can't wait, man.

Matt Waters  15:11

Yeah, I've got to be done. Simon's coming on the podcast soon.

Pete Mesley  15:14

Oh, cool. Yeah. I'll tell you what, that's the only guy with more letters after his name then.

Matt Waters  15:22

Then the alphabet. Oh,

Pete Mesley  15:24

my goodness. You know, the only letters that I've got after my name is HSD, which is high school dropout. Yeah, you guys, whoever's listening to this, you got to listen to Simon's he's a he's a really good guy. And he's a prolific diver and a great storyteller. You'll you'll have some fun listening to him. Yeah, he's good fun.

Matt Waters  15:48

He's super knowledgeable, as well as me. Actually. I've invited him on because I had a I had a laryngospasm in December. Underwater.

Pete Mesley  15:57

Joy. Yeah. And the good thing is that you're you're running around now which is which is, which is a big advantage.

Matt Waters  16:04

It's always nice. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna pick his brain.

Pete Mesley  16:08

I've got a question for you, Matt. Why are you called the Scuba goat?

Matt Waters  16:16

Well, I'm not the Scuba go. It was just a term for the show. Goat being greatest of all time, and it was. I'm a massive boxing fan. And Muhammad Ali is right up there as one of my favourites. And his missus created, you know, the clothing brand. And, you know, go to his was linked on to Muhammad Ali. So it was just what stuck in mind. And when I put the logo together, and go just fit underneath Scuba South Africa, they will do. Quite honestly.

Pete Mesley  16:52

I was gonna say, I wasn't going to match that you actually did resemble. If you had a goatee, I would say there would be some there would be a very small resemblance it but not

Matt Waters  17:05

me. I mean, I'm in our local dive club here, Scuba holics. And they're the guys that run it and invited me into it. They put nicknames on everyone for going into the chats when we're organising groups away. So my nickname is billy goat. And the missus has been put in as nanny goat. Obviously, yeah, thankfully, she's got a sense of humour. So we're all good.

Pete Mesley  17:32

Now, cheers. Let's

Matt Waters  17:33

Yeah, cheers. I'll be let's, let's talk about some diver, shall we? Sure. Okay. Excuse me, let's talk about truck. Because you've been there once or twice

Pete Mesley  17:51

where we're just like, I tell you, I didn't think a single destination can be as much fun for so many times like I've just come back in November right then was trip number 36 For me, and you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe 15 or 1600 hours and what are they? And to be honest, mate, okay, so Trapper goon is is quite a good percentage of my annual revenue right so I've earned money from it and all the rest of but to be honest mate if if I didn't enjoy going I would be I would be planning trips to somewhere else you know yeah places just it's so awesome you know we've got their site there boasts 60 Rex but that kind of is but but there's about 38 there which are absolutely world class Rick's and 14 of those are deeper than 50 metres The rest are in recreational diver depths and and that's why in my opinion track is probably dollar for dollar the best value wreck destination on a planet because you can have relative relatively new inexperienced divers coming they're really they would have an absolute ball. Do you know this eight passenger liners, their Mac eight, right so so you're talking 550 600 foot 100 150 160 metre long ships and and you know, most of these aren't in recreational depths 40 metres or show? I've done a couple of presentations or podcasts or whatever is for the American public and I've been talking thankfully, you know, we can we can go back to metric which is a big, big relief to me. So, there's just it's Such a lot of fun and, and the cool thing is, is that we track you, you know, you, you go there for the first time. And it's kind of the whole fun of going to track for the first time is for everybody except bucketlist. Right? Oh, before I die, I want to go and dive truck lagoon. And that was my trip. So in 2001, I went for the first time. And, and that was my bucket list trip. And then, and as it happens, the first day that I was typing there, I thought, what, there's no way that I'm not coming back. And that's when I started to plan and organise trips in the future, from my 2001 once in a lifetime trip to trip lagoon and in and it's just, it's just keeps on giving. It's a, you know, I've had, I don't know, maybe nine, but 950 people through coming through quite a few repeat offenders, there's a lot of repeat offenders. And I And the cool thing is, is that once you come for the first time and you just like tick off all the boxes, you want to say I can I want to dive 28 rakes in 12 or 14 days of diving, and there's just a lot of fun, you know, but then you come for the second time, the third time, then you start calming down, you start getting to know these races a little bit more, and it's just a mountain of fun. And you're diving progresses, you you learn some new skills, and you go back home and you learn some new skills. And then you come back again, you can do a little bit more advanced penetrates and some deeper stuff. If you're not trained for deeper stuff, then, you know, we've got all the gear in the world for for all technical diving, you know, sitemap, boys, the Batman twins, we've got rebreather accessories up the wazoo, you know, I've got 60 sets of rebreather tanks. So you know that we can accommodate a lot of people, you know. And the cool thing is, is that, that our charter out all the books and the books take six divers, a maximum of six divers per boat, and we put one boat per wreck. So even though I'll have like 30 or 40 people on the trips with me, you'll never see the other group when other groups when you're dialling. Everyone just converges at the bar in the evening. And then, you know, everyone could talk about their day style again, and the chat about what they're going to be doing the next day and all the rest of it. So it's, it's super, super, super fun.

Matt Waters  22:49

Well, let's, let's paint a bit of a picture because anyone who's listening in, you know, has an imagination, and most divers will have heard of lagoon, but you assume it's all kind of liveaboard dive in that kind of thing. And I'm assuming I've seen one or two photos, I must admit, but you've got smaller boats that go from the shoreline to out to the dive sites, correct?

Pete Mesley  23:13

Yeah, totally. When I first went there, I looked very hard to all the different options, you know, I thought, well, you know, very, very early on, the liveaboard option was just completely crumpled up and thrown in the bin because you've got 16 divers descending onto the same Rick, everyone goes to the same places. So like now, as long as you are number number one or number two all the time, then you'll be fine. But if you are three, four or 15 or 16, and you go into the engine room, then it's just going to be pea soup wherever you go. So, so the the land base operation works extremely well for me and we've got oxygen generation plants here we've got we've got everything you know, helium. And basically, we hit the dive sites are only like 15 minutes the furthest dive site away is is a one of the only two destroyers in the Laguna are written called loyalty. And and that's the furthest away and that's like 12 mile away so it's like 4550 minute boat ride, but the rest of the wrecks are all within 15 minutes but right so you go for a leisurely run about eight o'clock in the morning, get in the water 830 Get up to 10 3011 Come back, have some lunch, have a little sleep, get back in the water and about 233 o'clock go for a 90 minute dive in the afternoon and and you for the rest of time processing pictures and and having a few cheeky rants It's an awesome, awesome time.

Matt Waters  25:02

Yeah. Yeah. And how are you using the local dive guides that are or the people that are coming along just leading themselves? Yeah, there's,

Pete Mesley  25:12

there's a dive guide on each of the boats, and they're extremely knowledgeable guys, you know, and, but they're all kind of all recreational and but they're all died the deep breaks with with all the technical divers, but they'll they'll go and do a short amount of bottom time and then they'll disappear. So most of the guys just ask them to, to show them away with all the input important, fun stuff is, and then they'll just legged off his butt. But over the years that guys have been quite quite keen to, to make me earn my keep. And so I'm quite happy to like, you know, like before, most of the time the guards would go look, just leave us alone, man, we know the blunt end, and we know the sharp end of a wreck. Like we know all the bits in the middle, just just give us a good briefing and just leave us be and so I've been doing a lot of photo workshops and helping people with photography and and also the guys who look at you know, we want to go here we want to go there and is a few little scary monster. Spink to factor 10 dives, you know, the guys really, really want to Well, I don't know why, but they just they just want to be frightened. So I'm quite happy to take them in and show them a good time. You know, yeah, but there's, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of fun, a lot of fun.

Matt Waters  26:30

And when you're going out next again,

Pete Mesley  26:32

as soon as 2021 on May 8 for six weeks, three, three projects on the go at the moment, just I just came back from there. And we were working on a special project which have been sworn to secrecy, I'm not allowed to tell anybody what it was, but it was very, very meaningful and, and rewarding project, you know, and so I was there for three weeks. And then and then I'm back on in May 2001 till the end of June, June, so six weeks there and, and, you know, working with Matt Carter and the boys project, or the major projects, foundations, and worked last year with them to on the oil recovery luck. That's, that's a real, real important factors that I've been working on for many years now. And, and a project which is very dear to me, you know, because we have been 3d mapping all the risks of tracking and we've found with my partner, a guy called Marcus Blatchford. He's, he's an absolute guru in the, in the 3d photogrammetry. circles. And so Marcus and myself have partnered up and we've, we've smashed out of 12. Rick's now 14, including the plates, and we're going to wait Marcus is coming again in in June. And we're going to smash out a few more so. So we're hopefully going to finish the 38 Rex this year, and have had the 3d models and then create the baseline and, and having that baseline of all the wrecks and truck in my opinion is is just so important, because I just wish that we had that technology like 25 years ago, and you know, to be able to have these models secured for eternity. And a lot of this is happening around the world now, which is great. You know, like there's some people producing some super, super awesome stuff. And, and it's just like we don't understand, and we don't realise that everything is going to eventually be this big pile of orange salt on the bottom. And, and having these models are there forever. And, you know, historically where people are learning about history, you got these kids that put the 3d VR goggles on, and they can actually go through a virtual swim through around these wrecks, and there may have all disappeared. You know the outcome. I was part of a project, a filming project in the in the Java Sea in 2019. And, and the project was actually a documentary series of one of the Dutch High Command commanders enable high commanders, a guy called Calvin called doorman and his his son Theo doorman. I was with us in the button that goddess luck in his mid 80s. You know, and, and, and he was a survivor of one of the wrecks the ships and all the rest of it and and we go there in and they were gone, you know, and and we thought no, this can't be right, you know, this can't be right back law and and so we had a guy Scotty who Scotty villain who was doing all the the the, the sonar, the bottom scanning. And he had a super awesome Wasp system which was actually designed by kiwis. And, and, and he scanned the bottom and they were these huge holes where these rigs had been literally taken out by grabs. And so there's, there's a big documentary about debt and all these ships have gone, you know, the

Matt Waters  30:58

people are physically come along and taken them.

Pete Mesley  31:01

Yeah, and what a story is, and it's like, you know, I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, you know, and, and I've dived a lot of wrecks, which have been salvaged before and like when, when salvage just come that blast the crap out of them, they're just, it's very messy, they grab all the all the important stuff like that condenses and, you know, all this stuff with with high value, metals, all the rest, and they just leave the wreckage whereas these risks have been systematically taken out, it's 100% taking the risks off the bottom and, and with military precision, right. And with surgical precision, and so we went down there and a good mate of mine, Andrew Simpson, who runs a dive store in Auckland here and and he was filming on the trip with me and I was taking stills and we we managed to positively identify through the wreckage like we would pick up shells for and shells from the rig sites and we got we got a portholes images of portholes that were lifted the records the site, which which positively identify the rakes and and they were just taken away. They're just gone. And and then the the guys interviewed some of the fishermen excuse me, the interview some of the local fishermen because obviously, the wrecks are a part of life for them because they they're the fish aggregation areas. And the guy said, Look, these guys came with this big barge and a grab, and they all had automatic weapons. And they told us to go you know, and we'd get shot. So some of this it's a big story in itself on that one I'll tell there's a lot of conspiracy there. You know, the idea in the forest is that is that you know, because the South China Sea is a big thoroughfare there so you got all the the Chinese and the American and the Australian submarines go like this and and when they all know where all the wrecks are so the submarines could sit beside a known wreck and then when the ships above or have pinging for, for for them. But again, that's just, this is just a conspiracy theory. And we'll, we'll leave that to another. We'll leave that to the bar, the Sunset Bar, and

Matt Waters  33:46

we're in the bar now mate, fuck it, go for it. Speaking of which, I'm just gonna go grab another beer and we're back. Nice. Cheers, mate.

Pete Mesley  34:02

Yeah, cheers. Back to the beer.

Matt Waters  34:04

Do you know what's the name of that?

Pete Mesley  34:05

I'm gonna forget my own brand of wine. Yeah. I think I always think that if I never chose diving as my vocation, what would I do? And I thought, there's two things that I do want to be a paramedic because I just love Gollum. And I just, I've had a couple of opportunities to fix up broken people up and I actually love it. There was just blood and guts everywhere and I just absolutely loved it. And then the and then the second vocation would be a winemaker. Okay, you know, but then I thought paying about a drink all the profits, and then I'd end up penniless and say, well, I'll be exactly the way I am now. You know, yeah.

Matt Waters  34:53

So when I was paying the mortgage and

Pete Mesley  34:55

exactly so, so we're still in the same position. If

Matt Waters  35:01

so who were blaming these wreck disappearances on the Americans

Pete Mesley  35:05

on a Trump this blame Trump? Well,

Matt Waters  35:10

I can only I can only imagine that I mean, that makes sense if the if they take away Rex, where subs are hiding, but they'd have to be bloody big wrecks.

Pete Mesley  35:18

These these are like they've taken the Exeter, the Reuter the the, the Java you know and all these these up these are heavy cruisers and light cruisers, you know, the big ships man and, and the big thing is now as affected because there was a there's a film crew that snuck back in about six months after our trip and out of Surabaya these these barges would come in, and then these 40 foot containers that would come in to the to the wharf and load up these 40 foot containers with with all the the ship wreckage, and they would leave that day. They're gone. You know. And so people go oh, it's the scrap metal you know, it's it's highly sought after. So that's a load of bollocks. Yeah. And, and again, these wrecks the 100% of the wreck is taken in. And that's that's really what, what what got me thinking is was, you know, like servers like skapar flow for example. That's a great example of solace. Because the guys go Bush Bush, you know, that open up the hole that scramble all the expensive stuff, and then just leave the rest of it, like the South China Sea and the Java Sea and you know, they it's just the Brexit gone.

Matt Waters  36:54

Well, you I mean, you could think about private collectors, but that would have to be someone with a shit tonne of money to do that wouldn't stick them in your garden as an ornament.

Pete Mesley  37:09

Well, I think I said to take away the whole rig but I think it's one piece but there'll be a nice I think there'll be a nice a nice thought you know to have half of a ship. Half of a heavy cruiser in your backyard. It will be quite cool.

Matt Waters  37:27

Some little rich kid playground now.

Pete Mesley  37:29

Yeah. Get a little cut in and get Titlis on there die though. It'll be easy, a little

Matt Waters  37:36

bit poetic. Just it's really a a anyway, just backing up to truck a little bit. What's the background behind it? Why is it so many boats there was a family wreck.

Pete Mesley  37:50

My truck was truck was America's response to Pearl Harbour. And what happened there was was, you know, in February the 18th 1946. What had happened was Americans sent reconnaissance missions from quadrilogy and then went over track and basically seen the truck going obviously is a massive natural harbour. And they were hosting a lot of warships, the Musashi, the Yamato, all of them were there all the greats had a couple of aircraft carriers, and everything there so oh my goodness, can you imagine if the moustache she was there was was some contract, I'd have a house there, I'll be living over the site. And, and basically, the Japanese spotted the reconnaissance planes, and they got wind of that and they got really scared. So they they sent their warships out to sea. And like I said, two weeks later, they they attacked and the funny thing is that out of all the wrecks and chuke there's only two warships, there's two destroyers. One is what I mentioned earlier on called the OT and the other one is the food Zuki and so it is about 62 metres and the former ZooKeys and 14 and, and the rest of them are all maroons merchant vessels. So you've got submarine tenders, you've got vessels which which would would carry troops and munitions, bombs, supplies, etc, etc. So, so there is a lot of stuff to see there but only two warships that's why bikini and truck are just so different. By themselves, you know, and, and that's but, but the cool thing is, is that for pretty much any diver, they can get a truck and enjoy themselves for I would say, if you went for six trips you would love. Like I said, I'm 36 in 36 trips, and I'm still not getting bored. But I'd say for your, your, your normal, a typical diver that come for six trips, and they would, you'd never ever see. What you wanted to see is just just incredible place.

Matt Waters  40:39

Sounds awesome.

Pete Mesley  40:41

Yeah,

Matt Waters  40:42

well, I keep on going. Would you say that the better way to do the two locations will be to do truck first then and then became

Pete Mesley  40:51

a 100%. Yeah, truckers, like, all I'm gonna say that people that are listening here, if you've never been to Trump before, come come to track it. But all you got to say to yourself is I'm coming back. Now it might not be next year, it might not be the year after. Or it might not be the year after that. But as long as you say you coming back, then you're not going to try and see everything isn't. It's humanly impossible. I tried. For the first 11 trips, I tried to see everything in one trip as humanly impossible. So, so you can have so much fun there. And but you've just got to like to look I'm coming back. And what I normally say to people is every two years. So you go back home, you you absorb what you've done. And then what you do is that you do a little bit more training if you wanted to, if you needed to. And then you start saving and then you you've pre booked for your, your trip and two years time and before you know it, it's it's three months away and and you come back again and your second trip will be 100% different from the first trip etc, etc. You know, it's just your luck. If that's only one destination, you know, you're gonna you're gonna have sort of fun.

Matt Waters  42:20

And getting getting to chuck is it might be getting confused. But Chuck, if you got to go through Guam or something like that,

Pete Mesley  42:29

oh, yeah, you got to go through Guam. But so that might be coming from. So oh my goodness. If you couldn't like at the moment, Australia is is quite hard. Because back in the day, like I remember back in the day, I used to fly it to Cannes, and then I used to fly to Cairns in the morning and get the midnight flight at Cannes to track and it was incredible. It was awesome. But that stopped a number of years ago and then in New Guinea started flying and they were doing a great job until the pilot thought that he wanted to see whether the boat was good along the water before the runway. didn't quite make the runway. And yeah, that was the that was that was that was an interesting thing. And you know unfortunately one person didn't make it you know one person died which was which is a great tragedy you know, but But yeah, it's still sitting in the bottom of the just before the runway there and we might even see if we can sneak up and can do a dive on that at some point you know, but But yeah, but it's but I think at the moment you got to go through other Manila or or Narita. So, so coming from from Auckland from here. It's quite funny because we quite literally fly directly over track directly over track to get to Narita. So from Auckland, I've worked it out you see this was spent time with COVID Dustin it takes six and a half hours to fly from Auckland to truck direct. So what I do as a flight Auckland and return two and a half hours, and then I fly back from the rich to Guam, and then from Guam to truck. But hey, listen, it's like flying is like, you know, like, I never ever complain about flight because you're either going somewhere cool, or you've come back from somewhere cool. So I never ever complain about about drinking for hours. You know, one of my favourite places is Narita, because it's the first automated beer machine I've ever seen. Have you ever seen an automatic beer sheet? A beer dispenser? It's like, I don't drink beer. Like I'm a whiner. Right So I don't drink that much beer at all but, but I find myself captured by drinking so many of these pints of beer, or a glass of soda or pint glass you but but so so you put it into the machine and you push a button, and it angles the glass, and it pours the beer in the glass. It straightens the glass. And then there's another frother and a good shit out of it. And nope. I haven't been game enough to video it because, you know, like, I hate these people alone on social media that video themselves have video things doing them to themselves. So I'm not a big fan of that, but, but hopefully, someone will video it and it's, I still get enough immense joy. Watching it be a dispenser?

Matt Waters  45:50

Well, you're gonna have to do it now that you've mentioned it because I want to see it. Alright, well,

Pete Mesley  45:54

listen, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to go at a time when no one's there. And like, you know what, one of the funniest things is that, you know, people often often wonder, they said to my kids, you know, they said, Ah, what does your dad do for a living? Right? And my kids sit there go, oh, I don't know. He drinks wine for a living, professional wine drinker. Because all the social media pictures is of me with a glass of wine in my head. And my kids have kind of thought. And then when people say, I mean, what does your dad do? You know, because we don't see him for weeks at a time. And and then when we when we do see him dropping you off at school? He looks like he just been led on a prison. Has he been led on a prison? So so we it's it's just super funny and trying to explain what I do to my kids is has been quite a quite a quite an education. You're dead? What do you do for a living? Well, I take people diving. Yeah. And what else? Oh, oh, I I can evolve at Bray diving adventures with him. I have what do you do that? Oh, we have a few glasses of wine, a little bit of clarity. And then we talk about the next day diving. Oh, yeah, Ray, and that tie you for that.

Matt Waters  47:25

I must admit we we had a little bit of a giggle earlier on today, when you send through the photos for this episode. And you've got the, you know, the profile photo of Pete Mosley and then as Pete Mosley and his dry suit tanks and sitting on the side of a boat and then a third one comes in red wire.

Pete Mesley  47:41

So, that's, that's more how I'm commonly known. And the thing is, like, Now, obviously, I've been I've been lucky enough to be involved in the speaking circuit for many, many years, it conferences around the world, all the rest of it, and then it's just, it's just such a great meeting point of like minded people in depth. And, you know, like I said earlier on doing cool stuff with cool people. And, and I just, there's nothing that that I enjoy more than being involved in projects with cool people in. And, and, you know, that's, that's what I look forward to be honest. Like, teaching teaching is a big part of my job and all the rest of it. And I've done some cool work, like a worker avatar is a cover up for about six weeks, done in Wellington, New Zealand and, and thanks everybody who went way too much avatar because now that the box office has his or broken all of its records, they're going to start sending us some money for our four and five. So thank you. Oh, nice. Yeah, so So filming this is going to start commencing at a later on this year. And so hopefully, hopefully, I might have a few stories for you in the future. You know, like it's worth working on sets was was an absolute eye opener, you know, there's there's a lot of very, very dedicated people and and, you know, Cameron is an absolute psycho, you know, but but all the greats are you know, and I, you know, I was fortunate enough to because normally I'm working safety on these on each of these forms, you know, because I'm looking after talent or, you know, making sure people don't hurt themselves all the rest of it, you know, and this is the first gig that I'd actually got where I was a camera assist and And, and that was that was extremely special for me, you know, like, and so I was, I was so shadowing and looking at for the main camera op guy who's a guy called Pitzer Karenia. And what an absolute legend is for years, you know, and we, we talked about every single different angle of Jessica Alba. Every western movie into the blue, yes. Okay, so you'll know what I'm talking about. And the guy is a magician, you know, like, he's, the guy's amazing. And he's, he's done, he's done. He's on everything. And I was sitting there, I was sitting there chatting with him, because we have a lot of time where we were just sitting in the water, and just just waiting and standing by the standby, you know, and so on. We've talked talking too, about how, Jim Cameron and myself, we shared some of the friendships that, that we have, and, and, unfortunately, some of those people aren't here today, you know, because they passed away a number of years ago. And so I was telling, telling that Pete about the stories and he goes, Look, you know, Jim would love love to, to, to hear those stories, all the rest of it years, but, but you got to pick them on as good days, because, you know, he's this guy's got a million things on his mind. And, and I've seen him just like, cut people in half, because all they just wanted to do was shake the guy's hand and, and so we finished one night on set. And in that pool, it was like, whenever Jim walks on, set, no one walks up, get up the pool, minimum about 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, you know, because the guy's just he's just a demon. You know, you just like, when he gets when he gets into the work work side of things. The guy just never stops. You just get shut down. Yeah, he doesn't. And you know, 99% is not good enough, you know? So, so everyone is works extremely hard. And, and we've finished one. And so you see, Jim Jim coming out. He was he was done by the dive deck. And he was talking to his chief dive supervisor, guy called John Garvin, who's, who was responsible some of you may know who John is Johnson, an absolute pioneer. And, and, and a guru in his own in his own mindset. He is the guy that wrote Sanctum and in his has done a lot of good for the diving industry, you know, and so John is having a chat with Jim and so I walked up and turned over and looked at Pizza Karenia piece going, go now? Go No, go now. Good. Now it's a time. So, so worked up there and in anyway, we had a very nice conversation with with with Jim and, and John carbon took me up a bit, and embellished things, which is, it was just but but yeah, we had we had a great conversation. We talked for about 15 to 20 minutes, and we spoke about our friends and our mutual friendship and Rick diving and yeah, I guess it was it was pretty cool. It was it was it was pretty cool. And that would Yeah, I'll remember that for a while. So next time you might be shouting at me. So I just just just just happy being there. You know, like it was the process was just insane. And, and the amount of our it like obviously, everything, mostly everything. Have you seen Have you seen the Whale? The Whale water? Yeah. Have you seen a Fatah trick? Okay, so, so you see, like, it's all about being under watered all the rest of them. And, you know, I got a small insight. You know, it's only I was only there for just a couple of months, you know, and I got a very small insight to how hard these guys work and, you know, crack who's the who's the the chief freediving instructor who this guy like the guy's work ethic is just unbelievable is end and it was just it was just so cool to watch his voice and hopefully hopefully I'll be invited back in hopefully not embarrass myself in the end we'll make the magic happen.

Matt Waters  54:52

I'll show you all my and if you need a tank carrion bitch. Just give me a shout. Yeah.

Pete Mesley  54:57

Hi. Yeah, sure.

Matt Waters  54:59

I'll go broad shoulders, I can carry tanks, no problem.

Pete Mesley  55:04

I've been carrying tanks for a while. So I'm in the same boat as you.

Matt Waters  55:11

Hey, where are we going to now we've had a little bit about truck. And we've talked about your, you know, red carpet and have it. Let's, let's talk about some big fish, shall we? Let's get away from the metal for a bit and talk about some big What's your favourite big piece of meat?

Pete Mesley  55:31

I'll tell you what, you know, like, I've built a career around lust first and in being a wreck fanatic and of which I am, you know, but, but nothing gets me going more than some big animal action. And so I started running trips to Galapagus 2014. And, and my goodness, that luck, that is a destination where? Again, okay, so I've only been like, seven times now. times not so. So I'm still a noob. Right. But, but just like, the the place is the only when I explained something as white knuckle diving. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Matt Waters  56:26

I do, because I'm going to go up against in 15 weeks. Now I'm on my second visit, right?

Pete Mesley  56:31

All right, Mike. Okay, so so so there's, I've only ever experienced white knuckle diving. But in another place, which is sodwana Bay in the east coast of South Africa. And I worked there for a little bit when I was a kid and ain't Oh my goodness. That's how I that's how I broke but tooth, a shattered my front tooth, because I was sitting up the front of the vessel, the boat. And so going out of out of sort of one at bay is what I consider white knuckle diving. You know, that place is just incredible. So like now, every aspect of the whole trip is just is a journaling all the way through. So so we're on we're on the East Coast, Indian Ocean is always a two to three metre wave break on the shore, right. And so, in the place where we're diving, diving out of is it's all ocean, right? And there's this little cove called Sidewinder Bay, and then they get the tractors and push the boats into the water. So we sit on the twin hole, absolute fire machine. So I've got twin like 350 horses, these things just go from zero to like a gajillion miles an hour in three seconds, you know, and, and we basically dodged through the skippers are just absolutely amazing. And so we basically dodged through the wave breaks. And so we get out through the wave break, and we head up to the dive sites and, and it's just some of the most amazing diving that I've done. And so once we get out to these sites, what happened with me was, we were all on WhaleWatch, right? So you get your mask and your your snorkel around your face that you keep your fins on. So so we're going along that Coast parallel to the coast and we're heading up to dive sites called Five and nine mile reef. And we're heading up there and and we're in well watch, as I said, as part of dolphins, right. They're all just jump into the waves, all the rest of us so we're sitting there unable to escape. Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. So I just turned to my right, and I look up and there's this there's this rogue wave coming right alongside the boat. It's gonna capsize a solo and I started way, way way. So skipping a young guy, right, a young kid, we're all young kids back in the day there but so so he just turns the bell into this wave. And the boat goes like vertical. Yeah, right. So of course, yours truly is about five metres in the air on the bow, and this boat comes down and I crushed my chin on the crossbar. And my tooth just shatters and it goes straight through my bottom right? I just put my tooth all the way through and there's clarity we were and it was here you know and and so like now to get up to nine mile reef is it's very prestigious because we only got Do like once a week and the guys were even put the basket oh my goodness are you kind of go finish and of course my bottom lip looked like Bubba Gump. And and there was a bit of blood there that basically stuck my finger in a hole in my tooth is broken. And the guys that aren't men should do want us to go back I know we look good big So anyway, we did the diver had a hole, the regulator in my mouth because my lip was so swollen. And I think the salt water was was very therapeutic for it. And of course, on their dive, we had this massive Tiger Shark just coming out and just just just just come around I said, and this is quite common. We get buzzed maybe a couple of times a week. And and that was one of the earliest big animal encounters that I've had as a kid. And I thought, oh my god, you know Emeka, SHA, SHA SHA, oh, my God, I'm gonna die. But like, this, these creatures mean that this was a massive female. And, and of course, so so we briefed, right? So we briefed because it's all drift diving. So. So I was up on a deca, maka boy. And so we're doing our safety stock, because it wasn't too much technical diving, deep diving back in those days. This is 9190 9192 around there. And so, so I was sitting there with a mock boy, and the real, and I certainly would just come around, and I was just playing the idiot, you know, like I normally do. And of course, this tiger was just circling around everybody. And like, I was like, Hey, look at me another B, you know, and, and I, because people would have shut their pants right there in this in this massive big female. And, of course, the skippers are super clever, too, because they are just following us all the way along, right. They're just following me. So this guy, there's this big boy was a big significant boy called you had I'll never forget this guy is like, the guy was like 22. But He was built like a brick. shithouse. Right. So maybe, I don't know, 120 kilos is a big boy. Right? And so part of the thing is, is that with tigers is that you quite at risk when you're on the surface, right? So so. So what you do is what we did was when we surfaced, there was no messing around. So what you had did was hand me a pole, right? And I would just hold on to a little bit of rope on the sides, because a boat was always drifting away. So it hold on to the pole and to keep my head in the water. And I'm making sure that that this to just like push it away. And of course, he's going to the clients. Hey, don't worry about taking a gear off. And this guy was so strong, he would just like lift people out. With the gear on my gear often the one that I don't use was me and I'll tell you what, and yeah, but but that's, that's what got me going in and but Galapagus mean, collector just is like, it's just something special. And Wolf and Darwin. Like, who you hang out with, um,

Matt Waters  1:03:48

I lead expeditions as well. So this is the this is a trip I'm taking 12 guests on. So

Pete Mesley  1:03:55

amazing. What vessels are using

Matt Waters  1:03:59

master? Can I still live aboard? Yeah.

Pete Mesley  1:04:03

Okay. Yeah. And but I'm gonna tell you what, Darwin, like, just those hammerheads, it's just impossible to get that vision out of your mind. You know, it's remarkable, isn't it? Yeah. And, you know, some of these some of these frames that I've taken, and I've counted, like, over 100 animals in these frames, and, and I just, it's impossible to get sick of those fissures and those sites, you know, in, you know, high current, it's, again, white knuckle diving, you know, like, you got negative entries. dissents high current, and it's just, it's just fun from the beginning to the end, but, but you know, even you know, with with all the Hammerheads, and Galapagos sharks and the Whale sharks and the dolphins And, and, you know, and the mentors and the long tail stingrays and eagle rays. This, you know what really made my trip go well those marine iguanas. Oh, they're amazing. And they those luck Oh, my goodness, man. Like, I'm just learning a little bit about them, right? So obviously being cold blooded. So these guys, these guys have got a timeline. And this is why they don't give a shit about you in order. And, and they don't care that like, because what happens is that the waters like, and I know that you know, but for people who haven't been to colour law, so it's about a 200 mile difference between Darwin and Wolf islands and FINITY you know, Ireland and like the main group, while it's just a big place, a lot of people don't realise it, because it's a big place. A lot of space in between, there is a 10 degree centigrade, water change in temperature between Darwin and further Dino. Right. So 2620 2526 up north and about 11 or 12, on Fernandina, and so like now, all these marine iguanas, and then I'll be gay, I thought that'd be big, but they're not that big. So after about a foot, a foot and a half, just over half a metre, that's it, these things aren't that big. And, and so these guys would eat this, this total grass or this moss on the on the rocks. And they would so like, now here's the timing, so, so if they spend too much time in the water, when they get out, they can't warm up and they will die. They spend too little time in the water. They won't get enough food and they will starve. It is it's it is wicked, like, you know, brutal, absolutely brutal. You know? And and if you actually look No, when you go make go and when you go on to close the eyeball the risk, you'll see all the carcasses you'll see what did a goddess and the gods who've just thought, you know, someone like me, I like I like my dinner, you probably spend a little bit longer eating than I should. And, and yeah, the guys have paid the price and they just couldn't get warm and and if it was an overcast day and and the rocks didn't hit hit themselves up and all the rest of it is it's just, it's just the whole place. Glad because oh my goodness law from start to finish, I would say to anybody that's listening, you know that the place will enhance your your soul. It will, it will enrich your mind and unlike just going to walk in the lead towards these 150 year old tortoises, you know, again, it's something else that I learned was Geno's sailors, you should take tortoises on board the boats with them because then they wouldn't fit in for six months and that would still be alive. And then obviously that turned them upside down. And that could come up. Yeah. Right that feed more than a family of four. Right. So So and and that that would that's a reason why they they would be taken on board these chips. And they would stay alive for extreme amounts of time. And be used as a food source and I believe that that tastes like chicken.

Matt Waters  1:08:56

I have it's gonna be better than a sack of spuds for everyday everyday.

Pete Mesley  1:09:00

I've eaten dolphin and Whale Yeah, but not towards them. And once one year, I've posted a big gag image of just like when I was in truck i I'm decompression I'm sitting there and you get quite bored after a while and all the rest and this beautiful beautiful big jellyfish just just like jellyfishes past me and I'm going oh, that's nice. So I'm taking some pictures of it right. So as it happened, and I didn't plan it like this as it happened in in in the background was the actual mooring line, submerged mooring line and there was a diver decompressing on the mooring line. So when I took the picture it looked like the line was coming from the the jellyfish, right yeah, so I post posted online. I said, Look, I made this is an amazing find. With scientists have been calling me for days, we've found the largest jellyfish in the world. And we've pulled it in, we've managed to grab it, and we've tied it up into the shallows. Do you know the amount of hate emails that I got? I got like, I got so much hate. I've got dude. It's a joke. Right? We were having some fun. It's a gag. Right? And but it did look real so yeah, so I've been that was

Matt Waters  1:10:40

it went down like a sack of shit.

Pete Mesley  1:10:42

I thought it was funny. Yeah. And, and in fact, the picture still comes up every night again. I said, Shall I repost?

Matt Waters  1:10:53

Memories I did. Just thinking of you talking about sodwana Bay that I had flashbacks to do my trip through South Africa. And it was the first trip that I put together, just a bunch of friends going to the sardine run. And one of my friends that was on the trip, he was celebrating his probably his 60th but he said it was his 40th and he was travelling through South Africa and was going to hook up with us to do a sardine run is just out of the blue scissor to when he want to come a couple of weeks early. You want to come a week early or something like that. This is I'm going to be passing through Joburg. If you can fly in Joburg and then we'll we'll do a driving tour and go through and do Kruger National Park and head on way down to sodwana Bay and Auburn and and then go up and do the sardine run. It's like fucking two right? I'm in.

Pete Mesley  1:11:48

So do you doubted water? Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome mashing it means smashing it.

Matt Waters  1:11:55

So where you're talking about launching from the beach? I'm getting flashbacks of thinking either fucking oh, we're gonna get out over that. And it is so impressive how they move those boats around.

Pete Mesley  1:12:07

Like it's like a so so when I was working there, right so during the weekend we can all these weekend warriors coming from Joburg and it's like the roads obviously. Hopefully is a lot better than when I was a kid and I was diving there but but the road was like a metal for the last 300 K's it was terrible. And so you get all these weekend warriors coming and then during the week was fairly quiet. And ain't all the local guys would say I meant that listen. We're gonna go to this during the weekend. It's super quiet this look we're gonna go spear fishing. Do you want to come and I said I know exactly what's in the water. I'm gonna go spearfishing isn't, but I'll be your bowtie. Yeah. And the guy says, Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. No one wants to be the boaters. That's it. Yeah, I said just as long as you get us out because I'll kill I'll kill ourselves and everybody there if I had to like because there's a huge amount of skill if he's aggressive doing them. And it was just watching these guys wrestling with these sharks with catching big fish. But But did you know and you probably do it is is someone is one of the big coelacanth aggregation areas. Yeah, it is. And so I've been wanting to go dive and look at these prehistoric creatures for a long time. And, and that is that is one of my bucket list shots, man is to go and see if we can go and go and experience these beautiful creatures. And they're, they're not too bad. There are about 120 130 metres and these big overhangs and I thought oh my goodness what you know, that would just be the the best experience ever, wouldn't it?

Matt Waters  1:14:10

I'm gonna look at that seem like Yeah,

Pete Mesley  1:14:14

yeah. So so they've also found them in in Indo in Indonesia. But the off Saudis spent a lot. So hey, talk to Tommy so so. So I've always also wanted to do the sardine run for ideas. I've got a I've got a lot of really good mates who've looked at it who lives in South Africa and they say army you got to come It's just luck. You've got to do it's like nothing else. But but like not so much that we're diver with snow because it's pretty quick as

Matt Waters  1:14:52

you can you can do that. I would say for if you're there for five, six days, then you'll probably do a couple of dives rest of the time. It's a It's when the when the pilots over the top say, and this is where he's going off, you're just getting fins mask, snorkel, and away you go.

Pete Mesley  1:15:07

That's what I've heard. It's just like super, super quick. And as you've got to get in and out the boat like 100 times, and super dynamic, and you've just got to be quick and Johnny on the sport, and if you're messing around with your gear and blahdy blahdy

Matt Waters  1:15:23

Have you heard of offshore Africa? It's Debbie Smith, who's part of the woman women's divers Hall of Fame, and her other half Rob Nettleton. And they operate out of ports and John's, and if you're gonna do it, I would strongly recommend doing it with them, the behind the mask team use them when they go filming. And they, they are the ones that have the aircraft, pilots botter.

Pete Mesley  1:15:51

Super, super think you need that.

Matt Waters  1:15:53

You've got to you've got to, I mean, when we did it, we didn't have direct communications with the aircraft, it would come by, you know, via a second party. So we're always kind of second to hear about it. And by which time it's usually too late.

Pete Mesley  1:16:09

Yeah, you just you just got to be patient man. And so the other bit of advice that I was told from people is a lot on the site either and it's like, but the site is actually a fraction of of what you're actually going to witness. It's just all all the staff that are there the Buddhists the brides, whales, the the silkies, the sharks, the dolphins, you know, the gannets

Matt Waters  1:16:40

may as the whole. Yeah, just just become more that pen makes clicking on the microphone. Oh, is it? Click clickety click click, click your grasshopper Shut up. And now the fact of the pen started. Now, but it's it's one of those. It's an experience where, in fact, the guy that the guy, my mate Dino who said come out early, and we're going to Krueger and so on. We're heading on down to Port St. John's. And he's like, Matt, he said the only thing that I want to see on this entire trip when diving is a dolphin. I submit I guarantee you're gonna get dolphin. He's like, No fuck off. You can't guarantee now this guy's an experienced diver. You know, he's dived all over the world. Never seen a dolphin was diver. He's There's no fucking way. And imagine this little Welsh accent. There's no fuck, I can't do accents. But there's no fucking way you can guarantee me a dolphin at all. You know, and in the very first day, we got a super pod of about 3000 Dolphins it's a phenomenal experience. You had literally

Pete Mesley  1:17:45

like, yeah, so, so COVID Right, everyone's good go. But COVID brought out a lot of a lot of good things, in my opinion, you end up you know, we've all just learned to realise just how much we don't need in all the stuff that we we just, you know, that we just don't need that lives. And then I was I was really quite fortunate because I did quite a bit of Natural History work and and we spent like six weeks on a BBC shoot doing false killer whales and just being around these creatures. And we also also did another six weeks shoot on orcas. And the stuff that's going on in New Zealand is is is is incredible, you know, and, and I was very, very fortunate enough to, to, to get these gigs and just just being on the water. And this is kind of like a, it's like a 9010 right? 90% just just trolling the oceans looking for stuff, right? And 10% of just sheer and utter or, and, and I think that that's kind of a credit to our lives you like I think that you know, we've got to kind of, we've got to wade through 90%. of, of, of shit of stuff, right? That we we've got to do pay the bills, wade through all of that, but but it's a 10% that really enlightened system to say look, we are this is this is why this is why we do what we do. And, and I you know, I just couldn't do anything else say I really couldn't do anything else. And and, you know, a personal thing for me is my youngest daughter just learned to dive recently, and she's 17 years old and I've never ever put Just my passion on kids. And it was always always quite funny. You know, like I said earlier on about, about when people say, oh, what does your dad do for a living have a Katana and, and it was it was super sweet because the our main newspaper in New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald every Sunday every weekend they've got a glossy, right. And they call that the glossy that Canvas magazine Right? And, and they did a feature on me like is is super funny like a mate of mine was was one of the chief photographers for the Herald and he goes and the guys are like stuck their head to be stuck, right? Reduces reduces our look, I've got this man of it, you know, he is my mentor and and I learned to deal with them and did my photography course always with him or Listen, he's this guy is just like it's gonna be super fun anyway, so this peak article on me, let's just let's just super self indulgent embellishment in, in in self indulgence, all the rest of it, you know, just it was awesome. Anyway. So on the Monday, I went to drop my kids off at school and I went from unshaven hobo to, like a local celebrity. Super funny. And I did. I did. I did, like Girl Guide talks and Cub Scout talks with and blah blah, blah. It was it was super funny. And of course, my kids hated it hated the attention. And and they go Oh, of course my youngest skills teacher says Oh, Chloe, where's your dad going to next? I don't know SriLanka and they go Oh, sure. Like, obviously they're trying to do it to try and gather some attention ago. Oh, do a bit of geography. So we're sure like, let's go to my daughter just had a hit it a headcase oh my god, this is just kill me now. And, you know, that only now started to realise that the guy, you know what, you can do some pretty cool stuff, you know, like, the, all the kids in the world these days are all that just need. It's just like, new phone, got to buy more shit, more stuff, poor stuff, and all their need. And all they want to do is I want people to see them for what they aren't. And, and. And I think that there's only a small percentage of people that are actually going to actually figure it out saying, like, then all these people do that. And garden, enrich your life and be with cool people and do cool stuff. And, and I think that if if hopefully, if hopefully one thing was sinking into these cuts hates is just is to remember that. And the rest is just superficial. Just the rest, like all the other stuff will come but but

Matt Waters  1:23:34

I think you've hit the nail on the head because I mean even even now I mean, I'm 50 in February and running the you know, doing Scuba go and then putting me boom expeditions travel agency back online after COVID and whatnot. I'm just constantly in front of a screen. And in the last what, nine months, I've noticed it myself, I spent 1012 hours a day in front of a screen and I'm thinking yeah, well fire chief today for call. I've made a bit. I've made some pictures on the screen that's about it. So I just, I can dump everything, I just walk outside and go for a coffee and just smell the fresh air. And it just I think it's gonna get lost if we're not careful. These kids are just into a screen 24/7

Pete Mesley  1:24:15

Yeah. And we get habituated into all of that sort of stuff, you know, and but unfortunately, and I say this with the best intention in the world. We all can't go on holiday. No, we all can't be in this business like that. You know how many people say to me, oh, wish lose your job? And I say, No, you don't. Because you you're the one paying to come on my trips. I can't even afford to go on my trips. You know, and, and I said look, you just keep on doing what you're doing like you're a lawyer. You're a surgeon, you're a doctor, you're you're a builder, because those guys are loaded your last copy, pull it up painful. It's like costing on the car. was still laughing at me today, you know, and, and, but but the thing is like now is all these guys are coming out and, and we just, we just got to do the best we can and when we can and just just super grateful and and it's taken me a long time and persistence and but if there's any advice I was going to say to anybody who's wanting to get into this industry is get into it for the right reasons if you want to make money, don't sell houses or, or, or sell something to somebody but but if you want, if you want to do cool shit with cool people, you just you get you get into something which you're passionate about. And the rest the rest of us sort of stuff out. And, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just so, so thankful. I just I just love being I just had to pinch myself. Yeah. And I'm just, I'm just super thankful. And I'm just, you know, looking for the next adventure. And at the end of the day, you know, it is my business, I have stopped doing pro bono stuff for years now. Because it's become a thing of the norm, people say, ah, we'll pay for your flight, and we'll pay for your expenses. But we can't afford to pay for you. And, and unfortunately, as a dark professional, that's, it's quite hard. Because even though we're passionate about what we do, you know, I get, I would say maybe maybe four or five emails a month of these people, these journalists going, Oh, I'm doing the story on Bikini Atoll. And I saw your pictures are the mazing. Listen, can I use it, I'll give you full credit for the pitches. And I said, Look, listen. And listen, thanks very much for your kind words, all the rest of it. But, but the only credit that I'm looking for, I don't need credit. The only credit that I'm looking for is a bank credit. And I'm happy to partner up with you all the rest of it, you know, and I think oh, we don't have the budget to to pay for any pictures. So I said, Well, I gotta get it and go get

Matt Waters  1:27:40

my I had it. I had it just before Christmas. And it was a very well known TV channel, that they approached me to use my video footage of the blackjack in Papua New Guinea. And, and I know it's the best, it's the best that's out there at the moment until someone turns up and does the photogrammetry. But but as soon as that same same thing as soon as I said like, credits no good to me. If you want to use it, pay it. Silence, you know that Cricket was there in the tournament Tumbleweed going through the background.

Pete Mesley  1:28:19

The thing to say now is the fact that you say look, look, credit, anything is market rates for Mark market footage from market rates. So no don't anything more anything less. Just it's just like being a professional. And then and I think the more times people say no, the more it validates our industry. And that's probably the worst thing about our industry is because is that people, but you've got diving instructors who teach for self actualization, right? They go, Well, other need in money from teaching. So therefore, I've got a successful company that I make my money from, I just want to feel good about myself to teach so I don't want to charge people any money or at all and then no more people going, oh, hang about Beckett in the background, we're okay. Hey, we're all trying to trying to earn a living from from this. And so that's in New Zealand. That's changed quite a bit because we've had quite a lot of regulation over the years and I know, Australia have got quite a bit of regulation too and so does the UK and it's, it's I think it's been a blessing in disguise because it just it focuses on people that are dedicated to the business as opposed to the weekend warriors, you know, but

Matt Waters  1:29:48

I must admit, I think the more I've thought about it, and the more I've spoken about it is the fact that everybody can go dive in there with a camera in their hand. On first thought she would think it was detrimental to those of us who can take a good photo. But when you see the amount of shite that's out there, and people try and sell it off, it's not going to be long until you know, those that really want to use proper images are going to pay for it, because they can see that it's just shy that some random is taken. I think it's gonna be a benefit to us.

Pete Mesley  00:27

Do you know, what really helps me is when more people take pictures on the order? It really, really does. Because what it does is it helps me up my game, right? Because that now so there's a couple of reasons. So photography plays a very big role in not just my personal life, it keeps me going like photography is kept my passion for diving, just as strong as it was now as it was 30 years ago. And, and I put that down to a put that down to making sure that I've got my own interests, right, because a job just like any job, if you do the same thing day in day out or so you're gonna get burnt out. That's why there's very, very few people died professionals who are in the game, as long as you get well yeah, more than because people go, Hey, man, the holidays are over, I've got a wife and a guy that could come in along the way. Holidays over, I need to get a real job and all the rest of it. So So you need to persevere. But but also, a lot of people burn out in their car, because they do a lot of paperwork courses, and then they do too much teaching. And they think, Oh, shut me out. Why did I get into this in the first place because I left diving. So then like now, so what I've done is I've made a part of my business to make sure that that I'm doing what I love doing. And, and that in my in my mind, I'm going I need to go on this trip as if my accountant is listening. It's a future prospect for future trips, right? But I'm just I'm just trying to, to ease my mental health in to keep my passion alive. And that passion is kept. But doing the stuff that you love doing. If you stop doing that, then it's a job. So, okay, you got a cool job. And then it's just, it's just a mundane, right? So therefore, so Okay, people go, Oh, my goodness, you got diving truck in 36 times? Well, if it wasn't for the fact that I was doing my own projects. And, and, and a lot of the time, I'd be taking my own photos, and doing some photogrammetry all these little projects that I'm doing things that interest me and all the rest of it. I would I would just pick up it's just another job for me in and I hate it right, but I don't and that's that's the reason why I've done that. And, and so photographically oh my goodness, that's that's led, you know, led me to doing things with, you know, it would take me so not one picture, right? Take me five years, five years to take one picture. Right? And because I have it in my mind, and and this is why I've got into all of these like painting time exposures, multiple images, stacking multiple images over over multiple dives.

Matt Waters  03:38

may hold that thought for two seconds. I really need to pay.

Pete Mesley  03:44

And on that note, yeah, well,

Matt Waters  03:46

I'll be back in 30 seconds. We'll go from painting. I'll go quick.

Pete Mesley  03:51

So that was 30 seconds. No, no, it was about a minute.

Matt Waters  03:59

I was gonna say it's a very long 30 seconds then. Jesus. I was going to pace myself there. It's all down to this stuff. I really got the pleasure of a fucking mouse. Sometimes I drink so much water. I'm pissing every 20 minutes. It's ridiculous.

Pete Mesley  04:16

Well, I'm a professional. See.

Matt Waters  04:22

So, five years to take a photo. Tell me about it. Yeah.

Pete Mesley  04:27

Yeah. So so this is the cool thing, you know? Because so when you get nothing but time on your hands, ain't you've just about you know, how many different times or angles can you take of a nudie break? Once you've done it, you've done it right. So so like now, like, I've got like a million nudie prank shots. So I'm not under the prank guy. Right. So I'm a wreck guy, right. So. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to take images which Should are different from everybody else. So trying to get your own stance and your own style is, that's hard. It's the people, a lot of people emulate other people who want to get that backlighting shot or that diver, I want to get this and I want to get that and all the rest of it. And, and, and it's very flattering, you know, people want to emulate other people, but but at the same time, too, is it you want to get your own style, you know, and, and, you know, I've done a lot of photo courses and photo workshops from beginning to advanced lighting all the rest of it. And, and one of the things that I will never teach is composition, right? Because like now is that that's the eye of a person. Yeah. Right. So therefore, if a person goes, this is what I think looks cool, or an essay, what do you think I'm going well, if I tell you to change position, then that's my picture. Right? So what I'm not going to show you is how to look through your eyes. But what I will do is I'm going to show you what effects so if you say I want these effects, then I say, okay, I can show you how to create those effects. And with the big thing over the loss, and it's taken off over the last five years is back lighting, and awkward lighting. And, and we've been working on off poor lighting for a long time. And and unlike now, on these programmes, where what I'm teaching is, say, look, you're going to take the picture first, right, you got to find the frame first. So you find the frame, check the picture. And then you say, after that, you find the frame, you light it up properly and all the rest of it. Now, how is that offboard lighting going to enhance that image. You see, a lot of people did the opposite way around. They they go out and they buy a light and they they have a look online and they have a look to see what the clamping system that I made there, that's great, they've gone by that they've got a Bunnings or put a one inch ball enough on Bunnings clamp. And then they'll they'll they'll they'll get the off board light and Okay, cool, I've got an upward light, I want to do some upward lighting. And then what I'll do is I'll go and clip this light. And then they will now try and adjust their frame to to to accommodate the upward lighting, which is the opposite way around. But the cool thing is, is that and this is this is the advice that I say to everybody is, is you've got to take pictures for yourself. Forget about anybody else. Now, if you think that is a cool picture, no one can take that away from you. As soon as you start to say, I want to take pictures for a magazine are I want to take pictures for this and I want to take pictures for that. They're not people. So you've got to people gotta go I'd like that. You say people say well, oh, I really worked hard on that shot. And you know, like it and now it's shit. Right? Sponsorship picture. But so all I say to people is don't take pictures for anybody else except for yourself. And then what will happen is a seller, I would like to do a better shot, I would like to enhance that. And that will not happen is that people who go Oh, I like your style. Not the other way around saying what type of pictures do you want me to take for you? There's commercial photography, like you got these guys in studios that go up there take a picture of other of a brand and wine and then want the light to come to the glass and that's that's different, right? So so like now. So you've got you've got Arty, farty underwater pictures, right we've got some awkward lighting, you've got some some nice ambient light coming through some good angles and Haman. You've put it online, and people go oh, that's nice. That's nice. That's also all there is. And all you go out and put a picture on my wall. And every time I look on my wall, I want to see that picture. And that picture reminds me of my experience because most people spend 98% of their time in this shitty world. That is that is unfair. You work very hard. You work very, very hard for your your your living and all the rest of so when when it comes to your holidays, your holidays are gone in a heartbeat. So that now how you can live through your holidays, over and over again is through In my opinion imagery, you will tend to look at an image more than you will look at video. So if you've got a screensaver, right, of your pictures to Galapagus, right? You look at that and you go, Ah, they're true. And then in your mind, you go, you will go back on your holiday. And, and the thing is, it's a very, very good escape for people. So therefore, but now in terms of imagery gathering, next time you go up, I didn't get that shot the way I wanted to. Next time, I'm really going to enjoy myself trying to get that shot that I want. And you'll think a lot about that before your trip. And because what are we doing? Like, come on, man, you go, like the average person, go to work, come home, watch Netflix, from 630 until 11. I go on Facebook, see how many likes you've got and all the rest? Right? You only okay, I'm just explaining my life. It's, it's not quite that. But But. But again, like now is it. So if we've got these moments in our time, in our lives where we go, this trip means a lot to me. I've been gearing up for a long time. I've been practising I've been saving up. So this Palau trip this Galapagos trip, this trip to the Great Barrier Reef, this trip to the I don't know, a local place, it doesn't matter. So therefore, like now, imagery will help expand the memory. So every single time that again, it could be a GoPro picture, like it doesn't matter. You see, and this is why I love helping people to learn about photography to know how much shit that I get from professional photographers, because I'm giving information, ah, I get a lot of heat from professional photographers, people go, Oh, why are you telling people how to do this and how to do that, okay. Like, that's just basic stuff. But it's not difficult is that is that is that typical, it's just, it's just basic angles and basic lighting and basic this basic that and, but at the end of the day is that like, so I get people come on my trips, right, and we have some fun, and I'll help them light some areas up all the rest of it, you know, and, and at the end of it, they'll have these these images which occur, so they're a little bit staged, because I kind of know where the angle lights, but they like it's helping them learn about what to do and all the rest of it in. And at the end of the trip they come up with with with pictures, which they're very happy with, and, and that therefore they're going to be looking at the screen the screen seven, they're going to put some pictures on the wall. And, and it's just, you know, and hopefully we'll we'll send it back again. And, and that's where, you know, relationships that are built over years, these are friends of mine people are my clients, like I spend a lot of time with them in and most of all of my close friends are all clients of mine. And you know, they're paying you money for service. But that's fish sport period of time, the rest of time we catching up having barbecues, you know, shooting the breeze and all the rest of

Matt Waters  13:47

what's about farming to be fair, it's that I'm in a similar boat, you know, I've got people that have been on trips with me time and time again now and they're no longer guests, they no longer have customers that their close friends. And that's right All in all, Mary's in with what you're saying about the taken photos there as well. Because you remember the photo that you took, I mean, I look above where we're talking now. And I can see me as the logo. I know exactly where that photo was taken and when and by whom. And I know the photos of my good friends and where we were when they took those photos and it's it's just an everlasting memory of fantastic times.

Pete Mesley  14:28

It is and I guess that like as professionals like yourself and myself as like, it's it's understanding that and helping people get the most out of that. And then when when they, you know, when they go back to their job, because they're already booked on for your Galapagos trip in 2025. And they gotta save up blood. 35,002 pounds sterling plus just I mean, it's, it's also, I, I love the process and, you know, doing cool stuff with cool people is, is I cannot stress it enough. And everything else is just superficial.

Matt Waters  15:21

This this Galapagos trip that's coming. I'm super excited about it because of the people that are on it. And one in particular the missus. She's coming, and she's never seen a Whaleshark Whilst diving. She's seen him snorkelling, but never wants to dive in. And the week that we're going at the end of July, is the same week that Simon Pierce was last year and saw the largest male Whaleshark he's ever seen in his life. The guy's the leading scientist and whalesharks in the fucking world. And I've had another one of those moments that I had with Dina with the missus that, oh, yeah, I'm promising you, you're gonna see Whaleshark Lady, it's gonna be super good. And those memories, they're gonna last for life.

Pete Mesley  16:06

Just make sure that you are Johnny on the spot with your Gerber. Yeah, because if you miss a photographic opportunity, you are dead me.

Matt Waters  16:16

I'm thinking, I'm thinking I know where I'm gonna be hanging out beneath Darwin's arch. I know whereabouts on the rock, I'm gonna be clamped on to where I'm going to position her in the hope that he's gonna

Pete Mesley  16:29

see ya. Yeah, I'm very happy for you guys. You know, I'm sure that you're going to, you're going to have some amazing encounters and just being there. Even even, like, top side, a lot on the boat. And then up, you know, when we were last there, there was like a humpback and a cough. Just luck, just cruises by you. Okay, all right. Well, you get that over here, don't you you're not it's just everything is just, I think, as long as we just appreciate, like, anything that comes past us in across our bow, you know, like, I left, because my philosophy in life is is, you know, tomorrow could be the zombie apocalypse. And that isn't, isn't as far from the truth as we think, you know, because, obviously COVID and everything else, all the rest of it, we're all we're all stuck indoors, but they've been like, all other setup people. It's just like, if you want to climb the Great Wall of China, plan for it, and go and do it. Like, just plan for your goals. Work will always be there when you get back. But we've only got a certain amount of time in our lifetime. And don't wait until you retire. Because you're going to be you're going to be like completely habituated to watching Netflix, and, and not one on one when it go out. Because it all looks like it's gonna rain today. I'm going to stay indoors, you know, so just just get out the image, spend a

Matt Waters  18:26

wealth, but it's a fact of life as well, isn't it? I mean, if you I mean, you're 52 I'm nearly 5053 53. So, you know, there's a big difference between 10 years ago, and now everything slows down, including the brain and fuck me, that's gonna be hard. And it's a lot harder than it was. But can you imagine what's gonna be like in 10 years time? So if your retirement age trying to do it. Do you want it's one of the acronyms that I've lived by for? Well over 10 years now. Probably closer to 15 is JFDI just fucking do it. You want to do something? Yeah, find a way to do it to do it.

Pete Mesley  19:04

I like that acronym. Yeah. Yeah,

Matt Waters  19:07

I want to I want to be the old guy that stuck in a wheelchair in the old people's home that everybody hates because I'm the guy that goes yeah, I've done that. I've done that. Rather than being the guy that sat there saying I wish I'd done it don't wish to do it.

Pete Mesley  19:20

Yeah. And, and I think luck with that without talking in circles, you go back to the COVID thing. Like I think people just realise that you don't need you don't need my stuff luck. Now figure out what's important to you. And and you go okay, let's let's go and experience these things. You know, like, oh, it's gonna cost a lot of money. Yes, it is. But it's just money. If you like, you know. If you want to get that new carpet, the old carpets fine. Just put it right over the big hole. discard this. You want to see my house? You don't want to see my house. But oh, but anyway, listen, I'm, I'm super, super glad to have spoken to you tomorrow. And, and I just, I just hope that you know, where was whoever's listening is is has got something out of it you know I I'm really looking forward to the next adventure and 53 Or no 53 Like, unless I'm going to smash it until until I can't smash it anymore in in in and then we'll will they go another route

Matt Waters  20:38

you know hell yeah, no, I like that thinking as well, the only way to be Hey, before I before I let you bugger off and I've got to get them in before I think Paul Toomer is probably going to listen to this one. So by this time what we all know about an hour and a half a might have actually fallen asleep. He's not old or just had to read lines and he's falling asleep, but

Pete Mesley  21:01

I've got a couple of rounds that he's awesome. He's a legend. Yeah, well, I'm gonna be spending some time with him in Malta. Soon.

Matt Waters  21:11

Are you going to RF Korea?

Pete Mesley  21:14

Yeah, yeah, presenting there, which I'm very honoured to do. And again, just these in these environments, these these conferences, to my missus sitting up. Don't you just go there and just just drink until at four o'clock in the morning? And then what do you get done? Okay, well, some of the best deals and some of the best trips have been playing at four o'clock in the morning. Like, over the bar. It's been an end poorly has been. He's, he's been there on many occasions. In fact, you know, if we haven't be part of the conversation, we will be looking at each other. He's, he's a

Matt Waters  22:04

legend. Yeah. And

Pete Mesley  22:05

he's, he's a prolific diver. And it literally start with Ray. Like it just, he's, he's taken something from nothing to what it is now. And all credit to him. He's just, he's just a legend.

Matt Waters  22:21

Yeah, yeah. Super, super good. Right. Before you go. You have 10 questions, sir. Oh, yeah. I have not had a look at them. Good.

Pete Mesley  22:34

All the way through. You've got you've got a you've got a target. Yeah.

Matt Waters  22:40

Yeah, no. Yeah. Are you ready? Question one.

Pete Mesley  22:44

Really good time.

Matt Waters  22:45

How do you ascribe this is quite hard to actually talking about your daughter? How do you describe your job as a diver to people who are not familiar with your activity?

Pete Mesley  22:55

Yeah, I'm a professional wine drinker. That's what I do my thing

Matt Waters  23:03

get wet in the daytime and then wet the innards on the night time.

Pete Mesley  23:06

Yeah, yeah, I get I get paid straight mine. It's a great, it's a great it's a great pastime.

Matt Waters  23:15

Okay, can you share a memorable diving experience that stands out to you as the best you've had?

Pete Mesley  23:21

I tell you like a going back to collect because smoke. So on the GLONASS, I sat there, literally, an inch and a half, from my face was a ciguatera chewing away at us breakfast, and I accept it and I just just just, you know, just watched him for, I don't know, 30 seconds to a minute all the rest of it. And, and that was just one of the most enhancing moments of my life say look, you know, like I'm, I'm in amongst it. And with the, with the, the Hammerhead, with the Galapagos sharks and and with these little creatures, and they just really care about me, but enjoying their environment. And that was that was pretty special to me make pretty special

Matt Waters  24:17

to has awesome. Okay, if someone wanted to pursue a career similar to yours, what advice would you give them?

Pete Mesley  24:27

Listen, don't pursue money, pursue your passion, like, you can't say, oh, wanna go diving and I want to be an instructor like, You got to be into me. And if you if this is your thing, then just persevere. Man, I totally, I have I have persevered for decades and you've just got to do what you've got to do. And I've had to get other jobs to you know, like, that's how I got into film work because Oh, my training was really slow and I started working for myself and, and a minimised so now you can come and be a safety on this film show. Okay. This is this is a right, yeah. You know and, and, and diversify like if you do one thing, then you can only be employed doing one thing, learn to do more than one thing, then the new dynamic and that will be, you know, just just don't be too too tunnel visioned in, in your your thoughts of what your your career is going to be. Anything water related is, as a bonus, you know?

Matt Waters  25:44

If you could change anything about the diamond industry or the Scuba diving in general, what would it be?

Pete Mesley  25:51

Hmm. What would I change about discriminatory law? I listen. There's always going to be the petty price crunches, the people that complain about everything, but that doesn't worry me, there's always going to be people look at you just focus on doing cool stuff with cool people. be in business with people because you want to write not because you have to. And, and all all the other stuff was sort of stuff out, you know, like, why do you want to be in business? Okay. If someone says, Look, I'll give me $2 million to take this Isola for diver gate. Okay, I'll take one for the team. Because in that two mil will will help pay for for the rest of the trip lagoon Rick diving project that we're going to be doing, you know, and all the rest of but at the end of the day, money is is not a contributing factor, or met the main contributing factor to things that we want to do in our lives. enrich your life, figure out what is important to you. If my daughters were hearing this, they say, oh my god, Daddy's lecturing.

Matt Waters  27:06

Well, I kind of agree as well, though, because money's money. It shouldn't be the priority, but it's an enabler. And it's one of those. The devil on the shoulder, and you've got to have we need it. You've got to have it.

Pete Mesley  27:16

We need the buckaroos button. But like now, you got all these people chasing the dollar? That becomes the thing. How much money? I've got a millions. All right, what do you do? I'll go work tomorrow to earn more. Yeah. And that's but that's the thing though. So like, now, you got to figure out what your thing is. And if that's what you think is well, then that's what your thing is. But my thing is, like

Matt Waters  27:43

rusticles. Yeah, kill stuff kill people. I like that. I might steal it actually. Okay, so what are your thoughts on ways to minimise human impact on the oceans

Pete Mesley  27:58

just be respectful, man. So, like, when I'm diving, wherever, wherever I am, in a lake, in a quarry in the ocean in a cave. If I see some shit on the ground, I'll just pick it up and I'll put it in my pocket. You know, just a little bit of impact. Minimise, minimise, trying to educate. And, and the other big thing is, is that I see all these people see these videos of people touching shit, you know, like, like this, these freedivers touching these shocks. You don't have to touch it. Like, that's just an ego thing. You know, as mostly these female free divers swimming that these gigantic big sharks, anyone think that's cool. And that touching them? You don't do that shit, man. Just don't do it. Right. And that's only for the ego. There's for nothing else, right? So enjoy the environment, enjoy the big animals, but there's no need to put your greasy mitts on.

Matt Waters  29:03

My dad always used to say, you know, when I was a kid, look with your eyes, not with your hands. Yeah, yeah. And it goes a long way. Have you seen a you know, you've been quite a few times now to trip for example. Have you seen a depreciation or a degradation of the Rex there because of the quantity of divers visiting people getting hands on

Pete Mesley  29:23

not so much the quantity of divers but but Rick's are like us, right. So so the Rex and truck are like 80 years old, right? So when I'm 80 shits gonna start falling off me. And stuffs just stops working me it just luck. So, so everything. So at the moment, I've you know, I've noticed a large impact on the Rick's right? That's because I've had the opportunity to witness that and to photograph them over the years but Is this a natural progression of a Rick? So, so the big thing that I'm into is and I didn't think that I'd get into it is the photogrammetry. Like, I thought, you know, because I'm, I'm an arty, farty photographer, right. Like, I do all this lighting stuff and, and all this in and time exposure stuff. And I thought, well photogrammetry this, there's no artistic talent in it at all. And it probably isn't. But I have so much fun doing that, because what we're doing now, is we ceiling stuff now, we ceiling it. So that now how many wrecks Have you seen in their entirety? Before I did photogrammetry? Zero. I've seen bits of it, if you go up, because the really good visibility, I saw the bad section of the midships. But I've never seen a whole ship. So, so the photogrammetry has opened my eyes tremendously. And, and that's that's, that's my big thing at the moment is, is because it just holding and securing and sealing these risks ever. Right? They'll fall away. And okay, so my biggest regret that we didn't do it 25 years ago, but we just didn't have the gear. Yeah, we didn't have the technology for that. So So let's just start cryovac deck, let's just focus on getting it sorted out now. And then and then the more people The cool thing about photogrammetry is that more and more people are doing it now you can just take a GoPro and video a wreck, and okay, it's not going to be as good as 50 megapixel image 5000 images taken over a wreck, but it's going to be better than that. And what that's done, is it secured in history, that that data is more valuable than anything else now, because all that Rick's going to do is going to die in five or 10 or 15 or 50 or 100 opportunities is going to be data, right? If that product is still there for people to enjoy it. That's, that's what I'm thinking about the moment and that's gonna and that's what I'm super excited about.

Matt Waters  32:18

Did you say you must have seen the latest video put out by major projects Foundation, Matt Carter and Lindsay was on it. Yeah, the summary

Pete Mesley  32:26

on the sub. Yeah, really did a great job on that.

Matt Waters  32:30

And forgive me, the guy that's put it all together, you've done an amazing job, but I forget his name. Just put just documenting it the way that they have really opens up the reality of what photogrammetry does. Because it's not only, like you say, put in that historical element into the library for life, but it's also given a visual to the, you know, the the offspring of the people that died on these wrecks.

Pete Mesley  32:58

Right, you listen back this summer submarine, right? So let's just say 20 People will ever die of that. So like now you take a 3d model of that thing you photogrammetry it. And like now, everyone in the world who's interested can look at that go, Oh, that's pretty awesome. In fact, that's more than pretty awesome. That's pretty damn awesome. You see, so. So all that's doing is it's saying this is not a graphical representation, or this is not an artist's rendition of someone that goes, oh, I want to paint a picture of a wreck and put the mast here, because now we could call a call bullshit on that, because no one could see the whole thing. But with a 3d model. It is as is where is right there. It's documented. And that's pretty

Matt Waters  33:52

cool. It's pretty awesome. Pretty cool. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to the boys on that one. Yeah. 100% has your passion for diving or the industry changed over time? And if so, how?

Pete Mesley  34:11

I think my passions increased. To be honest. I've learned about the business of diving. And but I've also learned, as I mentioned earlier on about keeping my personal interests alive, and that's a key factor. Because anything that anyone does. If you're passionate about something, that means that you've you've got energy like, I'm like, I don't think this is embarrassing, right. Okay. So I haven't read a novel for 30 years. Right? I haven't just sat down and read a book. But I've read so many reports. So At diving physiology, reading Johannes book at the moment, which is just incredible, you know, and, you know, people that that are a absolute living legends like children and, and, and, you know just being a part of all of that is pretty cool you know and and you know she was she was here recently yeah with

Matt Waters  35:24

with neighs Mays was really as well.

Pete Mesley  35:26

Yeah. Well, I was on the project too, you know, and, and we had a great time and it was just just being around. Cool people

Matt Waters  35:37

doing cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. We have to get to it. Well, I've got Jill on the show as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so looking forward to see what news puts out.

Pete Mesley  35:55

Yeah, me too. Me too.

Matt Waters  35:57

Boys got some talent. He's,

Pete Mesley  35:58

he he is he has got some skills. That boy. Yeah.

Matt Waters  36:03

Yeah. I like him a lot. He's a good boy. And I've got one of his photos hanging out here in the, in the foyer when he came into the studio he brought her of all things is a photo of the Hammerheads that Darwin's arch. Okie dokie? Is there a particular conservation effort that you're particularly passionate about? If so, which one and why?

Pete Mesley  36:32

Well, originally started on on the trucker goon Rick baseline project, and we're working on at the moment, but we've we've actually gone global. And what I want to do is I want to try and put together a worldwide Ric baseline project, where people are doing these 3d models and the 3d 3d photogrammetry of all these rigs around the world, putting them together in one place, everyone will own their own their own footage, all the rest of it, but it's just going to a place where a single place where somebody could turn up and go, Hey, man, I want to go I'm thinking about going to the Great Lakes. Right. But the Great Lakes is freshwater right? Yeah, there's 6000 Rick's in the Great Lakes. In the States and Canada. There's over 6000 lakes. That is one of the bucket list places for me like I've, I've been to Great Lakes, I think 11 times 10 or 11 times. And my I'll tell you what, you've got 158 year old wooden schooners sitting bolt up by the bottom. And the captain's glasses on the table, right there. And the ship's belts are all there in the 60s and, and everything is just pristine. And it was only like, as recent as 1986 where, where zebra mussels were introduced to the Great Lakes by a ship you know, like opening up it's us it's built just and it had like zebra mussels and that was the best thing that ever happened because it just cleaned up the waters and like now the versus crystal clear colours help. But it's it's worth it. I love it. So so the Great Lakes is is an amazing, amazing place to go.

Matt Waters  38:40

So is it is it the cold water or the lack of bacteria in it that's made it preserved for

Pete Mesley  38:45

this no wood eating organisms. Gotcha. There's no What do you do a lot to set the structure but there is because it's fish. You know that this white fish there and all the rest of it then there's top this turbine than this shit out of this. This this. There's lots of fish there. But so but there's no wood eating organisms. Gotcha in the lake and the great lakes. Lake Superior. Lake Superior is got no excuse me, they've got they've got no zebra mussels at all there. Okay, you see, so they've got like, I don't know, it's something to do with the chemistry in the water. But, but but they're like and it's black, it's dark. And it's cold. But it's just incredible. The Rick's just like he could float them and off you go. They are just really just pristine. And I believe the Baltic is opening up now. And that, you know, the Baltic is called the Baltic for a reason. Right? Like this. Yeah. But yeah, it's Voltic I think is the next the next big Great Lakes area, which is that just But they're just discovering stuff all the time. There but it's it's black and the stock has called.

Matt Waters  40:09

I'll leave that to you, too. I'll leave that to you guys. I'll stick with the 30 degree water. Okay, so of the many safety procedures we have in the industry, if you had to choose one as the most important, what would it be?

Pete Mesley  40:30

The biggest ones could it be the rebury that pre entry checks? So luck. Like, we were going to the quarter hours. So people are getting a bit tired, but, but don't worry

Matt Waters  40:45

about that. I'll tell you most most people that listen to podcast, they'll do 20 minutes on the way to work. 20 minutes on the way home. Don't worry about

Pete Mesley  40:54

so in 2011 Right. 2011 I'm sitting on the Beckham of the chartered a boat. I've got a group of divers like diving a recall the McCollum at top flight. It's a Russian ocean liner that we're done under considerably dodgy circumstances. That is a whole podcast itself. Right. So this Rick is line, great heart and a port site. Right. And she's sitting in 34 metres of water and the top of the wreck is sitting in 12 metres beautiful, beautiful red, right? And so So I'm the deck boss on this dive. And some sit in the back of the deck. And I'm clocked everybody and all the rest of it. And then two, two minutes later, I hear how

Matt Waters  41:49

pow pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.

Pete Mesley  41:51

So that the back and here's one of the guys. And these are all rebreather divers. Right? So on the back, the guy that says this is bunny pulls the skirt the back the and he's he's unconscious, right? So I think fuck. So go back. I got down to the to the bottom deck in the end. So I grabbed the sky, and I'm lying on the I don't know what you call it the back deck but

42:23

it's about it's about six inches off the off the water's edge, right.

Pete Mesley  42:28

And and I grabbed this guy and this guy is blue. Right? He's unconscious. So I just like touched this guy's cheek and assists, mate. I call them both, but I just make Can you hear me? And I inside I am shitting my pants right? So I'm holding this guy upright in the water. And I'm touching his cheek. Right? And this guy goes from blue and it just Chuck's a little bit coughs a little bit and he starts to breathe. And he opens up his eyes. And he says I said Ah mate Are you okay? He does he does Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna sit here for a little bit so I'm still holding her up anyway we get the got the water I had a doc on board like you know check him out put them on auction all the rest of it. So the car was or or fine. So anyway what had happened was he had done his checks on the steam out, he turned everything off. Right. And this is one of these rebreathers were it didn't go on automatically when the water would have hit the water. So there was a lot of commotion about all the rest of it anyway, he didn't turn his headsets on right so when he jumped into the water here when hypoxic if it wasn't for his buddy grabbing him and he wasn't possibly put the guard be dead beyond the guard be like fish food, the guard be history, right? And, and that was the 2012 Right? To the limit to talk. And I thought Shit, right? This is this is not on. So right from the beginning so that we had we had a production accelerate, so that's all fine. So we started implementing it wasn't until a couple of years after that, started thinking about it and said look, what can we do? Right? What can we do? So we started start implemented the pre entry checks and this five checks that we do before the guys get in the water. And we do this month All righty now, and, and this is part of the talk. So I'm going to be doing it at reboot of forum 4.0 In multinode be talking about and and all these five chicks are making sure that the person's handset is on the gas is on there, do a pressure check that hit the manual at Valve to make sure that the pressure gauge because if the check the pressure gauge, that means nothing, right? If the pressure push the manual feed button and the garage goes down, it's not switched on. Yes, you see. Excuse me. So, so this pre entry check for me personally, is the most important piece of safety before you get in the water, because this is just for rebreather divers. But that's the same thing as as what we do for open circuit times we check the guest open for sure. Check have a brief and then they go. Right. So that's exactly the same as a circuit and that and that is saved lives in the future. And, you know, I ran one of the largest expeditions to recall the USS Atlanta in in the Solomon Islands in 2016. Before we got shut down and and we got the USS Atlantis sitting in 140 metres of water. Right. So we've got the top half of a percent enchilada of rebreather divers in the world. Right. So I've got 16 of these guys. Right. So that now implementing this pre entry checks, how many problems do you think that we've picked up? In the first two days?

Matt Waters  46:54

I would probably say it's going to be quite high just because of the conversation we're having. And, you know, rebreather divers. They take a lot more care over the stuff and what recreational divers do, I suppose. But it's it's right across the board that complacency and confidence gets in the way. So I would say higher than what I would expect. Maybe give me number one number of mistakes. number of errors. Yep.

Pete Mesley  47:22

Major life altering mistakes

Matt Waters  47:26

16 diagnose how many times a day you don't want just the one thought so just check in Come on, don't think about 16 to 20.

Pete Mesley  47:39

Okay, yeah, bang on the money 15 5015 mistakes not talking about gas not switched on computer set to the wrong gas. So like now, all I'm saying here is this is a bracelet to magic component of my presentation for for Malta, but you know, people make mistakes. We just like as soon as like now, there's someone saying, hey, I want to see your computer. I want to see your guests on. As soon as they realise that that is happening. Then they start thinking about it more. Yeah. And and if we can save one life, then that is that is

Matt Waters  48:28

but yeah, and I think there's I think I think a lot of people coming around to it now because of the good work of like yourself and Gareth lock in particular, that's that's putting the flag up and saying you know what, he guy needs to be left at the at the shoreline. And you know, let's let's get let's get things regimented and Toty.

Pete Mesley  48:49

And it's totally good. It's a good guy, man. He's is he does a great job. He's

Matt Waters  48:56

great. He does. He does. Okay, what are your top five bucket list destinations the top two are gonna

Pete Mesley  49:11

ship me may not tell you this session, but Antarctica I'd love to have wanted to dive Antarctica for the last two decades three decades. Papua New Guinea I haven't been to yet out of it. No, seriously. Not no money. Yeah, yeah. So so so the cool thing is we can't do everything. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to slowly slowly slowly do everything so you know, you know have died pretending five times I want to get back on it. I want to I want to take some some more pictures. Retallick I really love that written. You know Uh, a another big thing for me is is Newfoundland, Bella might that is basically a cold water truck lagoon. And they've got, they've got everything there. They've got, you could go, you can go dive with whales, right? On an iceberg. And then go dive these shipwrecks and then for your surface interval in go and dive a flooded mind. The guys have got everything it's cold as hell can imagine is like, in its Yeah, you're not going to get double digits. And that's, and that's seen if, yeah. And but, but that's more on the Great Lakes this summer unfinished business theory you know and and I've only been to Croatia once so I'm gonna go there more times and but hey listen this I've just cool stuff will be Yeah, yeah so so if you're listening and you need someone to take a picture of you you want to go somewhere cool

Matt Waters  51:19

very reasonably knows a cool person yeah hosts a podcast

Pete Mesley  51:26

you got to get back behind your screen, just you just leave the dirty word sorority

Matt Waters  51:31

really good idea. Okay, how would you describe the dive community to a non diver

Pete Mesley  51:44

it's like any adventure sports, you know, you got all the all the tours, a lot of gonna do is a lot, kind of talk about doing, but it doesn't matter that that's like anything, all you're going to do is you're going to focus on what group that you want to be in. And, and, of course, we all want to be in the doers group, because then closed with people, baby. And so it's like, any slot, any group, any adventure group, just just understand who does what. And, and there's quite a few. I'm quite lucky in New Zealand, because there's very few egos in New Zealand, we've done a good job of that, you know, we've, we've, we've we've kind of, you know, ironed out that that the assholes you know, and don't know that, you know, there's always going to be that in the industry. But, but again, if you're in an environment where there's lots of people that you don't want to hang around with, don't waste a second. around

Matt Waters  52:57

those people. Just there's plenty of other nice

Pete Mesley  52:59

speakers like this, this, there's a lot of copies. And yeah, just just focus on that. And then, and then all but good things are going to happen to you. And it's just going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun,

Matt Waters  53:18

mate. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show, and you're gonna have to come back on because there's so much shit we've not spoken about, like almost going down with a boat on the rocks. And God knows what else we're not even touched on. Right? You know what I mean?

Pete Mesley  53:34

If I was to tell you all the stories of Whoa, no one would ever come on. Just Tom, this is like old salty sea dog stories. You know, we'll look forward to it again.

Matt Waters  53:48

But once it does, we'll save that for season five.

Pete Mesley  53:52

Yeah, what season are you in now for?

Matt Waters  53:54

Same as you are right now. Okay.

Pete Mesley  53:55

All right.

Matt Waters  53:57

I told you four seasons together. But you're right now.

Pete Mesley  54:08

I hope it hasn't been too painful to listen to.

Matt Waters  54:11

It's been great catching up. Yeah. It's your character and you're doing a bloody good job. So keep at it. And we'll we'll we'll see you back on the show soon enough. Ladies and gents. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. Ladies and gents. Thanks for listening in. And if you want to get in touch with Pete or jump on one of his boats, or one of his expeditions, just got a peek mostly.com And well, just Google his name. You'll find him. All right. Thanks for tuning in. And bye for now.