DEMA President Tom Ingram on why he has a tough time trusting Australians, and National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen on why it pays to slow down

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Season four of the Deeper Blue Podcast is brought to you by Sunto. Finnish engineering, pioneering adventure from mountaintop to ocean floor since 1936. Sunto.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast. Your weekly guide to everything that is happening around the world underwater. My name is Jason Leis, and I'm producer of the Deeper Blue Podcast, the podcast for DeeperBlue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the Deeper Blue Podcast covers everything that is happening in the scuba, free diving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy world. So join us as we explore the deeper blue.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

And three, two, one action. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Hello, it's Jason the Lias, producer of the Deeper Blue Podcast, and I'm here with Steven Whelan, host and creator and grand fromage of the entire worldwide organization.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Jason, it's great to be back for starting season four, sponsored by Cunto again. Big thanks, Asunto. Shout out to our friends at Cunto for sponsoring the season. And we're so excited.

SPEAKER_05 1:21

Got some great interviews lined up. And also in the time that we've been down, we've there's some news about the Deeper Blue podcast. Do you want to share what we've done?

SPEAKER_03 1:29

I do. It's very exciting. We've won a few more awards whilst we've been sitting, you know, with our feet up. Back in September, we won a couple of W3 awards. Very exciting. Best Podcast series. And we did Best Lifestyle Podcast, which I thought was really quite exciting.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

That's interesting. I didn't even know that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah, so we got we got two. Good you pay attention to this stuff, Jason. It's uh, you know, it's good, it's good to know the mess. What day is it? It's good to know the messages I send out to the team are read uh regularly on this stuff. But yes, we we won we won two uh two awards in the W3s, which is amazing. Yeah, and then uh literally today, the day we're recording this, we won two lovey awards. So the Loveys are the sister awards to the Webbies that we won earlier in the year. And we have won a silver lovey and the People's Choice Lovey. Uh it's exciting. So uh for best podcast series, which I think is amazing. This isn't just diving ocean podcasts. This is we actually are competing with the best of the best as far as all podcasts are concerned, which is absolutely amazing. I'm I'm I'm honestly so thrilled by this and so thankful to Jason yourself and Lyndon and Megan and and obviously Sarah and Tech for previous series, but also every single person, the People Choice Award. That's amazing. That's that's all the listeners getting out there and clicking the buttons.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

Very exciting, very, very exciting. And it's amazing that we kind of started this three seasons ago, two years ago, right to be in pandemic, just kind of trying to do something different, and it's it's gotten some recognition, which is very exciting. So it has. Seems like we're doing something right.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

So yeah, I hope so. So we we should probably get on with the news. That's why people they don't hear about all these awards and stuff. They want to hear about the hard-hitting tabloid news that Jason has found.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

All right. So we'll start with some news for the dive world. We I found a couple of stories about US dive boat owners' liability may increase soon. And that seems pretty dry, boring news that would only be relevant to a few dive boat owners. But really, the reason we wanted to talk about it, because this all stems from the conception fire, which happened last year and 34 people died. And the reason we wanted to bring this to people's attentions is because the California Congressional Democrats, and of course, Southern California is a mecca for world diving. There's a lot of organizations headquartered here. There's a lot of divers here. And also, California tends to be a monster when it comes to laws in the United States. If we pass something here, it tends up going national. They're increasing the liability for dive boat owners, and they will be mandated to compensate victims in their family regardless of the boat's value after an incident. This is comes from some lawsuits that are coming about from the families of the people who died on conception. And this is kind of a response from lawmakers around this. And we just thought this was an interesting story to talk about the dive industry.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Obviously, the conception was an utterly horrible event, and you know, I wish it had never happened. But on the back of this, there's some real good legislation and thinking going on around improving safety and protecting people's families should there be an accident. So what else? Uh well, I think yeah, let's let's let's travel over to my hometown, London town. And uh there's some some great stories coming here, which is the River Thames, which everyone pretty much thinks is a big sewer running through the uh centre of uh of London. You definitely don't want to dive it. Although there are people who do dive the Thames, they call themselves the Thames Rats.

SPEAKER_05 4:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

They have found, according to the Zoological Society of London, ZSL, who run actually the zoo, have found seahorses, sharks, eels, and seals. I mean, they're found to set up residence in the River Thames. They produce a report called the State of the Thames Report. Significant changes have been declared since it was originally declared in 1957 as biologically dead.

SPEAKER_05 5:10

It gives you hope for the rest of the world that if there's a concerted effort and attention brought to something that it can change, even in a supermodern industrialized area. So that's fantastic news.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

It is, it is. You still won't get me diving in the Thames, though, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_05 5:22

Right. And I just wanted to say this story echoes Stephen, which his heart, I thought, was biologically dead zone.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

And we're not going to be able to do that. Thanks, Jason.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

Appreciate it, back to life. Excellent.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

You know, talking about the UK, Northern Hemisphere, winter time, I just want to give a bit of a shout-out to our friends over at Fourth Elements who have this week released some rather snazzy knitwear collection.

SPEAKER_05 5:46

Knitwear. It's like Shetland wool, I believe. It's large sweaters.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

It's it is three different styles of jumper or make you look like a good fisherman, you know, thing, uh, and some good beanies because you've got to have a good beanie. And they do the traditional Jacques Cousteau red beanie as well.

SPEAKER_05 6:00

That's good.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

And, you know, this is all to keep you warm whilst you're diving pre- and post-dive in cold weather, which obviously is happening right now in the UK. So on from Netware, great one here about robotic seaweed farms. This is uh a cool one, I think you you found, Jason.

SPEAKER_05 6:16

I did. It's about a new carbon capturing robotic seaweed farms. It's they're basically pitching this as kind of the forest of the oceans for carbon sequestration. The idea is planting seaweed farms on the bottom of the ocean to suck up all the carbon from the atmosphere. There have been a number of people in the ocean world who, even scientists who maintain that they still feel positive about what can happen. And they the reason that they stay positive is they believe in human ingenuity. And I think this was a sign of some something to come. Yeah, and it's also creates habitats, which is fantastic. And it's also done in a way that is uh minimally invasive to the environment. So it's just a fantastic idea.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Brilliant. I love it. So talking about the big blue planet, I actually have just got back from doing a bit of traveling. I actually went to Mexico, which was fantastic. Did some diving in Mexico actually, and and you know, diving in Mexico was absolutely stunning. But more importantly, it's it was I mean, it was a bit of a pain in the backside to go through pre-registration and get to the airport and do the COVID tests and go through and be scanned every five seconds. But actually, it wasn't that hard to go through. And it's it's a pretty slick system, and both in the UK and in Mexico, everything was pretty much covered very easily if you get prepared. So it's a great experience to be able to go and do this stuff to actually see what the world is like. You know, Indonesia we see is starting to get back uh into business, but there's a whole set of criteria depending on whether you're vaccinated, unvaccinated, and so on, that you have to go through, which makes it harder. But I suppose the message here is people shouldn't be scared about going and traveling as long as they feel up to it and they have the right vaccinations and so on to be able to do it. It is something you can definitely start doing.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

That's exactly right. It is, you can start doing this. Of course, there's a cognizance of the fact that most of the people that listen to this show or that go diving around the world are probably from maybe more affluent countries that have more access to vaccinations. And so that's one of the reasons that there's a lot of these protocols in place, particularly places like Indonesia, where they're even when you're vaccinated, you still have a three-day quarantine. The idea being is protecting the locals, which makes a lot of sense. But it also means that the world is opening up again. And uh, we also just had a report that Fiji is completely opening its borders on December 1st, which is fantastic because another the soft coral capital of the world, which is fantastic that we can go diving there again soon. One of the things to be aware of, though, there's also been a lot of reports out there about having awareness around the idea of liveaboards. If there's an outbreak on liveaboards, something to be aware of, you should check in to see what the protocols are in place for that company if something happens, because there have been some reports of some challenging situations where liveaboards are just not prepared for outbreaks on board and what the kind of compensation is for that, what kind of recourse you have after doing something like that. So we encourage you to look into that before you book.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Yeah, absolutely. It's uh really important. You know, the cruise ship industry, for example, has had a lot of challenges with this sort of stuff. So, you know, live board is essentially a mini, mini cruise ship. I do have a PSA uh public service announcements for everyone, though. It's make sure you've got a good mask. You have the wrong mask, like I had, you end up with a big zit on the ends of your nose where the mask rubs for the whole 12 hours of the flight.

SPEAKER_05 9:19

This is news you can use, folks. This is something then this is why this is why you tune into the Deeper Blue podcast right there. So thank you, Steve.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

I'm here to help. What's next? I haven't really done much drinking whilst I've been away. I had quite a relaxed time. But I think it'd be good to uh let's let's tell people about how you can age your favorite liquor on the seafloor of, and I apologize, I'm probably going to ruin this, but Shizuka. Shizuoka. Shizuoka. I think. Okay. Shizuoka.

SPEAKER_05 9:45

So there's a company in Shizuoka.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

In Japan, right?

SPEAKER_05 9:48

Itsukushi Umi no winery. What they do is they will take your liquor, primarily wine, and plant it at the bottom of the ocean, because they claim that the planting at the bottom of the ocean gives ideal aging conditions for specific types of liquor. The basic seabed liquor service is 6,600 yen. I hear some tapping over there. Are you doing a conversion?

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Uh uh, yeah, so that is about $60.

SPEAKER_05 10:15

Oh my god, that's so inexpensive. It's not lifestyle, the rich famous is something even I can afford. And then there's a there's a seabed liquor aging service with boat and scuba diving witness experience. This is where you can actually watch your bottles be taken down to the ground, and that's double that price. So that's $120, 13,000 yen. And you get to observe as divers sink your alcohol down to the Itsuku Kishi Uumi no winery seabed location. I mean, this is just something fun to do, and it's just something that only that's unique to our kind of industry. So that'd be something fun to do.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Uh what amazed me is since we've been doing this podcast, that this is at least the third, maybe fourth time we have something about aging stuff on the bottom of the sea. So it's obviously a thing nowadays.

SPEAKER_05 10:57

So it is a thing, or it's the story that we're attracted to. One of the two. I'm not quite as sure what can be.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

We'll let the listeners decide which one that is this next story. Oh, yes. This is definitely a Jason story.

SPEAKER_05 11:09

I think this is, you know, the circles that I run in are pretty high-end. Um, I don't know if any of you have ever met me in person, but I live the life of a celebrity entertainer. And I thought this this was an article I could use. This is eight over-the-top yacht charters to book now in 2022. Now, some of them I'm not so interested in. Some of them are uh Nansen Explorer for $340,000 a week. It's a converted military science ship. That's not as interesting to me, but the ones that I really like are the Loon. Loon is available from in the Bahamas. It goes for $325,000 a week plus expenses. Uh, it does look on the picture that there's a slide from the third deck into the water. So that's that's a bonus right there. It has 1,100 gross tons of living space, an amiable and attentive crew, two master state rooms, and two salons in case because I know that you particular uh really pay attention to how you look before you go. And then I gotta get in there too. So if we book that place, we could both get ready pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

And and it's a it's a steal at $325,000. $325,000 a week plus expenses is steal, mate. We should book it. Let's book it right now.

SPEAKER_05 12:25

Yeah, before we do that, I just want to put on one more on the on the radar here, which is the Tatiana. Already that sounds like a Russian super wealthy person. This is the Tatiana. Welcome aboard the Tatiana. And that is a glorious new super yacht that goes for $775,000 a week plus expenses. The thing about this space, it has a movie room and a pool table, which I think, you know, that's what I really want to do on a super yacht, is play some pool.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

I think that's what I think. It's got this there's a pool as well, isn't there?

SPEAKER_05 12:57

It's an infinite pool, yeah. And 20 crew members. So I don't know, that's a good bridge game. I don't know, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Yeah, it's 770 775. Uh yeah, and that's Euros, not USD. Uh oh, Euros.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

So it's a million dollars a week.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

So million dollars a week. So that listen, that that that sounds way more our league, Jason. Way more our league.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

So uh it does. Okay, so what's next?

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Well, when this episode comes out, they will have just finished the DEMA show for 2021, which is which is exciting, right? So it is.

SPEAKER_05 13:27

We've both been many times, multiple times.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

We have, and for those that don't know, the Dima Show is a global trade show where all the diving professionals from around the world go and attend. You get to find out about the new equipment and all the new destinations to go to and services and all this kind of cool stuff. And there's a lot of programs run by the agencies to get your certifications and training up to the right levels. And it's usually a that that's the reason most people go. There's also a bunch of people who go just to go and drink in the bars and meet people, and some people will do both.

SPEAKER_05 13:53

I think we do both. That's uh we're we're in category three.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Category three. So traditionally, we are a official media partner for Dima. And we, during the course of the last week, we'll have been running a whole host of articles about Dima and what's going on. Now, the show is smaller than it would normally be. We are still in COVID times, especially the international portion of the show isn't quite as large as it would be, but some still some great stuff going on. But there's a few bits I thought would be interesting to pull out. So one is our friends over at Stream2C, so Autumn Bullum, who has been a guest on the show, are the official hand sanitizer sponsor. Now that's not something you'd have in previous years, right? It's not something being this thing brand new 2021 thing, hand sanitizer. So all the products are ReefSafe. Highly support that. Strongly support that. And good for the planet. I truly, truly love these products that Stream2C do. Uh not just the hand sanitizer, they do sunscreens and all sorts of other stuff. But yeah, so huge QDOS Autumn and her team for being the uh they're distributing more than 70 gallons, that's 265 litres, of the hand sanitizer through four dozen different locations during the show. So that's very, very, very cool. So QDOS Autumn. And then just one other thing is a number of people we know for sure, Divers Alert Network, Dan and Paddy, are live streaming their seminars. That's very cool. Because there's a whole education portion steamer as well. So people go and do seminars and learn about stuff and you know, try and improve their professional education as being part of the show. And all the agencies and manufacturers and so on do seminars. And I think SSI are doing it as well, are live streaming their seminars.

SPEAKER_05 15:31

Yeah, I was gonna say that I've been to Demo many times, and it's always interesting to go through the hall where all the exhibits are because you see kind of a broad overview of everything that's happening in the diapo, which is interesting. But I've always really appreciated the seminars. There's always super interesting things to learn and talk about there. Great discussions. And so if you're interested in any of that, you can go to deeper.com. You can find links to all of those live stream shows, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Uh, and actually, just one thing before we finish on this one, Jason. I want to get the listeners emailing us in on this. Is we did a panel discussion six years ago about getting young people into the industry and how we retain them in the industry. And it was a great panel, including people like Christina Zanato, the sh the shark conservationist, Amanda Cotton, a photographer, LeGimman, another guest on the show, some guys from Fourth Elements. And we really had a really great discussion. We're keen to try and continue that discussion and debate of how we can really encourage and keep young people in the industry. So I'd like to know from our listeners would you like to hear more of that on the podcast? Would you like to have maybe have a segment about young people, a bit of a debate with some key professionals who understand this and so on on the show? I think that might be a cool episode to do if people are interested.

SPEAKER_05 16:41

So interesting idea. Interesting. Please do write us at podcast at deeperblue.com. Who it is? Podcast at deepdeeperbluecom. Podcast at deeperblue.com. And also as an homage to the Dima show, which is just wrapping up when this is going to come out. The guest today is Tom Ingram. It is president and CEO of Dima.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

It is. It is. Excited to hear that one.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

Yeah, he's actually a really nice guy. So all right, that takes us to our last story.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

It is our last story. It's a bit like King Arthur. Let's let's sequester this into King Arthur's story. But there's a diver who's found a 900-year-old sword.

SPEAKER_05 17:15

That's amazing. Did it rise up out of the water?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Well, I would hope when it was bringing back up that he would put his hand up and, you know, for safety, he's doing his surfacing protocol and he's holding the sword in his hand, so people on the surface see just the sword rising out of the water.

SPEAKER_05 17:27

Can you imagine being on the dive boat when that happens? That'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 17:31

That would be absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

So the best bit about this is it was actually an Israeli recreational diver who discovered the sword, and it's thought to have belonged to a crusader knight about 900 years ago. The blade itself is about three feet, it was all encrusted with various different organisms. But the sword itself actually was in excellent condition, which was absolutely fantastic. So to see I've seen some stories and reports on this, and the sword looks amazing, to be honest, and it'd be great when it gets all cleaned up and yeah, that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_05 17:57

I mean, I just hope uh I'm a huge fan of ancient history, so the idea of combining that with diving would be absolutely epic. I mean, the most I've ever found on the bottom of the ocean is off Catalina Island bottle cap.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

So that's really the extent of my historical But you never get down to the bottom, you're just flotting them on the floating on the surface, isn't it? That's the way you always told me.

SPEAKER_05 18:17

I was at two feet deep. So that was like right at the all right. Well, welcome back to the uh season four, everyone. We're glad to have you back. I know there's been a lot of people that have reached out in the intervening time to say they actually do listen to the show, and I just want to say thank you to all those people who do listen and excited to be back.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Absolutely. Welcome back, everyone, and let's get on with the rest of the show.

SPEAKER_06 18:47

The world underwater every week. Hi, I'm King of Phillips, journalist and ocean advocate, and you are listening to the best 30 minutes about diving, the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_05 19:05

Today on the Deeper Blue Podcast, an interview I did with DEMA president and CEO Tom Ingram. Dima, or the Dive Equipment and Marketing Association, is the trade organization for scuba diving, free diving, and ocean travel. And their convention in Las Vegas just wrapped up last week, which is of course why we are having Tom on. When I spoke with Tom, he talked a bit about his lifelong connection to the ocean, how that led to his making it a career, and a dive on the Great Barrier Reef that brought him face to face with the great white shark, but not in the way you'd expect.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

I'm Tom Ingram. I'm the president and CEO of the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association, Dima. Dima is located in San Diego, California. So we've been there forever, and I've been with the company for the last going on 19 years. Do you get to do a lot of diving in San Diego? Yeah, actually. Uh San Diego is a great place to dive. Uh, there's all kinds of stuff that's nearby, some kelp forests that you can jump into the water in La Jolla and just swim out. And my son and I have done that numerous times. Then, of course, you can climb in a car and go north just a little bit and end up near the Channel Islands. And uh there's a great national park there and some of the best kelp forests I've ever seen. So it's just beautiful. A little chilly. I'm a Florida boy, born and raised. So when I came to California, it was a little bit nippy for me. But you know, you can get dressed with all the right equipment and you're you're good.

SPEAKER_05 20:27

So can you just give a little history of what brought you to Dima and what path brought you there?

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Okay, so uh well, Dima is of course a the trade association for the scuba diving industry. We're an international organization. We have members all over the world, uh, and we represent uh members in the manufacturing sector and in the training organizations, the media and consultants independent non-retail service businesses, of course, the retailers, the mom and pop retailers, and the bigger retailers around the country and around the world. And then those exotic diving destinations around the world. All of those folks are represented by us, and sometimes that gets us into trouble, and other times it solves a big problem. So that's what we do. Part of what we do, of course, is uh Dima Show, and that's what fuels the association. It's what drives the revenue. Um, more than 80% of our revenue is driven from DEMA show, and uh then, of course, memberships and sponsorships are part of that as well. We're very happy to be doing DEMA Show in November and uh very excited to have the folks who can make it there, and we're gonna have a great time as we always do.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

So you were a Florida boy and you're now the head of Dima. Is there some sort of connection there? Did you grow up diving? Can you give me a brief history of your connection to getting in the ocean?

SPEAKER_04 21:41

Of course, being a Florida boy, South Florida, there was lots of opportunity to dive. I was a very lucky young boy as my father was the manager of a Woolworth store on Miami Beach. And dad sold diving equipment out of that Woolworth store because he was on Miami Beach. And my brother and I had gotten interested in diving. Because this was the age of sea hunt and flipper and all those things. Of course, Flipper was filmed in South Florida. So we got very excited about diving. And because dad had access to this diving equipment out of the Woolworth store, which he purchased from a dive store in downtown Miami and then resold to the Woolworth store, we had access to that dive store. So we were connected with an instructor. And at a very young age, at 11, for me, we got a very rudimentary scuba diving class. It was not a full certification. And this was 1965. So this was a it was hard to come by a full certification course at that point. But we got enough that we were able to buy a tank and a regulator. And we managed to get ourselves out diving quite a bit during that period of time. And eventually it became more and more difficult as certifications became more common for us to actually use that little green paper cardboard card that we got from that instructor. And we ended up with a YMCA certification class. And we just took off from there. So he and I dove all over South Florida, bought ourselves a Volkswagen and threw tanks in the back of it and drove down to the Keys and rented a 13-foot Boston whaler and went seven miles out in the middle of the ocean in it. And we just had a great time. And eventually I stayed with it long enough to become a dive master and an assistant instructor, and then eventually an instructor.

SPEAKER_05 23:27

So it was in your blood, and that's why you stayed in the business.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Yeah, it's that's part of it. And uh, you know, I had access, and I had access to a ready-made buddy. So that's really very helpful, I think, for anybody. Made it really very simple. And I think uh that's always been the problem, I think, in the industry is making sure that you have a buddy and making sure you have access to do something that's kind of fun to do. That got me involved in ocean technology classes in college. And when I was in high school, I won a photo contest with an underwater photograph that ended up getting published in the the yearbook in my senior year. So it's just kind of been with me forever.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

Well, obviously, it's taken you on to dedicate your life to it in a way that very few actually have, which is fantastic. Is there one dive for you that really emotionally resonates with you or in some way means something to you? And could you talk us through with that dive?

SPEAKER_04 24:22

I've been very lucky because I had access to diving and I've been able to travel a little bit with this. And so I've been into a lot of different things. I I got into freshwater cave diving in Florida and taught that for a while, and and I actually did underwater archaeology for a while, so that was fun. But what really kept me going all this time really has the thread that runs through it has really been underwater photography. So I had lots of opportunity to do that, and I also got a real keen interest in sharks early on. And so uh for me, probably the one that's the most one of the most memorable experiences, I guess, was the fact that uh with this love of sharks and with connections that I've I've made in the industry over the years, I actually had the opportunity to go to Australia and dive with Rodney Fox and Jerry Murphy from the old skin diver magazine days and Carl Rossler, all these guys that had been involved in the filming of the movie Jaws and the Deep. And I guess my memorable dive really was on that trip to Australia diving with Rodney Fox. I spent two weeks out in the Neptune Islands and we were looking for great white sharks and we were we were finding them. And on one occasion, I happened to find myself in a submerged cage with three other Australians. By the way, never turn your back on an Australian. They are crazy people. And so we we were in the bottom. It was in about 60 feet of water or so, and the boat was on anchor and swinging on the anchor back and forth and dragging the cage across the bottom. And there was a fairly large great white shark that took a real interest in the cage, and he swam over. And this cage happened to have hatches on the top and also on the side. So I kneeled down on the floor of the cage and sort of opened the door on the side and hung myself out of the cage to try to get a better shot of this shark, and he took a real interest in me and came swimming over and just kept swimming over. At one point, I finally had to try to close the door, and I had to pop him on the nose with a with my strobe, which by the way flooded during all of this. He was quite aggressive. He was gonna come into that cage, and I thought for the life of me, he was gonna come after me, but it turns out that those three crazy Australians had actually taken a three-foot tuna and slipped it between my knees while I was kneeled on the bottom of the cage. And of course, that's what the shark was after. I didn't know that because I couldn't see that from where I was. So scared the crap out of me. I managed to get the door closed and look down, and lo and behold, there's the head of a tuna sticking out down there. And they were on the cage floor laughing their heads off. I thought they were all gonna drown before we could get up off the bottom. So memorable experience. And I'm glad I survived the experience.

SPEAKER_07 27:22

You're listening to the world's only weekly podcast for scuba diving, tree diving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Liz Parkinson, a shark conservationist and underwater stunt woman. And this is the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_08 27:43

Today we get a top tip from Sea Legacy co-founder and National Geographic conservation photographer, Paul Nicklin. Paul, do you have a top tip that you can share with divers today?

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Absolutely. Slow down and breathe. You know, whether you're on a rebreather, whether you're on scuba, obviously when you're free diving. You know, I used a lot of the free diving techniques to not only fall asleep at night, or but if I'm starting a very stressful dive, whether it's under the sea ice or there's big animals around, I'll still go down and breathe for a cycle of you know, four seconds in, eight seconds out. I'll count each finger so that at least 10 breaths, big long breaths before I even open my eyes and begin my dive. You know, so I really because I find air consumption improves, you start to become way more aware, you start to see, just remove that chaotic behavior that sometimes we have at the beginning of a dive where you just sort of just you're all the gear and you're sweating and you're racing and you're puffing and you're out of the boat. Slow down. Just find that moment. It might even be five minutes into a dive, but just stop at some point and slow down, and you're gonna find visually the whole world is gonna open up. And also when you slow down, animals come to you.

SPEAKER_08 28:57

I love it. That is an excellent top tip. And I fully support the incorporation of the free diving technique into any top tip. Those are always my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

You are listening to the world's only weekly podcast for scuba diving, free diving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Sofia Gomez Uribe from Colombia. I'm a freediver, and this is the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Hey everyone, so the Deeper Blue Podcast is brought to you by Sunto, the Finnish Dive Computer Company. I'm not going to try the Finnish accent, I'm afraid.

SPEAKER_05 29:39

This is a perfect Finnish accent right here. Sunto.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

So this may be a very short-lived sponsorship, just so you know. So one of the things I wanted to say is some of the absolute most amazing people that we've had on the podcast, both uh yours and mine, Jason, actually. That's true. Uh are sponsored by Cento, they're Cento divers. William Truebridge, the uh 19 time 18 or 19? 19 time world record free diving champion.

SPEAKER_05 30:04

And very nice guy, I gotta say. I did the interview with him. He was a very nice guy.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

Yeah, I I absolutely love Will. Fantastic guy. Had uh had a little baby, which you and I know a lot about.

SPEAKER_05 30:14

Jill Heinerth also is sponsored.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Jill Hineath is the absolutely amazing cave diver. Incredible. Jill. Incredible. Uh, read her book. Absolutely love seeing Jill and talking to her. She has been to places on this planet in caves that less people have been to than have been to the moon.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

That's right. And her book, I gotta say, my wife just started reading her book last night because uh for my other podcast, the Big Deep Podcast, I actually did a two-parter episode with her. And my wife listened to the episode about her, and she said it was such an amazing episode that she wants to read the book. And the book is actually incredible.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Uh and she gets the and she's able to do a lot of this because she is sponsored by yeah, absolutely, absolutely amazing person, Jill, and very humble down to work on.

SPEAKER_05 31:02

Does Cinto have a specific cave diving dive computer? Is that something that is out there in the is there what what would be that? Is there something like that?

SPEAKER_03 31:09

It's not specific. Yeah, I mean, cave diving is a very technical, uh very precise uh discipline in in scuba. And yeah, they have products which are uh geared towards that. So things like the Eon Steel, for example, computer is very geared towards technical diving. That's a lot of mixed gas, especially deep and deep and long cave dives is mixed gas and all that stuff. So that's where the products come in. Whereas someone like a free diver like William will want the smallest computer, yeah, very does want something bulky on his wrist that's gonna interfere with his dive profile and and his how hydrodynamic he is. Right. How streamlined in the water. So nice, nice wristwatch that he can uh just have on his wrist would be uh fantastic, which is like the D5.

SPEAKER_05 31:50

Right. Do they make a uh do they make a dive computer for someone like me that floats on the surface like a broken surfboard?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

I'm not sure anyone makes anything that's good for you, to be honest, Jason. Uh but uh I think you could yeah, actually, so uh it's certainly they used to have like the zoop or whatever it is, which was the big beginner, bright yellow, very big, easy to read, easy for aging eyes, you know, need to don't need to wear glasses type thing. Big big buttons. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:16

For my hand-handed fingers, uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah. So so things like that would be definitely uh, I mean, you know, Cinto have products for for everything from beginners, bits of flotsam in the water like you, all the way up to the Jills and the Williams of the world.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

And I do respect I actually really like the fact that they sponsor kind of real cost and our podcast. These divers, and more importantly, our podcast.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 32:57

Where we ask you to tell us about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

My name is Mike Marmish. I'm a veterinary living in Miami, Florida. I learned a scuba dive when I was 12 years old, and I'm now 68. So I have more than one best dive. This dive, however, is a free dive, and it occurred in Dominica in March of 2019. To prepare for it, I bought the long fins popular with free divers and weekly swam against the strong current that whips around the southern end of Kibiscaine to build my stamina. The dive happened on a sunny afternoon in 3,000 feet of water in the Caribbean. It was myself, Amanda Cotton, the professional photographer, and three other ladies swimming amongst the pot of six female sperm whales. The so-called utensil group included a can opener, so named because she'd lost a piece of her right-tail flute to a shark, leaving a little point that looked like an old-fashioned can opener, corkscrew, and her friends. There we were swimming amongst these huge animals, the largest tooth animals on earth, and they weren't bothered by us, and they weren't bothered by them. To watch them interact, trading gossip, and catching up on stories was a truly magical moment. My only regret was that my Paralynx camera had run out of power from taking videos earlier in the day. So I didn't get any pictures. One of the group did send me one of the photographs that she took. And since I couldn't bring Can Opener home, I now have a tattoo of her on the inside of my right arm. It's a moment I'll never forget and probably never be able to achieve again, even if I went back.

SPEAKER_08 34:40

We'd love to hear about your best dive ever. So please head over to deeperblue.com/slash best dive ever to share your story about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_05 34:53

Thanks for listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast. Find out more about all the stories you've heard, plus connect with the world's largest dive community at deeperblue.com. If you like what you heard, please share, like, and rate our show wherever you get your podcasts, as those shares and likes really make a difference. Thanks so much, and see you next week.