Graham Willis - The Dive Spots of New South Wales - S02 E16

Graham Willis is a professional dive Instructor operating out of Frog Dive, Sydney, Australia.  Having lived in Sydney for over 30 years it's a fair assumption that Graham knows a lot of the dives sites pretty well and during a chance meeting via mutual friends Graham began chatting with a chap about writing books, namely dive books; Johan Boshoff has the experience of creating publications and with Grahams knowledge of New South Wales the book was born.

With 240 dive locations, details about the dive site and considerable detail about the location and local amenities , this book is perfect for the adventurous diver wishing to explore the NSW coastline.

If you would like to purchase a copy of Graham's book you can reach him via Frog Dive in Sydney, via Facebook or the link below.  We will also have a link available on the soon to be released new Scuba GOAT website too!

The Dive Spots of New South Wales

Graham on Facebook

Transcript

Matt Waters: 0:06

Hey there dive buddies and welcome to the show. I'm joined today by local dive pro Graham Willis who not only works in the industry, but he's also co-authored a travel guide for divers and snorkelers alike covering New South Wales. With a good buddy of his they've created a book with over 400 images and 100 dive site maps and titled, The dive spots of New South Wales. It's a must for anyone needing a compilation of local knowledge for diving in the region. And it's also got a pretty sexy shark on the front cover to Graham. Welcome to the show, buddy. How you doing?

Graham Willis: 0:35

Thanks very much, Matt. No, great. Nice. Nice to be here. Thanks for inviting us along. And hopefully we'll have a good chat generally about diving a little bit about the book, but not too much probably about them.

Matt Waters: 0:45

Well, the good thing is that come into the studio, and it's the first time I've had anyone in the studio since COVID. Ages. So thanks for the beer.

Graham Willis: 0:51

Oh, no, that's a pleasure. Cheers. Cheers. Indeed.

Matt Waters: 0:56

Beauty. Okay, let's have some a bit of a background on you. Before we get into the book, or the books, should I say this too? Yep.

Graham Willis: 1:06

So I've been diving for a few years now sort of certified in only 182 was diving for a bit before that, and thought should really go and get certified. So So I did. And I was lucky I was living overseas. My dad worked for Shell. So we moved all around the world. And I started diving in Oman. Which time? Yeah, well, at the time, there was no diamond there at all. Hardly. Nothing commercial at all. So we we live in a must Gatlin Yeah. Well, we're living in close to muttrah. So yeah, yeah. north north of that, but

Matt Waters: 1:38

I was choose to move there when I was 14 years old. Yeah. My dad was. He was a drilling manager in and based out of Moscow,

Graham Willis: 1:45

right. Yeah, that was a good spot. I was. So my dad was there for a while. And then I worked there as well, in the oil exploration industry. My G, we weren't anywhere near the water. We were in the middle of the desert. But that is where I started diving did a lot of snorkelling spear at the time. I've got over that now. People started there. And then travelled around after that with the oil business places like Somalia, not so good. Madagascar, interesting, which allowed us access to Mauritius. So like a uni or South Africa, and actually went off to Thailand to do my licence there. So

Matt Waters: 2:25

yeah, yeah. I've got to go battered. Oh, man. I've not spoken to anyone about a man for years. Yeah. So What years were you there?

Graham Willis: 2:34

Good question. Probably 76 to 81. Okay. around that

Matt Waters: 2:41

period. Yeah. A little bit before we went to. We want to go out there. I think it was 88. Right. Yeah. I was a lot longer than you clearly,

Graham Willis: 2:49

clearly. Looking as well. But what can I say?

Matt Waters: 2:54

It was Did they did they have the solace bar was that? To me? That was one of one of the expats?

Graham Willis: 3:00

Not that I recall. There was many you might have. I don't know what was taking you out there. But that's right. Dad was in the drilling industry wasn't. There was a vibrant surf club there. With the army. There are a lot of people out from the UK, working with the Omani forces out there that was right beneath us. The house so that is handy. And then there was a club for PDO which was the oil company itself and they had their own club. So outside of that, that was my kind of environment

Matt Waters: 3:32

really. Well shut me out. Man is gonna listen to this at some point. So they go daddy go oh, man on the show. Now. See you, buddy. Man.

Graham Willis: 3:39

We can we can talk about that later. Yeah. He fell in love with the country. I liked it. I really liked it. Very, very different from down south and the Jebel and anyway, all of that sort of stuff. But now quite diving destination. Yeah. And it wasn't in my day at all.

Matt Waters: 3:52

Yeah. But when you look at the map, for the dive in, it's more northern Oh, man. Is it?

Graham Willis: 3:57

Yeah. So I think it's up at Mussenden, which is further north as of right, the tip there. But equally down past Moscow, there's some diving down there. I saw some familiar names when I code and didn't even know about that. Yeah. And they built a big Coast wrote there to make it much more accessible. It was pretty inaccessible. Well, yeah.

Matt Waters: 4:15

Yeah. I think it's one of those locations that people don't think about going on holiday, but some of the, some of the resorts and hotels in Moscow itself are just insanely good. And they

Graham Willis: 4:26

they are and I've spoken to people who have been and they absolutely loved it. It's obviously quite a different environment. I enjoyed the Arabic culture side and in some of the more traditional components, but I can imagine it's a good spot to go

Matt Waters: 4:37

Yeah, yeah. They still speak Arabic or is it dwindled? Yeah, my mind dwindled a few years.

Graham Willis: 4:46

Yeah. Don't use it much in Wolstencroft and rise.

Matt Waters: 4:52

Yeah, if I won, I'm sorry. I interrupted you there as well. So where was where do we go after that?

Graham Willis: 4:59

So I spent some time in Madagascar a couple of years there. That's pretty interesting spot. A really interesting spot. And that let me do quite a lot of diving in Mauritius and South Africa. Yeah. Which I really enjoyed. As I said, and I figured out after 70 or $80, I thought I better go and get certified. So, so I did. And I chose someone nice and warm and easy to do that in Thailand, which was good fun. The course it put it this way, the course is much easier if you've done a little bit of diving, you kind of know what to expect, but equally is a lot you don't know. So yeah. And, you know, I think it's a good thing, too. It

Matt Waters: 5:36

does everything that he does. It does.

Graham Willis: 5:37

And there's some theory in there, which is, I think, good to know. And continues to be good to know as you move on and became a DM or an instructor or whatever it is. I think it's good to have that theory underneath you.

Matt Waters: 5:48

Yeah, yeah. So just thinking back to South Africa. Did you want to get on the sardine run at all?

Graham Willis: 5:54

No. Again, wasn't just wasn't really a thing. Yeah. And I'm not saying that it was no sardine run, but there's no commercial component and diving component to that. Yeah. So the diving I did there was a place called sodwana. Bay. Yeah. Which is just a Justin. Hello. So but yeah, some of the best visibility have ever seen in my life. Really, absolutely. Phenomenal. Pretty rough and ready. In those days, it might still be I don't know, you launched on a rib. And to sort of zoom around waiting for the right break in the ways off he went. And then he got deposited. I think, like two three and five more reef or something like that. Yeah, memories, a bit scratchy. But the visibility was just fantastic. And there was a pot of dolphins that was swimming along with us on the way out. So they stopped the boat said Anyone want to get in? Yes. No one else did that, which I found quite interesting. So I had a paddle around with him for a bit and it's, it was fabulous. And then also down south in the cape, which is an awful lot colder, I gotta say, you guys called out Bay and a couple of the wrecks there and the seal colony didn't bump into any great whites, which is nice. But that was a bit of fun too. So after that moved actually back to the Middle East to get a guy going worked there for about a year, year and a half, something like that. And then I left the industry and came over to Australia.

Matt Waters: 7:14

epididymis, I'll just try and check online. Otherwise Shola might be getting confused. It might is other well shell said no Sidewinder Bay's itself and then Durban is a little shell as Yeah,

Graham Willis: 7:23

so so one is a bit further up. Yeah, I think the gnarly one, but I haven't dived into one. So yeah,

Matt Waters: 7:27

no, I did. I did. Did the two together as a mastermind. It was this 14th A few years ago, just before COVID actually 2018. So we went into Kruger Park and then down to sodwana Bay, did a few days there and then move down to Durban where we met with another couple of mates to go up into the sardine run.

Graham Willis: 7:43

I think it's going to be tricky to get over there for a little bit, especially with new variants coming out now to seem even worse, unfortunately,

Matt Waters: 7:50

it's ridiculous. I mean, I don't think we're gonna be doing any proper travelling for money. Unfortunately.

Graham Willis: 7:55

Well, hang on. I've got a couple three plan next year.

Matt Waters: 8:00

Okay, and my fingers are nuts cross my eye, but I've got a big Galapagus trip that we've learned from not 2019 to now. 2023.

Graham Willis: 8:07

Fantastic. I love to do that. Yeah, no, that's not in the planning. But next year, there was some planning to do. Indonesia, Philippines and Palau. So we'll see

Matt Waters: 8:16

101 and whereabouts in Thailand. Did you do your training? Was it on Koh Tao? Or?

Graham Willis: 8:22

I'd have to go and look, I think it was somewhat salubrious like Pattaya or somewhere like just be out of there and one of the dive shops there. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 8:30

yeah. That's quite a while ago anyway, it is.

Graham Willis: 8:33

It isn't. It isn't.

Matt Waters: 8:35

And bringing us up to date you're now working at froglife Sydney. Yeah, so

Graham Willis: 8:40

I work with the team at Frog dine for instructor and enjoy that I probably most enjoy the photography side of it and teaching that but still the more advanced and deepen all of those components as well. So I really enjoy that they're a good team to work with. Yeah, and nice to have the pool out the back, which helps with the the teaching side of it. Yeah, good, good group to work with enjoy bringing people into the sport. Remember, I was just doing the confined water. It was an older gentleman. And at the end of the day, he said that is the best thing I have ever done. Getting good at the pool. Wow, your mind is gonna get mad when we get in the ocean. But it's fantastic. I forget that you dive so much yourself. You kind of forget that amazement, just being able to be underwater. And and what a different feeling it is for people

Matt Waters: 9:37

I think. So better. To be honest. I remember the first time I put on a Scuba kit. I had no clue what was going on and just doing it. Like it's like a try dive. And I can even remember the instructor dragging me around by the tank and the API hose. But I actually cried on the dive. I was that happy to be underwater and actually experienced it. It's fantastic. And you're right, you do forget it. You know, you teach so many people, it just becomes second nature. And every now and then there's that little button that presses and goes. Yeah, remember that?

Graham Willis: 10:08

Yeah, exactly. And I think someone's just got to remember that as well. This is a completely new experience for people. Nine times out of 10 is completely new experience. It's a completely foreign environment to them. Yes, they're there for a reason, sometimes slightly the wrong reason. Why are you here? Well, because my boyfriend's doing it or because my girlfriend's doing it, rather than because I wanted to, which is, can be interesting to work with sometimes. Or my dad said, I had to do it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's, that's gonna be interesting as well. But generally, people are there because they want to experience something different, they're probably going to go off on a holiday or something like that to Fiji, and they want to be able to dive and it's, it's, it's, it's a privilege, actually, to be part of the diving journey, and just introduce them to it, I think,

Matt Waters: 10:53

yeah, it's a beautiful sport. So tell me about this. How did this, this this little book come about

Graham Willis: 11:01

this little book? A little? Well? Well, it is really compared to some of the times out there. But nonetheless, well, I was at dive show in in Sydney. And in fact, I was chatting to a friend of mine who runs a resort in in Sulawesi to manakin resorts called the Lassa resort. And Simone Garretson, runs that and has done for years. And she's a fantastic person, very generous spirit runs a great resort and a really good part of the world for diving, you haven't been able to monarchy and sort of yz diving. So that's out of Manado you need to get over there. Because you can do the walls have been knocking on one side and you can do the limbo straights for the macro on the other side. It's just great spot.

Matt Waters: 11:43

Adam, I'd echo that with the I in fact, I touched on Ben Acana Lambay. When I was talking to Oh, it was Debbie from diver planet. Yeah, we were talking about going around the world. But you hit the nail on the head, to be able to do the drifts and get the big wide angle shots on the photography and then pop across the Lambay. And do the macro. Yeah, it's a fantastic spot

Graham Willis: 12:07

it is and but even even at limbo, when you get outside the heads then sometimes called Angels window and stuff like that. It's completely changed. It's not your macro. It's the coral. It's wider. It's fantastic. So just love it. And the pricing is very, very, very reasonable. Yeah. Now I don't know what's gonna happen to the FAA is post COVID. Singapore Airlines used to fly in there. That was the best way of getting there. Yeah, Garuda, the other option there. So I don't know what's going to happen to the air fares. But I bet it's still reasonable.

Matt Waters: 12:36

Yeah, yeah. I think crude is probably a safe bet. Yeah, I'd stay away from NAD air. Just putting that out there because they've taken our money and not given us a refund and not given us a fair enough ticket to book another flight so they can get bad rep right here right now.

Graham Willis: 12:50

Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, so So Simone was at the dive show. And she introduced us to this guy called yo ambush off whom I hadn't met before. Now, Johan, is from South Africa. He'd come over a few years previously. And in South Africa, he'd written a book, dice watts, as Africa does lots of Mozambique. And then he moved over to WA, and wrote dice Watsa, wa. And he was he was at the show, and he had his books there. And someone introduces and said, Well, I don't know about YouTube. But maybe you want to do something on New South Wales. Now, yeah, he's never dived in. So it would be tricky for him to write it. But what he did have was all of the experience of laying out the book, all of the programmes for that he had an approach and a methodology. And if you look at the other two books, he's actually written on that. But if you look at the other two dice bought books, you'll see a very, very similar format. And the idea is not to cover every single dive. So that's impossible. I mean, put it this way, you throw picking on a boat, and you dive in, that's a dark spot in your mind. So you can't do that. What you can do is probably pick out some of the major ones in each of the spots there. And there'll be disagreement about that song. So are you left out a left out b? Why did you have a seat? That's a dreadful diver, whatever it is, that's, that's fine. I'm happy with the feedback. But there was an opportunity to do that. We said, Yep, let's let's make it work. Progress was a little bit slow initially, because I had a full time job going on as well. But then, with COVID Kicking along, that gave us the opportunity to work absolutely full time on the book and crank it out. So that was in March 2020. And then we published it in July, August 2020.

Matt Waters: 14:45

Yeah, cuz I think we initially I might have actually commented on your initial post about the book launch. Yeah, yeah, I think that's when we start first time, kind of dhikala checking online or whatever it is commenting,

Graham Willis: 14:56

actually, I think to be honest, that was the second It was the kind of relaunch almost been out there for probably a year or so. Yeah. But interesting launching anything in COVID Apart from possibly a boat, but, you know, that's the way it is. And obviously the dive industries had it much harder than, you know, two of us running book for goodness sake. So.

Matt Waters: 15:20

So it's obviously taking a lot of research, I'm just flicking through the book now. It's beautiful, really is put together really nicely. Nothing. But it must have taken an awful lot of time to pull all the photographs together the information, the text that you've got GPS coordinates for everything that's in here. You've been a busy boy, isn't it?

Graham Willis: 15:40

Yeah, it did. It did. It did take a fair amount of research. And obviously you want it to be correct. Now, having said that, we don't want people navigating to the spot, exactly by boat going well, hang on, you're 20 metres out you go. Okay. And there's a kind of disclaimer to that, but but you will be pretty much in the zone. And in most cases, you'll be bang on with that, you know, where can you get your boat in, in some some cases, because we know that not everyone can either do a shore dive, or not everyone wants to go with a commercial operator, because you know, they can get a bit pricey. So, you know, how can you do this yourself? We know that not everyone's, yeah, diving. So there's some good spots pulled out there for snorkelers as well. And it was fun. It was fun to do. It was a lot of work. But it was it was fun to do that because it got me off to do some Dausa. I've never done that. I had to go back and have a look. Again, have a look.

Matt Waters: 16:32

Exactly. That was my excuse when I started my tour company. And it's global. So I was going off to Indonesia and Thailand. And

Graham Willis: 16:39

why didn't I think, why did I just write a book. But it was it was it was a great way also of getting, for instance, down to Eden to do some of the dives down there. damn cold, really, really cold. We went down there I think was in March. And thought oh, that's, you know, end of Summit still we pre warmed the water. So we went outside to do the first dive. And that was 12 degrees. It's cold, and we were in wetsuits because I do drive and dive in a dry suit bones. I thought now it'll still be warm. And then came inside to dive the chip mill pier there. And it was 10 degrees. Oh, geez. Anyway, but great, great dives, good operators down there. So that was nice. And equally likewise, you know, Tweed Heads getting up to the northern side there. Because there were a couple of days I hadn't done there as well. I'm sure there's plenty of darts I haven't done. But there were a couple I wanted to do there as well. So good excuse to get out.

Matt Waters: 17:42

Yeah, yeah. And I know we've spoken briefly. But you had chats every now and then with Michael McFadyen, the old, the old man that seems to know all of new so

Graham Willis: 17:53

and he does a tremendous. So Michael stuff is tremendous resource, end of story. And this is in no way meant to replace it. So let me know, let me put that out there. It does not in any way, replace it. It does have more information about what's available in the area. Rather than just the dive sites. If you're going there as a hospital, there is a bank there, you know, those of you. So if you want to pick it up and travel, then it's a useful one to use for that. But Michaels done an awful lot of stuff. And certainly I shot a note off to Michael and I said, Look, whatever research I do, your stuff seems to come up. And even if people haven't acknowledged it, it still comes up. Yeah. Sometimes I've changed the words quite often they haven't, and so on and so forth. So would you be amenable to us using something material, Michael came back and he said, Yes. However, if you're going to do that, then each time you do that, you need to acknowledge me as the author of that point to the website for that that was going to be a very cumbersome way of putting the book together. So it's no disrespect to Michael at all. He's he's got tremendous knowledge and he's given the dive industry a lot and certainly my students and I'm saying that say look at Michael site, if you want to have a look what's going on, go to Michael site if you bought my book, but I think they feel slightly different purposes is one, his research on some historic wrecks and things it's fantastic. Always read it. Always have a look at it. So no, Michael's given a lot to the industry and continues to do so.

Matt Waters: 19:24

Yeah, yeah. And I see you've you've stopped rated the car as well.

Graham Willis: 19:30

Yes. Always dangerous. Because, well, it is a bit because let's face it, you can go to a spot you can have an absolutely fabulous star if and you go well that's five stars, but but if you've been there several times and you talk to people you get that that was the best I've I've ever done there and I've been diving this for 18 years. Yeah, it's not normally that. So I you know, of course it's you know, up to us. What to me writing the book in terms of that, but it's certainly awful a lot of feedback from people. If you had to write the dives in the air, what would you say? Is your go to dive? Yeah. And even in Sydney, there's a bit of North versus South was like, why would you go north of the harbour or the best dives in South? There's good dive south and north, I would suggest Yeah. And obviously, you do more diving, where it's easiest for you to do that. As simple as that. But I think that most of the, you know, five star rated dives, the majority of people would go, I can see why that I can see why that would be righted that way. You know, if you pick out southwest rocks, for example, it can be dreadful. Yeah. You might not even get in the cave. The visibility might be three metres and a raging current out the front might be dreadful day. On balance, it's fun started off.

Matt Waters: 20:47

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that particular locations are cracking example of what it's like in New South Wales as a whole. Because the biodiversity is just ridiculous. Yeah, quite frankly. Yeah. You know, if he talking about Southwest rocks, and you can see everything from nudibranchs to Shaolin fish, sharks and the, you know, the odd humpback Whale popping by

Graham Willis: 21:10

well then I talked about humpback whales. I was diving down in Jervis Bay, probably four years ago now. And I had my daughter diving with us as well. And she hadn't done many dives very comfortable in the water, but probably 30 or 40 times something like that. And had the camera had the rig down there. And we were diving place called nudie wall. So funnily enough macro lens on of course, jumping, my daughter points excitedly into the distance, and I go, what's that and whatever, it has just disappeared, and I see a white streak and I thought, Ah, I think that's a sap hanging in the water. I know what it is. And I've never seen one it wasn't it was the front edge of the pectoral fin of a humpback. So this baby humpback sweeps over us, I mean, very close indeed. Very close. Four times just comes back around and apparently what it did was pop up have a look at the boat and the two other sets of divers that had a look at them and then came back again and this was a baby so five metres or something. And not the seasons I don't think but previous season mommy. And then mum obviously said stop playing with the divers and and off it went but you go macro lens. Thank you. So luckily, a friend of mine had a GoPro so I've got the I've got the footage to prove it. But my daughter thinks that's normal. You go down for diver Jervis Bay and there's some pictures come back. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, five star die for Yeah. Not surprised. Absolutely. That'd be take her a while to top that one. It will. It will. I think she's realised that she hasn't done much diving recently.

Matt Waters: 22:49

Yeah, but I mean, like, say on the on the biodiversity side if we we could example that down in Javas bay or even more locally. Shelly Beach? Yes. generally get I'll jump in there with a wide angle lens every every time or the steps that canals that however, I got somewhere like chatter Bay and we're macro time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't even bother with wide angle. However, you can see large rays

Graham Willis: 23:16

there. You do quite often. Some missing a towel. Yeah, that stump has been around a long time,

Matt Waters: 23:22

a long time. And I don't know, I will do those things go.

Graham Willis: 23:26

I honestly don't know. But that that one's been around certainly for eight or nine years at least, and possibly quite possibly a lot longer than that. But certainly I'm aware of over that over that period of time. Be fair to say it scares the bejesus out of new diving.

Matt Waters: 23:44

It made me double take when I was down there as well. It was my first second dive down there to three major fairs and just saw that movement out that peripheral vision and by Christ he was close

Graham Willis: 23:57

just sweeping amongst the amongst the pilings there and off it goes. But again the as you say the diversity Yes, it's a macro site definitely. But again, you get some of the warmer species come down there as well. You suddenly find something you go Hang on. I didn't know you got ghosts pipe fishy. Yeah, example. And normally you don't but occasionally do

Matt Waters: 24:22

Did you see those photos that salvo got them? So I did? Yeah, I had a chat with Sal. Where he got a big shout out to him as well as just wanna photography award he has

Graham Willis: 24:30

done tremendously well. I think it took about two or three awards out. Yeah, it's been greedy

Matt Waters: 24:34

about bloody time as well. Yeah, I five Silva well done, son. Now you've given me two bucks, which I'm very grateful for and we've written on the inside I'll read that later. But the marine species guide so what's the what was the former head of dye the dive spots come first and marine species second.

Graham Willis: 24:55

So the marine species Guide is a second or third edition might be third edition actually. So Yohanna had put that together. And so look, why don't we sort of, you know, update that I think it'll take. It'll take us a couple of days to do that. And I, I had a good look at it. And I went, right, it's not a couple of days to do that there's that, you know, we need to, it's not just New South Wales fish, nor is it meant to be looking at coelacanth on page, I think 53 or whatever, it'll probably tell you that. It is a broader look at marine species. But I thought it was just interesting, because it's pretty simple. And you look at the pen and ink drawing above it, and you go, why would you use that, but actually to identify fish, by some of the key features and shape rather than by colour can be pretty useful. Sometimes the photographs are very helpful, sometimes they're not quite so helpful. And then just a basic part about the habitat and lost on where you can find them what they can grow. So I thought it was a simple guide, that I was happy to help update and also include more species that we find in Australia. And because it was originally put together in South Africa, and change out some of those things. And some of the orders and Genesis had changed as they do as scientists shuffle, fish around and nudibranchs around into different given different names again, so some of the stuff had changed. So it was a good opportunity for me again, to dive into an area no pun intended, that, that I'm always interested in, but can always learn so much more about in terms of species and those sort of things. So that was the opportunity

Matt Waters: 26:33

is one of the prime things as well, you never stop learning when you're looking in the water.

Graham Willis: 26:37

Absolutely. And that and that is part of it, whether it be diving and what you do in diving last week, you're talking with Jeff about technical diving and some of those components. And there's always more you can do and learn if that's what you wish to do. But equally, it's I suppose technically, it's not unlimited, the number of species and stuff out there, but there's more than I will ever see in my lifetime. And there's always stuff that we're learning about them. There's all stuff that we can do to help protect the oceans and what we're seeing on a day to day basis, because I think we're privileged to see that, and I hope we continue to see it but as a race we're doing we're doing our level best to eliminate I think large components of the Yeah, of the fish life out there. Unfortunate

Matt Waters: 27:21

Good job Akaka now,

Graham Willis: 27:21

yeah,

Matt Waters: 27:23

I find that I think we've got to kind of view it now as we've kind of bolstered up, but and it's going to get worse. But if we can do our very best to slow that rate. Yeah. I mean, that's the best we can aim for at the moment. Me personally.

Graham Willis: 27:37

Yeah, I think well, an example would be humpbacks, for example, you know, we hunted them to near extinction, Blue was exactly the same. And then there's a moratorium on whaling for the vast majority of countries in the world. Japan's really, for political reasons, to be honest, the young people really don't eat well made. I spent some time in Japan, and then just not interested, but you still have the shops for a while, because it's government supported. Hopefully, they'll they'll come on board too. However, that aside, the moratorium on whaling has meant that the Whale numbers have reached now healthy levels in some species really quite quickly. humpbacks being being probably the best of those, but I noticed that the blue Whale numbers are increasing markedly as well, Southern Lights, I don't know enough about monkeys, I think we're also on the Whale. And that's great. So it can it can change, and it can change reasonably quickly. And by that I mean 10 or 1520 years, not two or three. But you're right, small things that we can do either to slow down the rate of change, whether that be climate change, or just overfishing in many cases. I mean, shark finning, for example. Just ridiculous behaviour. Anything we can do to stop that or slow that down, I think is of value.

Matt Waters: 28:57

Well, we can get the Australian politicians to pull the next and the drum lines out of the water. For starters,

Graham Willis: 29:01

I completely agree with that.

Matt Waters: 29:04

Completely with any opportunity to get that one in there. Oh, well,

Graham Willis: 29:07

yeah. If you'd like me to second it. I'll second it. Yeah, go on. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 29:12

Cool. So what's the third book? What's next car?

Graham Willis: 29:17

Well, if you want a couple 1000 copies, I've got them at home. So I'd like to try and move this. These out. First. COVID has slowed. Not only this down, but obviously the whole industry down. Luckily, it doesn't really go out of date. Some of the details about a service station being open might be out of date, but the actual dive sites don't go out of date. And that's why we haven't also listed operators and those sort of things in there because unfortunately, they do change. Yes, they come and go. We certainly say go and talk to your local dive off right there are the best people to talk to about a dive site if you want to die. Don't rely on this. Don't just rely on feddans guide as well. Go and talk to your local doctor. Shopping use them. And funnily enough, you'll have a dive industry for a while, if you buy everything online at the lowest price from overseas, you're not going to have a local dive industry.

Matt Waters: 30:09

And that that's a very good point. And the other thing I wanted to bring in as well as having a physical book, it, there's something special about having somebody you can even refer you can refer to, and I don't know whether it's born out of me doing a lot of Liveaboards or, or been tripped later, or that kind of thing. Having a library of books there that you can actually sit after a dive and find the fish that you've been down and viewed. And, and if for those old people who like to log what they've seen. I say old people, yeah, well, but I still love it. I still Yeah, anything new that I say I like to make a note of it. And if I'm lucky enough to get a photograph as well, it's a bonus. But to have a book to go through rather than just being yet another moment of jumping onto Google. Everyone seems to jump on the bandwagon of let's jump on Facebook and ask the question of what this is, well grab a book and have a look.

Graham Willis: 31:03

Well, that's right. It is, you know, I don't I don't but when I see people, or does anyone know goods dive site, I'll get there's a really good book out that will tell you that. Yeah. And if you do basic homework, you'll find that on Michael site, for example, don't talk to your local dive shop, you'll find out so there's absolutely a place for the for the community as well, to help because I think the committee is pretty helpful. When you put something out there where the people lose something, or they're asking a question about it. People are keen, keen to help. And I think that's great as a community personally, and maybe it's because I'm old fashioned. I'd pick up a book and have a leaf through it. Oh, what if we went from here to here? What does that look like? And I think a bookstore has its place, chuck it in the glove box, you know, you're heading down to where you were up at Palm Beach. You said? So if you're heading north, okay, where should I go? I can I nip into Nelson Bay, what happens if I go there? The only downside? Oh, yeah, three or four? Fantastic, you know, and then talk to the local dive shop as well. So again, it doesn't replace that. But I've got a library full of books about diving and fish ID and teaching and all of those components hyperbaric medicine, because it's interesting. Yes, I can probably jump online and get an article on it. But it's all in one place for me. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 32:24

And you know, six 610 12 months down the line, you want to refer back to that article? Chances are, you're not going to know where you found it online.

Graham Willis: 32:31

I can't find anything on Facebook about 10 seconds after I've looked at Zoom Zooms off into the basic find the one I wanted.

Matt Waters: 32:40

Yeah, they want me doing that there.

Graham Willis: 32:43

I'm going well, you do need number one. Did you? I'd like to do would you? Like I'll just reach into my magic pot. Yeah, he's holding the Coulee box at the moment. There we go. Thank you very much, sir. I'm doing too much talking. Not enough drinking. Right. You carry well, I shouldn't mix diving and drinking.

Matt Waters: 33:01

It's it's actually it's really nice. To be to be coming into the studio. And talking to someone face to face instead of over the internet. Yeah. And predominantly because of all the crazy lockdowns that we've had here in Sydney and well, all of Australia. Were there, isn't it? Yeah. So yeah.

Graham Willis: 33:23

Again, there's a place there's a place for that medium and allows us to reach people in places that we wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. Yeah. So there's a plus to that. But again, I prefer the contact when you said Oh, should we do this over zoom? And I'm in studio. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 33:37

Was it? Was it because I said sure. Yeah, we'll just because I said we could have a beer as well.

Graham Willis: 33:41

That might have been sorry. Yeah. Okay. I just omitted that piece here.

Matt Waters: 33:46

Okay, so dive spots. I want to know, what is your favourite dive spot of New South Wales?

Graham Willis: 33:55

Well, whatever I say I'm gonna be in trouble here. So yeah. Fair enough. Um, the place I'd I'd pick is is probably Jervis Bay. And the reason I picked Jervis Bay is because there is such a variety of spots there. Yeah. Pretty much any weather you can get out in, not always but 99 times out of 100. You can get out there isn't spectacular dives there with the seal colonies, both north and south. You've got a couple of accessible wrecks there. You've got grey nurse there. You've got a really wide variety of sea life, and just a fantastic set of sea cliffs and things which are just brilliant topography, and then you've got the added attraction of the whales. Yes. And certainly the die. The dive operation down there died Jervis Bay has has no access yet has a licence to take people out so they can swim. With the whales. And that's fantastic as well. But if you're lucky enough to see them diving like I explained my daughter and I did, it's like, well, what can top that? As a single dive site? Would it be the best dive? single site? No, I don't think so. But if you say well, there's 70 or 80 dive spots that you can go to within a within the one area you go. That's, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty.

Matt Waters: 35:27

What jazz my missus and I, we went down to Jabesh it's gotta be gotta be 1011 months ago now. And we are made contact with Su Newson from Chris diving. And she operates however, she's got her operation at the back of our house there. Yeah, yeah, I was. I didn't, I looked a little bit Javis. But I didn't pay particularly too much attention when I was doing my research before going because I knew it was a good location. But a mate that lives down there. He says he's great. Cool. We're going to come down and dive in. Yeah. And it was only when I met Sue and picked up the tanks. And I could see she's decorated the floor of her dive operation right with a design that shows the dive sites on it. It's so many that there are I mean, it was it was lovely. I mean, we only went off one of the very basic ones homes beach. Yeah, I just have a splash about I think Jazza just got a new wetsuit, awesome. Tento doing all that. But it was lovely. Absolutely lovely. And we can't wait to go again.

Graham Willis: 36:27

Yeah, there's not there's not so many shore dives there Himes is is certainly one of the mottos is another one. Yeah. But there's always there's always somewhere to go. And the diving, I think can be pretty good. So I think is a concentrated in an area. That that would that would be my pick. Because of variety. If you sit down and you can't do that. You can only have one site,

Matt Waters: 36:52

this one site.

Graham Willis: 36:59

It's either one site, Southwest rocks, or Julian rocks.

Matt Waters: 37:07

Okay, I've not done one of those. That's Byron Bay, isn't it? Yeah, yes, yes.

Graham Willis: 37:15

But both of them can be spectacular. On their day, both of them are a little ride out. Junior rocks is a little bit closer, obviously, than surface rocks. So that can be pretty skimpy. If the conditions are poor, then it's not a good dive, and so on and so forth. But on that day, they are spectacular. And that's not meant to diss a whole load of other good dive sites. It's like, you know, North rocket, Broughton Island is a brilliant site. Looking Glass is a brilliant site, as well. So there really are some very good sites around but if you said okay, well, you could pick one or two that regularly and turns it on. I pick. I pick two you see not one. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 37:52

yeah. Yeah, I like Julian rocks. I like Southwest rocks as well. Yes. Yeah. There's only there's only two operators out southwest rocks isn't

Graham Willis: 37:59

correct. No, I was there. Three weeks ago. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 38:04

Which one? Which one? Did you die with?

Graham Willis: 38:07

Se rock star centre? Yeah. And those boys have been doing that for a long time Pete in the other places that used to work but frog dive as well. So yeah, him as well. But the other one has accommodation upstairs and it's fairly reasonable accommodation. So you're also in a situation if you have to cancel because it is weather dependent. Yes. If you have to cancel then they have to cancel their own accommodation. If you know what I mean. If you go outside for accommodation, well, you might want to lose that kind of stuff. So just little things like that make a difference. I think

Matt Waters: 38:38

we did. We did Byron Bay Chilean rocks last year. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably 14 months ago now.

Graham Willis: 38:44

Okay, in some good, some for a small set of rocks, some quite different dive sites around it and everything from a more beginner science of tour 40 metres sandy bottom, always plenty of turtles around. Normally a lot of showing fish can get mantas there as well on the pinnacles. So it but greyness and leopards, and lipids, they're all zebras, since we want to call them swimming. And yeah, well of course that's doing a lot of places like in Mozambique, but they're not they're sitting on the bottom. Yeah. But a genuine rocks. They're moving around. And I think again, spectacular animals completely unconcerned about you. Just gently flopping around. Be interesting to see him take off with that massive tail of those that makes them like a thresher. Which I hadn't seen them do of any move quite slowly, but I'm sure they can move quite fast. And then the greyness during the wintertime. Yeah, in many numbers.

Matt Waters: 39:53

Why I saw arguably the largest greenhouse I've ever seen a Chilean rocks, and she was clearly not bothered by divers, whatever. Another pretty crap when I saw it anyway, but I was right up in a nose and she was,

Graham Willis: 40:07

I think people who don't, I'm sure you've heard this but people who don't dive, think you're absolutely nuts going looking for sharks. Whereas I think the people who do dive a bit odd are looking quite often for sharks and we known some greyness Labradors of the sea, and they've just off they go and, and they're quite skittish. So if you move quickly, or do a sudden movement, that you'll hear that crack of the tail on you, and they'll be off. They'll come back, but they'll take a little while to come back. So it's not a case of them jumping on yet. I mean, they're curious, I think, which is why they come up so close as well. But I've never I'm respectful of them. And I've never done anything stupid and trying to touch them or anything silly like that. But they're very comfortable to come within a metre, half a metre, for sure. Yeah, I mean, that shot on the front of the book is that Broughton island that's at North rock, wide angle lens. That puppy is half a metre from us. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 41:09

yeah. I got I got a similar shot. But it's all blurred out, right? Because I think it was it was the cathedral at Halliwell shall South Africa. And she came over the top. And just a little feel, shall we say of my strobe, right. So once you realise it was something that was solid and plastic, it was kind of a crack at the tail, she was off bang, just at the same time as I press the shutter.

Graham Willis: 41:40

But I remember that day that particular shot was taken, brought in Ireland, and the visibility was just magical. It was a good 2530 metres visibility. And I've got a shot there that we counted 27 Sharks and really, it was just fantastic. Just fantastic.

Matt Waters: 41:58

So we were unlucky because we were gonna do Broughton island on the way back down from Byron, but the weather turned, so there was no way we were going to get out of there.

Graham Willis: 42:08

We did a dive trip, ma'am. My buddy Matthew, and, and Barb was with us as well. Up north and we were doing solitary with Southeast rock solitary islands, etc. We begin to HMS Brisbane up to wharf rocking back. And as we went up, it's like one of those tour T shirts, you know, South rocks, cancelled HMS prison Castle, Wolf rock cancel. For goodness sake, weather was pretty dreadful. So we had to do a bit bit of rearranging. But we still had, you know, we probably got 11 or 12 dives in but in a slightly different order and not all the ones we wanted. But it was you know, weather dependent on a load of those things. So things like pimpinella Rock out north of the solid trees well north of the salt trees. I must have been up four or five times to try and dive that. Not yet.

Matt Waters: 42:58

What's the attraction to that one because that's a that's a name I've not heard before.

Graham Willis: 43:01

It's it's in the middle of pretty much nowhere. I think it's 40 metre type dive. So you need to be a bit more experienced on getting it and extremely weather dependent and you need a full boat to get there. So yeah, I definitely want to do that. We'll be trying it again. In March. We which might not be the best time but this time we've got so we'll see if we can get there but otherwise no Socrates fantastic. You know, the enemies they're just an enemy Bay's. reputedly the highest density of enemies anywhere in the world. I think the work experience kid got to count the money, I'm not sure. And fish soup as well. Again, there's some really good good dives there. So if you can't do it, you go. Okay, fair enough. But but there's there's pretty special diving there anyway. Yeah, yeah. So there's always There's always more places to die. Oh, more places to dive.

Matt Waters: 43:54

Are you are you going to? You're going to extend beyond New South Wales?

Graham Willis: 44:00

Well, I don't. I think if there was another book, it would possibly be sort of top 10 dive sites in each state. I think that's what I would do rather than pretend I could put together a book for Victoria. I couldn't I dived in Victoria shore but don't really know the dive spots. Good excuse to go down for three or four months. I think my my wife might not be amused by that but good excuse to do that. Ensure you could you know, use the local knowledge and talk to people there and do it. I don't think it's quite the same. So unlikely to do that. My experience in South Australia says there's some cracking diving there but possibly quite a short book if you really talk to people. Yeah, there. Yes. You've got the the leafy sea dragons which are phenomenal. We've got HMS Hobart you've, you've got the sinkholes, Yuans, ponds and Kilsby and things like that, which are pretty good, but there's large areas of Have Not a lot. Yeah. You've got the kettle of fish and wildlife for that period of time. So we were lucky enough to do that this year. We did really great whites, and then came back and we did wireless Shut up. And then we did rapid buy for the for the leaf ease.

Matt Waters: 45:15

You weren't on the same boat as Don Silcock Weir.

Graham Willis: 45:17

I wasn't no thank God for that. No, no, he

Matt Waters: 45:20

went, he said, I'm going to go down and do Romney Fox and I'm going to go into the cuttlefish. And, lo and behold, Libby Sterling, a mate of mine from Queensland, he was on the same boat was right.

Graham Willis: 45:29

No, no, we weren't. And we were lucky because not only were we lucky with COVID because we just managed to keep slightly ahead of it. Yeah. But the trip before us had been cancelled due to rough weather three major seas, so we were lucky to get it in the seas were half a metre a metre, nothing. We had great whites on every dive, so everyone got them, which was great. So really enjoyed that. I thought the cuttlefish were amazing. And just so accessible for everyone. snorkelers

Matt Waters: 46:00

was a did you find a lot of divers at the dive site?

Graham Willis: 46:04

No. Now we were, we were midweek. Okay. So deliberately. Yeah. The weekends were a bit hectic. So So again, talking to people who were there at the weekend, they said Allah cows were. were everywhere. Yeah, but there's enough for everyone. I mean, there's any. I think this year the numbers were down. 220,000. What? Previous Year 250,000. So unfortunately, they reintroduced commercial fishing. Yeah. of them. They protected them. numbers went up there. Oh, there you go. Everything's peachy now. Yeah, funnily enough. I've done a year. I'm sure there's no correlation. So no, we went we were lucky enough to be able to go midweek again with my mate, Matthew and Andrew. And it was just obvious we did four dives. All of all of five metres of water. No deeper than that. Yeah, kind of run out at five or six metres. And you might think you're gonna see cuttlefish every dive. But the behaviour is just fascinating. Yeah, and this is this thing about every time you go down, you see something different you go. I've never seen that before. I've seen cuttlefish. But I haven't seen that sort of behaviour before. And they were fascinating. So we did four days on enjoyed every single one. Again, lucky with the conditions and thought yet tick that box. Beautiful On we go. And I would do that again. Really, I would actually do that again. I thought it was so different, and so accessible, that I would go

Matt Waters: 47:28

yep. Would you do it with a long snorkel and some weights? No,

Graham Willis: 47:32

I'd take the tank, because again, with the end, I remember you talking about this with the free divers like well, okay, you want to get down and take a shot on but I can reposition it, I can wait, I can see what's happening, I can see what the males are doing in terms of a bit of a dance off with each other, you know, protecting the female and the female, no sneak off over here, and so on and so forth. So absolutely, you can snorkel and see it all I think you just get a different level of appreciation if you're just sitting there pretty much on the bottom, just looking at what's going on for an hour and a half. Because it's is not the issue. Yeah. But take your dry suit. You take it

Matt Waters: 48:12

I'm an advocate of the high like just positioning yourself somewhere and let the the sea life do its thing around you. And if you're if you're lucky enough to see something nice than you do. And invariably, you are lucky enough if you're patient and your weight works a tree.

Graham Willis: 48:29

I agree. I mean, when you see divers, I guess each their own who are basically charging around everywhere. Yes, I know they are missing so much. Now they're covering more ground than me big deal. I never do that. I'm a potter. And make no apologies for it. Because you see a lot see a lot more. And I think as a as someone who's keen on the photography side of it. It pays to slow down. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 48:57

for sure. It's too slow. Yeah. I've lost count of how many times I've been on, you know, around the world. And people come up from a diving i Did you see the turtle? Yeah. Oh, what about the X fish? You saw that as well? Did you see the lady Bronk? Did you see the Yeah. The scorpion fish? Did you see the you know, Indian water? And you know, they miss everything. Just because they're going too fast.

Graham Willis: 49:21

I think when you start diving, if it isn't a metre long, you don't see it. So it's like, Did you see the octopus? No, because they're beautifully camouflage? Because I think as you dive more, you see stuff smaller and smaller and smaller. Yeah. And then when you get into macro photography, see the small stuff on top of the small stuff? Yeah. So you see the Emperor shrimp on top of the sea urchin, whereas previously, it's never been there. Of course, it's been there. You just haven't seen it. So I think, again, it's one of those things. I think one's diving keeps evolving. Yes. As you get more experience Ashworth

Matt Waters: 50:00

I can't remember I like to give the boys a shout out for those that get the, the photography moments and there was one that was recently posted enough, sorry, whoever you are going to be named. But there was a photo of a Wobbegong. And it was only in post taking shots and going through his his photo reel that he saw a nudibranch sat on the forehead of this bobbin

Graham Willis: 50:22

I've done that numerous times I've gone back through processing stuff have gone. Oh, didn't see that. I wish I had at the time, I would have taken a different shot. So even even though you're going slowly, just slow down even more and have a good look. Yeah. And can you please you know, and keep up to date with the focal quality of the glass in your mouth. That's a big bonus too. If you haven't got up to three correcting glass in your in your mask and you need glasses. Do it. I know it's 400 bucks or so. But it's worth every cent of it.

Matt Waters: 50:51

Yeah, there's a funny side I was talking to I'm rubbish with names today. The company that does the lenses down in. I think it's done in South Australia. But I have a good old knit and natter on the phone with a woman because obviously I've got glasses for reading. And I've noticed over the last 1214 months where I can clearly see the back of my camera. So I'm taking photos, but I'm not entirely sure that they're in focus. Yeah. And as the eyes get worse, I've into try glasses on the outside of the lenses by various ways. And it's worked when they were just going to go. But now that I need a glass for for reading all the time. I need to get the glass in the land in the eye.

Graham Willis: 51:36

I think once you do it, you'll go I wish I'd done that a while ago. Yeah, yeah, it really do. Now unfortunately, I have to keep changing it because your eyes will keep getting worse. Sorry. Yeah. But worth it. It really is the amount of diving you do. It's just makes all the difference. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 51:51

we're gonna get it done. I think I think the missus is gonna buy in for me for me, but for my Christmas present, is it there's a Christmas present? Yeah, excellent. We do that once a year. That's all right. I know what's coming. It timing with the eyes game.

Graham Willis: 52:03

So there is I mean there is one in in dy oz Bob. Yeah. Who did mine done a couple of sets for for me I don't know if he's personally is retired he would close to that. But it's a proper opticians business, and they probably continued it. So it's probably worth look at.

Matt Waters: 52:19

Yeah, yeah. I was interested fine as well, that because I was always under the illusion that it was a very limited amount of mask frames that you could get the Glasper into. But I was drastically wrong. They can put it in so many a variety of frames now.

Graham Willis: 52:36

Some are easier for them than others. Yeah, but it's not saying you can fit it to everything. But pretty much you'd be unlucky. If you had a normal mask, you'd be unlucky if they couldn't fit it, too. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 52:48

yeah. Well, it's one I used to sell a lot in Thailand was the freedom seals one and they've got them on the list. So I might actually jump on the on the back of that and get one of those with. What's What's your

Graham Willis: 53:01

god knows only you can say that. Well, I've got I've got a Hollis mask, which is really nice and soft as well. But if you said what is it like go? I don't know. Yeah. And it's interesting. Again, that one, you know, some people are really into the tech side. And the tech side of it. Oh, yeah. Have you got the X Y Zed with the new? free flying x y Zed? What is it again? I have no clue. You know, do I have a good regulator? That works? Yeah, do I see and it works fine. Is it something better? Probably. But this works fine. Yeah. So I'm not a gear for me. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 53:36

Jeff asked me on the last episode, because we're looking at the cover off. And he's like, how was that mask? I'm like, I column. I can't remember the model. Yeah, I couldn't tell you now.

Graham Willis: 53:47

Well, one of the Corrections is nice. Yannick mouse, but I've also got a holiday as a backup as well. So yeah, but if you said which was Yeah, yeah.

Matt Waters: 53:57

Almost Jeff got on the shelf for a shadow or a mini shadow or something like that.

Graham Willis: 54:01

Who knows? Yeah. So I can give a shout out to Nick. But not, but not a specific one. I'm sorry, I got your busy days as well. Which was which are fine. But look, there's always There's always new stuff coming out. There's always different stuff. There's stuff that looks smart. And as you know, sometimes you're looking at people they've got every piece of gear going and you and you're looking at them on the way out going. Not sure you know to use that then yeah, yeah. And in fact, I might have to keep an eye on you know, you've got all the good items and shots and it's expensive. But

Matt Waters: 54:36

yeah, that's the thing people eat. You know, you can have all the money in the world and buy all the good stuff, but if you don't know how to use it, yeah, it's a bloody dangerous thing to be doing.

Graham Willis: 54:46

Yeah, it is. I did have a person no names no petrol but going out to do deep course and beautiful gear. but actually couldn't even assemble it. Really? I'm going on, okay, when we last in the water, and have you actually ever used to go, you know, I've used this I've done a lot of diving, okay, fine. And then also suggested that they might wish to take a seasickness topics is a bit choppy. And we had to go out for 2025 minutes to get a bit of depth and back again, but decided that that wasn't appropriate. So funnily enough, didn't do any diving had a dreadful period of in the boat whilst we're all diving. Throwing up feeding the fish came back and again, I said, Well, you know, next time, Tiger sees it and stuff, but he said, I don't get seasick. Okay, what? Whatever you think? So all the gear no idea.

Matt Waters: 55:50

Yeah, yeah. That's in a few in the past. Yeah, I've actually. Yeah, I did actually put a customer on the boat and banned them from diving for their own safety before. It's only one time I've ever done it. But much, much the same. Too much money. Not enough sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's not saying that people out there with too much money. I've got no sense at all.

Graham Willis: 56:13

No, no, no, I just know, be happy to have more money. And trade off a bit of sense. Maybe. That's not where we are at the moment. But yeah, it's just interesting at all, all types. You've seen hundreds 1000s of people that you were teaching to dive and there's the people who are just nervous and talking all the time. There's people with dead quiet and nervous. There's the people, you know, own all the bits in between. There's people who tell you how good they are, and how much time and they've already done and they're on their own water. And it's possible. But,

Matt Waters: 56:45

you know, there's a there's a mate of mine. I'm laughing just thinking of him now. Dino Jenkins, little Welsh fella. Lovely fella. But as soon as someone starts to mention numbers, right? I can just picture in his head now going on? No, you didn't just mention numbers. But it's funny you say about assembling equipment, because one of the main mons complaints that I used to get in Papua New Guinea was because it was a rather lush resort, people had money. So they came expecting everything to be done for them. And if it was their first dive with us, I would insist that they set up their own equipment, so that we can check their knowledge of the equipment and then the procedures. And it was always the more well off people that moaned because they've not done it for years, and probably wanted to avoid embarrassment, but actually embarrassed themselves more. Whereas those people that had clearly saved many years to go to a nice location. Yes. All over it like a drunk puncher. Yeah.

Graham Willis: 57:52

Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting that you know, that part as an instructor, isn't it all divemaster or whatever. The role is just assessing that human behaviour and what you can do to help yourself, and also, whoever it is you're leading, not get into a spot of bother, even if they're not willing to accept the help sometimes. Yes. So

Matt Waters: 58:14

yeah, it's I'm sure you've seen it Gareth. Lock on a while ago, or quite a while ago now. Yeah, animate is. There's buddy up in Newcastle on the last week, who is focusing on human factors. And he's a, he's a pilot himself, military pilot. And we got into the realms of talking about safety of diving, etc, etc. And I think there's the scope for and I hope we say in our lifetime, that, you know, the safety element gets increased even more. Glock can't help feeling it has been a little bit of a drop in it. Due to, you know, having to try and get the customers through the door to make a coin. Yeah, yeah. And corners get cut, but those corners get cut. So many times there, it becomes the norm. So I think the norm might need a bit of a reset. And that might upset a few people when they hear it. Yeah, but it's just my it's my opinion. Yeah. I mean, you can't you can't falter on safety.

Graham Willis: 59:12

I agree. And we're lucky. Oh, it's an active decision. Frog diver that we don't run eight to one. Ever. Yeah. Which is good, because I'm not teaching it to one. Yeah, I just refuse to do I just don't believe certainly in our waters here. That you can give people a good and safe experience if that's what you're working with. You cannot keep an eye I can't keep an eye on eight people

Matt Waters: 59:40

know that as an example. A two one, even with assistance I think is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I'd rather In fact, the other chap I was talking to last week, Ryan. He's got an operation up in Newcastle and he will not reduce his prices for courses. He refuses to and quite rightly so good to know. He keeps those prices where they are and where they're meant to be. And delivers an exceptionally safe and knowledgeable course. Yeah, he doesn't have to try and get more bodies through the door as it were.

Graham Willis: 1:00:13

Yeah. Yeah. And as you say, the let's recognise that there is a trade off the organization's trying to introduce more people to diving make it more accessible, the equipment's safer, pretty much every year. Yeah. It's very rare that you get equipment failure. I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you look after it, it's very, very rare. Yeah. It's normally diver era. Yes. That does that. So what can you do to eliminate the error? Well, you can do better training. And then hopefully, part of that training is encouraging people to dive within their own limits. So they don't need that extra assistance. They look at the water and go, now. I'll come back next week. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 1:00:50

I'm done. Let's go for a coffee down there.

Graham Willis: 1:00:54

Exactly. Yes. diver bacon egg roll. Thanks.

Matt Waters: 1:00:58

This. Yeah, go for it. Cheers. It's actually a really nice beer. It is. I've not had this one before.

Graham Willis: 1:01:03

Three sheets. So cool. Three sheets. Lord Nelson brewery. Three sheets is great. Yeah. Can be to the wind.

Matt Waters: 1:01:10

It can be to the wind. Yeah, very good. Shot that beer company. Bob on. Cheers.

Graham Willis: 1:01:14

Yeah. local pub in. Just in the in the rocks. Oh, yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:01:20

That place I used to go. Lord Nelson brewery before before lockdowns. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm just going back to the book again. Yeah. Each each dive site, as I mentioned, just we've just been talking about safety is a is that mention of experiments, levels, that kind of thing?

Graham Willis: 1:01:42

I actually can't remember. I think what we did was basically cut out pretty much all the dives over 30 metres. Gotcha. So, you know, for example, there's, there are a couple in there over there. And you go, why are those in there? Because we'd already laid out the book and taken them out would have caused a massive refund. So to be honest, we there's a couple in there you go. Well, hang on that one's over 30 minutes. Yeah. But the way we approach that was to say, well, we won't put in dives that we know are particularly tricky. And we're not going to put deeper dives in there to encourage people to go to the book and go, Ah, well, hang on. I could go down to 45 minutes and do that wreck. Yeah, so we're just not gonna put it in there.

Matt Waters: 1:02:29

Yeah, yeah. Just flicked open the book. And lo and behold, I'm on Clifton gardens. Chatterbait. There we go. And it's, it's not the greatest of visibility, but I do really enjoy that dive site.

Graham Willis: 1:02:40

It is a it is a I think it's a really good dive site. But I think it's also one that pays to be more experienced if your buoyancy is not on. Yes. It's just going to be a cloud. You've also got to be comfortable moving around slowly and taking your time and it helps if you know what you're looking at. Now, having said that, we take beginners down there because we can pretty much all I mean, if you can't get into Clifton, you can't get in anyway. Yeah, pretty much so we can do that. And if you dive there enough, you know that even with a beginner, you're going to show them a seahorse you're gonna show them an octopus, you're gonna show them a Moray or we're gonna show them cuttlefish you know, there's five or six things you know that they're going to see and go wow, that was great. I've never seen those before. So even that, you know, makes it a good site for for beginners, but it really rewards good points.

Matt Waters: 1:03:31

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I've got to say I'm my missus she's not her massive macro fan as it were. Nice, but we'll do 7080 minutes in there and she'll she'll come out happy as right as rain, you know? Yeah,

Graham Willis: 1:03:44

there's a lot in a small area.

Matt Waters: 1:03:46

There. It's yeah, yeah. I mean, the pier itself only what? 20 metres. 25 metres. Something the diving area.

Graham Willis: 1:03:52

Yeah, yep. Yep. And falling apart.

Matt Waters: 1:03:55

Yeah. It makes me laugh though. Seeing all this fishermen on the top. Why the hell

Graham Willis: 1:04:00

are they doing they're no clue. And unfortunately, you know, you see the rays that they've caught and they've just taken the wings off them and chuck them back in and you see the the leather jackets found belly leather jackets. There are significantly fewer there than there were five or six years ago. Yeah, they just been reached out the water and I think I think it's a real shame. It is. And occasionally they'll get a passing kingfish occasionally.

Matt Waters: 1:04:27

Yeah. And a blue moon. That's right. Yeah.

Graham Willis: 1:04:31

And then all they might think you're going to go down there and catch kingfish. You know? Salovey Yeah, well, and the more eyes end up with hooks in them as well. And the octopus. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:04:41

Has been. I saw a few there's been a few hook removal.

Graham Willis: 1:04:45

Yep. And and it gets constant cleanups. You know, as a group, they do great work. And I've joined them a couple of times in terms of cleanups most people have done cleanups, they're, you know, I think because there are A lot of fishes that go down there. And there's also a lot of families and picnics and stuff and stuff blows in the water and you know, all of that sort of stuff. So it needs constant cleaning up.

Matt Waters: 1:05:11

Yeah. Yeah. I think a little bit of knowledge as well. I mean, there's those seahorse hotels there as well. We got buoys on. Yeah. And so let's cast those. Yes. See what's out there. Well, even better, let more about off them, you know?

Graham Willis: 1:05:25

Yeah. Yeah. So actually, I think some free divers, unfortunately attached some hoops there to do some diving through off the off, which is a little bit. I'm not sure if it's free. Divers are maybe not. I don't know. Whoever it was. Yeah, silly boys and girls.

Matt Waters: 1:05:41

It's definitely something to do with buoyancy. Buoyancy for divers or diving through for the free divers. However, I think they got removed a couple of days after the photos went up. So yeah. Good on you diving this weekend.

Graham Willis: 1:05:56

Right? No, I'm not diving this weekend. I'm I'm teaching the following weekend. I'm doing an advanced course. So I'm looking forward to this. This weekend. I'm I'm not diving at the week to actually try and avoid the weekends. Because everyone else is dying at the weekend. I have the flexibility to drive during the week. So I mean, the key barrier dog with Matthew Kempton, we tend to dive during the week. So I'm going to hop in the water either Thursday or Friday, and things just settled down a little bit, because it's was pretty average over the weekend.

Matt Waters: 1:06:29

Yeah, we were contemplating diving like Friday, Saturday, but the weather was just disastrous, wasn't it?

Graham Willis: 1:06:34

Well, I was down. I was actually down in the Illawarra. On the weekend. So Saturday, I went down to wings over Illawarra to the airshow there, I've had better weather, I must admit, I think they managed to get about 50% of the Flying display in the air. But they did that they tried and I absolutely get them pushing through because they had to cancel last year, completely. So they've been in this holding pattern for a while. So we did that. And then we were going down to dog Jervis Bay the next next morning. So we were staying down there incentives, just an extra huskisson. And but we cancelled it on the Wednesday because they already cancelled the diving on the Friday and the Saturday and yes, they had the fingers crossed for Sunday morning. But it's like, even if you go out. It's going to be an average diver. I'm not going all the way down there for an average dive inside the boat Bowen Island, which I'll bet you is where it was. Yeah, rather than going down to drum and drumsticks which is outside where the seal colony is and stuff like that.

Matt Waters: 1:07:39

And it's that balance isn't it, you're working out of the all the decidedly averaged dive, and then all the cleanup of all your gear and all the faff when you get home. It's a

Graham Willis: 1:07:48

long way to go for an average dive yes or no fault of their own. No conditions just weren't letting themselves but we went down anyway because we paid for the accommodation. And they wouldn't give us our money back. So we went down, had dinner there and then came back the next night. Yeah, there we go.

Matt Waters: 1:08:05

We're popping down to not dive in at all this weekend. We're going down to Fingers crossed. Victoria.

Graham Willis: 1:08:11

Okay. Yeah, well, that's unique. Yeah, well, Jazz's got

Matt Waters: 1:08:15

her family down there and we've not been down for our crisis. It's it's got to be 18 months

Graham Willis: 1:08:23

and heavy dive down there mature. No, no, no,

Matt Waters: 1:08:27

I was gonna I was gonna dive Melbourne, and then COVID hit. So I've not had the opportunity, right. But I will, we'll have that this weekend. Come in, we'll get down to Victoria and just do something completely different. So I'd set the cameras and see if we can get some landscape photography, that kind of stuff.

Graham Willis: 1:08:44

Right? Nice. She has the the piers down there is certainly in the bay is where the diving is at. And the growth on them is spectacular. is absolutely spectacular. Have you died Flinders pier? at Flinders? Yes. Right, Flinders gone down to 40. I haven't done a lot of diving and I'm not claiming to Yeah. And Blair Gary. Did that first? Two years ago, I think again, we just sneaked in and side of COVID did for the spider crabs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it should come in, if they're coming in this year that they didn't. And again, it's one of those things. There's just a whole sale, netting and taking them out of the water. And funnily enough, they didn't show up this year. Yeah, it might not be related to that, but it certainly wouldn't have helped wiping out a few 1000 of them. No. I'm just like shooting fish in a barrel for goodness sake.

Matt Waters: 1:09:43

They climb over themselves. It's amazing, isn't it? It is it's quite

Graham Willis: 1:09:46

amazing. And I really enjoyed that. So that was the first time I'd seen that. So we were hoping to incorporate that in the South Australian trip. This year. Having done humans pons and Kilsby come back through Melbourne but COVID was getting a bit iffy at that stage. And we could just see things start to close down. We just went, let's head back to Sydney. Yeah. And as it happens, the crabs didn't arrive in the numbers that they had done previously, there might have been somewhere in the bay, I'm sure but they weren't at the piers. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:10:16

I was talking to, because I don't know if you have been made aware. That Flinders Pier, The Victorian parks, and whatever it's called, looking at demolishing a section of the pier. And yeah, it flashed up on my of all things, social media some months ago, that Sir David Attenborough had written a letter in defence of, you know, the demolition, or against the demolition story. Okay.

Graham Willis: 1:10:48

I know he's certainly written support for the spider crabs because there was a thing called Save our spider crabs SOS. Which is, it's fantastic. So they're certainly trying to get the rules changed. I think the Victorian Government, they've got a balance, I guess, you know, tourism versus shooters and fishers and all of that sort of stuff. So I kind of get that, but they changed the bag limit, I think from 30 to 15. It's like, okay, so 10 of you go down and 15 per day. That's a lot of crabs.

Matt Waters: 1:11:21

Yeah. But now this one was more was the fear itself. Was it? Yeah, they were the sea dragons as well. Right. Right. Yes. But I noticed in the wisdom, yeah, next couple of days. The guy that I spoke to was Charles Reese, who is kind of spearheading the anti demolition front. And they've got about 40,000 signatures already going on. Yeah. To push. I

Graham Willis: 1:11:45

have a look at that. I wasn't I wasn't aware of that.

Matt Waters: 1:11:47

Yeah, yeah. I'll tag him in this one. And I think we'll maybe get him on the show as well getting more detail on it, because he seems to be carrying for quite well now. Yeah. So it should, you know, because they I think I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I think they announced the government announced that they were going to do the demolitions of the section of pier. Right. Right when COVID hit. So it was kind of hidden by the headlines of COVID. So it was it was it was either perfect timing or just coincidence, but I think maybe the former than the letter. It's like,

Graham Willis: 1:12:26

you know, bringing out new policy on Christmas Day.

Matt Waters: 1:12:29

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Well, I've looked at that one. Home I'd, I'd like to get down there and dive it. It's,

Graham Willis: 1:12:37

it's on the wall. Well, well worth doing. Yeah, we're doing and I'm sure there's an awful lot of diving outside of the bay. I haven't done it. So yeah, can't do that.

Matt Waters: 1:12:46

Well, we were we were looking at a mate of mine, who's a film producer. And we were looking at putting him vited me to be the dive safety officer, as it were, for a kind of, on the fly, fly on the wall kind of look. daco thing, travelling from Adelaide to Cannes and diving along the route. So Flinders was one of the locations, you're going

Graham Willis: 1:13:16

to go straight from Adelaide to Kansas, no diver,

Matt Waters: 1:13:18

it's a long way with no diving. But going that go into cleaning. Right, okay. But a lot of the places that you've mentioned, yes, well, we've been talking all points. So we were looking at targeting as well, I thought

Graham Willis: 1:13:33

you I was really surprised by Yuans pond. So I haven't done freshwater diving. So that was interesting to get in there and the absolute clarity for what it was that humans pond. So mount Gambia, which is near where Kilsby sinkhole is and some of the other sinkholes but the beautiful the beauty of humans is that you can you don't need special certification to go in there you don't need guides or anything like that. There's basically three linked ponds. maximum depth, I think is maybe 14 1511 metres in the first one and then you go through a small channel that's probably only I'm just gonna say two metres deep that links the pond and then into the next one and into the next one. You have to go through their equivalent parks and wild laughs It's not quite cool, that's called something else. But you can just book it yourself pay 35 bucks I think it is and do that and basically drift down from the top to the bottom. absolutely crystal clear. You're not in there for the fish life there is actually some fish life. But that's not what you're there for. You're there for just stunning clarity. Yeah. And then we also took the opportunity to dive Kilsby cinco, which was it was a bit more of a you needed to go with the approved people and all the rest of it and I I get that because if you noodle down into the wrong part and get down to 65 Not Not that we're going in that apart. There's a there's a clear sort of line but I think it's 2628 so It's still a little bit deep but again, you can look up and see the platform and the clouds and, and they do a really good gin. Already they do here. Sinkhole gin it's called. Yeah, so if nothing else, you can buy that

Matt Waters: 1:15:13

which I like a power drink.

Graham Willis: 1:15:15

I just, I'm just saying the water is the spill is the water Sopia that we make gin out of it. But But humans, humans ponds, I thought was spectacular again, it's one of those ones I would go back and do, I wouldn't actually do Kilsby. Again, I've done that. Because it's a big hole, which you kind of go round and round. And you go yes, it's really clear. But you kind of circle around for 4045 minutes, and then you come up and you go, Okay, that's pretty cool. And the third time you go over the kangaroo bones, you go, Okay, I've got them. So there's not much else apart from the experience of doing it. And the clarity of the water, which is fantastic. So very glad I've done it. I wouldn't do that one again, myself. But I would go and do urines again, because it's simple to do. And you go if we had half decent Day, which we didn't, but if you had a half decent day with some hope just spectacular.

Matt Waters: 1:16:12

Yeah, Spec Tech. That's the thing with stuff like that as the sunlight coming through your shots of light that makes it fantastic. Sharp, just

Graham Willis: 1:16:19

brilliant. Just and again, you know, rapid Bay jetty, great spot for the leafy seadragons. But even without them. It would be just spectacular. Because you're right under this jetty is in here. They're called the aquarium for good reason. With the fish on it again. We were very lucky with the conditions but fantastic. Really, really good.

Matt Waters: 1:16:40

Did you find Salafis? Yes. Well done. Yes,

Graham Willis: 1:16:43

we did. Actually H dive that we were there. So I think on the first time we really happy that we found one. And that was at the bluff out of Victor harbour, which was an iffy dive really, but the conditions weren't so good. But the next day, we thought, well, we've ticked the box. Now let's try and see what else we can do. And talk to one of the local operators again, oh, no, no, you need to go here, here and here. And sure enough, you go here and here without information. There they are. Yeah, yeah. And the quite big. Well, they look at Yeah, they're quite, they're quite big. And yet,

Matt Waters: 1:17:19

I'd refer back to Don again, don't sell Don Silcock. And he was saying how difficult they are to find because they blend in so well,

Graham Willis: 1:17:25

that they they do blend in well, but I think it's like anything else. Once you've seen them and you've got your eye and you know what you're looking for? Yeah, it's it becomes a lot easier. But funnily enough, they will camouflage like the wheelies or world camouflage to once you know where they are, though. And where you're going to find them. Chances are you'll find them. Yeah, chances are, you're fine. It's a bit like stone versus no stone fishing. I'll bet they're just just don't put your hands down here. Same thing. There's a dude, I don't know

Matt Waters: 1:17:57

what the rules are diver on this. I will. I've just recently started having a look on tick tock and stuff like that. And you get through all the crap. All the people dancing in front of the screen and stuff. And then there's people that actually mentioned some

Graham Willis: 1:18:09

of your interviews. You're a fan. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:18:11

There's there's the you get through the rubbish. And there's this chap. I can't remember his name now fine if next time around, but he's over pathways Western Australia. But he seems to know everything about every fish and anything that lives in water whatsoever. So he's finding these amazing like spider crabs and rock fish and, and putting them on display for the camera but in the correct fashion. He's not manhandling them. He's doing it as though he's a biologist. And I wouldn't be surprised if he is.

Graham Willis: 1:18:44

No, I'm saying that. Yeah. Tic TOCs. One of the other social media platforms that sort of passed me by Yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:18:52

Believe me. I'm not going to get into it. There's too many people dancing around like silly buggers on it. But I've got to look at everything to what's going on. True. And I'm sure he's got an Instagram. I'll find it. But I'll yeah, when I do. I'll tag it. And I'll let you know. Yes.

Graham Willis: 1:19:10

So there's always more to learn. And there's no awful lot more than me about it.

Matt Waters: 1:19:14

Yeah, yeah. I find it very interesting. I should find his name bro. Can't be bothered. That's it. All right. Well, I think. Yeah, I think I think we'll wrap it up. We've been going nearly an hour and a half. See Time flies when having fun and a bit.

Graham Willis: 1:19:32

Yeah. And and if you edit it down, you get at least 20 minutes out of that.

Matt Waters: 1:19:36

Hey, Tina, push. Just Just very quickly before we disappear, where can people get all of your book?

Graham Willis: 1:19:45

So a number of the dive shops, stalk them, which is great frog divers is one of them but dives into many stocks as well amongst others. So we try and move them through the dive shops rather than just do them. Essentially, but if you can't find them, then AWS diver, which is an online magazine that comes out on a quarterly basis that yo Han is the editor for, and I'm a contributor to, they have a site and you can get the books there.

Matt Waters: 1:20:13

Okay, nice. All right, well, we'll sort out the links and stuff like that. I'm literally weeks away from redoing our website, and it's all brand new Smick, I fives, all that kind of thing. And I'm more than happy to put a link in there for you as well. So anyone who's looking for the books, if you can't find them, and you don't live in Sydney, and you want to order one, then maybe we can put a link in there for you as well. Great. So easy. I make absolute pleasure talking to you. Thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. It's a pleasure. I thought we'd better go get another beer.

Graham Willis: 1:20:41

I think we should. Thanks very much. Happy

Matt Waters: 1:20:42

days. Cheers. Thanks. Bye, everybody. podcast for the inquisitive diver.