August 28, 2022 • 50 mins
Stephen Fordyce is sometimes described as a mad professor and I can't help thinking that there is some truth in that. When it comes to listening to his explorations deep beneath the surface of the earth and then beneath the surface of the water therein. Scuba diving is a relatively niche sport, and within it there are many more niche areas and I think Stephen has found the pinnacle of niche as a 'sump diver.' Spending days lugging gear to remote locations, trekking into dry(ish) caves and creating base camps therein, to then explore kilometres of routes underwater certainly confirms that he's barking mad, but also justifies the recognition he rightly deserves as a fantastic explorer.
'Stephen has dived many caves around Australia and further afield - being a successful push diver at the pointy end of projects in Elk River Cave (Victoria), Growling Swallet and Niggly Caves (Tasmania), on the Nullarbor (WA) and West Timor (Indonesia). This culminated in receiving the 2019 OZTek Emerging Explorer Award.
Since then, Stephen was the push diver in a large team effort which connected Growling Swallet and Niggly Cave, setting a new record for the deepest (mostly dry) cave in Australia, as well as for several other significant Tasmanian push dives.
With a degree in Mechatronics Engineering and a professional background of designing industrial gas equipment, Stephen started TFM Engineering Australia, to combine his passions for 'making cool stuff' and technical diving, and now works full time designing and building technical diving equipment of all shapes and sizes.
Despite enduring the pandemic in the most locked-down city in the world (Melbourne), Stephen spent his lockdown time developing a system of water tracing equipment and much of the rest field-testing and exploring caves in Tasmania. (OzTek biography 2022)
Joining me on the show today, Stephen chats about some of his adventures including that fantastic latest achievement conducted with 8 equally barking mad explorer buddies
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Waters (00:00):
Hey, there dive buddies and welcome to the show.
(00:08):
Now before we get on with thisweek's episode, I just want to
share a quick story with youbecause I got a call a few weeks
ago from my mate Martin at ScubaIQ.
"Hey, Matt, what are you up toin December? Do you fancy co
hosting a trip with me?" Now ofcourse, I played it cool. "Oh,
yeah. Well might be interestedmate." However, it doesn't take
(00:29):
a genius to work out my answerwhen the trip he's talking about
is in the Great Barrier Reef.
"I'm in!"So we're taking a maximum of 12
guests and we're visiting lotsof hotspots, such as Steve's
bommie, The Cod Hole, LizardIsland, and we may even be
attempting the first floatingScuba GOAT podcast. So if you
want to get involved, come alongand have a lot of fun and some
(00:51):
awesome diving. Follow the linkin the show notes and grab your
spot quick. Now on with theshow.
Hey, Steven, hey, what we shoulddo is just introduce you to our
listeners. And so I'll hand thatbit over to you because I think
you know yourself better than Iknow you.
Stephen Fordyce (01:09):
Well, thanks.
So yeah, my name is StevenFordyce generally known as
Steve, but I'll answer toanything. I am 36. And I've done
quite a bit of stuff in thediving and other spheres. I'm an
engineer and but quite a handson one. And I I've come into my
(01:29):
little niche in the divingindustry running my small
business TFM engineeringAustralia. I do custom gas
equipment and and things andI've been noted to tell to
explain my customer base as thesort of people that have their
(01:49):
own compressor. So yeah, there'sthere's a whole whole series of
things around that.
Matt Waters (01:56):
I did have a look at TFM right, you got an
impressive lineup an impressivecatalogue there. I gotta say.
Stephen Fordyce (02:02):
Yeah, thanks.
So the idea was that it would beanything I kind of felt like at
the time. My My professionalbackground, I've got a degree in
mechatronics engineering. AndI've been I worked for about six
years in industry actuallydesigning product managing big
industrial gas systems, liquidnitrogen, liquid oxygen giant
(02:23):
gas plants and smaller things.
So yeah, we're a lot of peopleare coming into diving from a
you know, a teaching backgroundor an air background. I come in
from a pure gases, engineeringindustrial background, which is
(02:44):
kind of interesting. How
Matt Waters (02:45):
old are you?
Because you look so frickinyoung to have done all this
stuff.
Stephen Fordyce (02:49):
Well, yeah, I get that. I'm, I just turned 36
I think 1986 That's when I wasborn. Okay, so I'll be turning
36 yesterday, actually.
Something all the debut. I'vejust been lost track by now. But
um, yeah. And apparently I'vegot a baby face, which seems to
be it was a bit of a hindranceearly on, trying to try to have
(03:12):
credibility. But I've just aboutI got to a point in life where
old enough to be takenseriously, and sort of like
having a bit of a baby face.
Matt Waters (03:25):
Yeah, yeah. And how did you get into the diamond
side of life?
Stephen Fordyce (03:31):
Yeah, well, I started off pretty, pretty
young. I guess I was I was 20.
And wondering about at Monashuni, and I saw the Scuba club.
And I thought that looks cool.
I'd already done quite a lot ofother outdoor things with
bushwalking club. So I've got abit of a history of picking up
(03:53):
an activity and taking it tosome kind of logical extreme. So
does
Matt Waters (03:59):
logic logical and extreme come in the same
sentence I often? Or
Stephen Fordyce (04:04):
yeah, in my own head anyway. So back in 2007
ish. I rocked up to Monash openday, I saw the Scuba club, and I
thought Yeah, that's cool. So Iwent up to them I said, Hey,
guys, give me a pitch. And theytalked about how you could rent
gear really cheap and you couldgo off and they had their own
boat and you could basicallythat that at that point that was
(04:26):
when I realised that Scubadiving might actually be
affordable for me at that pointbeing a pretty poor tight
Student Yeah, and one thing ledto another and two years later I
was the president running theclub
Matt Waters (04:43):
literally at the deep end
Stephen Fordyce (04:45):
a little bit yeah, I got got a bit carried
away did did my dividing waterand various other things. And
yeah, running running clubsuited me really well. I've
always been a bit of a like todo things by and why and so the
club was a really good way thatI could do that. Now they had a
(05:08):
boat and a bunch of uni kidsrunning around with a boat and
all that all the dive gear waswas really amazing, fantastic
thing to be part of. And I threwa huge amount of energy into
that and making it really cool.
And so I've got, like lifelongfriends that we went through all
sorts of trips and things andeverything else. So I was a mad
(05:30):
ocean diver for quite a fewyears. We took the quad bike, we
drove around all over Australia.
So I've done all sorts of weirdand wonderful dives. As far as
Perth we also we took the boatto Tassie, we took it up to
northern New South Wales and loVictoria. So yeah, it was it was
(05:54):
a fantastic thing to do at uniwhen we we had time not not so
much money. Yeah, we did somefantastic things.
Matt Waters (06:04):
How'd you manage to do all your study with all this
mega travelling going on? Prettyimpressive. Oh,
Stephen Fordyce (06:08):
they give you they give you so many so many
breaks? And I also probably wasguilty of the cramming technique
a bit
Matt Waters (06:18):
yeah, for one fell on and whether they were in the
sea within the during the oceanrecreational But how on earth?
Did you end up taking it intocaves?
Stephen Fordyce (06:28):
Yeah, well, that's I am sort of probably
best best known and most mostkeen on on my que diving and in
fact, a specific niche of cavediving called called sub diving.
I actually, I knew quite earlyon that cave diving was a thing
that I wanted to do. I did myinitial training with ocean
(06:51):
divers in Bentley. And they havea big kind of standing in cave
diving, I do a lot of courses.
And some of the some of theinstructors like Jane Barton,
who was who was my instructor,and worked on. They operated out
of the shop. And so even as Iwas doing my open water and
(07:14):
Advanced Open Water, there werepictures on the wall of people
cave diving. And there werepeople in the shop that cave
dives. And, you know, some ofthe other instructors were
around cave diving. So itactually seemed like a pretty
natural progression for me. AndI remember even quite early on
when I've done 30 Odd dives andhadn't hadn't done my Advanced
Open Water yet that I looked atit and I'm like, Yeah, that's
(07:37):
I'm gonna do that cave diving.
That makes sense. Whereas a lotof other people, I think, sort
of come around to it a bit moreslowly.
Matt Waters (07:48):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've tried. I think it's
all extremely interesting. But Ithink I'm one of those divers
that prefers the ocean. AfterI've tried a few, you know, feel
a little dip through the sun 80sand stuff like that. It's all
interesting, but it doesn't grabme as much as corals and fish I
(08:09):
suppose it's it's each to theirown. But you just mentioned that
yours Your kind of flavour ispretty unique being that have
some time in
Stephen Fordyce (08:19):
it some some diving is it's sort of a quantum
leap. Much much the same asrecreational diving to cave
diving. It's it's probably asimilar leap from cave diving to
some diving. So to get to getinto cave diving, obviously,
(08:41):
there's there's quite a numberof different courses in
Australia that the typical pathis through the cave divers
association of Australia, theCDA, there's there's three
levels and then the sort ofexperience building in between.
There's a heap of good, goodstuff to do at each level,
typically about Gambia. Sothere's the crystal clear
(09:02):
sinkholes, and it's sort ofculminating up in the seven
kilometres of maze tunnels intank cave. And then the novel
sort of comes in their own inthe mid to high levels. And
yeah, once you sort of achievethat advanced cave level, you
(09:23):
there's there's a lot morethings open to and I've done a
bit of dry caving in at uni anddry caving is just sort of
normal caving with sailing andsqueezing and climbing and
walking. And I sort of put thaton hold while I while I became a
(09:43):
mad diver. And I went yeah, Igot a bit of exposure and then
was lucky enough to get get inon some some trips. It were
where we were combining divingand K I mean, and so that's
essentially that's that's thethe explanation of some diving
(10:05):
is it's it's the combination ofcave diving and dry caving to
further the cave.
Matt Waters (10:12):
Yeah, so it's not I was just gone. No.
Stephen Fordyce (10:17):
Yes at some some diving, sub diving is an
exploration tool. So generallyit's where where we're not
necessarily diving exactly forthe fun of it, but we're diving
to find or to access some morecave beyond the dive and because
you need to be an accomplishedcaver and a pretty gnarly cave
(10:39):
diver, that that really appealedto me because it was it was such
a nice niche thing. And therewere so few people doing it.
Matt Waters (10:45):
It is very, very niches and I was, I'm just, I'm
looking off camera at themoment, I'm trying to find it
the YouTube footage that you hadup of a cold pot belly or
something like that. There'splenty. There was a cave that
you've you've done two and ahalf, three, three minutes or
(11:07):
whatever, just following throughto try and find the end of a
cave.
Stephen Fordyce (11:12):
There's been a few, a few, quite a few
different projects I've beeninvolved with. Grayling, Swalot,
and niggly cave was a bigproject in Tasmania. And we
ended up connecting these twocaves via a dive. And so that
was a fantastic it's a fantasticexample of some diving where
we've got these two caves, theytakes about six hours to get to
(11:33):
the water either side. And thetwo caves are linked by 700
metres of flooded tunnel with amaximum depth about 25 metres
but average depth about probablyabout eight. Yeah. So connecting
those those two together was amassive team effort. With
(11:54):
southern Tasmania and Kevin isdown in Hobart each dive there'd
be six or so people, andeveryone would put in a 12 ish
hour day for that on one diverto go and do a sort of two hour
now. nally push dive at the end.
Matt Waters (12:12):
And what the what's the what's the clarity? Like
when you're when you're inthere? I mean, everyone,
everyone would assume that it'sit's, you know, much the same as
it was in Lantian caves andcoffee brown murky water and
can't see anything?
Stephen Fordyce (12:23):
Yeah, you get, you get a brief period on the
way in have crystal clear orfairly clear water. But as soon
as you touch anything, which youtry not to. But as soon as your
bubbles touch anything, the youtend to get a cascade of silt
off the ceiling. So a lot of thetime you actually kind of look
(12:44):
ahead, take a mental picture,and then the silt rains down.
And that's sort of it for awhile, and then you swim back
into the clear water. So yeah,when you push diving, like that,
where it's undisturbed, it's areal mental focus game. Which
is, which is really cool. It'sone of the things that I really
(13:05):
like about it. Maybe not thetime, but in an overall sense
of, of achieving somethingsomething amazing.
Matt Waters (13:13):
And it's certainly an amazing, and how do you, you
know, just gotten into the finerdetails of it because you're
descending? I say 25 metres toeight metres on average. In
coffee, how do you find your waythrough the merch to find the
the end goal that you're lookingfor? Is it literally fingertip
(13:34):
and if you come to a dead end,turn around, come back out and
go another way?
Stephen Fordyce (13:38):
Oh, well, that's there's actually a really
big emphasis on on being able tosee. And so if if it's
understood, then you can see youjust got to swim fast enough to
stay ahead of the silk cloud.
Which is actually it's okay, ifyou're swimming with the current
coming towards you, then that'sless of a deal. If you're doing
(13:59):
a downstream sump, then you stopand the, the silt cloud goes
ahead of you. That's that'sobviously a bit harder. And so
you've got to keep movingfaster. But making setting the
conditions for the best, thebest possible diet outcome is
(14:20):
actually a key part of planning.
So a good example is sesamecave, which is taken up probably
probably a lot more than thanthe the energy I budgeted for.
I've done two quite awful pushdives in there over the last two
years for not much cave but thefirt the first one I did
(14:44):
completely blind. So getting tothe cave. It's a nasty series of
wrinkles in the water andwalking walking in the mud. And
it was completely coffee and soit took the best part of half an
hour to feel my way along aboutabout 40 metres. And I was quite
(15:06):
worried about how long it wouldtake to get out. So I was very
conservative. couldn't read mygauges the whole time. So I had
to sort of kind of guess howmuch gas there was left. Which
that was that was quiteunpleasant. And it took me two
minutes to get out. And Ithought, you know, well, it's,
if that's the difference, it'dbe much better would be much
(15:29):
better being able to see wherethe big bit was. So, yeah, I
actually went back and we campedin the cave, specifically, so we
can let the water clearovernight. And that created a
whole huge series of logistics.
But um, I can sort of honestlysay that the dive is probably
finished now. It's the thediligence has been done. It
didn't it didn't go sadly. Butum, yeah, we threw everything at
(15:50):
it. And did it did it properly,which is a big part of my
satisfaction.
Matt Waters (15:57):
Yeah. And, you know, the logistics and the
teamwork involved in this mustbe satisfying within itself.
Even if you got a you know,relatively dull lending to the
dive.
Stephen Fordyce (16:09):
It is and it's actually quite fun being a
supporting person, or I think soanyway, I've probably done most
of the, the push diver role ofrate of light in the last few
years, but um, I have been asupport quite a lot more fun
because there's, there's nopressure and everything else.
(16:29):
But um, yeah, it's a greatatmosphere. And I try and plan,
plan a lot for these things, andplan it down into the finer
details like having a stove,sometimes even having music so
we can chill out and collectingall the little one percenters to
maximise the chance of success.
And have fun because, yes, whenyou're holding a bag of someone
(16:54):
else's dive get out of the caveat midnight. It doesn't seem
like much fun.
Matt Waters (17:01):
Why the hell am I doing this for him? Yeah. Oh,
Stephen Fordyce (17:03):
my. I mean, it's meant to be for the good of
everyone. And it's definitelythe team shares all the glory
that there's certainly a lot ofseats on the push diver
shoulders.
Matt Waters (17:15):
But it does. I mean, just going to refer to
refer to was a couple ofweekends ago now when you did
the found the deepest cave inAustralia. Congratulations to
you and the team.
Stephen Fordyce (17:27):
Thanks. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a pretty
cool thing. It wasn't wasn'tdiving related. So it was just a
dry series, a series of shafts.
We've so we have sailed down 350Odd metres. And we found we
connected to these deep cavestogether and set the set a new
record for Australia's deepestdry cave. So it was a bit of a
(17:48):
diversion sort of took a lot ofthe energy for the last six or
eight months. But it was afantastic team exercise when we
managed to get nine peopleinvolved in the connection trip,
eight of whom went all the waythrough in one cave and out the
other. So it was a fantastic.
It's just fantastic experienceto do and share with with all
(18:11):
those people.
Matt Waters (18:12):
Yeah, I must have made those videos that are out
there. I've been snickered andflicking through them all. And
there seems to be a lot of funand joviality going on. While
I'm watching it and watchingtiny people squeezed through
tiny little holes. And all I canthink of is I'd need a
jackhammer and a hammer andchisel just to get get halfway
(18:32):
through this stuff isremarkable.
Stephen Fordyce (18:35):
Yeah, well, the small stuff in the music, I
mean, the musical stuff, we sortof do it. We don't really do it
because we like it. We do itbecause there's something worth
it on the other side. Yeah. Sothere's, there's a bit of I
mean, when you're starting outwith caving and diving,
sometimes you'll do stuff justfor the sake of it or for
(18:56):
training. But it's one of thethings I like about the
exploration concept is that youdon't have to do things the hard
way. Because, you know, we getto do things the easy way. And
we make them as easy as we canand it's still really hard. So
that's that's also prettysatisfying.
Matt Waters (19:16):
Don't homeschool I can imagine so. Was it what was
the actual depth of it? Becausewas it 404 101 metres or
something like that?
Stephen Fordyce (19:26):
Yeah, for 401 is the figure. It's actually the
new entrance is very close tothe previous highest entrance
it's, it's within 15 metres in3d space, but it's four metres
higher. So we know we know thatit's definitely four metres
higher than the previous theprevious deepest cave was
(19:48):
actually made in three years agowhen when I did that very well
supported dive in in niggly Coveto connect it to growling spot.
And I probably should shouldpoint out for everyone that the
deepest cave in the world is2200 metres. But that was kind
of New Zealand's over 1000 Our400 metres a bit piddly by world
(20:11):
standards, but it's important tous. And yeah, we had a bit of
fun naming. We named the coveDelta variant. And we gave it a
whole COVID team. There's allsorts of silliness around that.
But I
Matt Waters (20:27):
did notice there's a lot of Disney about it as
well.
Stephen Fordyce (20:29):
Yeah, they did a Disney Princesses theme for
when we split up into differentteams to make on the connection
through some, yes, as we weresaying before, the silliness is
important. And sometimes it's acase of faking it till you make
it. Pretend pretend you'rehaving fun, and everyone
actually kind of believesthey're having fun.
Matt Waters (20:51):
Yeah, and that can revel in that fun when you're at
the proverbial 19th hole of thegolf course. So at the end of
the day,
Stephen Fordyce (20:59):
yeah, some some of these things are the farm is
derived afterwards.
Matt Waters (21:06):
Yeah, yeah. Hey, I wanted to ask you about that.
The kako buddy cave expedition.
Because that looks, I'm justlooking in your in your
catalogue, there is a photothere with all the all the DPS
and all the equipment. It lookslike it was an amazing setup.
How long did that one take toput together?
Stephen Fordyce (21:28):
Yeah, copy, that's probably probably one of
the pinnacles of my my cavediving experience. So for those
those that don't know, Coco, btwcave is on the Nullarbor. It's
about It's got about six and ahalf kilometres of linear
passage. So at the furthestpoint, you're six and a half
(21:48):
kilometres of diving from theentrance. At one stage, it was
the longest underwater cave inthe world. And most of it is big
enough. No, you drive a truckthrough easily, and there's bits
of it, you can fly a planethrough, it's just so big and
spectacular. And it's also gotseveral several dry chambers,
(22:09):
which actually make thelogistics really painful. So a
couple of years ago, pre COVID,we, myself, Ryan couch kowski,
Lisa Rogers, who, yeah, we goway back on different projects.
We, we wanted to push the end.
So that's that's, you know, thething you do in in cave
exploration is you're trying togo a bit further than than
(22:30):
previous people have. Buildingon the work, of course. So yeah,
to do that, we, we wouldprobably over overdid it a bit.
But it was that that sameconcept I've talked about
earlier of maximising yourchances when you're actually
(22:50):
there. So working working backfrom that, you can get to the
end in one day, it takes maybe16 to 20 hours. So pretty
massive, and you're out there atthe pointy end, knowing that
you've you've got to reserve awhole lot of energy for that,
that return. And when you'retrying to solve the, you know,
(23:12):
complex logic puzzle underwater,trying to read the cave, see
what's happening where knowwhere to look, because
remembering you've got thatcouple of seconds before the
visibility ceases. So yeah, sowe said, All right, well, let's
if we're going to achieve beingin the best state of mind, we're
(23:32):
going to camp in the cave asclose as we can. And we're going
to repeat the dive. So weactually we camped in the cave
as close as we could get. Wecamped in Toad Hall, which is
about three and a halfkilometres in, we can't be there
for four nights. And that meantwe could do multiple dives out
to the end. So we would do abouta, about a six hour dive in the
(23:56):
final section from our camp. Andthat mean, we could we could be
fresh, we knew that it was onlyyou know, only two hours diving
to get back from the end to ourcamp. And we also we did a
little things like we took in aprojector. And so each night at
(24:16):
our camp, we watched IndianaJones project on the wall, it's
the sound was terrible, but um,there was a really, really cool
thing to do, just to chill outand get ourselves in the mood.
Now we had good sleep we took inbecause we had to take our own
(24:37):
water. We didn't sort of have toworry too much about you know,
other things so we could takedrinks and food and you know, we
cooked up cooked up good things.
And yeah, and and so we also hada huge mountain of stuff. And
unfortunately that meant that wespent think we're on site For
(25:00):
about 12 days, and we basicallyspent all except three days of
wonderful diving in the middle,shifting about 500 kilos of gear
from one place to another.
Sometimes it was underwater, andwe clipped it all together into
a sled and we towed along withwith scooters, dpbs DVDs, and
then we'd have to pull it apart,carry it over a rock pile, put
(25:22):
it back together in the wateragain, and then tell it through
the next section. So I'm notentirely sure I've got another
one of those in me. super gladthat we did it. And the photos
of the sled leisurely is tooksome fantastic photos of tying
this this behemoth and it's beenmade into memes on the internet.
(25:42):
And it's really cool.
Matt Waters (25:47):
Yeah, it looks it looks fantastic. It really does.
And we're an adventure. What's,what's next?
Stephen Fordyce (25:56):
Ah, well, at the moment, it's, I mean, it's
been pretty weird with withCOVID. So the Nullarbor has been
sort of off the table for me,it's Tuesday, it's over and, you
know, 30 hours driving, it's abig, big commitment. And I've
been, I tend to get focused on aproject and I've been very
(26:16):
focused on on stuff in Tassie atthe moment. So there's there's a
particular caving system cavesystem under mount Field
National Park, and there'swhat's called the journey
foreign time. People might befamiliar with the Junee cave
resurgence. It's got a littlePark Reserve around it. Yeah,
and so that's, that's a, thedeepest caves in Australia,
(26:39):
quite cold there seven degrees.
And there's also a lot ofundisturbed stumps. And so I've
been going there for quite awhile, and being not too far
away. I've I've spent quite alot of time there. In between
Melbourne lockdowns and COVIDthings. It's also close enough
that I can I can fly there for aweekend without being too
(27:00):
horrendous. So I've got a listof list of SOPs I've been
working through and diving hadsome some great successes. And
there's there's a few left a fewthings to wrap up. But it's it's
really good. High qualityexploration, you find stuff, you
(27:21):
know, nobody's ever been there.
And you get to name it, whichis, strangely, one of the things
I quite like is, is namingthings.
Matt Waters (27:33):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's certainly unique. What does
it actually can you express thefeeling of, you know, dive in
through somewhere that no one'sbeen or seen ever before.
Stephen Fordyce (27:52):
I'd like to give it lots of, you know,
wonderful, airy terms, buthonestly, it's, it's usually
just a bit scary and alone. Alot of the wall, maybe not it's
controlled, controlled fear.
That's a useful thing. But um,yeah, it's perhaps absorbing is
a good word. Because you've gotso much going on. So much focus,
(28:16):
that there isn't there isn'tsort of too much time for
thinking. Thinking aboutphilosophies and stuff. So yeah,
perhaps a lot of thesatisfaction is afterwards when
you're back and safe andeverything. Yeah,
Matt Waters (28:35):
I suppose the mental come down is quite, quite
big, as well as your focus, likeyou say, you just mentioned
focus, there must be extremelyonpoint. While you're doing
this, and then afterwards, maybetiring?
Stephen Fordyce (28:50):
A little bit.
But um, yeah, obviously, you'vegot to get yourself out. So. And
it's surprising, there's verylittle sympathy when everyone's
been sitting around shiveringfor a couple of hours. It's
seven degrees in there. And alot of the time you get quite
quite wet, just getting to thedive site. So yeah, it's you
come back and right. We're goingout to change. He got hot drink.
(29:14):
Don't get any. Let's go. Yeah,yeah. But um, it's certainly a
relief to get back. I probablyshould mention, I've alluded to
two solo diving, which is a bitof a contentious topic. And
actually something that I wouldrecommend, most people don't do.
Obviously, it's got a sort ofimplications. Suffice to say
(29:39):
that I consider it a tool. It'sa tool for a job and a fairly
specialised tool for specialisedjob. Practically speaking, with
some diving, a lot of the timeyou just can't get gear for two
people to the water and probablymore importantly, if it's you I
want to be tight. And then lowvisibility, which is, you know,
(30:02):
a fairly safe bet. It's actuallysafer not to have somebody else
getting in the way. Yeah. And ofcourse, we plan and train and
mentally prepare for for selfsufficiency. So there's a whole
series of things around it. Thatbefore anyone sort of puts me up
on a cross or anything.
Matt Waters (30:26):
Yeah, there's always armchair warriors. And
there's there's going to becavers out there that clearly
know a lot more about thebusiness than I do. However, I
think you hit the nail on thehead there, because even for
recreational diver like myself,it just makes common sense that
if you've got two people intandem, and you're going through
(30:46):
squeezes that have never beenseen before, then your
visibility is gonna go todogshit. And that possibly can
be an issue just in itself, letalone having someone that gets
in your way as well.
Stephen Fordyce (30:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's definitely, it's
definitely not for everyone. Infact, it's quite interesting to
see. See, see the reaction ofpeople when you sort of tell
them what you do. And it's notthat so recreational divers,
they're probably worse than thegeneral public, because the
(31:16):
general public sort of doesn'thave the fear of knowledge.
Whereas recreational divers,they sort of go oh, well, you
know, that's it. They theyreally feel it. That allows
extra things that you're doingwhile you're underwater. So
yeah, get get a few strangelooks, looks from them. And and
also the cave is actuallybecause they understand the
(31:39):
caving side of things. They sortof go home. Now you're going to
do all this, and then you'regoing to dive as well. So I'm
sort of sort of become a bit ofa pariah. And in both worlds, it
certainly makes me very tolerantof other people's weaknesses.
Matt Waters (31:54):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you've got an aptly named
T shirt though. Introverts?
Stephen Fordyce (31:59):
Oh, yeah. It actually it actually says,
introverts unite, a separate inyour own homes. I am, I am a
well, well known introvert thatI do right with talking to
people as well. The pandemicwas, I was reasonably well
suited to that.
Matt Waters (32:19):
Yeah, I didn't mind it, to be honest. Couple of
years of not been out and busyand around all over the place. I
quite enjoyed the first six toeight months, to be honest.
Stephen Fordyce (32:29):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel very lucky to be
able to say that I do. I did.
Okay, through a lot of peoplestruggle. Very bad.
Matt Waters (32:36):
Yeah. My missus were climbing a wall. Wanted to
get out and go all over theplace. Yeah. And we, and when we
got put in touch by by Sue wason the podcast last week. And
you're gonna be down at the Haastech dive show in October.
Stephen Fordyce (32:55):
Yes. And I did it. I did actually in
preparation. And as a good thingto do. I listened to Sue's
podcasts yesterday. Yeah, it wasgreat. It was actually really
interesting to find out aboutsomeone in a bit more detail
than you normally get. Yeah, soit's really good. And yeah, I'll
(33:15):
definitely I'll be hosting. Ihave a bit of a regular. And I
was luckily lucky enough to beawarded the Emerging Explorer
last last
Matt Waters (33:26):
saltstick.
Congratulations.
Stephen Fordyce (33:28):
Thank you very much. Yeah, so that was that was
pretty cool. I mean, obviously,it's a big deal. Definitely in
the technical communitytechnical diving community, but
I just genuinely diving. It's,it's really cool. Yeah, so I
wouldn't miss it. And I'll beI'll be talking about I'll be
doing two presentations. Yeah,one, which is about general
(33:54):
stuff I've been doing since thelast little stick. There's quite
a bit of it. So I'll just sortof go here and there everywhere.
And then the other the otherone, it'll come out on the
programme.
Matt Waters (34:05):
So you do know where you're placed in the
programme. You know, if you'retalking on a Saturday or Sunday
or both?
Stephen Fordyce (34:11):
I'm not sure. I don't. I don't think it's coming
out yet. I think had a fewthings happening. But yeah, I'll
definitely be in there at somepoint.
Matt Waters (34:20):
I think they do it as a bit of a secret. So you
can't plan which day you'regonna go. general public, I want
to, I want to go see StevenFord. I want to see I'm not
sure.
Stephen Fordyce (34:30):
Yeah. It's I just, it's fantastic that I
always go and have troublefiguring out what to see. So
many different people with somany different passions. And,
you know, I don't necessarilyhave have scope to go and do all
of the stuff, you know, directdiving and other things. It's
(34:54):
not sort of my my, somethingthat I do but it's really cool
seeing people that do it and Ialso people that record it as
well. So I'm quite, quitepassionate about properly
recording and documenting whatyou're doing. So one of the
things with a push dive is thatit's not over, when you turn
(35:14):
around, you do all the all theproblem solving and finding the
way on and laying the line asyou go in. And then when you
turn around and come out, you'vegot to actually survey and map
the line on your way back. Soevery time the line changes
directions, we record depth,compass bearing and the distance
(35:34):
from the previous previous one.
We use a put knots in ourguideline and are able to do
that. And then we can plot thatlater to see where the key is
going. So it's
Matt Waters (35:47):
just just thinking on and doing all that and doing
it by knots in lines, but whatabout the 3d photography stuff
that might occur and bottom lineprojects and that do on racks?
Would that not work inside? Someof the shops that you go?
Stephen Fordyce (36:04):
In? Probably probably would. But it's sort of
make it a whole lot morecomplicated than it needs to be.
It's actually not that big of adeal to do the survey. Once once
you get the practice and havethe mindset for it. And I think
(36:25):
the photogrammetry stuff needsgood visibility and plenty of
plenty of photos. Yeah. Idaresay one day that they'll
they'll be able to take a GoProshaky GoPro footage and turn it
into a full 3d map. But um, myunderstanding is that's a bit of
a way away yet.
Matt Waters (36:44):
I suppose. Just add to the equipment that you're
taking them with you as well.
Isn't
Stephen Fordyce (36:48):
that to everything's because
everything's carried such a longway. It gets it gets fairly
carefully cold.
Matt Waters (36:57):
Yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, so austere
Umrah. I almost had my I'mreally looking forward towards
tech. The last one I went to wasin. I think it was 2018 When I
first visited Australia, and Iwas pleasantly surprised. So I'm
looking forward to this one aswell. And I'm going for the full
two days doing the decompressionparty afterwards as well. Oh,
(37:21):
yeah.
Stephen Fordyce (37:21):
Yeah, definitely. That's I mean,
that's that's probably the bestplace for mixing mixing with
people. And it's, I mean, allsticks really cool because it's
the one to one event where youget everyone. You know, the
Western Australians come over inNew Zealand has come over
(37:44):
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide,Iran, everyone sort of generally
makes the effort. Other stufflike the you know, the cave
diver symposium in Mount Gambia.
Obviously, you get the cavedivers, but you don't get the
wreck divers. You don'tnecessarily get the West
Australians. Yeah, so I'll takeI mean, it's the spot if you
want to want to bail someone outor catch up or ask a question or
(38:08):
ever have a quiet word tosomeone.
Matt Waters (38:15):
I'm gonna be wandering around with a camera
and a microphone, and I'm justgonna be asking a million
questions. Ah, yeah, yeah. Andanyone who doesn't want to be on
camera tough.
Stephen Fordyce (38:28):
Yeah, well, I heard on the on Sue's podcast
that they're they're recordingthem all. All the presentations
this year? Yeah, yeah. So um,yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna
have to watch what I say though.
Matt Waters (38:39):
I could never have me on stage. That's way too
much. And you've got nothingcoming up this year? What about
with TFM?
Stephen Fordyce (38:49):
Ah, yeah. To see odds and ends. I've got a
few more Tassie trips planned.
And I did say, Hold. I'll spenda couple of weeks over January
in Tassie been been doing thatthe last few years. And it's
really good to get a good a gooda good go at it. Now. The it's
quite it's quite hard,obviously. So if you go for a
(39:14):
weekend or even a long weekend,you really only get one one
solid day. And then you're toorich to do much else. Yeah,
we'll we'll do a half day or amoderate day. But the big big
coding projects quite quite oneday and then you need a rest
(39:35):
date. Last Last January, we diddiscover a new a new section at
the end of Niggli code. And thisis Sophie Sophie, the cat's
friend of introverts. Yes, atthe end of England cave, we've
(39:55):
been hitting it for sort of fiveor six years. It's a spectacular
cave. It's got two kilometres ofrailway tunnel right at the
bottom, it's 300 metres belowthe entrance. And we're just it
we know it goes we know it's gotanother five kilometres before
it comes out the journeyresurgence. And it should be it
should be just as big, butthere's big rock pile at the
(40:18):
end. And you know it's 40 metreshigh and it's got all sorts
little squirrely bits goingaround it. So we've been sort of
systematically getting in thereand try to map the little bits
and push separate leads.
Probably Probably a lot ofpeople have come and gone.
There's there's a few of usstill kind of keeping ticking
(40:39):
along. And last January, wefound we found a sump and it's
named the Biohazard sump. It'sreally not very pleasant. It's
not a very pleasant area. Yeah,but it could be it could be
something really cool. So it'sprobably going to be the most
remote sump dive I've done inTassie. And we're definitely
(41:02):
will spend three nightsunderground to make that happen.
Why is
Matt Waters (41:05):
it called What's it called the biocide? Biohazard?
Some
Stephen Fordyce (41:09):
it's actually sometimes you gotta be careful
with your naming history. Butthis one is because Gemma, one
of the discoveries cut herfinger on a rock. And yeah, we
there was, we saw the dropletsof blood before we saw the car.
And someone said, Well, it's abit of a biohazard. So either
(41:32):
naming, yeah, the naming is partof the fun. Because I went
through a phase of naming awhole section after Game of
Thrones characters. There's athere's a chamber called the
Business Class lounge. Yes. I'vemanaged to score business class
flight to Tassie that that tripand I was quite miffed that
(41:55):
Hobart didn't have a businessclass lounge. So I gave them
one. Just got it. You just gottago. I don't think. No, I'm the
I'm the only visitor. So um,yeah. And then if you go past
the business class lounge, you,
Matt Waters (42:12):
you get to the chairman's lounge.
Stephen Fordyce (42:14):
No, no, you're fine. You climb the corporate
ladder, which is a particularlyawful slippery climb. And as you
get a bit further, you you hitthe glass ceiling, which is at
the end. Unfortunately, Icouldn't get I couldn't get past
there. I tried very hard. ButI'm a bit further back down in
Boston in messed it up now a bitbit further in the business
(42:35):
class lounge. There's a horriblelittle hole, and it's it with a
puddle in it. And if you crawlin backwards with one tank off,
that's how you get into thissump. And then you sort of turn
around and go on. And that'sthat's the lateral higher sump.
Because once you pass that yousurface into a nice, nice, big
(42:57):
streamline passage called bossland. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That
after that, the theme, the themechanged and it got to be a got
less good. Eventually, that endsin the bean chicken Haven. Ah,
yes. Yeah.
Matt Waters (43:14):
The video I saw on YouTube in chicken. Oh, yeah.
Yeah,
Stephen Fordyce (43:17):
yeah, that was a whole. The theme song of that
trip was was the Ibis song, thatsong about birds by Bondi
hipsters? It's quite amusing.
It's also got some terriblelanguage. That that was we tend
to have theme songs for the forthe trips, especially a longer
camping trip like that. So it'sa bit weird, but I'd like to
(43:40):
think it helps with morale andhelps distract people. So I'll
pick a song and I'll generallyjust generally play it a lot.
The idea is to get it stuck inpeople's heads. So they think
about that, rather than howdifficult the caving is.
Matt Waters (44:02):
I tend to I had a habit years ago, where if I was
leading dives, I just startwhistling on the deck because
we're as we're gearing up andthe amount of people by the end
of a say a liveaboard wouldwould comment that they'd have
the Star Wars children goingthrough their head or Wizard of
Oz or something like thatthroughout the entire diving
(44:23):
they couldn't get rid of it.
Stephen Fordyce (44:24):
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Waters (44:28):
Yeah, but now that that been checking video, I like
that one. It's it kind of itkind of shows that, that that
some dive in and then coming outthe other side and the way it
just all opens up.
Stephen Fordyce (44:40):
Yeah, that was a fantastic day, actually. After
I sort of given up on the thebusiness class lounge, you know,
it was It wasn't really worththe effort and the sort of the
cost of negotiating everyoneinto carrying carrying will dive
(45:01):
you down. That is actually onthe trip where we connected.
Grayling, Scotland legallytogether. So I had all the full
dive gear kit down there. And Irealised that I could probably
probably go back and haveanother look at the business
class lounge. So yeah, havinghaving that second look. ended
(45:22):
up breaking through and goinginto I ended up doing a really
long day. I think I got go backat midnight, back to camp in the
cave. Found a whole lot ofreally cool stuff. Just really
sad that it it didn't go itended in rockfall that I
couldn't find a way through.
Matt Waters (45:40):
Yeah, it was a sizable that's the one that's on
the video, right. The rockfall?
Stephen Fordyce (45:45):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Waters (45:47):
It's pretty, it's pretty big.
Stephen Fordyce (45:48):
Possibly. Yeah, my favourite part of that trip
was, as I was, I came back tocamp and everyone was asleep. I
started singing the bird songabout the irises. And I actually
managed to insert myself intoone of the guys dream. So he
started having a weird dreamabout irises and me and caving
(46:10):
things. And yes, and then hewoke up really confused as like
as I walked in.
Matt Waters (46:16):
Yeah, that's marvellous. I got lucky. Right,
I think we're going to have toscoot in a second. We parked out
the front. And we're the delaysthat we had at the start, I'm
gonna end up getting a bloodybig ticket. TFM let's have a
little bit more about TFM.
Because let's plug yourbusinessman.
Stephen Fordyce (46:38):
Oh, yeah, yeah, Shameless, Shameless plug. TV
engineering is the smallbusiness that I, I pivoted to,
when, when the real world got abit too annoying. I was doing
more and more project managementbig, big annoying things with
(46:59):
bureaucracy and paperwork,rather than actually making cool
stuff. To engineering is avessel that I can use to pursue
all sorts of different things.
So I design electronics or buildgas systems. aftermarket stuff
for compressors, bits andpieces. It's kind of whatever I
want it to be. I do have a big,a big catalogue feel confined
(47:21):
with all sorts of divingholdings. And I do bespoke
things as well, which is a bitof fun. 250
Matt Waters (47:30):
pages catalogue is pretty impressive.
Stephen Fordyce (47:34):
Yeah, it is.
Unfortunately, it's quite out ofdate. It's 2017. And I haven't
had a chance to, to redo it,because it's, it's such a big
job and aren't a bit of aperfectionist. But it does does
the job for now.
Matt Waters (47:48):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's quite a few
products in here that you'vedesigned.
Stephen Fordyce (47:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, not not everything. Somestuff is specialist buy and
sell. But um, yeah, I like tothink I've at least added value
to most things. And some ofthem, some of them I've
developed from scratch.
Matt Waters (48:05):
Yeah, yeah. Just having a look at the boosters.
Looks pretty swish.
Stephen Fordyce (48:10):
Yep. Yeah. Two poses and kits and things. I'm
probably more more focused onnot being tied to any particular
brands. Yeah. It's sort ofeasier. That's a good good niche
that I a little niche that Ifeel.
Matt Waters (48:26):
Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot in this just going
through there's a lot in thiscatalogue that operators will
want pieces that they can't findanywhere. I reckon it's gonna be
in this catalogue. Quitefrankly. Yes.
Stephen Fordyce (48:40):
That's the only Yes. obscure little things that
are that are hard to find. WhichI've I've had trouble finding as
well.
Matt Waters (48:46):
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I think we'll wrap it up there.
And I'll autograph before we getto a parking fine at the front.
Where can people find details?
TFM and yourself, and all thegood stuff that you'd have in?
Stephen Fordyce (49:04):
Yeah, probably Facebook's the best one. You'll
find TFM engineering Australia,search for that. Or Steven
Fordyce, you'll figure out howto spell some somehow. thing
somewhere. Yeah, hit me up. Theordering for to them is
genuinely by sending an email. Ikind of like the old fashioned
(49:25):
way of connecting with peopleand, you know, managing, made
suggestions, everything else.
But yeah, you can find me allsorts of places
Matt Waters (49:35):
nowadays. And we can we can put links in the show
notes. And maybe we have a chatlater and I'll chuck a link up
on our website or something viaas well. Fantastic. Yeah. Happy
days. Man. It's been an absolutepleasure talking to you. And I
look forward to meeting you inperson in October and maybe
having a beer on a Sundayevening as
Stephen Fordyce (49:54):
well.
Yesterday.
Matt Waters (49:57):
I'll see if I can put a T shirt together with an
introvert sign on it. Okay.
Yeah, very good. Awesome sauce.
Thanks, Steven. And once again,congratulations on on your
achievements and bigcongratulations to the team as
well.
Stephen Fordyce (50:11):
Fantastic.
Thanks, man. It's great. Greatto talk.
Matt Waters (50:14):
Pleasure, mate.
Thanks for listening everybody.
Bye for now. podcast for theinquisitive diver
Hey, there dive buddies and welcome to the show.
(00:08):
Now before we get on with thisweek's episode, I just want to
share a quick story with youbecause I got a call a few weeks
ago from my mate Martin at ScubaIQ.
"Hey, Matt, what are you up toin December? Do you fancy co
hosting a trip with me?" Now ofcourse, I played it cool. "Oh,
yeah. Well might be interestedmate." However, it doesn't take
(00:29):
a genius to work out my answerwhen the trip he's talking about
is in the Great Barrier Reef.
"I'm in!"So we're taking a maximum of 12
guests and we're visiting lotsof hotspots, such as Steve's
bommie, The Cod Hole, LizardIsland, and we may even be
attempting the first floatingScuba GOAT podcast. So if you
want to get involved, come alongand have a lot of fun and some
(00:51):
awesome diving. Follow the linkin the show notes and grab your
spot quick. Now on with theshow.
Hey, Steven, hey, what we shoulddo is just introduce you to our
listeners. And so I'll hand thatbit over to you because I think
you know yourself better than Iknow you.
Stephen Fordyce (01:09):
Well, thanks.
So yeah, my name is StevenFordyce generally known as
Steve, but I'll answer toanything. I am 36. And I've done
quite a bit of stuff in thediving and other spheres. I'm an
engineer and but quite a handson one. And I I've come into my
(01:29):
little niche in the divingindustry running my small
business TFM engineeringAustralia. I do custom gas
equipment and and things andI've been noted to tell to
explain my customer base as thesort of people that have their
(01:49):
own compressor. So yeah, there'sthere's a whole whole series of
things around that.
Matt Waters (01:56):
I did have a look at TFM right, you got an
impressive lineup an impressivecatalogue there. I gotta say.
Stephen Fordyce (02:02):
Yeah, thanks.
So the idea was that it would beanything I kind of felt like at
the time. My My professionalbackground, I've got a degree in
mechatronics engineering. AndI've been I worked for about six
years in industry actuallydesigning product managing big
industrial gas systems, liquidnitrogen, liquid oxygen giant
(02:23):
gas plants and smaller things.
So yeah, we're a lot of peopleare coming into diving from a
you know, a teaching backgroundor an air background. I come in
from a pure gases, engineeringindustrial background, which is
(02:44):
kind of interesting. How
Matt Waters (02:45):
old are you?
Because you look so frickinyoung to have done all this
stuff.
Stephen Fordyce (02:49):
Well, yeah, I get that. I'm, I just turned 36
I think 1986 That's when I wasborn. Okay, so I'll be turning
36 yesterday, actually.
Something all the debut. I'vejust been lost track by now. But
um, yeah. And apparently I'vegot a baby face, which seems to
be it was a bit of a hindranceearly on, trying to try to have
(03:12):
credibility. But I've just aboutI got to a point in life where
old enough to be takenseriously, and sort of like
having a bit of a baby face.
Matt Waters (03:25):
Yeah, yeah. And how did you get into the diamond
side of life?
Stephen Fordyce (03:31):
Yeah, well, I started off pretty, pretty
young. I guess I was I was 20.
And wondering about at Monashuni, and I saw the Scuba club.
And I thought that looks cool.
I'd already done quite a lot ofother outdoor things with
bushwalking club. So I've got abit of a history of picking up
(03:53):
an activity and taking it tosome kind of logical extreme. So
does
Matt Waters (03:59):
logic logical and extreme come in the same
sentence I often? Or
Stephen Fordyce (04:04):
yeah, in my own head anyway. So back in 2007
ish. I rocked up to Monash openday, I saw the Scuba club, and I
thought Yeah, that's cool. So Iwent up to them I said, Hey,
guys, give me a pitch. And theytalked about how you could rent
gear really cheap and you couldgo off and they had their own
boat and you could basicallythat that at that point that was
(04:26):
when I realised that Scubadiving might actually be
affordable for me at that pointbeing a pretty poor tight
Student Yeah, and one thing ledto another and two years later I
was the president running theclub
Matt Waters (04:43):
literally at the deep end
Stephen Fordyce (04:45):
a little bit yeah, I got got a bit carried
away did did my dividing waterand various other things. And
yeah, running running clubsuited me really well. I've
always been a bit of a like todo things by and why and so the
club was a really good way thatI could do that. Now they had a
(05:08):
boat and a bunch of uni kidsrunning around with a boat and
all that all the dive gear waswas really amazing, fantastic
thing to be part of. And I threwa huge amount of energy into
that and making it really cool.
And so I've got, like lifelongfriends that we went through all
sorts of trips and things andeverything else. So I was a mad
(05:30):
ocean diver for quite a fewyears. We took the quad bike, we
drove around all over Australia.
So I've done all sorts of weirdand wonderful dives. As far as
Perth we also we took the boatto Tassie, we took it up to
northern New South Wales and loVictoria. So yeah, it was it was
(05:54):
a fantastic thing to do at uniwhen we we had time not not so
much money. Yeah, we did somefantastic things.
Matt Waters (06:04):
How'd you manage to do all your study with all this
mega travelling going on? Prettyimpressive. Oh,
Stephen Fordyce (06:08):
they give you they give you so many so many
breaks? And I also probably wasguilty of the cramming technique
a bit
Matt Waters (06:18):
yeah, for one fell on and whether they were in the
sea within the during the oceanrecreational But how on earth?
Did you end up taking it intocaves?
Stephen Fordyce (06:28):
Yeah, well, that's I am sort of probably
best best known and most mostkeen on on my que diving and in
fact, a specific niche of cavediving called called sub diving.
I actually, I knew quite earlyon that cave diving was a thing
that I wanted to do. I did myinitial training with ocean
(06:51):
divers in Bentley. And they havea big kind of standing in cave
diving, I do a lot of courses.
And some of the some of theinstructors like Jane Barton,
who was who was my instructor,and worked on. They operated out
of the shop. And so even as Iwas doing my open water and
(07:14):
Advanced Open Water, there werepictures on the wall of people
cave diving. And there werepeople in the shop that cave
dives. And, you know, some ofthe other instructors were
around cave diving. So itactually seemed like a pretty
natural progression for me. AndI remember even quite early on
when I've done 30 Odd dives andhadn't hadn't done my Advanced
Open Water yet that I looked atit and I'm like, Yeah, that's
(07:37):
I'm gonna do that cave diving.
That makes sense. Whereas a lotof other people, I think, sort
of come around to it a bit moreslowly.
Matt Waters (07:48):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've tried. I think it's
all extremely interesting. But Ithink I'm one of those divers
that prefers the ocean. AfterI've tried a few, you know, feel
a little dip through the sun 80sand stuff like that. It's all
interesting, but it doesn't grabme as much as corals and fish I
(08:09):
suppose it's it's each to theirown. But you just mentioned that
yours Your kind of flavour ispretty unique being that have
some time in
Stephen Fordyce (08:19):
it some some diving is it's sort of a quantum
leap. Much much the same asrecreational diving to cave
diving. It's it's probably asimilar leap from cave diving to
some diving. So to get to getinto cave diving, obviously,
(08:41):
there's there's quite a numberof different courses in
Australia that the typical pathis through the cave divers
association of Australia, theCDA, there's there's three
levels and then the sort ofexperience building in between.
There's a heap of good, goodstuff to do at each level,
typically about Gambia. Sothere's the crystal clear
(09:02):
sinkholes, and it's sort ofculminating up in the seven
kilometres of maze tunnels intank cave. And then the novel
sort of comes in their own inthe mid to high levels. And
yeah, once you sort of achievethat advanced cave level, you
(09:23):
there's there's a lot morethings open to and I've done a
bit of dry caving in at uni anddry caving is just sort of
normal caving with sailing andsqueezing and climbing and
walking. And I sort of put thaton hold while I while I became a
(09:43):
mad diver. And I went yeah, Igot a bit of exposure and then
was lucky enough to get get inon some some trips. It were
where we were combining divingand K I mean, and so that's
essentially that's that's thethe explanation of some diving
(10:05):
is it's it's the combination ofcave diving and dry caving to
further the cave.
Matt Waters (10:12):
Yeah, so it's not I was just gone. No.
Stephen Fordyce (10:17):
Yes at some some diving, sub diving is an
exploration tool. So generallyit's where where we're not
necessarily diving exactly forthe fun of it, but we're diving
to find or to access some morecave beyond the dive and because
you need to be an accomplishedcaver and a pretty gnarly cave
(10:39):
diver, that that really appealedto me because it was it was such
a nice niche thing. And therewere so few people doing it.
Matt Waters (10:45):
It is very, very niches and I was, I'm just, I'm
looking off camera at themoment, I'm trying to find it
the YouTube footage that you hadup of a cold pot belly or
something like that. There'splenty. There was a cave that
you've you've done two and ahalf, three, three minutes or
(11:07):
whatever, just following throughto try and find the end of a
cave.
Stephen Fordyce (11:12):
There's been a few, a few, quite a few
different projects I've beeninvolved with. Grayling, Swalot,
and niggly cave was a bigproject in Tasmania. And we
ended up connecting these twocaves via a dive. And so that
was a fantastic it's a fantasticexample of some diving where
we've got these two caves, theytakes about six hours to get to
(11:33):
the water either side. And thetwo caves are linked by 700
metres of flooded tunnel with amaximum depth about 25 metres
but average depth about probablyabout eight. Yeah. So connecting
those those two together was amassive team effort. With
(11:54):
southern Tasmania and Kevin isdown in Hobart each dive there'd
be six or so people, andeveryone would put in a 12 ish
hour day for that on one diverto go and do a sort of two hour
now. nally push dive at the end.
Matt Waters (12:12):
And what the what's the what's the clarity? Like
when you're when you're inthere? I mean, everyone,
everyone would assume that it'sit's, you know, much the same as
it was in Lantian caves andcoffee brown murky water and
can't see anything?
Stephen Fordyce (12:23):
Yeah, you get, you get a brief period on the
way in have crystal clear orfairly clear water. But as soon
as you touch anything, which youtry not to. But as soon as your
bubbles touch anything, the youtend to get a cascade of silt
off the ceiling. So a lot of thetime you actually kind of look
(12:44):
ahead, take a mental picture,and then the silt rains down.
And that's sort of it for awhile, and then you swim back
into the clear water. So yeah,when you push diving, like that,
where it's undisturbed, it's areal mental focus game. Which
is, which is really cool. It'sone of the things that I really
(13:05):
like about it. Maybe not thetime, but in an overall sense
of, of achieving somethingsomething amazing.
Matt Waters (13:13):
And it's certainly an amazing, and how do you, you
know, just gotten into the finerdetails of it because you're
descending? I say 25 metres toeight metres on average. In
coffee, how do you find your waythrough the merch to find the
the end goal that you're lookingfor? Is it literally fingertip
(13:34):
and if you come to a dead end,turn around, come back out and
go another way?
Stephen Fordyce (13:38):
Oh, well, that's there's actually a really
big emphasis on on being able tosee. And so if if it's
understood, then you can see youjust got to swim fast enough to
stay ahead of the silk cloud.
Which is actually it's okay, ifyou're swimming with the current
coming towards you, then that'sless of a deal. If you're doing
(13:59):
a downstream sump, then you stopand the, the silt cloud goes
ahead of you. That's that'sobviously a bit harder. And so
you've got to keep movingfaster. But making setting the
conditions for the best, thebest possible diet outcome is
(14:20):
actually a key part of planning.
So a good example is sesamecave, which is taken up probably
probably a lot more than thanthe the energy I budgeted for.
I've done two quite awful pushdives in there over the last two
years for not much cave but thefirt the first one I did
(14:44):
completely blind. So getting tothe cave. It's a nasty series of
wrinkles in the water andwalking walking in the mud. And
it was completely coffee and soit took the best part of half an
hour to feel my way along aboutabout 40 metres. And I was quite
(15:06):
worried about how long it wouldtake to get out. So I was very
conservative. couldn't read mygauges the whole time. So I had
to sort of kind of guess howmuch gas there was left. Which
that was that was quiteunpleasant. And it took me two
minutes to get out. And Ithought, you know, well, it's,
if that's the difference, it'dbe much better would be much
(15:29):
better being able to see wherethe big bit was. So, yeah, I
actually went back and we campedin the cave, specifically, so we
can let the water clearovernight. And that created a
whole huge series of logistics.
But um, I can sort of honestlysay that the dive is probably
finished now. It's the thediligence has been done. It
didn't it didn't go sadly. Butum, yeah, we threw everything at
(15:50):
it. And did it did it properly,which is a big part of my
satisfaction.
Matt Waters (15:57):
Yeah. And, you know, the logistics and the
teamwork involved in this mustbe satisfying within itself.
Even if you got a you know,relatively dull lending to the
dive.
Stephen Fordyce (16:09):
It is and it's actually quite fun being a
supporting person, or I think soanyway, I've probably done most
of the, the push diver role ofrate of light in the last few
years, but um, I have been asupport quite a lot more fun
because there's, there's nopressure and everything else.
(16:29):
But um, yeah, it's a greatatmosphere. And I try and plan,
plan a lot for these things, andplan it down into the finer
details like having a stove,sometimes even having music so
we can chill out and collectingall the little one percenters to
maximise the chance of success.
And have fun because, yes, whenyou're holding a bag of someone
(16:54):
else's dive get out of the caveat midnight. It doesn't seem
like much fun.
Matt Waters (17:01):
Why the hell am I doing this for him? Yeah. Oh,
Stephen Fordyce (17:03):
my. I mean, it's meant to be for the good of
everyone. And it's definitelythe team shares all the glory
that there's certainly a lot ofseats on the push diver
shoulders.
Matt Waters (17:15):
But it does. I mean, just going to refer to
refer to was a couple ofweekends ago now when you did
the found the deepest cave inAustralia. Congratulations to
you and the team.
Stephen Fordyce (17:27):
Thanks. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a pretty
cool thing. It wasn't wasn'tdiving related. So it was just a
dry series, a series of shafts.
We've so we have sailed down 350Odd metres. And we found we
connected to these deep cavestogether and set the set a new
record for Australia's deepestdry cave. So it was a bit of a
(17:48):
diversion sort of took a lot ofthe energy for the last six or
eight months. But it was afantastic team exercise when we
managed to get nine peopleinvolved in the connection trip,
eight of whom went all the waythrough in one cave and out the
other. So it was a fantastic.
It's just fantastic experienceto do and share with with all
(18:11):
those people.
Matt Waters (18:12):
Yeah, I must have made those videos that are out
there. I've been snickered andflicking through them all. And
there seems to be a lot of funand joviality going on. While
I'm watching it and watchingtiny people squeezed through
tiny little holes. And all I canthink of is I'd need a
jackhammer and a hammer andchisel just to get get halfway
(18:32):
through this stuff isremarkable.
Stephen Fordyce (18:35):
Yeah, well, the small stuff in the music, I
mean, the musical stuff, we sortof do it. We don't really do it
because we like it. We do itbecause there's something worth
it on the other side. Yeah. Sothere's, there's a bit of I
mean, when you're starting outwith caving and diving,
sometimes you'll do stuff justfor the sake of it or for
(18:56):
training. But it's one of thethings I like about the
exploration concept is that youdon't have to do things the hard
way. Because, you know, we getto do things the easy way. And
we make them as easy as we canand it's still really hard. So
that's that's also prettysatisfying.
Matt Waters (19:16):
Don't homeschool I can imagine so. Was it what was
the actual depth of it? Becausewas it 404 101 metres or
something like that?
Stephen Fordyce (19:26):
Yeah, for 401 is the figure. It's actually the
new entrance is very close tothe previous highest entrance
it's, it's within 15 metres in3d space, but it's four metres
higher. So we know we know thatit's definitely four metres
higher than the previous theprevious deepest cave was
(19:48):
actually made in three years agowhen when I did that very well
supported dive in in niggly Coveto connect it to growling spot.
And I probably should shouldpoint out for everyone that the
deepest cave in the world is2200 metres. But that was kind
of New Zealand's over 1000 Our400 metres a bit piddly by world
(20:11):
standards, but it's important tous. And yeah, we had a bit of
fun naming. We named the coveDelta variant. And we gave it a
whole COVID team. There's allsorts of silliness around that.
But I
Matt Waters (20:27):
did notice there's a lot of Disney about it as
well.
Stephen Fordyce (20:29):
Yeah, they did a Disney Princesses theme for
when we split up into differentteams to make on the connection
through some, yes, as we weresaying before, the silliness is
important. And sometimes it's acase of faking it till you make
it. Pretend pretend you'rehaving fun, and everyone
actually kind of believesthey're having fun.
Matt Waters (20:51):
Yeah, and that can revel in that fun when you're at
the proverbial 19th hole of thegolf course. So at the end of
the day,
Stephen Fordyce (20:59):
yeah, some some of these things are the farm is
derived afterwards.
Matt Waters (21:06):
Yeah, yeah. Hey, I wanted to ask you about that.
The kako buddy cave expedition.
Because that looks, I'm justlooking in your in your
catalogue, there is a photothere with all the all the DPS
and all the equipment. It lookslike it was an amazing setup.
How long did that one take toput together?
Stephen Fordyce (21:28):
Yeah, copy, that's probably probably one of
the pinnacles of my my cavediving experience. So for those
those that don't know, Coco, btwcave is on the Nullarbor. It's
about It's got about six and ahalf kilometres of linear
passage. So at the furthestpoint, you're six and a half
(21:48):
kilometres of diving from theentrance. At one stage, it was
the longest underwater cave inthe world. And most of it is big
enough. No, you drive a truckthrough easily, and there's bits
of it, you can fly a planethrough, it's just so big and
spectacular. And it's also gotseveral several dry chambers,
(22:09):
which actually make thelogistics really painful. So a
couple of years ago, pre COVID,we, myself, Ryan couch kowski,
Lisa Rogers, who, yeah, we goway back on different projects.
We, we wanted to push the end.
So that's that's, you know, thething you do in in cave
exploration is you're trying togo a bit further than than
(22:30):
previous people have. Buildingon the work, of course. So yeah,
to do that, we, we wouldprobably over overdid it a bit.
But it was that that sameconcept I've talked about
earlier of maximising yourchances when you're actually
(22:50):
there. So working working backfrom that, you can get to the
end in one day, it takes maybe16 to 20 hours. So pretty
massive, and you're out there atthe pointy end, knowing that
you've you've got to reserve awhole lot of energy for that,
that return. And when you'retrying to solve the, you know,
(23:12):
complex logic puzzle underwater,trying to read the cave, see
what's happening where knowwhere to look, because
remembering you've got thatcouple of seconds before the
visibility ceases. So yeah, sowe said, All right, well, let's
if we're going to achieve beingin the best state of mind, we're
(23:32):
going to camp in the cave asclose as we can. And we're going
to repeat the dive. So weactually we camped in the cave
as close as we could get. Wecamped in Toad Hall, which is
about three and a halfkilometres in, we can't be there
for four nights. And that meantwe could do multiple dives out
to the end. So we would do abouta, about a six hour dive in the
(23:56):
final section from our camp. Andthat mean, we could we could be
fresh, we knew that it was onlyyou know, only two hours diving
to get back from the end to ourcamp. And we also we did a
little things like we took in aprojector. And so each night at
(24:16):
our camp, we watched IndianaJones project on the wall, it's
the sound was terrible, but um,there was a really, really cool
thing to do, just to chill outand get ourselves in the mood.
Now we had good sleep we took inbecause we had to take our own
(24:37):
water. We didn't sort of have toworry too much about you know,
other things so we could takedrinks and food and you know, we
cooked up cooked up good things.
And yeah, and and so we also hada huge mountain of stuff. And
unfortunately that meant that wespent think we're on site For
(25:00):
about 12 days, and we basicallyspent all except three days of
wonderful diving in the middle,shifting about 500 kilos of gear
from one place to another.
Sometimes it was underwater, andwe clipped it all together into
a sled and we towed along withwith scooters, dpbs DVDs, and
then we'd have to pull it apart,carry it over a rock pile, put
(25:22):
it back together in the wateragain, and then tell it through
the next section. So I'm notentirely sure I've got another
one of those in me. super gladthat we did it. And the photos
of the sled leisurely is tooksome fantastic photos of tying
this this behemoth and it's beenmade into memes on the internet.
(25:42):
And it's really cool.
Matt Waters (25:47):
Yeah, it looks it looks fantastic. It really does.
And we're an adventure. What's,what's next?
Stephen Fordyce (25:56):
Ah, well, at the moment, it's, I mean, it's
been pretty weird with withCOVID. So the Nullarbor has been
sort of off the table for me,it's Tuesday, it's over and, you
know, 30 hours driving, it's abig, big commitment. And I've
been, I tend to get focused on aproject and I've been very
(26:16):
focused on on stuff in Tassie atthe moment. So there's there's a
particular caving system cavesystem under mount Field
National Park, and there'swhat's called the journey
foreign time. People might befamiliar with the Junee cave
resurgence. It's got a littlePark Reserve around it. Yeah,
and so that's, that's a, thedeepest caves in Australia,
(26:39):
quite cold there seven degrees.
And there's also a lot ofundisturbed stumps. And so I've
been going there for quite awhile, and being not too far
away. I've I've spent quite alot of time there. In between
Melbourne lockdowns and COVIDthings. It's also close enough
that I can I can fly there for aweekend without being too
(27:00):
horrendous. So I've got a listof list of SOPs I've been
working through and diving hadsome some great successes. And
there's there's a few left a fewthings to wrap up. But it's it's
really good. High qualityexploration, you find stuff, you
(27:21):
know, nobody's ever been there.
And you get to name it, whichis, strangely, one of the things
I quite like is, is namingthings.
Matt Waters (27:33):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's certainly unique. What does
it actually can you express thefeeling of, you know, dive in
through somewhere that no one'sbeen or seen ever before.
Stephen Fordyce (27:52):
I'd like to give it lots of, you know,
wonderful, airy terms, buthonestly, it's, it's usually
just a bit scary and alone. Alot of the wall, maybe not it's
controlled, controlled fear.
That's a useful thing. But um,yeah, it's perhaps absorbing is
a good word. Because you've gotso much going on. So much focus,
(28:16):
that there isn't there isn'tsort of too much time for
thinking. Thinking aboutphilosophies and stuff. So yeah,
perhaps a lot of thesatisfaction is afterwards when
you're back and safe andeverything. Yeah,
Matt Waters (28:35):
I suppose the mental come down is quite, quite
big, as well as your focus, likeyou say, you just mentioned
focus, there must be extremelyonpoint. While you're doing
this, and then afterwards, maybetiring?
Stephen Fordyce (28:50):
A little bit.
But um, yeah, obviously, you'vegot to get yourself out. So. And
it's surprising, there's verylittle sympathy when everyone's
been sitting around shiveringfor a couple of hours. It's
seven degrees in there. And alot of the time you get quite
quite wet, just getting to thedive site. So yeah, it's you
come back and right. We're goingout to change. He got hot drink.
(29:14):
Don't get any. Let's go. Yeah,yeah. But um, it's certainly a
relief to get back. I probablyshould mention, I've alluded to
two solo diving, which is a bitof a contentious topic. And
actually something that I wouldrecommend, most people don't do.
Obviously, it's got a sort ofimplications. Suffice to say
(29:39):
that I consider it a tool. It'sa tool for a job and a fairly
specialised tool for specialisedjob. Practically speaking, with
some diving, a lot of the timeyou just can't get gear for two
people to the water and probablymore importantly, if it's you I
want to be tight. And then lowvisibility, which is, you know,
(30:02):
a fairly safe bet. It's actuallysafer not to have somebody else
getting in the way. Yeah. And ofcourse, we plan and train and
mentally prepare for for selfsufficiency. So there's a whole
series of things around it. Thatbefore anyone sort of puts me up
on a cross or anything.
Matt Waters (30:26):
Yeah, there's always armchair warriors. And
there's there's going to becavers out there that clearly
know a lot more about thebusiness than I do. However, I
think you hit the nail on thehead there, because even for
recreational diver like myself,it just makes common sense that
if you've got two people intandem, and you're going through
(30:46):
squeezes that have never beenseen before, then your
visibility is gonna go todogshit. And that possibly can
be an issue just in itself, letalone having someone that gets
in your way as well.
Stephen Fordyce (30:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's definitely, it's
definitely not for everyone. Infact, it's quite interesting to
see. See, see the reaction ofpeople when you sort of tell
them what you do. And it's notthat so recreational divers,
they're probably worse than thegeneral public, because the
(31:16):
general public sort of doesn'thave the fear of knowledge.
Whereas recreational divers,they sort of go oh, well, you
know, that's it. They theyreally feel it. That allows
extra things that you're doingwhile you're underwater. So
yeah, get get a few strangelooks, looks from them. And and
also the cave is actuallybecause they understand the
(31:39):
caving side of things. They sortof go home. Now you're going to
do all this, and then you'regoing to dive as well. So I'm
sort of sort of become a bit ofa pariah. And in both worlds, it
certainly makes me very tolerantof other people's weaknesses.
Matt Waters (31:54):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you've got an aptly named
T shirt though. Introverts?
Stephen Fordyce (31:59):
Oh, yeah. It actually it actually says,
introverts unite, a separate inyour own homes. I am, I am a
well, well known introvert thatI do right with talking to
people as well. The pandemicwas, I was reasonably well
suited to that.
Matt Waters (32:19):
Yeah, I didn't mind it, to be honest. Couple of
years of not been out and busyand around all over the place. I
quite enjoyed the first six toeight months, to be honest.
Stephen Fordyce (32:29):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel very lucky to be
able to say that I do. I did.
Okay, through a lot of peoplestruggle. Very bad.
Matt Waters (32:36):
Yeah. My missus were climbing a wall. Wanted to
get out and go all over theplace. Yeah. And we, and when we
got put in touch by by Sue wason the podcast last week. And
you're gonna be down at the Haastech dive show in October.
Stephen Fordyce (32:55):
Yes. And I did it. I did actually in
preparation. And as a good thingto do. I listened to Sue's
podcasts yesterday. Yeah, it wasgreat. It was actually really
interesting to find out aboutsomeone in a bit more detail
than you normally get. Yeah, soit's really good. And yeah, I'll
(33:15):
definitely I'll be hosting. Ihave a bit of a regular. And I
was luckily lucky enough to beawarded the Emerging Explorer
last last
Matt Waters (33:26):
saltstick.
Congratulations.
Stephen Fordyce (33:28):
Thank you very much. Yeah, so that was that was
pretty cool. I mean, obviously,it's a big deal. Definitely in
the technical communitytechnical diving community, but
I just genuinely diving. It's,it's really cool. Yeah, so I
wouldn't miss it. And I'll beI'll be talking about I'll be
doing two presentations. Yeah,one, which is about general
(33:54):
stuff I've been doing since thelast little stick. There's quite
a bit of it. So I'll just sortof go here and there everywhere.
And then the other the otherone, it'll come out on the
programme.
Matt Waters (34:05):
So you do know where you're placed in the
programme. You know, if you'retalking on a Saturday or Sunday
or both?
Stephen Fordyce (34:11):
I'm not sure. I don't. I don't think it's coming
out yet. I think had a fewthings happening. But yeah, I'll
definitely be in there at somepoint.
Matt Waters (34:20):
I think they do it as a bit of a secret. So you
can't plan which day you'regonna go. general public, I want
to, I want to go see StevenFord. I want to see I'm not
sure.
Stephen Fordyce (34:30):
Yeah. It's I just, it's fantastic that I
always go and have troublefiguring out what to see. So
many different people with somany different passions. And,
you know, I don't necessarilyhave have scope to go and do all
of the stuff, you know, directdiving and other things. It's
(34:54):
not sort of my my, somethingthat I do but it's really cool
seeing people that do it and Ialso people that record it as
well. So I'm quite, quitepassionate about properly
recording and documenting whatyou're doing. So one of the
things with a push dive is thatit's not over, when you turn
(35:14):
around, you do all the all theproblem solving and finding the
way on and laying the line asyou go in. And then when you
turn around and come out, you'vegot to actually survey and map
the line on your way back. Soevery time the line changes
directions, we record depth,compass bearing and the distance
(35:34):
from the previous previous one.
We use a put knots in ourguideline and are able to do
that. And then we can plot thatlater to see where the key is
going. So it's
Matt Waters (35:47):
just just thinking on and doing all that and doing
it by knots in lines, but whatabout the 3d photography stuff
that might occur and bottom lineprojects and that do on racks?
Would that not work inside? Someof the shops that you go?
Stephen Fordyce (36:04):
In? Probably probably would. But it's sort of
make it a whole lot morecomplicated than it needs to be.
It's actually not that big of adeal to do the survey. Once once
you get the practice and havethe mindset for it. And I think
(36:25):
the photogrammetry stuff needsgood visibility and plenty of
plenty of photos. Yeah. Idaresay one day that they'll
they'll be able to take a GoProshaky GoPro footage and turn it
into a full 3d map. But um, myunderstanding is that's a bit of
a way away yet.
Matt Waters (36:44):
I suppose. Just add to the equipment that you're
taking them with you as well.
Isn't
Stephen Fordyce (36:48):
that to everything's because
everything's carried such a longway. It gets it gets fairly
carefully cold.
Matt Waters (36:57):
Yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, so austere
Umrah. I almost had my I'mreally looking forward towards
tech. The last one I went to wasin. I think it was 2018 When I
first visited Australia, and Iwas pleasantly surprised. So I'm
looking forward to this one aswell. And I'm going for the full
two days doing the decompressionparty afterwards as well. Oh,
(37:21):
yeah.
Stephen Fordyce (37:21):
Yeah, definitely. That's I mean,
that's that's probably the bestplace for mixing mixing with
people. And it's, I mean, allsticks really cool because it's
the one to one event where youget everyone. You know, the
Western Australians come over inNew Zealand has come over
(37:44):
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide,Iran, everyone sort of generally
makes the effort. Other stufflike the you know, the cave
diver symposium in Mount Gambia.
Obviously, you get the cavedivers, but you don't get the
wreck divers. You don'tnecessarily get the West
Australians. Yeah, so I'll takeI mean, it's the spot if you
want to want to bail someone outor catch up or ask a question or
(38:08):
ever have a quiet word tosomeone.
Matt Waters (38:15):
I'm gonna be wandering around with a camera
and a microphone, and I'm justgonna be asking a million
questions. Ah, yeah, yeah. Andanyone who doesn't want to be on
camera tough.
Stephen Fordyce (38:28):
Yeah, well, I heard on the on Sue's podcast
that they're they're recordingthem all. All the presentations
this year? Yeah, yeah. So um,yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna
have to watch what I say though.
Matt Waters (38:39):
I could never have me on stage. That's way too
much. And you've got nothingcoming up this year? What about
with TFM?
Stephen Fordyce (38:49):
Ah, yeah. To see odds and ends. I've got a
few more Tassie trips planned.
And I did say, Hold. I'll spenda couple of weeks over January
in Tassie been been doing thatthe last few years. And it's
really good to get a good a gooda good go at it. Now. The it's
quite it's quite hard,obviously. So if you go for a
(39:14):
weekend or even a long weekend,you really only get one one
solid day. And then you're toorich to do much else. Yeah,
we'll we'll do a half day or amoderate day. But the big big
coding projects quite quite oneday and then you need a rest
(39:35):
date. Last Last January, we diddiscover a new a new section at
the end of Niggli code. And thisis Sophie Sophie, the cat's
friend of introverts. Yes, atthe end of England cave, we've
(39:55):
been hitting it for sort of fiveor six years. It's a spectacular
cave. It's got two kilometres ofrailway tunnel right at the
bottom, it's 300 metres belowthe entrance. And we're just it
we know it goes we know it's gotanother five kilometres before
it comes out the journeyresurgence. And it should be it
should be just as big, butthere's big rock pile at the
(40:18):
end. And you know it's 40 metreshigh and it's got all sorts
little squirrely bits goingaround it. So we've been sort of
systematically getting in thereand try to map the little bits
and push separate leads.
Probably Probably a lot ofpeople have come and gone.
There's there's a few of usstill kind of keeping ticking
(40:39):
along. And last January, wefound we found a sump and it's
named the Biohazard sump. It'sreally not very pleasant. It's
not a very pleasant area. Yeah,but it could be it could be
something really cool. So it'sprobably going to be the most
remote sump dive I've done inTassie. And we're definitely
(41:02):
will spend three nightsunderground to make that happen.
Why is
Matt Waters (41:05):
it called What's it called the biocide? Biohazard?
Some
Stephen Fordyce (41:09):
it's actually sometimes you gotta be careful
with your naming history. Butthis one is because Gemma, one
of the discoveries cut herfinger on a rock. And yeah, we
there was, we saw the dropletsof blood before we saw the car.
And someone said, Well, it's abit of a biohazard. So either
(41:32):
naming, yeah, the naming is partof the fun. Because I went
through a phase of naming awhole section after Game of
Thrones characters. There's athere's a chamber called the
Business Class lounge. Yes. I'vemanaged to score business class
flight to Tassie that that tripand I was quite miffed that
(41:55):
Hobart didn't have a businessclass lounge. So I gave them
one. Just got it. You just gottago. I don't think. No, I'm the
I'm the only visitor. So um,yeah. And then if you go past
the business class lounge, you,
Matt Waters (42:12):
you get to the chairman's lounge.
Stephen Fordyce (42:14):
No, no, you're fine. You climb the corporate
ladder, which is a particularlyawful slippery climb. And as you
get a bit further, you you hitthe glass ceiling, which is at
the end. Unfortunately, Icouldn't get I couldn't get past
there. I tried very hard. ButI'm a bit further back down in
Boston in messed it up now a bitbit further in the business
(42:35):
class lounge. There's a horriblelittle hole, and it's it with a
puddle in it. And if you crawlin backwards with one tank off,
that's how you get into thissump. And then you sort of turn
around and go on. And that'sthat's the lateral higher sump.
Because once you pass that yousurface into a nice, nice, big
(42:57):
streamline passage called bossland. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That
after that, the theme, the themechanged and it got to be a got
less good. Eventually, that endsin the bean chicken Haven. Ah,
yes. Yeah.
Matt Waters (43:14):
The video I saw on YouTube in chicken. Oh, yeah.
Yeah,
Stephen Fordyce (43:17):
yeah, that was a whole. The theme song of that
trip was was the Ibis song, thatsong about birds by Bondi
hipsters? It's quite amusing.
It's also got some terriblelanguage. That that was we tend
to have theme songs for the forthe trips, especially a longer
camping trip like that. So it'sa bit weird, but I'd like to
(43:40):
think it helps with morale andhelps distract people. So I'll
pick a song and I'll generallyjust generally play it a lot.
The idea is to get it stuck inpeople's heads. So they think
about that, rather than howdifficult the caving is.
Matt Waters (44:02):
I tend to I had a habit years ago, where if I was
leading dives, I just startwhistling on the deck because
we're as we're gearing up andthe amount of people by the end
of a say a liveaboard wouldwould comment that they'd have
the Star Wars children goingthrough their head or Wizard of
Oz or something like thatthroughout the entire diving
(44:23):
they couldn't get rid of it.
Stephen Fordyce (44:24):
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Waters (44:28):
Yeah, but now that that been checking video, I like
that one. It's it kind of itkind of shows that, that that
some dive in and then coming outthe other side and the way it
just all opens up.
Stephen Fordyce (44:40):
Yeah, that was a fantastic day, actually. After
I sort of given up on the thebusiness class lounge, you know,
it was It wasn't really worththe effort and the sort of the
cost of negotiating everyoneinto carrying carrying will dive
(45:01):
you down. That is actually onthe trip where we connected.
Grayling, Scotland legallytogether. So I had all the full
dive gear kit down there. And Irealised that I could probably
probably go back and haveanother look at the business
class lounge. So yeah, havinghaving that second look. ended
(45:22):
up breaking through and goinginto I ended up doing a really
long day. I think I got go backat midnight, back to camp in the
cave. Found a whole lot ofreally cool stuff. Just really
sad that it it didn't go itended in rockfall that I
couldn't find a way through.
Matt Waters (45:40):
Yeah, it was a sizable that's the one that's on
the video, right. The rockfall?
Stephen Fordyce (45:45):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Waters (45:47):
It's pretty, it's pretty big.
Stephen Fordyce (45:48):
Possibly. Yeah, my favourite part of that trip
was, as I was, I came back tocamp and everyone was asleep. I
started singing the bird songabout the irises. And I actually
managed to insert myself intoone of the guys dream. So he
started having a weird dreamabout irises and me and caving
(46:10):
things. And yes, and then hewoke up really confused as like
as I walked in.
Matt Waters (46:16):
Yeah, that's marvellous. I got lucky. Right,
I think we're going to have toscoot in a second. We parked out
the front. And we're the delaysthat we had at the start, I'm
gonna end up getting a bloodybig ticket. TFM let's have a
little bit more about TFM.
Because let's plug yourbusinessman.
Stephen Fordyce (46:38):
Oh, yeah, yeah, Shameless, Shameless plug. TV
engineering is the smallbusiness that I, I pivoted to,
when, when the real world got abit too annoying. I was doing
more and more project managementbig, big annoying things with
(46:59):
bureaucracy and paperwork,rather than actually making cool
stuff. To engineering is avessel that I can use to pursue
all sorts of different things.
So I design electronics or buildgas systems. aftermarket stuff
for compressors, bits andpieces. It's kind of whatever I
want it to be. I do have a big,a big catalogue feel confined
(47:21):
with all sorts of divingholdings. And I do bespoke
things as well, which is a bitof fun. 250
Matt Waters (47:30):
pages catalogue is pretty impressive.
Stephen Fordyce (47:34):
Yeah, it is.
Unfortunately, it's quite out ofdate. It's 2017. And I haven't
had a chance to, to redo it,because it's, it's such a big
job and aren't a bit of aperfectionist. But it does does
the job for now.
Matt Waters (47:48):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's quite a few
products in here that you'vedesigned.
Stephen Fordyce (47:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, not not everything. Somestuff is specialist buy and
sell. But um, yeah, I like tothink I've at least added value
to most things. And some ofthem, some of them I've
developed from scratch.
Matt Waters (48:05):
Yeah, yeah. Just having a look at the boosters.
Looks pretty swish.
Stephen Fordyce (48:10):
Yep. Yeah. Two poses and kits and things. I'm
probably more more focused onnot being tied to any particular
brands. Yeah. It's sort ofeasier. That's a good good niche
that I a little niche that Ifeel.
Matt Waters (48:26):
Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot in this just going
through there's a lot in thiscatalogue that operators will
want pieces that they can't findanywhere. I reckon it's gonna be
in this catalogue. Quitefrankly. Yes.
Stephen Fordyce (48:40):
That's the only Yes. obscure little things that
are that are hard to find. WhichI've I've had trouble finding as
well.
Matt Waters (48:46):
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I think we'll wrap it up there.
And I'll autograph before we getto a parking fine at the front.
Where can people find details?
TFM and yourself, and all thegood stuff that you'd have in?
Stephen Fordyce (49:04):
Yeah, probably Facebook's the best one. You'll
find TFM engineering Australia,search for that. Or Steven
Fordyce, you'll figure out howto spell some somehow. thing
somewhere. Yeah, hit me up. Theordering for to them is
genuinely by sending an email. Ikind of like the old fashioned
(49:25):
way of connecting with peopleand, you know, managing, made
suggestions, everything else.
But yeah, you can find me allsorts of places
Matt Waters (49:35):
nowadays. And we can we can put links in the show
notes. And maybe we have a chatlater and I'll chuck a link up
on our website or something viaas well. Fantastic. Yeah. Happy
days. Man. It's been an absolutepleasure talking to you. And I
look forward to meeting you inperson in October and maybe
having a beer on a Sundayevening as
Stephen Fordyce (49:54):
well.
Yesterday.
Matt Waters (49:57):
I'll see if I can put a T shirt together with an
introvert sign on it. Okay.
Yeah, very good. Awesome sauce.
Thanks, Steven. And once again,congratulations on on your
achievements and bigcongratulations to the team as
well.
Stephen Fordyce (50:11):
Fantastic.
Thanks, man. It's great. Greatto talk.
Matt Waters (50:14):
Pleasure, mate.
Thanks for listening everybody.
Bye for now. podcast for theinquisitive diver
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