Ryan Duchatel - Total Immersion Diving & JJ CCR's - S02 E17

What a great way to round out Season 2 of the show - Expanding on our look at the Technical side of recreational diving, I'm joined by Ryan Duchatel, JJ CCR Trimix Instructor, cave diver and co-owner of Total Immersion Diving based in Newcastle , Australia.

I've found many recreational divers are curious about the tech divers out there and the complex equipment they use.  It seems to be a bit of a dark art and I've regularly heard comments along the lines of "It's for people wanting to dive deep" or "that it is too complex and expensive for me".  The reality is very much to the contrary, technical diving is for anyone who wishes to extend their dives, either in time, depth, range or all of the above. 

Ryan talks about the evolution of Total Immersion Diving and provides us with great detail on how a  closed circuit rebreather works and  the many advantages that they provide, such as being able to get closer to wildlife, warmer diving, longer NDL's at all depths, variable partial pressure 

Ryan's Links:
Websites:
totalimmersiondiving.com.au
rebreathers.com.au

Social:
Total Immersion Diving - Facebook
Ryans Pro page - Facebook
Ryans personal page - Facebook

We gave a shout out to the Behind The Mask team during the show as they are supporting and calling for support from you to ban shark finning in the EU,  please follow the link and sign the petition (EU nationals only) Link to the petition

Transcript

Matt Waters: 0:06

Hey, there dive buddies, and welcome to the show. Now, you may remember a couple of episodes ago, we had the legend Jeffrey Glenn on the show to start discussions about the topic of technical diving. And through Jeff, I was introduced to a dude up in Newcastle whom I had a few beers with a couple of weeks ago. Now, Ryan Duchatel is the owner of Total Immersion up in Newcastle, and he's also a doctor so sometimes known as Dr. Douche. Ryan, welcome to the show, buddy. How you doing?

Ryan Duchatel: 0:39

Great, mate. Thanks for having me.

Matt Waters: 0:42

I had to get the douching straightaway right at the start.

Ryan Duchatel: 0:46

Oh, more than okay.

Matt Waters: 0:49

How's tricks up there? Have you gotten any diving planned at all over the over the festivities?

Ryan Duchatel: 0:56

Yeah, we're hoping to go and do some more local reef and rec exploration. We've got a lot of courses planned. Lots of CCR training happening. The weather patterns are making things a little bit of a pain for us. The linea as they're calling it, I suppose is you know, bringing up the winds and the swell quite regularly. And it's making things sort of hard to get out. Yeah. But you know, we're looking forward to picking the good weather I suppose. Getting get out on the boat. But in between that we've got sort of some really wonderful shore diving and things up here that we can dive all in all weather conditions. So we're quite lucky that we had diving accessible to us all the time. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 1:45

yeah. Much the same. Down here. I'm in Sydney is pretty good for diving all year round. It's only when you're a princess like me that doesn't like the cold that it kind of delays things. But I am going diving tomorrow, though, heading down to Shelly Beach, just have a quick play around with the new dome port and see if I can't mess up some photos. In fact, before we go any further, can you just let everyone who's listening, know about yourself how you going to dive in or that kind of thing.

Ryan Duchatel: 2:14

No worries. I started diving when I was 15. It was just a gift in. I think it was a Christmas time present from my parents learn to Scuba dive. I sort of dived as a traditional holiday diver around the place with my family up until I started at university. When I started at university, I got into the local Scuba diving club there. diving became a lot more accessible. I had other people to share the sort of passion with. And then it really just became a downhill slope. From there. I started working at a couple of local dive shops diving a lot more regularly, you know, sort of building my passion in the sport, I suppose. I got into technical diving, started doing deep open circuit dives. And then I met these guys who were diving rebreathers. And I went well. That's really cool. What is this? And after that, you know, the rest is sort of history. I started diving in a rebreather. Out the sort of local shops in our area didn't cater a lot for technical diving or rebreather divers. And we just sort of started doing it ourselves. And by starting to do it ourselves, we formed total immersion diving with my business partner, Lindsay Scott. And then we sort of just started to support other technical divers and rebreather divers. And then it just took off from there, you know?

Matt Waters: 3:51

And that I've got to ask that you kind of touched on it the attraction to the CCRS. But initially, what was the attraction to technical diving?

Ryan Duchatel: 4:06

I think the my initial attraction to technical diving was a natural evolution in diving for me, I'd spent a lot of time sort of diving our local dive sites and things. And in some words, you could say I've sort of dived it out, okay. And then had the opportunity to go and do some open circuit technical courses more as a way of sort of keeping my enjoyment in the sport and finding something new and exciting and fresh. But at the same time, opened up a whole sort of new world of diving for me at the same time. You know, I became really keen on Rex you know, sort of those wrexham's 40 to 50 metres that as a you know, a standard recreational diver you don't see much of, you know, you sort of standard seven minute and DL di have on a record 40 Odd metres, you know, doesn't doesn't really allow you to see too much.

Matt Waters: 5:06

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of work for a little bit above, right.

Ryan Duchatel: 5:09

And at the same time, I got really into cave diving. And that's another big passion of mine. So technical diving really changed, you know, changed my, my life, you know, changed the type of diving that I enjoy the diving and I'm focused in and is now sort of all encompassing.

Matt Waters: 5:26

Yeah, yeah. And is it? You know, you've got, you've obviously got a technical mind because you're a medical doctor as well.

Ryan Duchatel: 5:34

I'm a medical doctor who can't prescribe you any drugs. I'm a Ph trained. I'm a PhD trained scientist. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 5:45

yeah. But what I'm what I'm angling at, though, is not the drugs. But the, the technical mindset that

Ryan Duchatel: 5:51

Yeah, that's right. Obviously, like a lot of the, you know, the work that I do day to day is problem solving based, is very methodical. It's very planned. It's very organised. I do like bringing that side of my life over into technical diving. I did listen to your podcast that you had with Jeff, and, you know, he touched on it really well, that, you know, part of technical diving is, you know, really developing a much better understanding and appreciation for, for the diving that you're doing. That encompasses its physiology, and its effects on your body, you know, and how, you know, the things that you're doing, you know, really have large, resounding physiological effects. Yeah. And it's definitely a part of diving that is very appealing to me.

Matt Waters: 6:40

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we're talking about with Jeff and obviously we yourself are the processes and procedures that get put into place for technical diving. Just take that recreational diving to the next level. You know, there's no room for that kind of blase quick get you get on and do half a half a half hearted check and jump in.

Ryan Duchatel: 7:04

And it's even, it's even more pronounced with rebreather diving.

Matt Waters: 7:07

Mm hmm. Now, you mentioned rebreathers. Let's, let's get into the weeds of rebreathers. Because I know there's gonna be listeners out there that are probably kind of interested in. Again, it's technical dive in and you know, being on a rebreather, and no bubbles, all that kind of thing. But for the person that doesn't know about rebreathers. To hear that you breathe in the gas that you breathe out, is just barking mad. And for those that know, even less, probably say Where the hell's is at, you know, where's it coming from? So if you wouldn't mind, can you break down? How a rebreather works? Yeah, sure.

Ryan Duchatel: 7:42

At its simplest the rebreather is is quite basic piece of technology. Like you said, you breathe in gas. And instead of on open circuit, where you blow it back out in forms of bubbles, you blow it back around into the system itself, which is where you get the closed circuit part from so in this system, there's no bubbles released.

Matt Waters: 8:06

So meaning nothing's escaping from the system.

Ryan Duchatel: 8:10

That's right. That's right. So when you breathe in, and your body metabolises the oxygen that you normally breathe, you metate you metab the oxygen metabolism converts this into carbon dioxide, which is naturally respired or just goes out into the air See you later. The trees love it on a rubbery the system, that that co2 still has to be removed. So it goes through down into your on a Batman ray that goes into a thing called a carbon dioxide scrubber. And the carbon dioxide scrubber is basically a nice big canister full of soda lime, essentially. And it varies from rebreather to rebreather, which removes the carbon dioxide out of the breathing gas in a very similar way, which would happen on someone on a medical ventilator. Then there's a series of oxygen sensors in the rebreather, which determine the partial pressure of oxygen, which is currently in the rebreather, and a series have a set of electronics, which then adds oxygen and changes the mix for you a ladder for you to breathe it back in again. So I re the system generally has a bottle of 100% oxygen and a bottle of what's called Delia went and this can be air or it can be tri mix or anything that's sort of related to bottom breathing gas, okay? And that's what gives you a mix at a certain partial pressure which allows you to breathe back in. So we know that if you had a bottle of oxygen that you can only take that to a maximum depth of six metres, which is not particularly useful. You know, lots of good diving is deeper than six metres. So to offset that, there's a bottle that's called diluent, which dilutes the oxygen to electronically controlled, what's called a setpoint controlled partial pressure that allows you to just recycle. And then you can just continue this system on an on and off again, by breathing it in in, expiring it out. That expired co2 is going back through carbon dioxide scrubber. Oxygen is being added on top to get you back to a setpoint, if you will, or desired partial pressure of oxygen and you're re breathing it again. Okay.

Matt Waters: 10:39

I might be right, you can correct me you're a doctor. But when you exhale, the air that you're exhaling isn't just the carbon dioxide. It's the Otoe as well. And there's only that's was it five or 6% of the Okay, we breathe, we breathe out again to me.

Ryan Duchatel: 10:54

That's right. So you in so the normal oxygen concentration of air is 20.8%. And we expire approximately 16%. So there is some oxygen that is lost in your in your body's metabolism. But when you think about how much of that oxygen is then wasted on open circuit diving, yeah, for example, that 16% Oxygen is still very usable. Yeah. On open circuit diving, you're expiring that out into the air, where in terms of your RE breather, you continuing to use that and only topping it up slightly when required. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 11:32

Yeah. All very technical. But that's a good explanation of the of a circuit for for someone who's not heard of it before. Thanks for that. So you mentioned that it's effectively a computer that's on your back, isn't it? It's this calculating everything for you. That's right. Okay. So again, I'm playing devil's advocate. And for the person that doesn't know anything about rebreathers. That might sound quite scary to someone that they're relying on a computer to do the job for you.

Ryan Duchatel: 12:02

You are sort of relying on a computer to do a job for you. It's definitely not a system that doesn't take any user input. array you. The series of oxygen sensors in your ray Breda tell you what the partial pressure of oxygen is in your rebreather, and your computer makes simple adjustments based on that partial pressure. If your partial pressure is lower than what you want it to be set up, your computer will add a little bit of oxygen for you. If your if your partial pressure is a little bit higher, it will not go on sorry. But it allows most comp most modern rebreathers allow manual input for this. So for example, they have things called manual addition valves, where you can manually add oxygen into the rebreather yourself when required. They have manual addition of dealing with Valve so you can what's called daily when to flush or a breather, which is if your ox if your partial pressure of your breather is high for whatever reason, that may be a rebreather failure, or you descended too quickly. There's a host of reasons that lead to why you may have high oxygen on your unit. But you can still flush or purge the oxygen out of your unit using manual addition of diluent.

Matt Waters: 13:29

Yeah. And is the what's what's the major possible faults. Let's put it that way. What what kind of things would people learn to be aware of? And how do you know the emergency scenarios of if X Files What do you do?

Ryan Duchatel: 13:48

Sure. The three main issues that are surrounded with closed circuit diving hypoxia, right? So high oxygen on a rebreather. This is solved by doing a diluent flush, more complicated ways of troubleshooting your rebreather. You could also have low oxygen, there's a numerous scenarios where you might have low oxygen and the third is hypercapnia, which is high carbon dioxide. Right? So for example, if our co2 scrubber is not functioning effectively, there are numerous ways to deal with all of these but the overarching, the overarching sort of factor, I suppose is carrying what's called bailout gas. So your RE Braida works wonderfully in terms of keeping you alive, it does an exceptional job. Generally, issues surrounding rebreather divers come from user error or improper following improper procedures. However, on every diver The divers also carry open circuit bailout gas. So in the event that array breather Valley is not manageable, they can breathe normal open circuit gas to the surface.

Matt Waters: 15:12

Okay? So it's pretty almost failsafe, right? Isn't it?

Ryan Duchatel: 15:18

100% Yeah.

Matt Waters: 15:21

Well, I've only I've only ever played with a CCI and you specialise in the JJC CRD

Ryan Duchatel: 15:27

Yeah, so at total immersion diving, I specifically special special specialise in teaching the JJ CCR which is a back mounted electronically controlled rebreather. And we also do some teaching for the dive soft side mount and back mount Liberty CCR.

Matt Waters: 15:44

Okay. And why did you why did you choose the JJ?

Ryan Duchatel: 15:49

Why did I choose the Georgia? It's good question. And it's a question that people asked me quite regularly. The JJ CCR is a very simple rebreather, it is electronically controlled. But it's not overly complicated. It's quite sturdy. It's often called the four by four of the rebreather. You know, mostly because it's got a thick Aluminium can on the back. There are limited plastic pots. I've dropped my rebreather off the back of Utes and trucks and hold it through caves and banged it around and scraped it through things and dinged it on racks. And, you know, I've never really had major issues with my rebreather before. The other thing to think about in terms of what rebreather is sort of best for you and is this a rebreather I want is the general popularity of the rebury that goes a long way to determining and the general popularity and how common is in your specific area goes a long way to determining you know what rebreather you go on to? Most people choose their rebreather that they want before they seek out an instructor. Yeah, you know, often that's driven by diet like not friends, other people that they know who are diving similar units, people that they can seek feedback off. But the big problem is that if you ask any rebreather diver, what's the best way to breathe? The best rebreather is a robbery that they on? Oh, yeah. Right. So But thinking about where can I get training? Where can I get support? How many other people dive my ray Breda? Is my rate does my rate breathe his brand is my rebrand his brand reputable Potts accessible, support accessible. If I have a problem with my rebreather, where can I take it? All really crucial important points in you know, is this rebreather right for me, I suppose.

Matt Waters: 17:55

Yeah. And to be fair, they're not exactly cheaper. They say if you're going to invest, you've got to do a good amount of research to make sure you cover all those points,

Ryan Duchatel: 18:03

right. You know, every breath is are a reasonable investment. Don't get me wrong, and they have a quite a large upfront cost. Yeah. That's right. But it really depends on what type of diving you're going to do with your rebreather. For example, I can give you some calculations where if you do 50 dives that 60 metres on an appropriate percentage tronics mix. You own your rebreather? Really? Well, you could have paid for a rebreather outright. You know, for example, you know, an ad an 18%. Oxygen 45% helium twinset. Fill Yeah, which is a common fill use for dives to 60 metres retails between 203 $100. That's not inclusive of decompression gases, which an open circuit diver uses on every dive where array the diver carries with them, but doesn't necessarily use unless there's a robbery the problem and they have to use open circuit bailout to the surface. But when you factor those things in, you know, doing deep open circuit tronics diving doesn't make a lot of sense compared to CCR diving.

Matt Waters: 19:20

Yeah, yeah, that does make sense. And I mean, we're talking about 60 metres there. These are these things limitless on the depth that you can go.

Ryan Duchatel: 19:29

They are out of the box without any modifications. Most Bre breathers are quite capable of doing dives more than 100 metres the JJ CCR certainly is the dive soft Liberty certainly are as well. numerous others without any other sort of addition except for changing the Daily went gas that you use. The daily when gasoline or a breather gives you its maximum operating depth. Okay, you know, you can adjust this in the field before you dive and that will dictate how deep you can go.

Matt Waters: 20:06

Yeah, yeah. And changing the you mentioned the the scrubber, the iron Christians all that kind of thing. How often does that need to be changed? Is it done by time or is it done by the amount of dives,

Ryan Duchatel: 20:21

it's done by time. So most scrubber duration, so most scrubbers give a four to six hour duration dive time. But this is affected by numerous factors. It's a it's affected by the type of scrubber that's available. There are two different types of scrubbers one's called an axial scrubber where the flow is bottom to top and another one where the flow is inside to out or outside in, I must say. So I turn the outside to in radial scrubbers are more efficient than the bottom to top axial scrubbers and units that use radial scrubber allow slightly longer time. It's also affected by moisture, and temperature. Okay, so diving in quite cold water. Their reaction inside the scrubber produces heat. That's an exothermic reaction when it removes the carbon dioxide. And it takes more energy more effort at cold or in colder water than it does in warmer water. So if you're diving in colder water, you know the scrub the time is slightly less than if you were diving in warmer water. And then it also is most overly affected by breathing rate. So if you're breathing very heavily and you're producing more carbon dioxide, you'll scrub will last for a shorter period of time than it would if you were at rest. Yeah. Yeah. So usually scrubber protocols are very conservative, because a lot of these things are very difficult to measure. You know, you can't accurately measure expired co2. You can't you can't accurately you can accurately measure temperature. But you can't accurately measure how what scrubber time is remaining on your rebreather scrubber. So it's very important that rebreather divers follow stringent scrubber time limits.

Matt Waters: 22:25

And that those limits have got built in safety factors or you

Ryan Duchatel: 22:31

know, so they're the the scrubber durations often are factory set. Okay. And they vary from rebreather to rebreather, based on their approved testing, and you shouldn't overuse or go above the manufacturer's reference recommendation for the rebreather.

Matt Waters: 22:54

Up to date, well, we'll come back around to the rebreathers. We do need to mention and I'm dying to mention it is your teaching under rate. Yeah, that's right. And well, hopefully I mean, Paul, I've been trying Paul Toomer, we've been trying to get it lined up so we can jump back on the podcast again. But he's obviously a bit busy at the moment. But raid abolishing annual subscriptions for dive professionals and dive centres. Yeah, both water move.

Ryan Duchatel: 23:26

It's huge. It's industry changing. Yeah. You know, huge kudos to Paul and the team for for going down this path. You know, they're the first like that we're the first agency to have removed fees. And it's fantastic. Hopefully, that leads to a much bigger influx of instructors and facilities that are often sort of priced out from memberships coming over to raid.

Matt Waters: 23:59

I was thinking about it on the way in here on the on the long walk from home, all over, okay. But it's done so much for those dive professionals. Because when you think about the industry as a whole, it's not a money making industry, by far definitely is not if you're a DI professional, you're in it because you love it not because of the money. And nine times out of 10 It's the DI professionals that are struggling to get by and in no 711 pot noodles because they don't get paid enough money. And I'm gonna dive operators are also, you know, against the wall because they're having to try and reduce prices to be competitive to get the customers and it's a never ending cycle. So once a year I've been there, you know, especially if you're a multi agency instructor and you're having to pay two or three agencies of annual subscriptions. It hurts, it hurts. So to give that freedom back to the dive professionals and given the current circumstance where so many people have had to leave the industry and go back to effectively reality and 95 jobs, it makes it very difficult for those people to return to the dive life that they had in the past because they're now more settled in, in reality. So there's going to be a lack of dive professionals in the industry as a whole. So just that one move of removing those fees for the operator gives them a little bit of breathing space for the dive professional, those youngsters that are coming through and trying to learn and wanted to, you know, enter into the industry. What a way to do it. We're not going to take your money off yet, but we're going to teach you

Ryan Duchatel: 25:33

let's get you 100%. I couldn't agree more,

Matt Waters: 25:36

I think is the best move I've ever seen in the dive industry in the time I've been in it. It's fantastic.

Ryan Duchatel: 25:41

The support we've had from raid from the beginning, especially at an hour shop, total immersion diving as especially from Paul Toomer and Steve Bates, other people associated with dive right around the country has been has been really huge. Yeah. We started off as I suppose, finger quotes, the small guys, you know, we already are interested in in an area that is considerably niche. Yeah. In terms of the diving industry, technical diving is a very small part. And CCR diving is a small part of technical diving. And having the having the support from raid, to help us get going. And then now the support without having to pay membership fees. Is is is is very impressive and very appreciated.

Matt Waters: 26:40

Yeah, that's phenomenal. Hopefully, we'll get we'll get Paul back on in the new year. And we can talk all the way through because I know he's out there keep his lips tightly sealed on the thing until it was launched last week. Was it last week? They launched that, or the week before? The week before? Yeah, two weeks. Happy days. And so total immersion. How long? How long has it been operating now? What's the what's the Wi Fi last six

Ryan Duchatel: 27:05

or seven years? Not? Yeah, but officially for six or seven years. So prior to that, we were sort of we still provided sort of support for, you know, the technical divers in our area, just non officially. And then as our network grew and our community of divers starting to grow, the shop really stemmed and formed from the community need.

Matt Waters: 27:38

What's and what's the way forward? Well, you're gonna go with it, you're gonna stay relatively local and smoky, are you going to explode?

Ryan Duchatel: 27:49

Who knows, you know, total immersion diving is, is set up to be one of the most technical friendly and rebury the friendly places in New South Wales. We've been the most active rebury the Training Centre in New South Wales for over two years. And quite an active technical training facility as well. Yeah. We do have some exciting news on the horizon that I can't share with you just because he's like that. I still, yes, like, yeah, he stays stay tuned, then there are some there are some exciting things that we've got planned, I suppose. Something like something they consider has been, you know, during COVID. People haven't been able to travel internationally for re breather training and sort of technical diver training as much as they had been able to in the past. And I think in the last two years, it has really helped move our business forwards. People are now sort of more appreciative and understanding that there are high level places that you can come and get training domestically. And I think we've we've really seen that we've had great support over the last two years. During COVID, for example, you know, in the year to date, I've taught more than 20 JJ CC new JJ, CCR divers, really, previous year to date was the same. But that was less pre COVID. And I think, yeah, you know, now that there is more momentum for Ray breather and technical training domestically. really keeps us going forwards.

Matt Waters: 29:42

Yeah, yeah. One thing I did want to before I forget, I want to give you a Virtual High Five slap on the back, whatever you want to call it. Maybe a hangover again next time I see. But you, you haven't reduced your prices to the customer for your courses. and this was something, was it? Yeah, it was the last episode Graham Williams, Graham Willis, we were talking about how, you know, competitive pricing. And all that kind of thing makes it a bit of an issue where people have to have, excuse me, more and more customers in a course. And I remember you mentioning, and I mentioned it in the last episode that you don't reduce the prices, and you focus more on the quantity or the quality of the training that you provide.

Ryan Duchatel: 30:28

If anything, Matt, like, I think our prices have actually increased over the last two years. And it comes down to a real commitment to give people a good service. You know, for example, we teach all courses from open water, through to, you know, recreational specialties through to technical diving through the CCI diving. For example, our open water course has a maximum of four people. They're all taught in backplate, and wings with long hoses. I suppose in a dir, or technical style configuration from the beginning. And the course goes over three days, they spend an entire day in the pool. They have four ocean dives that a generally an hour long. Ah, yeah, that's substantially more than the sort of industry standard or minimum, most people seem to use standards as in minimum work, like I'm the minimum that I need to achieve to do it. Yeah. Not that this is the lowest you can teach somebody to Yeah, you know, if you know what I mean, you know, we're constantly trying to, you know, show people that you sort of you get what you pay for in the dive industry. You know, we don't prescribe to the 10 people on the bottom nailing in a semi circle, doing some skills in the first five minutes of their dive, and then going for a short 20 minute tour and hopping out and calling it a Scuba dive. Yeah, you know, I think something that we really strive towards is having people who are regular divers after, you know, we're a sort of a local community focused dive shop, rather than a tourist dive location. You know, we don't really cater to the, you know, to the tourist type divers who are coming here for a weekend experience and then leaving. Yeah, our focus is really on building divers that stay divers, you know, and I suppose a good example of that is, you know, numerous people who I've taught from open water diving, taught all the way through to open circuit technical diving. And now JJ, CCR divers, and they're all homegrown, you know, locally produced raid divers. Yeah. Who are, you know, hopefully coming through with our sort of diving mentality and, you know, understand and appreciate about being good divers, rather than just I can go down the road and get it for$300 or 250, or wherever. Yeah, yeah. And I think an overarching thing is that divers don't know what they don't know. You know, when you come into Scuba diving at the beginning, as an Open Water diver, you know, you're you're just doing a standard product comparison, like you would on the internet. You know, you're getting an open water certification from me, you're getting an open water certification from somebody down the road. But mine is three times the price. And people just go down the road. Yeah. You know.

Matt Waters: 33:33

Yeah, just because they don't know. And that's right. Yeah. That is where it is, unfortunately. But hopefully, air in it like this and put it out there on social media and people get to understand why that price and that value is there. Yeah, that's

Ryan Duchatel: 33:47

right. So you know, for example, in you know, all of our recreational courses, they're all a maximum one to four, though the allowable standard is one to 10. Yeah. Our technical diving courses are maximum one to three, and our rebury the diving courses are maximum one to two.

Matt Waters: 34:06

Yeah, yeah, Baba. That's exactly what you want. You don't want to be part of the factory turn over there.

Ryan Duchatel: 34:13

Oh, look, I I suppose it is part of the benefit of diving not being my sole focus. And like you said, we don't necessarily have to try and just make money you know, we we do we do this because we love doing it. You know, if we didn't love doing it, we wouldn't do it. I really enjoy technical diving. I enjoy I enjoy all types of diving but, you know, a big driver to teaching technical diving for me is to building buddies. Yeah, yeah, it's often you know, when I was technical diving as a beginner, it was hard to find people to fill dive boats. And you know, you had to wait around and you had to go took a couple of months in advance and try and scavenge enough people around to, to go and do those dives. But now that we've built the community here ourselves, yeah, we can fill dive boats of technical divers every day of the week. You know, and that means I get to go and dive more. Yeah, I get to go and do more cool wrecks. I get to go on, dives, and I don't have to try and find a buddy. It's wonderful.

Matt Waters: 35:21

Yeah, Jeff said exactly the same. He's teaching people just so he's got more buddies.

Ryan Duchatel: 35:28

I suppose. You know, you don't get to the stage that Jeff has, without being truly passionate about the sport. Yeah. You know, if you're, if you're not the technical dives are challenging dives. You know, they're, they take a lot of preparation. They can be physically challenging, they can be mentally challenging. And if you're not passionate about it, those those factors would quickly take over.

Unknown: 35:54

Good listeners Rob, the producer here, hope you're enjoying the show. Just like to give a quick shout out to Toby and the behind the mask team who are flying the flag and supporter petitioning the EU to ban shark finning throughout Europe. We hope you can find two minutes to sign the petition and replicate the success scene in Great Britain earlier this year. Click on the link in the show notes or go to the behind the mask social media links to sign the petition. Thanks in advance. And thanks for supporting Scuba goat this year. Have a great Christmas and we'll see you in 2022.

Matt Waters: 36:28

I saw you I saw a photo go upon. Oh it must have been this week or last week one of the two but there was Joe and Mahindra and Mahindra Mahindra and Mahindra Yeah. Sorry. Pop up there. Elon novelty the same were in we're in a Scuba gear and you know, not shirtless doing press ups in his seats. Yeah,

Ryan Duchatel: 36:50

yeah. Yeah. Very much. So. Now they came up for a bit and they're doing JJ decompression course.

Matt Waters: 36:58

Okay. And that was it. Nelson Bay flight point or something like that, was it?

Ryan Duchatel: 37:02

Yeah. So the course starts off with just shallow skills things, you know, working on divers handling multiple stage cylinders. And then sort of getting their skills refined for the for the deeper ocean dives.

Matt Waters: 37:16

Cheers. It's amazing. I love recording on a Friday. We're making a Mrs are actually popping up to where we're going. Our cell rocks in January. We're spending the weekend upon some apartment or cottage that she's rented. And I'm going to do Nelson as well. That's the first time I've never done flight point yet. And I've been told

Ryan Duchatel: 37:46

when you're down and yeah, I'll show you around.

Matt Waters: 37:49

Oh, it'd be awesome. Yeah. Well, we're there for the weekend. And I think the idea is to dive seal rock on the Saturday. And then on the Sunday do Nelson Bay flight point, that kind of area and then it leaves which leaves us free for driving back on the on the Monday. Perfectly. Yeah, I'll give you that me. That'd be awesome.

Ryan Duchatel: 38:08

Yeah, I think one of the I think one of the things that is a bit off putting for CCR divers initially, is the concept just that CCR diving is only for deep divers. Yeah. And it is definitely undeniable that CCRS provide a huge advantage in the deep related to their economical gas consumption. But I think people really forget and discard the other benefits that Astacio has in recreation to recreational divers and in recreational depths. And like a lot of those include primarily the fact that there are no bubbles. Yeah. So you know, you're a brewery that produces no bubbles, open circuit divers produce a heap. And they're so noisy. Yeah. When you're driving around on a CCI in a group of other CCI divers, you get a really great appreciation of how quiet everything is, you know, you can hear the sounds of the ocean, not just the sounds of this whistle in regulator over the next year. But the other thing that then leads to is really cool interactions with wildlife, especially for you know, recreational photographers in the 10 to 20 metre range. For example, you know, if you've ever gone diving with a graner shark, or you know, sharks have many other species. If you swim up to them and blow a stream of bubbles, they turn their head on you and swim to the side. Yeah. These type of things don't happen on CCRS you know, when you're controlling your loot volume appropriately. You know, I've had numerous experiences with different types of shocks, where you're so close that you could play Like a hook out of their teeth, or, you know, touch them on the side. And obviously we don't touch wildlife. But you're so close that you can, you know, for photos of, you know, Shark eyes in close up, you know, and things like that are just not possible on open circuit Scuba.

Matt Waters: 40:20

What about a good example? Is that video you posted with the dollar?

Ryan Duchatel: 40:26

Yeah, so we had a I had a fantastic experience a couple of months ago. A couple of months ago, a wild dolphin appeared at a local dive site called Swansea bridge. Swansea Bridge is a very title, dive site. And cn, it's at the entry to a channel to like Macquarie. Lots of water moves through there. And because of that, lots of nutrients. And it's like a Ben It's an aquarium. Yeah. You know, lots of big fish, big schooling fish. It's a wonderful dapat. And a couple of months, eight months ago, divers were sort of reporting that they were seeing a dolphin swimming around. And that every now and again, they'd get a little bit of a glimpse of it, where the dolphin would swim into view, sort of come close to you and swim away. Yeah. I had an experience and I was actually teaching a ride JJ programme. Some guys were down from Gladstone for their from in Queensland for their life for the last dives. And we did a diver 20 bridge. And we met the dolphin at about 18 metres. And it just stayed. So because we weren't blowing the bubbles and blowing it away, it was really interested in us as other sort of animals, I suppose you could call it under the water with it. And it was coming up looking at us in the eye, it would gently bump me and prod me to the side, you know, to see what sort of reaction it could get. And it would go up to the surface disappear for 10 seconds and then come straight back down. Yeah, it was really interested in the sounds that my bailout cylinder was making, touching the rocks, calm and things like that next to me, and I took my bailout cylinder off, and I clipped it onto a lion out in front. And there's a really cool part of the video where the dolphin is pushing the bilat cylinder up the lawn, you know, generally just playing with it and interacting with it. Yeah, and the dolphin stayed with us for nearly an hour. So you know, I've got 45 minutes of raw footage of the dolphin consistently, just swimming around playing going up to the surface coming down. And the cool thing that I think that led to is the fact that the dolphin now is much more approached, like is much more willing to approach divers under the water. And the dolphin has actually stayed around the dive site for the last few months, okay, perhaps is now calling at home. But the divers frequently see it. And it started with the CCR divers seeing it more and more frequently and having longer duration of interactions. And that has now moved on to open circuit divers. So it will now come up and sort of you know, maybe spend a minute with an open circuit diver. But we can still go diving with it, and scooter around with it and things like that for half an hour on end. Really it's phenomenal experience but all driven by the different type of apparatus compared to open circuit diving.

Matt Waters: 43:38

Yeah, yeah,

Ryan Duchatel: 43:39

it's phenomenal.

Matt Waters: 43:40

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, all the years I've been diving open circuit, you are limited on how close you can get to a particular species. They're very twitchy. Oh, absolutely. Even diving in, in Papua New Guinea where, you know, shitloads of sharks around you, but they don't come super close. And it's it is it's just down to that noise. I think.

Ryan Duchatel: 44:05

On rebreathers they come uncomfortably you know, like, you can give me a little bit of distance. But even things like just swimming into balls of fish. Yeah. You know, as you tend to swim into a ball of fish, the fish sort of open and you sort of swim into the middle of them and they close behind you. Yeah, you know, where on open circuit diving you saw just blow them away. Yeah, you know. Yeah. And they sort of disperse

Matt Waters: 44:36

big schools of Barracuda come to mind when you say that the amount of time Yeah, you know, all that type of

Ryan Duchatel: 44:41

thing is just is so awesome. Right. Yeah. You know, and I think that there there are numerous other advantages that array there provides a diver and recreational environment. You know, for example, because that scrubber is producing warm gas you're OLMA really, absolutely. The gas on array that is both warm and moist. Because one of the byproducts of scrubbing the carbon dioxide out of the scrubber is some water vapour. Okay. So you know when you breathe on your regulator that comes from a beautifully triple filtered compressor. You have two breaths on it and your mouth is disgustingly dry. Yeah, you don't get that horrible dry mouth feeling diving are a breather, and at the same time are much warmer. You know, for example, because what you know regularly chop and change between rebreather and open circuit diving for you know for instructing all my fun diving and personal diving is always on a rebreather. But if I wear my dry suit in the same, the same undergarment layers in the same temperature water, I'm noticeably colder diving my twinset than I am diving my open like diving my re Breda. And I tend to layer up a little bit more diving my twinset than I do diving my rebreather interesting, I think would be something that is definitely under appreciated.

Matt Waters: 46:07

Yeah, I'd never I'd never even considered that.

Ryan Duchatel: 46:12

Like, I would suggest that it is probably in the fact of maybe one to two degrees in water temperature. In terms of how it feels to me.

Matt Waters: 46:20

That's big. You know? Yeah, it's huge. Yeah.

Ryan Duchatel: 46:24

And that especially, I suppose, you know, because now you're diving a rebreather, you can be under the water for significantly longer period of time, then you can on normal open circuit diving, obviously depth dependent. That that increased hate makes a huge difference to how long you're comfortable diving for on a rebreather, compared to doing long open circuit diving.

Matt Waters: 46:50

Definitely. Yeah. I can only imagine. I mean, I say I'm going to do Shelly Beach tomorrow. And it's at the moment I think the water temperatures somewhere between 21 and 23. And even a missus is on a seven mil. I know. 4550 minutes, and she's going to be freezing. That's right. That's right. Maybe I'll have to send you up there and get some CCI training.

Ryan Duchatel: 47:12

Oh, man, you're more than more than happy to come up and teach you some JJ stuff. Yeah, you know, when it whenever you want to. And I suppose probably you know, one of the last things that people forget about CC Rs in the shallows is they're constantly blending you the best mix nitrox. So instead of you having a set percent of oxygen in your 32% in your back or your 36 or your 40 or whatever your dive, your partial pressure is then changing as you get deeper and changing as you ascend. Right? Yeah. And that leads to a small increase in no decompression limit time. Yeah. Wherever on a rebreather, we set a set partial pressure of oxygen. And your ray breather changes the concentration of oxygen or percentage oxygen in your rebreather, at any particular depth to give you the perfect nitrox blend at any depth viewer app for the entire duration of your dive. Gotcha. Right. So because of that the no decompression time on a rebreather, in 15 to 30 metres is exceptional. Yeah, you can do really, really long reburied the dives in that 20 to 30 metre range before you come close to your no decompression limit. Yeah, yeah. And we spend a lot of time as technical divers talking about, you know, decompression time and things like that. But a big advantage is not going into decompression in the first place. Yeah, for sure. You know, you know, decompression is inherently dangerous. It gives you a, you know, a virtual, you know, ceiling that you can't ascend past, which has issues and considerations for emergency practices and things like that. Yeah. You know, the ability to be on a rebreather and do wonderfully long dives, but without exceeding your MDL time. Is, is really cool. You know, for example, one of my favourite wrecks in the world is the lemon 12 wreck in New Zealand, which is sank off the top of the South Island. It's in a little bay called port gore. And it was a cruise liner that tried to take a little shortcut. Cut a big hole in the hole came into the bay and sunk on its side in quite shallow water. So the maximum depth of the Lermontov is about 36 metres. The top of the deck is in about 15 made is an honour Ray breather, you can spend such a long time exploring this wreck without the huge decompression penalty. Yeah, you know that you might get on open circuit that you would definitely get on open circuit. And you would obviously get if you if the wreck was deeper. But you know, especially when you're talking about going and doing wreck penetrations in these moderately deep wrecks, or moderately deep caves, you've already got the complication of having an overhead environment, layering on top of an overhead environment significant decompression penalty. Yeah, you know, is a jewel combination that is, you know, quite complicated and can be quite stressful for people. Yeah, yeah. But on a ray Breda, you know, we were doing some dives between 90 minutes and two hours, the water temperature is quite cold there, it's 12 degrees. So you definitely appreciate your nice moist breath, moist breathe, or warm breathing gas. And then on a lot of those dives, we were only having sort of 10 to 15 minutes decompression, really, you know, after a 90 minute, two hour dive, and it depends on how long you stay towards the bottom part for Yeah. But over the course of a multi level dive, really being able to take advantage of you know, the best Miss gas best mix gas at every depth is yes, hugely advantageous.

Matt Waters: 51:32

Yeah, I knew I knew I was in recreation. Yeah, I knew there was benefits, but hearing it that way, that just makes it that much more clear. without having to worry about your end deals. That's right. And, you know, for me, being a photographer, makes a huge. It's a massive benefit. I can't I can't I can't even count how many times I've been having to snap a photo and check my computer and snap a photo and check my computer because I'm just running out of time. Yep, that's right.

Ryan Duchatel: 52:08

Buddy. rebreathers have, you know, a lot of Yeah, a really a lot of, you know, unforeseen benefits or unappreciated, unappreciated benefits, you know, when they just get lumped in as I'm a really deep diver, or I only do long technical decompression dives. So I'm the only type of person who needs a rebreather. You know, we've seen a huge uptake of Ray breathers, especially in people who are not interested in diving deep in quotation marks. Yeah. You know, who, who are really only keen on diving in recreational depth limits, but just for longer period of time. And, you know, utilising their benefits in terms of their photography. Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, all those those things that go along with that.

Matt Waters: 53:00

Yeah, I was talking to a guy. I, everything seems two weeks ago at the moment, but yeah, two weeks ago, Remy and I forget his name on crappy surnames. But Remi is an exceptionally good cameraman, you know, his photos are fantastic. And he always dives on the rebreather. And you can you can just see in the photos because of that vicinity, you know that how close is getting to the subject, he's taken the shot of other other advantages.

Ryan Duchatel: 53:32

Are there other advantages? That probably covers the majority of them?

Matt Waters: 53:39

Look at look at Nick. looking awesome.

Ryan Duchatel: 53:42

looking awesome. He's definitely that's the only reason we dive right. You know, had numerous comments of getting out of dogs, like, you know, Shore dives walking out, like coming out of the water on a rebreather. The first thing, you know, people see is is the loop. Yeah. Right. You know, you don't see a regulator, but you see a loop. Yeah. And it looks very military space age specialist,

Matt Waters: 54:05

double 11. Yeah,

Ryan Duchatel: 54:07

that's the comment, right? You know, like, are you guys military? Or, you know, you look really cool. What's going on? What is this and, you know, quite often just by, you know, having like doing the rebreather prep, setting the rebreather up on the side, you know, where it'd be at a dive site or something like that, you know, people walking past are always really engaged with it. And you don't often get those same questions when you're just putting a normal Scuba tank together, but people are interested in rebreathers because, you know, they don't see them as regularly and, you know, they're always very surprised about, you know, the duration and the time and, and things like that, that you get, you know, compared to normal open circuit diving. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 54:48

yeah. What it is that it's not a shadow. It's just the unknowing, isn't it? I mean, if you if you don't talk to someone like yourself, and Jeff touched on it really well, and it's been We'll start in technical diving just through talking over a beer or talking at the end of a dive. That's inquiry. Yeah. So getting all this information from you now, it might enlighten a few more people to the mysteries of the dude walking out the water looking like James Bond.

Ryan Duchatel: 55:20

That's right. So why don't we talk about how people get into CCR diving, do it, do it. There are a few obviously you need to do a CCR course and CCR are targeted for people who are generally already experienced open circuit divers. Yeah. For the main consideration that if you have to bail out off your rebreather, you need a strong open circuit foundation to bring it to the surface. Right. But something that I think is forgotten on, especially experienced technical divers making a transition and it's less lost on sort of, you know, younger fresher divers making an experience to, to CCR diving is that open circuit skills don't equate to CCR diving skills. So the fundamental buoyancy control and the way that you operate a CCI is dramatically different to that of open circuit gas, right? Because the gas volume is all encapsulated and is one your lungs are one with the loop, if you will, when you breathe in and out. Your buoyancy doesn't change. Right? If you're negatively buoyant, and you breathe in, you're still negatively buoyant. Yeah. If you're positively buoyant and you breathe out, you're still positively buoyant.

Matt Waters: 56:52

But, but if you lose bubbles when clear in your mask, which I found that when I first started go,

Ryan Duchatel: 57:03

that's right. So you learn the process of what's called controlling the loop volume, and making adjustments to how much gas is in the loop to control your buoyancy. Yeah, but it's a steep learning curve. And often divers who are more experienced open circuit divers and a much more ingrained in using their breath control for buoyancy. Find the CCR diving transition more difficult, really raw. Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you've got a diver who's done 1000s of open circuit dives, and they're so refined in their breath, the buoyancy via breath control. CCI diving can be challenging. It's not always the case. But it can be more challenging. Yeah. And I think what it really highlights to me is the need for people to progress through their CCI diving more slowly. So when CC Rs were originally invented, that were invented as a tool for deep divers, therefore, it allowed divers who were experienced open circuit deep divers to directly move across to the same depth level on a rebreather, or start at an already sort of moderately deep level on their rebreather. Yeah. However, there's a lot of fundamental issues with that, you know, you're essentially giving somebody a tool that they don't implicitly know how to control and saying I can do deep dives. Dive raid in particular. I've really been a leader in terms of the training standards for CCI divers, and bringing people back a peg to learning their rebreather and fully understanding their re breathe in more shallow water and controlled conditions before allowing them to progress through too deep and decompression diving that other agencies allow is the starting point. Yeah. You know, and for me as a rebreather instructor, I really feel that I can help people hone their control experience on the rebreather in the shallows, and then when we come to do and then after, you know, you've gone away and developed a solid CCR diving foundational basis, that when we come to teach you how to do decompression dives on your CCR, I can teach you all the tips and tricks on how to actually utilise the CCR for efficient decompression, rather than teach you all the basics whilst you're doing decompression. Right, and there's, I think the, you know, our industry hasn't quite got a grasp of that concept. it right, you know, right is definitely leading the way. But I would certainly encourage other CCR instructors, to whilst even though the standards that your agency set may suggests that you can teach a diver decompression diving on a CCR straightaway, whether that is the most beneficial thing for the diver learning the CCR

Matt Waters: 1:00:27

does actually sound quite mental to me. Quite honestly. Just just teaching it that straightaway. I completely agree with you. It doesn't make sense.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:00:40

Yeah, you know, and raid has been really at the forefront of pushing the change. You know, guys like Paul Toomer, Jeffrey Glenn, who's a huge mentor of mine, John Wilson, at Bay City, Scuba is another ride JJs ACR instructor in Australia, you know, all of these guys are really pushing what we like to call the modern diver. Yeah, you know, bringing people on early, giving them the right foundation, and then helping them to progress through the diving and that doesn't take the same amount of time to develop your foundation on a CCR wat now that you're already, you know, a good diver, you know, it's not like learning open circuit, like learning open circuit from the very beginning. Yeah, you know, you've got an understanding of what buoyancy is, you've got an understanding of what PPO to is, you've got an understanding of the physiological effects that happen when you're diving. And the transition is a lot quicker. But I think just their argument is that it shouldn't be rushed. You know, and you should take the time to develop the proper foundational basis. Before moving on. And, you know, you commented earlier that you saw, you know, you had a couple of that I had a couple of guys doing some Jayjay decompression training up last weekend. Yeah. Both of those divers who were on the course of me, then were homegrown raid trained divers. From right, open water. Yeah. And, you know, whilst, if you were to look at their diving experience, holistically, they're very fresh on us. Yeah, you know, in the range of between 100 to 100, and go between 102 100 dives, okay. Their foundational skills really honed on their JJ CCR programmes on their foundational level. And then they went ahead and they built the hours on their unit. And now they've got approximately 50 hours each, which is not a lot of Scuba diving, right. You know, like, most Scuba divers who are pretty keen on Scuba diving could knock out 50 Dots quite quickly. Yeah. And now progressing into deep diving. And those complicated things like handling more than one bailout cylinder, because if we're doing decompression, we might need a gas to bail out on the bottom. And we might also need a decompression gas, you know, handling multiple stage cylinders is complicated. Decompression diving, also, you know, and that at that rebreather level, gives you a more comprehensive approach on how to handle CCI failures in terms of utilising gas that you carry. So utilising that offboard gas, but plugging it into your rebreather to use onboard. So you can feed that extra gas into your rebreather. Okay, and continue to use it in your rebreather. And then more challenging, complicating complicated skills to learn. But because they've taken time and built the hours in the foundational basis, they're picking these skills up really quickly. You know, and it's really showing in their course dives. You know, we're not having to do extra course dives, because they need more skill refinement. Yeah, you know, the course their their skills are already refined. And now they're progressing them through.

Matt Waters: 1:04:02

Yeah. And they're not trying to rush through just tick the boxes and get further qualifications without getting the fun dives effectively and getting that experience and time in the water. And that's right,

Ryan Duchatel: 1:04:12

and also giving them an understanding that array this are challenging pieces of technology. They can be dangerous without the right training, and a more holistic attitude in terms of their rebreather diving development, rather than I already know how to technical dive. So I can do the same dives on my rebreather straightaway. Yeah. You know, it's definitely not the case. And I highly encourage people to go through their rebreather training systematically, just like they would they're open circuit training. Yeah. You know, just because you put CCR in front of it or technical in front of it, doesn't mean you can skip the queue. Yeah, it

Matt Waters: 1:04:50

doesn't mean you right away, does it? That's right.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:04:54

And it's, I think it's something that definitely plagues our CCR diving industry and we say it a bit and locally and you know, in Sydney and surrounds, you know, people going too deep too quick. And having accidents and issues. Yeah. And that's how CCI diving inherently gets a bad name. Right? That by bringing them all the way back, moving them through. So far we haven't had any divers had have had an issue and fingers crossed, that remains to be the case. But providing divers with a good foundational basis and skills and a sort of defined progression. Yeah, is definitely the way forward in my opinion,

Matt Waters: 1:05:35

for sure. 100% I think if you've got that foundation, you've got that base, and it becomes a second nature. Personal what's the other word foundation? Standard? That's right, you know, so doesn't matter where you go in the world, you can you can be with the shadiest dive operator in the world that says slightly tank on and get in the water. Ciao, ciao. See you later. You'll have the balls to build sailed on a minute, princess, I need to do this before I go any further. And I think that's one thing that's actually quite lacking in several, lots of lots of locations across the world. It's just people having that confidence to say, Hold on. No, I'm doing this my way. And you've the only way you're going to get that confidence to do that is by having that foundation and training.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:06:26

That's right. And it's kudos to diver aid for pushing it and yeah, and my other colleagues for you know, for really standing fast and saying that this is the new way forward. And just because other instructors may teach you decompression CCR straightaway, we will not.

Matt Waters: 1:06:42

Yeah, yeah. Hats off. So you mentioned other other instructors are the JCR as many of you in Australia.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:06:53

Yeah, there is a there is a few JJ CCR instructors in Australia. There's I think there's about six scattered over the country. So like, you wouldn't say that is a lot. When you when you consider okay, there's how x many 1000 open circuit? Open Water instructors? There are Yeah. You know, in terms of our you know, our wonderful light ray JJ CCR team in Australia, you know, there's Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Glen, who's up in Brisbane, the Gold Coast. I cover a lot of the stuff that happens in Newcastle and Sydney, New South Wales. And John Wilson from basically Scuba in Melbourne. You know, really, like really driving at home down there.

Matt Waters: 1:07:41

Yeah. Yeah. That's all good. And just to clarify, for those people that are listening, that usually, you know, Paddy, or SSI, or something like that raid, is clearly another agency. But it is born out of the understanding of the technical aspects of training. So you get in, in my opinion, and I can say it because I'm multi agency, I think you're getting a more detailed educational system through raid.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:08:07

I think something that people don't also know about RAID is that the initial acronym of raid was rebreathers association of international divers. So at its core raid really has technical diving, and, you know, especially CCR and rebreathers, that they've expanded that sort of love add into the recreational realm. Yeah. But it's still there, technically, in the behind the name.

Matt Waters: 1:08:31

Yeah, yeah. And like say, I mean, you know, even during the open waters, you can see when there's a road course, again, you array courses taught correctly. You know, you've got to have a good instructor to do it, but the trim of beginners is usually pretty shoddy, but the majority of rate open water divers, they come out pretty cool after four or five dives a lot better than most.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:08:57

And, and again, like, you know, like I said before, it's you know, it's kudos to the guys like Paul Toomer, you know, Steve Bates, PJ Prinsloo, in South Africa, Steve Lewis, you know, all those guys who have come from other agencies, and, you know, we're prior to raid, you know, quite high up in their respective agencies that really come together with a with a common mindset and a common goal of where, you know, where we feel Scuba diving, you should be moving forward to in the future. Yeah. And providing a really good foundational basis for other, you know, RAID instructors, such as myself, you know, other local raid dive centres to really push that forward.

Matt Waters: 1:09:40

Yeah, yeah. And the overwhelming end result is safer diving. At the end of the day, we all want to enjoy the sport. And safety is safety's number one.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:09:50

Have fun, don't die. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 1:09:56

Mate, I think we'll round it off there and, and call it a day. It's, in fact the pub will be open in a moment so I'll be able to add another top up

Ryan Duchatel: 1:10:03

that sounds sounds good.

Matt Waters: 1:10:05

Thank you so much for coming on the show and explaining all that. All those complexities to us. And next time I'm in Newcastle, probably in the new year, we'll ever catch up in another another beer. Oh,

Ryan Duchatel: 1:10:16

that would be awesome, man. Happy Day awesome. Catch up.

Matt Waters: 1:10:19

For those people that are listening in. If you want to get in touch with Ryan, you can get him by his website. Facebook, not so much on Instagram. What's the what's the easiest way to get your money? Is it through the website or

Ryan Duchatel: 1:10:33

through Facebook primarily titled immersion through Facebook? diving. And then yeah, our website at WWE dot total immersion diving, total immersion diving dot com au

Matt Waters: 1:10:47

And if you get in there quick and book something for the new year then you might get a Scuba GOAT mask strap as well. I'll send you a few up Ryan. You have a good Christmas right and this is going to round off our season two of Scuba goats. So we'll wish all our fantastic listeners. A very merry Christmas and a fantastic new year. Stay safe everybody. Thanks for listening.

Ryan Duchatel: 1:11:10

Thanks for having me, mate.

Matt Waters: 1:11:11

Cheers, buddy.