The Day Diving Stood Still, and Underwater Cameraman David Diley

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that is happening around the world underwater. My name is Stephen Whelan. I'm the founder of DeeperBlue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the Deeper Blue Podcast covers everything that's happening in the scuba diving, freediving, diving travel, and ocean advocates world. So join us as we explore the Deeper Blue.

Stephan Whelan and Michael Menduno

SPEAKER_06 0:49

Welcome to episode two of the Deeper Blue Podcast. My name is Jason Leas, and I'm the producer of this podcast. In the future, as at the beginning of each episode, we'll have an op-ed, usually from Deeper Blue founder Stephen Whelan, followed by some of the week's most interesting or important news from the dive, free dive, travel, and ocean world. But we thought it might be interesting in these first few episodes to talk a bit about where the dive world is at now, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine. As part of that, in next week's episode, we'll cover what it might take for divers, you, me, anyone who loves getting in the water, what it might actually take for us to get back into the ocean safely. But today we start with a discussion between Stephen and Michael Menduno, which covers a lot of what they discussed in an op-ed they wrote last month, which took a clear-eyed view of the state of the dive world called The Day the Diving Stood Still. So, Stephen and Michael, thanks for joining this discussion. As a bit of introduction, Stephen Whelan, founder and publisher of Deeperblue.com, the world's largest dive website. And Michael Menduno, a longtime diving journalist, editor-in-chief of In-Depth magazine, staff writer at Deeper Blue, and a contributing editor at Alert Diver Dan Europe. As an aside, Michael's also the man who coined the term technical diving. So, Stephen and Michael, can you tell us a little about what you wrote and what kind of impact that had on the dive community?

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Yeah, thanks, Jason. And welcome, Michael. Thank you for being on the podcast. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_07 2:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Yeah, the article, I think we called it the The Day the Diving Stood Still, along with a very moody person looking longingly over the empty lake carrying their fins and mask. And it was a very moody article, right? It was it was a real passion project, I think, for both of us. And we were trying to were trying to be positive. It was right when the coronavirus had locked down pretty much everywhere around the world. And the diving industry was was really hurting. And both of us have lots and lots of friends in the industry, both professionally and on the kind of consumer diving side, who were very badly affected by it. So it it hit home very, very hard. And Michael, you give us a bit of a uh thought about you know how you thought the article went down around the industry.

SPEAKER_07 3:09

Well, it was really shocking to find out just the impact on everyone of the coronavirus. I mean, diving as as in the title, the day the diving stood still across the world, really, uh, from dive operators, dive boats, dive stores, manufacturers, every everything just stopped. A lot of uncertainty, no clear idea when things were going to reopen. So it was a very sobering moment in the in the dive industry globally and across the world. Different segments, of course, were impacted differently, but uh everybody was impacted.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

So, did you guys see this as an existential crisis both for the industry and for divers as well?

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Yeah, so I think from my side it it was definitely an existential threat for the diving industry. A lot of the industry are small businesses. Of course, there are big players as well, big manufacturers and big travel organizations and agencies. But the vast majority of this industry are small, small businesses, and they run on very, very tight margins and cash flow is is uh hard for them. They don't have lots of deposits uh in the bank. So any extended period where customers aren't coming through the door is very hard for them. You know, we there was a survey that we quoted in the article which surveyed 200 US-based dive centers, and at that moment in time in in early March, um it was uh 50% of those, 49% I think of the dive centers had shut by that point. And and that was before everything had locked down properly. Um yeah, that's that's that's really, really hard figures to to hear. But from a consumer perspective, I don't think it's quite as bad. It's it's people still can be connected to the ocean and the water, they can go back diving once everything opens up again. But certainly from an from an industry perspective, and that is where Michael, you and I really took a view on is is really hard for for the industry.

SPEAKER_07 5:03

And dive stores are really one of the uh the where where consumers meet diving, right? I mean, they're the consumer interface to a large degree, and it was just uh depressing. I mean, uh as Stephen said, a lot of shops stopped, you know, just closed their doors. Others were doing, you know, servicing, etc. I think in that survey, you know, 90% of them, their their their sales or income was less than 20% of what it normally was. So imagine uh again as a small business just having no, you know, no monies coming in the door. So that was that was really difficult. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:38

I think what's interesting about what you guys are talking about, I was just listening to a restaurantur, a very famous restaurantur on a podcast yesterday who was talking about he most people don't realize even super successful businesses are one month away from kind of going out of business. They're always operating hand to mouth. Did this lay bare some of the the way the industry is run? And did it highlight some of the issues that some of the dive shops may face on a regular basis and that consumers might not even know this is the way it is?

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Yeah, absolutely. So I think uh part of the challenge around consumers is most consumers have no idea what challenges most businesses face. Um I think coronavirus, you talk about restaurateurs, so you know they don't really make much money on doing that. In fact, most restaurants make money on alcohol sales. It's the same sort of thing for diving, I think, which is a lot of people don't really realize where the money comes in for a dive center and a dive operator. And you know, if you go all the way up the chain to the big manufacturers as an example, most of them go through a distributor network, they go down to the dive stores. And if the dive stores aren't operating, the manufacturers can't sell their equipment. They're not geared to sell direct to consumer. So I think it's a real, real challenge. And Michael, is it something you think might want to change?

SPEAKER_07 6:49

Yeah, I mean, there it's the whole ecosystem, right? So if people aren't diving, then they're not buying gear. They're probably not getting their gear serviced. They're not traveling because dive stores book a lot of travel. And so they cancel all that travel was canceled. So now that's gone. And so the operators, you know, the the dive boats they were gonna go to in the resorts are not working. So it just affects everyone.

SPEAKER_06 7:12

So people in the industry understand the cascading effects of this. Consumers, the average diver, the average free diver, might only see that, well, I can't go diving for a while, and I've got to wait till I can travel and do those kind of things. And what you guys, what your article really did is highlighted some of the structural issues that the dive industry was reliant on, that once those divers went away, a lot of the business went away. But since you wrote that article, things have started to loosen up a little bit. And what does that mean for the dive industry?

SPEAKER_04 7:40

So I think I've seen certainly from my perspective, I've seen some real positive stuff. So I've seen the dive industry, the the larger players in the industry, larger brands in the industry really pull together to try and support each other. And there's been a lot of sort of customer and client engagement. So trying to reach out to divers, keep them inspired and connected to the oceans as best as possible, including this podcast, just to uh just to say that's uh one of the things that you know we we did as part of doing this uh exercise as part of coronavirus. We did suffer a little bit from we then went the industry went the other way, which is absolutely everyone was doing webinars. And I I I joked that we we were suffering as an industry from webinaritis, and it was it's starting to turn people off a little bit. But I think there's been there were some real some of the brands, fourth element, great example of this, where they they started doing some interesting competition stuff, for example, um, under bathwater photographer of the year, which got people using their kit, right? So all these people sitting with $10,000 worth of camera equipment, maybe even more, in their garage, uh, and they take it and use it in their bathtub to uh go and take some pictures. And there were some stunning, stunning pictures taken around that. So I think we've seen some real innovation, some real passion by the brands. Uh, and now we're starting to see a glimmer of hope. So I know that Asia is opening up a little bit more now. Uh domestic markets in Europe and and uh North America are starting to open up a little bit. People are starting to go diving, which is fantastic. It's still gonna be only a fraction of where they're expecting to be. Um let's not get too excited that suddenly the doors are opening and it's 100%, 110%. People are gonna be cautious. The coronavirus is still around, it's not disappeared during this period, but it is starting to get safer to go out, and people are starting to engage with the activities that they love, and it's gonna start providing a little bit of relief to business owners in the diving industry.

SPEAKER_07 9:35

Plus, uh another thing, the uh uh in the industry, there's uh certainly in the US and other countries, eye businesses, some of them were able to make use of government funds or support. This was a, you know, we've heard from a lot of people that this was huge. Uh, I know in the UK they had uh payroll support, so you could keep keep your paying your employees and keep them uh on that. So that has been very positive. Also, as Steven said, things are starting to open up. Not travel yet. That's not really happening, but more local diving is just just beginning. So that's encouraging. The dive stores are benefiting some from that, uh as well as manufacturers. So I really see that as the first leg back. Uh local diving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:20

Well, so that's a great segue then to the where uh I might ask um you guys know the industry so well, but a lot of people that are listening to this would be the average consumer diver, the recreational diver, the recreational free diver. You guys had mentioned before that times are incredibly tough, but that there were these glimmers of opportunity might lead to some larger views on how things might move forward. Could you guys speak a little bit to what you see in the future coming out of this?

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Get a little crystal ball out, right? And gaze into it and find out what's going on. It was part of the challenge about writing the article in the first place. And I know uh Michael and I agonized over a number of calls and emails and messages about how what what did our crystal ball say? And um it was all very it was all very murky and didn't really tell us anything, to be honest. Um, I think uh, you know, if I was to take a good educated guess around it, we're gonna see local diving, as Michael said earlier. It's gonna the local diving is gonna be the crux of what people are gonna do for the rest of probably this diving season this year and certainly the northern hemisphere. And that's a good thing, right? It's getting back to local diving, it's local dive stores get supported, you know, driving business back into the local economy. All fantastic stuff and what we should be doing. I think we'll also potentially see manufacturers moving to more a direct to consumer model. They'll be looking at how they can be less reliant on dive stores, which is you know a good thing in its own right as well. But there are challenges, I think, because the industry's has a pivot completely to do that, and then that impacts the local dive stores as well. But we'll see. It's it's gonna be an interesting period of time.

SPEAKER_07 11:57

There's certainly a big pent-up demand from all our divers to get in the water, right? So uh that that will help drive things forward. I mean, there's no question that we're gonna be back diving. Um we may lose some some some businesses in the process. Uh already some businesses have closed, some are very strained. So hopefully, this local diving and the gradual beginnings can can can keep others alive until we really get back, you know, some serious diving again uh in volume and travel. Travel is a big, huge driver of the industry, and it's probably uh majority of uh sales in the industry are uh travel related. So that'll be a very c important component for that to open up.

SPEAKER_06 12:41

And any final messages that you would say maybe uh uh coming through such a tough time and having really explored what the industry is like in such a rough way. Any kind of any any positive messages you can see coming out of this or any kind of final takeaways that we can think about around the dive industry?

SPEAKER_04 12:59

So I think you know, from my side, I'll I'll tackle it from two areas. One is to the industry. I think the industry needs to continue to keep their clients and customer engagement and inspiration and working together. It's really important that they they continue to do that. The the hashtag dive strong from international training was a great example of this. I think from consumer side, as you get out there, remember to support your local dive store, your local dive centers, your local dive sites, the manufacturers, your instructors. Remember that these people are going to have gone through some hard times over the last few months. Have a bit of compassion and empathy that you know they're going to need they're gonna be feeling a bit bruised and battered from all this. Treat them carefully and and give them a big hug. Well, from a distance, you know, virtual hug, virtual high five, uh socially distance. But you know, it's really important to get out there safely when it's the right time, safely go out diving and support your local diving economy.

SPEAKER_07 13:58

I I yeah, wholeheartedly agree. Certainly we need to continue to be safe. Um, I I think this whole thing has really brought some camaraderie, you know, between all the online uh workshops and webinars and talks. Uh I think it's made us feel, you know, more connected uh than ever before in some ways. And so I I'm hoping that that feeling will continue as as we go forward and support each other.

SPEAKER_06 14:23

Well, that's a great note to end on. One of the things about the most challenging times in life can also lead to the greatest discoveries and the most connected feelings that we've ever had. And I think I see this podcast as being one of the ways that people are now reaching out to try to connect in ways that they never did before. So very much appreciate the conversation, gentlemen. You guys really know what you're talking about, and I just want to say thanks for sharing it with everyone.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Hi, this is Don Carnegis, Dive Medicine Researcher and NEBA 21 Aquinaut. And you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_06 15:07

Every week we highlight an interview with someone interesting in the dive and ocean world. Today we speak with David Diley, an underwater director

David Diley Underwater Filmmaker

SPEAKER_06 15:15

and cinematographer, who not only made an award-winning film about sharks, but he also shares a story where he got maybe a little too close to his subject. So, for people that are maybe not familiar with your work, can you tell us briefly who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Sure. I'm a UK-based filmmaker and underwater cinematographer. My speciality, though, is filming sharks. So I did get to do a lot of travel around the world in very exotic, usually warm places, although I've done quite a bit of cold water stuff this year.

SPEAKER_06 15:48

Well, that's uh obviously one of the kind of jobs that people hear that like, while you get to travel the world and shoot underwater, what an amazing life experience. Uh, how did you how did you find that? How did you get into this?

SPEAKER_05 16:00

Well, I'd always wanted to do it ever since I was little. I got a passion and fascination for sharks from the age of three. And then when I was around the uh the age of about seven, I saw a documentary called Realm of the Sharks, and it kind of clicked for me there. And I thought, hang on a second, these people are getting paid to travel around the world and go and dive with sharks and make films about them. I didn't know that job existed. That's what I want to do. But I was living in landlocked northern England, so not the best launch pad for starting a career with that. So I figured that I'd have to find other ways to go and do that. And the first thing thought is I'll go and be a rock star. And I was a professional musician for 10 years and then had to get a proper job, unfortunately. And three years in a very kind of corporate environment just confirmed that that isn't what I wanted to do at all. So one Monday I just decided to quit literally on on the spur of things. I woke up on the Monday morning, alarm going off, thought, can't do this anymore. My life is not going where I want it to go, and thought, right, okay, I've got to go and do what I want to do now. I didn't own a camera, didn't have any savings, didn't have any contacts in film or TV. I had literally nothing and figured, okay, I'm gonna have to do this all on my own. So that's how I started with an idea to go over to Fiji and shoot a film about shark reef. And less than 10 months later, I'd got the funding and sponsorship to go. And 11 months later, I was in Fiji. So it was a really, really quick turnaround. And the first thing I ever did, uh kind of proper project, was a feature documentary about the world's biggest bull sharks.

SPEAKER_06 17:30

Amazing. And how did it go with your first shoot?

SPEAKER_05 17:34

Actually, it went really, really well. The the film won five awards, it was nominated for another three or another four. It it it's gone well, and it was a launch pad to other things as well. It kind of launched my career.

SPEAKER_06 17:47

So, for people that may not know, can you tell us what the documentary is? And then also, you had this idea to go travel around the world, shoot underwater. You didn't really have any experience doing this. What was it like shooting that first film?

SPEAKER_05 17:58

The film is called Of Shark and Man, and it's about the story of Shark Reef in Fiji. So a reef which was, to all intents and purposes, completely fished out and dead. And then somebody went and wanted to start shark feed there, and then over the course of a few months, when the sharks started coming back, they started bringing uh smaller fish and progressively bigger fish. And then when the reef then got protected in order for it to become a commercial business, because of the protection and because it uh the stakeholders who were the villagers in the reef, they kind of really went on board with the protection of it. Nobody was fishing there, they were benefiting financially out of the shark feed there. It just exploded back into life and regenerated itself. So it's a real proof of concept, really, that uh eco-tourism and eco-friendly shark tourism works both financially but also environmentally as well. So it's a great story, and it's kind of underpinning that was my journey over there as being okay, I've quit my normal life to go and fulfil a dream. And in terms of any sort of fear or trepidation, there's none at all. I've done quite a bit of diving with sharks before, never been afraid of sharks. I've always welcomed seeing them and always gone out of my way to see them. The bigger, the better, the more dangerous, the better. I'm more drawn towards the big predatory stuff, and I do like to get close and I do like to get that kind of in-your-face footage. That's the stuff I enjoy doing. I'm a big fan of the predatory stuff, not just in sharks, in other marine creatures as well. I like capturing predation on camera, but with sharks, I feel at home with them, and the more of them the better.

SPEAKER_06 19:38

Well, that's not how my wife feels.

SPEAKER_05 19:45

I think it's just from almost self-conditioning as a child. That's what you want to do. That's where you know you will be at your happiest. And it's just so turns out that the the first time I started doing it, I said, Yeah, this is where I'm at my happiest. I love doing it. I feel at home doing that.

SPEAKER_06 20:00

Is there a story you talk about wanting to you really enjoy the predation, the the large predators coming right at you, the feeling the sense of being on the edge of their instinct? What can you tell us one story, something that just was an amazing predation experience?

SPEAKER_05 20:16

Sure. It was in the Bahamas. It was uh I was out at Tiger Beach, and I wanted to get some footage of the feeder essentially jumping in from the surface, coming down to the bottom, opening the feeding box, and then hand feeding the tiger shark. But because of Tiger Beach, you're pretty much guaranteed tiger sharks, and you're pretty much guaranteed that as soon as the feeder gets down and opens the box, those sharks are going to come into feed, and it's usually going to be the bigger ones. So on this particular day, we did it the wrong way around. So I jumped in. I go and take my spot underneath the boat to then capture his entry into the water. So I jumped in with the camera, which is unusual for me. I don't normally do that. And as you know, you've got your hand covering your masks, holding your mask on, uh, move my hand away from the mask, look down, and uh Emma, the kind of famous tiger shack there, it's about seven metres deep. Her tail, the tip of her tail is right on the sand at the bottom, and her mouth is about two metres away from me, in quick as a flash, wide open, coming right up towards me. So I instinctively bring my right hand down, push it on top of her head, push her underneath me. She lifts up, so I end up sitting on top of this huge tiger shark's head. As another one is coming from my left hand side in towards my head, so I instinctively put my left hand out, grab that shark by the snout. It was only probably maybe four or five seconds that I'm sitting on one shark's head with another shark in my left hand. But it felt like about 20 minutes. And you just you've got all these thoughts running through your head, and it just was so absurd. I managed to get her off me, pushed the other shark off in my left hand, got down to the bottom, set myself, turned around with the camera, and when both the tiger shats could see that I was I had them in the uh the field of sight, they both split away because they liked to sneak up on you, and they knew that I could see where they were. So they split away, I looked up to the surface, turned the camera on, just as the feeder jumps in, comes down to the bottom, opens the feeding tray, and then comes in, takes it, and I got the shot. But that was kind of the closest I've ever been to a mishap. But it was, it wasn't a crazy, fast moving, energetic approach. It was a very deliberate, slow moving. It was very deliberate. That's the only way I can think of explaining it where she knew what she wanted to do.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Hi, my name is Lou Kinman. I'm an instructor trainer for Scuba, a writer, a filmmaker, and you're listening to the best 30 minutes about diving, the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_06 23:18

Every week on the Deeper Blue Podcast, we offer one top tip from an expert in some aspect of the ocean world. Today it's from William Truebridge, 18-time world record holder and world champion in free diving.

William Trubridge on How To Breathe

SPEAKER_06 23:33

And today he gives a tip that just might flip on its head the way you think about approaching holding your breath.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

So, my top tip is about the importance of getting acquainted with hypercapnia, which is a high concentration of carbon dioxide. CO2 is the waste product of respiration in our body, and it's what we have to exhale. If we don't exhale it during a breath hold, it builds up, and it's the CO2 that actually gives you the urge to breathe. So that suffocating feeling we feel isn't really due to a lowering of oxygen so much as it's due to an increase in carbon dioxide. And so it's actually the CO2 which is causing our body to conserve oxygen. Our body takes its cues from the CO2 in order to shut down blood flow to the periphery, to slow the heart rate, to conserve the oxygen for the heart and the brain. So you actually have to have that CO2 there in order for you to conserve your oxygen and for the dive to be safe and long. In the preparation, it's really important not to hyperventilate. And that's the most important concept for a beginner to understand is that any form of hyperventilation is going to reduce the safety and your actual potential of breath hold. And even deep, long breathing can and often is hyperventilation. So the best way to prepare for any breath hold or any dive is not to think about breathing so much, but more about relaxing. So staying relaxed and breathing just with the diaphragm with your belly. So the breath doesn't have to be deep, it can be shallow as long as it's relaxed and doesn't need to be quick. It can just be the same style of breathing that you're breathing now if you're relaxing, listening to this podcast. So just that resting breath is all that's necessary for free diving. And the most important thing is to stay relaxed in the preparation.

Sarah Barrett Best Dive Ever

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So my name is Sarah Barrett, and I'm originally from Covington, Indiana. Um, but at the time of my favorite dive, I was living in Freeport in Grand Bahama. And my favorite dive was a night dive, and it was actually one that our company was putting on. So I wasn't working, I was just on board for fun. And with a night dive, we go out there and we kind of wait 10-15 minutes until the sun goes down, until it's pretty dark. But I hopped in earlier before everybody else was. So I went down to a wreck that was called the Sea Star. And this was right, I think, at the tail end of turtle mating season, and we had these massive loggerhead turtles that we would see mating all the time. And I get down on the wreck, and it's getting darker, and I can see this figure about maybe I don't know, 60 feet or so away from me, and it's super blurry, and it's getting closer and closer. And so I just sit there on the wreck, kind of hovering. And as it's getting closer, I can see it's this massive loggerhead turtle, and it's just swimming straight towards me. It's only me down there, there's nobody else, and it just keeps swimming towards me. And he comes up to me, and he probably gets about a foot away from my face, and he just stares at me. And I'm not blinking, he's not blinking. I don't know if turtles blink like that, but he's not blinking. And we just kind of shared this moment where this turtle was just staring into my soul, and it was incredible. And I turned and he turned, and he probably followed me around that wreck for the next five minutes until the other group of divers came down, and he got a little spooked by their flashlights. But that was that was by far my favorite dive is sharing that moment with that turtle. It was pretty epic.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

We'd love to hear your story about diving. So at the end of the show, you'll find out all the info you need to submit your best dive ever. Thanks for listening to the Deeperblue Podcast. Find out more on all the stories you've heard this week, plus connect to the world's largest online dive community at deeperblue.com. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe, like, and comment wherever you hear your podcasts. These comments and subscribes really make a difference. Before we go, I want to give a big shout out to Jason Elias, our producer. In case you didn't know, he has an amazing podcast about people who have a deep connection to our world's oceans. Connections strong enough that they've dedicated some part of their lives to being in or working on behalf of the water. Take a listen when you get a moment to Jason's show or the Big Deep Podcast. Every week, we want to hear your stories and share them with the world. So please record and send in your short story of your best dive ever. Keep it brief, no longer than two minutes, please. And in it, tell us your name and location, where you were on the dive, what happened that make it so great, and why it's meant so much to you. You can get that over to us at best dive ever at deeper blue.com or head to our website podcast.deeperblue dot com forward slash best dive ever. Join us again next week and explore much more of the deeper blue.