March 28, 2021 • 54 mins
Kirsten Sheppard is a dive pro and the owner of Dive Ningaloo based in Exmouth, Western Australia. The 604,500 hectare marine and terrestrial property of Ningaloo Coast, on the remote western coast of Australia, includes one of the longest near-shore reefs in the world. Annual gatherings of whale sharks occur at Ningaloo Coast, which is home to numerous marine species, among them a wealth of sea turtles, Manta rays, Humpback Whales & numerous shark species.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Ningaloo should be on everyone's everyone's bucket list. Join me as I discuss a variety of topics with Shep including the imminent arrival of their new liveaboard, which Scuba Goat is DEFINITELY going to visit for a trip around this epic location.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Waters (00:04):
The podcast for the inquisitive diver. Hey, they
dive buddies and welcome to theshow. I'm super jealous of my
next guest. She's based in theridiculously spectacular
location that is Ningaloo Reef.
A dive pro and dive shop owner.
Kirsten Shepherd also has apretty epic dad too. We'll chat
about his awesomeness later. Fornow, Shep. Welcome to the show,
(00:25):
lady.
Kirsten Sheppard (00:26):
Hey, Matt.
Thanks so much. Very well.
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
It's pleasure to be here.
Matt Waters (00:30):
Good, good. And speaking of here, you're not
here because it's freezing onthis side of the world, or this
side of Australia standard.
We're starting to go into winternow and I'm getting really
chilly. How are you doing overthat side?
Kirsten Sheppard (00:41):
Still sweating. Still 40 degrees
today. But looking forward tolike you're looking forward to
it cooling down a little bitsoon.
Matt Waters (00:49):
Yeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (00:50):
Sorry about that.
Matt Waters (00:53):
We've got so much we can talk about in this one.
Much. But let's start with you.
Where did the I'm guessing amight know where the watery kind
of scuba diving knowledge camefrom. But where did it start?
Kirsten Sheppard (01:10):
He could probably take a guess. I'm
originally from the UK. And bothof my parents are marine
biologists or coral reefecologists. So I grew up
spending a lot of time overseas,snorkeling, and then when I was
old enough learning to dive Iwas lucky enough to be able to
(01:30):
do that in the Bahamas, not inthe icy waters of the UK. very
fortunate there. So yes, so Istarted off years ago, diving
and snorkeling all around theworld. And it just became a
passion. For a long time, it wasjust a hobby. And I actually
(01:51):
have a master's in forensicpsychology actually. So used to
work as a forensic psychologistin the UK. But realized, after a
while, it wasn't quite for me.
And I wanted to go down that thediving route. And so several
years later, and a lot of hardwork. I'm here in Western
Australia with a dive companythat I run with my partner.
Matt Waters (02:16):
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's a location I've not
been to yet and I emphasize yet,but I'm super, super excited.
I'm at least in the same countryas whoever it is.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:28):
Hopefully, we'll get you over soon.
Matt Waters (02:31):
Now, we do have to mention that little island in
Thailand, Koh tao.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:36):
Yes, of course.
Matt Waters (02:38):
And you did your pro training there.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:41):
I did my pro training there. Yes, I was
already a rescue diver with afew 100 dives under my belt over
the years. But when I got tocoetail in Thailand, you know
exactly what I'm talking about.
There's a real appeal of thislittle island. It's got some
great diving, it's got some, youknow, great community and
nightlife as well. So what wasmeant to be just staying for a
few months ended up staying intonearly two years on the island.
(03:03):
And and yes, that's where I didmy instructor training as well
met some great people and wehave a lot of mutual friends.
Matt Waters (03:11):
It appears that we've not actually met yet, but
you know, just looking on socialmedia and it's all the same
people. Got to have a shout downto the octo boys. Questi.
Kirsten Sheppard (03:21):
Yes, yeah. So, I guess I realized that the
diving industry was something Iwanted to pursue and stay into.
And I knew if I didn't leaveKotel sooner rather than later,
I'd never leave, as a lot ofpeople have been coding that. So
came over to Western Australia,while I could still get a
(03:41):
working holiday visa, and whatactually started out working on
a worship boat, but reallywanted to diving. So I met my
partner and we decided to stepthat up together. Okay, that was
six years ago or eight yearsI've been in Australia, but six
years ago, we started upgardening glue. So going for a
little while now.
Matt Waters (04:02):
Yeah, because we only just missed each other on
Koh Tao because you left in thesame year that I arrived. And I
was at the dive shop just downthe road from where you are, or
where you were.
Kirsten Sheppard (04:13):
Think we had a two month over last year.
Matt Waters (04:18):
And it was the same thing. I mean, I went there for
Well, I went to Southeast Asiato start a trip, a diving trip
for six months on my own justlugging around doing some
diamond and I got to Koh Tao andnever left. I was four and a
half years later when I didactually leave and go to Papua
New Guinea.
Kirsten Sheppard (04:36):
Hopefully is a peaceful place as well. Yeah.
Matt Waters (04:40):
So yeah, so we got from Koh Tao over to Ningaloo.
And you started what what yearwas it? You started on? dive
Ningaloo? What year did youopen?
Kirsten Sheppard (04:54):
It was 2014 that we registered and started
up. There's a lot of people workinvolved in getting a dive
school up and running so youknow getting licenses and
accreditation took a while. Sothat took nearly a year really
to get everything up andrunning. And the boat we bought
was a dual wrapper in that, youknow, it was a good price but it
(05:17):
needed a lot of work doing toit. So a lot of the year was
actually spent refitting theboat and refurbishing everything
and getting it sort of ready fordiving and capable for diving.
So I remember actually, the daybefore our first charter, we
were just laying the carpetgetting the final touches in so
(05:39):
yeah, it's definitely a processgetting to where we are now.
Matt Waters (05:42):
Yeah. I bet it was quite unnerving as well. opening
up your first time and gettingyour first customers on board.
Kirsten Sheppard (05:50):
Absolutely.
Yes. And obviously you wanted togive everyone the best day
possible and so it is very nervewracking knowing that you're
doing everything right we knowthe diving here is great so that
sells itself but you know justmaking sure that we had
everything in place beforehandthe right equipment and
everything so yeah, very nervewracking, but I feel I know fell
into the swing of it prettypretty easily.
Matt Waters (06:13):
Yeah. Welcome that paints a picture for me because
Ningaloo Reef is off broome,correct?
Kirsten Sheppard (06:21):
No.
Matt Waters (06:23):
See, I told I told you I wasn't. I wasn't gonna
look at it because I would justwant to get it firsthand from
you. Paint me a picture of whereit is,
Kirsten Sheppard (06:32):
unfortunately get crocodiles up in brooms so
that that would not be quitesuch fun experience. The
Ningaloo Reef is off x now,which is in the northwest of
Australia. It's a littlepeninsula that sticks out
halfway between Perth and broom,actually. The reef itself is 260
(06:53):
kilometers long. So it's adecent sized reef. Wow. And it's
a fringing reef, which meansit's very close to land. I like
the barrier reef, which takesthe trouble to get to, you know,
the closest part of the reefwhere it where it comes in is
really just a few 100 metersoffshore. So we're very lucky in
that, you know, it makes it easyfor day trips and accessibility.
Unknown (07:14):
And so exmouth, the town itself, what kind of size
is it?
Kirsten Sheppard (07:20):
Population fluctuates a lot with a high
season and low season as littleas sort of two and a half 1000
people really that's a smalltown. Yeah.
Matt Waters (07:30):
So everybody knows everyone
Kirsten Sheppard (07:32):
everyone knows everyone has its advantages and
disadvantages, as you canimagine. But it can during the
high tourist season, it can getto about six 7000. With with
workers and seasonal workers andthings like that. And then even
even more since COVID. And nointernational travel allowed,
we're finding that we've had abit of a boost, even from those
(07:54):
numbers. So yeah, yes, littletown,
Matt Waters (07:57):
I was gonna COVID must have been quite good for
wha and people visiting, becauseone who kind of got locked down
and just closed all the borders.
And you didn't you got a lot ofpeople that can't go anywhere
else.
Kirsten Sheppard (08:12):
I think it pissed off a lot of people in
other states because you tellsomeone that you can't do
something, they only want to doit. Exactly, yeah, who ever
wanted to come? Obviously, weall got the lockdown, which was
a nerve wracking time for acouple of months when everything
shut down. Or you can onlyoperate with two other people,
which means you can't really runtours, you know, it doesn't work
(08:33):
like that. But once things didopen back up, we were all very
surprised because it seemed likethe whole of Perth came to x
mouth all in one month. So itwas a nice little boost after
quite a nerve wracking time.
Obviously, it's had its otherdisadvantages in that. It's
people from wi which is great,but it's hard when people from
(08:54):
overseas to booked and thenborder closures have happened.
And so there's been a lot ofcancellations or obviously
missing our international marketas well. But really, we're very
lucky where we are on the grandscheme of things. We are
probably one of the luckiestsort of parts of the world to be
in tourism. So
Matt Waters (09:14):
yeah, I'm more than happy that I'm here in Australia
and not in the UK right now.
That's for sure.
Kirsten Sheppard (09:20):
Absolutely.
Yes. Well, my family are in theUK. So it's I'm obviously
hearing what's happening tothem. So it's Yeah, makes you
feel even luckier. Yeah,definitely.
Matt Waters (09:31):
So going on about the town a bit more. As soon as
I've got a goat beer in my hand.
What's it what's what's thenightlife like though man, is
it? Is it large enough to have aselection of bars or is it
everyone go to bed at nineo'clock at night ready for
diamond the next day?
Kirsten Sheppard (09:44):
No, you can definitely find a party in Exner
for sure. Okay. There's there'sa number of bars, there's
probably about five bars. Butthere's two microbreweries as
well that do some great beer andgreat pizzas and things like
that. so and they always havelive music or comedy nights or
bands that have been travelingaround australia to come and
(10:07):
visit so i think we even had theworld record breaker with
cracker in one time so you get agood variety of of performances
there but also good night yeahdefinitely a party around did
you hire him
Matt Waters (10:22):
straightaway crack the whip on the on the staff
great
Kirsten Sheppard (10:25):
entertainment on the boat
longest week crack or fastestwhip crack or something
impressive he was he was verygood
Matt Waters (10:38):
the seasons over there
Kirsten Sheppard (10:40):
we do operate all year round ourselves but it
is definitely a seasonal town wedon't have a wet season it's
desert it's dry always we dohave a cyclone season luckily
we're on the edge of it so we'reit's very unusual for us to see
cyclone does mean weoccasionally get some rain
dumped on us
Matt Waters (10:57):
you were getting into a cyclone when we first
started to chat about coming onthe podcast
Kirsten Sheppard (11:03):
i believe so yes
Unknown (11:07):
i'll speak to you in a few days after the cyclones
Kirsten Sheppard (11:11):
it was coming straight for us and we got
everything packed away took theroof and the clears off the boat
which is a pain in the ass toget back on and then last minute
it skirted around us so it waskind of all for nothing bit of
an anticlimax actually but butobviously very lucky that there
was no high winds and damage tothe town so yeah that's when we
(11:32):
get rain but otherwise itsummers are hot summers mid 40s
to high 40s most days andwinters do cooled down but it's
still still shorts and t shirtsin the day but it does get quite
cold at night and it's thewinter months that we get the
big marine life the megafaunathat comes through so well shark
(11:53):
season which is what theningaloo reef i guess is most
famous for even though thatsnorkeling not diving is
studying now starts around midmarch and depending on the
whalesharks usually followsthrough to august september time
okay we do get some mentors allyear round but you'll see big
numbers sort of from may onwardsmay to sort of the end of the
(12:16):
year october november and thenof course we get our humpback
whale migration as well and weget a huge amount of humpbacks
come through and that's usuallywe start to see them around june
but usually july in the bignumbers again through to sort of
november october november sothat's when we get the big stuff
but of course we get we getturtles all year round during
the summer months is whenthey're nesting and hatching so
(12:38):
all through sort of november tomarch they're either nesting on
the beach or i've seen a fewtimes in the last few weeks and
seen the eruption of babieshatching which is just
incredible every time you see itso even if you come outside of
the the peak season there's alot of amazing brain activity
Matt Waters (12:55):
you mentioned that the whale sharks is snorkeling
only what's that what's thebackground to that is that just
to protect the animals or justnot to have too many lunatics
scuba diving all over the place
Kirsten Sheppard (13:06):
probably it's i mean logistically it
would be very hard to divethey're usually on the surface
and swimming quite quickly soyou know you're swimming along
next to them if you had scubagear on that would be pretty
difficult also most of you whoget on the tours you know
generally snorkel is not diversso it makes it a lot more
accessible to everyone but iguess you're sometimes the whale
(13:28):
sharks do dive you're out wayoff the reef possibly in 100
meters of water if they start todive you'd get people following
them down the disaster sosnorkeling is just logistically
much easier in and out the wateryou hop in and out several times
chasing after the shark and andit's on the surface so
Matt Waters (13:49):
and there's a they migratory adults are they
juveniles now you see
Kirsten Sheppard (13:53):
they're mainly juveniles we do get some bigger
ones but majority of the onesyou see are juveniles around
that sort of five meter mark andmajority of males again you do
get females as well but a lot ofresearch going into where they
go outside of the whalesharkseason and why just the the type
(14:14):
that we get why the juvenileswere or the the breeding females
so they're doing a lot oftagging and things to try and
figure out where they are
Matt Waters (14:22):
well you know, is there a team down there?
Kirsten Sheppard (14:25):
no there's there is organizations that do
taking yes but the spotters thatwork on worship boats can also
remove the tags if they do seewhale sharks with them and
collect them as well
Unknown (14:37):
okay that sounds cool does mum and dad get involved in
that at all
Kirsten Sheppard (14:46):
i'm not in the whale sharks so i did work on
whaleshark boats when i firstgot here but as i said mr diving
and they're they're mainly coralreef ecologists rather than mega
fauna so They they love the reefand that's what they're really
interested in. Give them a pieceof coral over Wireshark any day
(15:07):
for sure. Really?
Yeah.
There's some great coral heretoo.
Matt Waters (15:11):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
Kirsten Sheppard (15:13):
I just realized I hadn't put you on Do
Not Disturb. So I just
Matt Waters (15:19):
you can wind up buying a case of Goat if that
went off, you know?
Kirsten Sheppard (15:24):
That I caught it in time.
Surely that stuff's any anycheap. It is.
Matt Waters (15:31):
Well, so cheap.
It's like 20 bucks for six cans.
Which when I got into Australiathree years ago, might 20 bucks
for six beers. That'soutrageous. You know?
Kirsten Sheppard (15:40):
Yeah. 20 Thanks for that. Exactly. Yeah,
yeah.
Matt Waters (15:44):
So frankly, over here, but it's even more
expensive over there, isn't it?
On the
Kirsten Sheppard (15:48):
way she is? It is there is. We joke that
there's a bit of an exchangerate at the W a border is a bit
more expensive. I think it's allrelative with oil and gas and
things. Some people are earningsome big wages over here. So
yes, it does make thingssometimes a bit a bit more
challenging.
Matt Waters (16:07):
I suppose logistically as well, because if
you're that far away from Perth,because you've got to fly from
Perth, we need to get up tobroom and then come down to you
guys. Is that right?
Kirsten Sheppard (16:15):
You can fly directly from Perth to x mouse.
Okay. It's under two hourflight. Now I'm 45 Qantas fly.
And during the peak season,there's two flights a day. So
it's pretty easy. If you driveit's 12 160 kilometers, so it's
gonna take you a good good fullday to get there. People usually
(16:36):
stop off on the way like stopoff there to Cal berry or Shark
Bay on the way and split it overtwo to three days. But I have
done that trip in one day, manymany times too many times. And
it's it's an easy drive becauseit's long straight roads but
have nothing it's just a bush So
Matt Waters (16:54):
no, that's where a Tesla would come in handy. Stick
it in Drive and just go and youcan have a little siesta on
Route and not have to worryabout it sleep
Kirsten Sheppard (17:01):
watch a movie that's
Matt Waters (17:05):
when I do come over I'm gonna fly
Kirsten Sheppard (17:08):
much easier.
Yeah.
It's a good road trip though. Imean, there's lots to see off
the wha coastline on the way upso got to do at least once
depending on your timings.
Matt Waters (17:17):
Well, maybe maybe I wouldn't say got to just right
now. I just got to get
Kirsten Sheppard (17:26):
flying Cz and the airport's 25 minutes out of
town so it's Yeah.
Matt Waters (17:31):
Now we did briefly touch on the point you've got
some exciting stuff going onwith dive Ningaloo? Like a
little boat coming in?
Kirsten Sheppard (17:44):
as little boat. Yes.
Matt Waters (17:46):
Not so little boat, I should say.
Kirsten Sheppard (17:48):
biggest of all our boats. But yeah, 24 meters.
So decent sized boat. That'smine. Yes. So our new project we
are launching a liveaboardsomething we've been talking
about for a while. And then justthe right boat came along. The
timing wasn't right with COVID.
We bought the boat Two monthslater, we went into lockdown
(18:10):
going What have we done. Butthat's an exciting project.
Again, a do a wrapper with seemto be a big fan of it at the
time. And then when we'reactually doing it, we're like
Why? Again? But you know,obviously it's financially you
know, buying a boat that'sreally due up not only is it
(18:30):
financially the better option,but you can also then pick how
you want it to be done. Exactly.
You can design it, you've got ablank slate.
Matt Waters (18:39):
You put your own stamp on it.
Kirsten Sheppard (18:42):
Exactly. So that's what I'm telling myself
right now that we're in theprocess of doing it up. This is
the preferred option, honestly.
So yes, so we bought her. Yeah,back in January. And then
obviously just she sat in inovaries for a while as we
couldn't get her. And then wehad a great fun trip mid of last
(19:02):
year bringing her from Cannesround which brought her in
Harvey Bay, bringing her aroundto x now so we got stopped and
see the beautiful Kimberly onthe way round and made a great
trip of it. And yeah, so we'rewe're still getting the
equipment ready and everythingon her but if all goes to plan,
then she will be ready to runour first charters at the end of
(19:26):
this year. We're launching inDecember.
Matt Waters (19:29):
Amazing. And how many other liveaboards are in
the area.
Kirsten Sheppard (19:35):
Um, there's another liveaboard in Coral Bay.
It is a smaller one. It's thesailing boat and they do diving
and snorkeling. So we're hopingto just we're doing dedicated
dive boat only seven nighttrips, four or five times a day.
So some nights there'll be anight dive included as well. So
you'll really get a good divingfix throughout the week.
(19:58):
Otherwise, there's this Noothers in this area. You know,
there's a lot of liveaboards upin the Kimberley, but there's no
diving up there with the crocsand ripping current. So they're
all sightseeing ones. So there'sdefinitely a gap in the market.
So
Matt Waters (20:11):
sure, Kimberly's, you can only dive it like, is it
six weeks out of the year orsomething like that? and dive
boats that do go out there but avery small window.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:21):
They they typically as far as I'm aware,
there's no diving, because theystill get sued of their 10 meter
tides and whirlpools which wewitnessed, bringing the boat
round. You ever been in awhirlpool? it's exhilarating. To
say the least. The Rowley shoalshas got diving as well.
Matt Waters (20:39):
That's the one we might see the geography still
off. It's Rowley shoals I wasthinking of.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:46):
Yes. Yep.
Matt Waters (20:48):
So you're effectively going to be the only
dedicated scuba divingliveaboard in town.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:55):
Yes, correct.
Yeah. And it's going to be ninedouble cabins. They're being
built. And all on suites. All onsuite. So nice high end luxury,
you know, doing it, doing it.
Well. Nice luxury, high endliveaboard Hot Tub on the back
(21:15):
deck. cocktail bar. verycivilized. Everything you want
when you book diving holiday,nice. All Nitrox on board. And
yeah, so we're still figuringout a lot of the details. So I'm
releasing some more details soonin the next couple of months.
Once we finalize pricing anditinerary and things like that,
(21:37):
but in the next couple of monthspeople be able to start booking.
Matt Waters (21:40):
Awesome. Well, in that case, looking at this
calendar I've got in front ofme, so I want to see whalesharks
because the missus has seenwhale sharks over your side, but
just snorkeling never on scuba.
Possible see one if we're goingto do liveaboards you never
know.
Kirsten Sheppard (22:00):
You never know.
Matt Waters (22:02):
whales. I love seeing whales even just the nice
just think instantly FindingDory that's great. answers.
Dolphins. Okay, I want July.
July is a good month to get getthem all together Big Three for
sure. Yes. And the humpbackwhales. I most dives we hear
(22:23):
their song underwater. And it'sjust magical. really is and when
they close you can you canactually feel this song
vibrating in your chest. It'sthat loud. Yeah, it's a very
special moment when you firstrealize that humpback whale song
isn't amazing. I've onlyexperienced them in South Africa
where it was really shivers butI got my I had my camera on
(22:47):
record ready to go just in casethey passed by. And I left it
running. I know you can see hisship is but you can hear the
noise and it's just so relaxing.
It's it's an amazing sensation.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:00):
I saw that your sleep sounds that you fall
asleep.
Matt Waters (23:02):
It's ingrained in my brain. I tell you I don't
even need to turn it on on thebrain.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:09):
Well, I have been on dives and head of fright
when I look up and there's ahumpback whale swimming past me
and your your clothes fi andthen they pop up so and then
massive. You know that's reallyquite something to see
underwater, but it doessometimes happen. They're
curious and they just feelbubbles and sintesi and check
you out and then swim off. So
Matt Waters (23:30):
there's been some amazing photos taken over there
with humpbacks in there. Yes,there has.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:35):
Yes.
Matt Waters (23:37):
All I know. Was it that one. Was it was it Davey
Palfrey that got some awesomeshots or was he was that Tonga?
Okay, remember?
Unknown (23:45):
Tonga is a hot spot as well. Wonderful.
Matt Waters (23:50):
Davey Palfrey.
He's now in Bahamas where youstarted today. Okay, he's doing
a Bimini sharpening. Tangent manhere goes away. Obviously the
other guy, Alex. Alex kid.
That's the one. Yeah, he's gotsome amazing photos. Nice,
(24:10):
sensational. And there's I'veseen quite a few photos in the
past where it looks relativelyshallow and over sand. And it
was was it tigershark? Or maybe?
Yeah, really. I've only everseen one tiger shark. And that
was in Galapagos Galapagos acouple years ago. And I was
almost crying in my mask was nothappy. But at the same time.
(24:34):
It's the first time I had kindof gotten asked which wasn't
expected to see it.
Kirsten Sheppard (24:44):
bull sharks will do that to me. But no, we
get we get quite a lot of Tigersharks. I mean, there's a lot of
turtles here. They're well fed.
They're not, not anything toworry about. But yet we we see
them on diets and they'rebeautiful, very curious, very
placid. Nice. Let's get yourHammerhead here to
Matt Waters (25:03):
really
Kirsten Sheppard (25:07):
go ahead and sculpt. Yep that's the beauty of
the Ningaloo you never know whatwill turn up yeah, it's still
getting surprised after eightyears of diving here I'm still
seeing new stuff whether it'slittle nudibranches I've not
seen before or whether it's yeahHammerhead swim past me on a
diet. It's Yeah, it's just aspecial
Matt Waters (25:26):
I love seeing macro well I love all of it. But we do
a lot of macro diving aroundhere. And the missus jazz she's
not that interested in macro.
But I caught her was a couplemonths ago. We're on a dive just
off Colonel and I just had tolook over to see what she was up
to. And she had a GoPro filmingand at Bank of not that I forget
it and I'm never gonna let herForget it.
Kirsten Sheppard (25:50):
I wonder how many manta rays and sharks I've
missed just swimming over thetop of my head while I'm staring
at the slipper nudibranch
Matt Waters (25:59):
I was working with it a DM years ago. In fact, it
was Ko Tao. And we were off thedeep side if you can call it
deep side of twins. And I'm alittle bit further out from him.
And he's he's literally got hisface in the wall looking for
nudie banks. He's one of thosethat he just loves the macro.
And all of a sudden, you know,this shadow comes over and as
(26:23):
well sharp. So I'm thinking thetank thing big, big, big thing.
And looking down trying to getSteven trying to get his
attention. And he he almostwhipped around looking at a
scowl through his mask straightback to his money disturbing
Kirsten Sheppard (26:38):
me for
Matt Waters (26:41):
a bloody idiot. Oh, yeah. Look at this Nudibranchs
Kirsten Sheppard (26:45):
jacket twins.
Great. My very first WhalesharkI saw was at Green Rock in Koh
Tao.
Matt Waters (26:52):
So that was quite a hot spot actually green rock.
Kirsten Sheppard (26:54):
Okay. In current how it through my as I'm
chasing past this after thisthing. It was great.
Matt Waters (27:02):
Going back to the liveaboard Let's do let's do a
scuba go trip next July.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:09):
Okay, let's do it. Sounds good.
Matt Waters (27:11):
Yeah, I've got lots of people that would be keen on
that. There's a couple that willbe listening to this podcast
that have just been on me forthe last couple of months. When
when do we go? What should wedo? When it's finally here? We
go with her. So yeah, salvoYeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:27):
We can take 18 of you. Happy Days, nine, nine
double cabins or they can betwins as well. So you know 18
scuba goats. Yeah, coming myway.
Matt Waters (27:38):
A lot of fun.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:40):
Awesome. And I will try and lock in the Big
Three for you then. Oh,
Matt Waters (27:43):
yeah, see what I can do. Yeah, just text them.
Make sure that they turn up
Kirsten Sheppard (27:47):
arranger arrange to meet time, no
worries.
Matt Waters (27:51):
That should be should be really exciting,
though, isn't it? Because you'regonna have so much freedom,
rather than going to theparticular dive locations that
you do for sure you've got thatfreedom to roam.
Kirsten Sheppard (28:00):
I'm so excited about that. Obviously, after all
these years of diving, you know,I still love the dive sites. And
there's some incredible dives.
But I'm excited to explore newterritory being daytrips you'll
see this so far you can get anddo dives and come back in a day.
with seven nights we can we cango pretty far and explore,
explore parts where there'sgoing to be you know, no one's
(28:21):
going to die for years.
Matt Waters (28:25):
Yeah, I've when I was working up in Papua New
Guinea, I was one of the kickersof the job was that if there was
no guests around, or they justdecided that they wanted to have
a sister instead, we could justgo out and take a dive boat out
and the reefs were justcountless. So you know just find
a reef jump in see what's there.
Kirsten Sheppard (28:45):
It's any good?
It's naturally the GPS Yeah, toexplore new spots. Yeah. So
hopefully we'll find some, somegreat typography in some some
great walls and bombs and thingsthat we can add to our list. So
yeah, the first we're going tobe doing a lot of exploring
ourselves that the first fewtrips are also going to be that
so it's you know, I think everytrip will say to the guests All
right, this is a new spot. Letus know if it's good. It looks
(29:08):
good on the sounder. Let me knowit's down there. So I think
that's going to be quiteexciting to get as well to go
Okay, well, no one's ever doneit before. Let's
Matt Waters (29:17):
Yeah,
Kirsten Sheppard (29:17):
let's check it out. And it's the Ningaloo you
can't really have a bad dive. So
Matt Waters (29:22):
sounds so good.
Kirsten Sheppard (29:24):
Where were you in Papua New Guinea out of
interest.
Matt Waters (29:26):
I was at Tufi Resort. It's on the northern or
north eastern coastline of themain island. So you go you go
into Port Moresby, and it's likea 15 minute flight. going north.
To Fear Itself sits it sits ontop of the almost rock faces of
(29:46):
the IRAs or the fjords as peoplecall them, which is incorrect
because it's not in Sweden oranything like that. It's an IRA.
But it's very interesting thereas well. And in fact, your mum
and dad, if ever they got theOpportunity send them to to fee.
If the coral heads, they willabsolutely bloody love it
because it's got almost likethree stages of perfection to
(30:11):
deterioration by man. So writingclose to land, it's all been
over fish by the local villages,and all the rubbish has gone in
over the years. So you don'thave massive amounts of big
species. And the coral tends tohave a lot of algae on it, and
it's almost dead, you know. Butthen you go the inner reefs,
(30:32):
which are about 4k, offshore,and there's nowhere near as much
algae but a few more fish and afew more big stuff. But then you
get to the outer reefs, whichare 20k. And it sounds like a
hell of a journey. But, youknow, if you're not there in
winter time, then it's it'sglass flat Anyway, you get out
there, and you'd be forgiven forthinking that you're jumping
(30:55):
into a virgin water thatsomeone's never seen before.
It's beautiful. And the coralsyou just probably would want to
mainline to the boat and juststay there forever. It's a
fantastic location.
Kirsten Sheppard (31:08):
Well, you're reading the Coral Triangle there
so 18 months ago, my partnerwent to Papua New Guinea we went
to betclan we could travel preCOVID we went to kavieng we went
to rebel when he was bornactually and so so did a few
days around there and he hadcorals stunning.
Matt Waters (31:28):
Yeah, it is. Yeah, there's quite a bit. In fact
kavieng do dolphins and stufflike that? That is Kakapo up
that way
Kirsten Sheppard (31:38):
um we Kapow
Matt Waters (31:43):
you might be familiar there's quite a few
quite a few small islands offthe coastline and shallow ranks
and stuff like that.
Kirsten Sheppard (31:54):
Yes, yes lovely Japanese planes and Rex
Yeah.
Matt Waters (31:59):
Well to fee if you imagine the coastline between
two wildly which is the furthestto the east along the main
coastline of Papua New Guinea.
And then to fee between the twois the famous blackjack dive the
world war two record 48 meters.
(32:23):
And that's that's that's a diveand a half to beautiful. I've
not done KVM yet, though.
Kirsten Sheppard (32:32):
Beautiful place. Yeah, highly recommended.
Yeah, really nice. After afterthe Ningaloo.
Matt Waters (32:37):
Yeah, yeah, we'll do it. We'll do a skip, skip go
trip to the Ningaloo and thenwe'll do a skip ego trip to sci
fi to alien cave Yang. Okay.
Kirsten Sheppard (32:46):
Yeah, I'll join you on that one.
Matt Waters (32:49):
Excellent. Now, what I did, what I did want to
ask is, or just ask, or justactually just give a bloody good
shout out to all you guys overon the West Coast because it was
not too long ago that the subseaseven proposals were withdrawn.
Kirsten Sheppard (33:11):
Right, yes.
Matt Waters (33:13):
I'll let you backfill that once.
Kirsten Sheppard (33:18):
A subsea seven was a oil and gas project
basically to build a bundlepipeline onshore, and then
launch it via a small sort ofrailway pipeline into the water
where it was then floated out tovarious guests that forms off
(33:40):
the coast. Where they werelooking at doing it was in the
Ningaloo Gulf, Gulf Gulf. Andit's a real nursery, the
ectomorph Gulf. And there's alot of research not done on it,
you know, we're still findingout that there's actually some
endangered species, a small fishin the Exmouth Gulf is a
breeding ground for do gongs andhumpback whales. So, of course,
(34:01):
there was a lot of concern, whatthis would do to the local
environment. So there was a bigpush from protecting glue, and
the KIPP conservation group toto really get it out to to the
public knowledge and to actuallyget the EPA the Environmental
Protection done on it.
Basically, they decided theyneed more information and then
(34:26):
subsea seven did pull out thatum, I did do my fair share of
banner waving and he's like thatat the time just to get just to
raise awareness of of the areabecause x North Gulf is is a
spectacular place. And actuallywe do we do dives in the Gulf as
well. A lot of soft corals, weget sponge gardens and things
like that, and it's anincredible marine life, the
(34:48):
visibility is lower. But you cansee very clearly the diversity
and the amount of marine lifeand especially juvenile, fish
and mammals as well. In this soit's it's yeah obviously it's a
very sensitive subject in thattwo sides of it in terms of jobs
and development of x now, butfor me it was definitely a win
(35:11):
for the environment. Yeah,definitely.
Matt Waters (35:15):
Well it is. There's there is two sides to it, but
Sod 'em sorry, people hate mefor that I don't care, if we get
rid of everything in the oceansand there's nothing left of this
planet anyway. So you know,
Kirsten Sheppard (35:28):
and I feel that's a bit of the appeal of x
mouth You know, there's a lot ofsmall quaint little lovely towns
in in Western Australia, but inthe northwest it is dominated
largely by mining and oil andgas towns. So you know, we're
one of the last few towns in thenorthwest that that isn't has
that as one of the majorindustries tourism is a major
industry so it's, you know, Ithink it's nice to keep it that
(35:52):
way as well.
Matt Waters (35:54):
Keep it that way forever. They can they can go
and do their oil and gas stuffelsewhere
Kirsten Sheppard (36:00):
as well so they've moved on so I'm sure
they found somewhere else wherethey'll where they'll do it
where there's already the setupas well. So yeah, that
definitely was definitely was awin for the for tourism and also
of course all the marine marinecreatures here. Yeah. Yeah.
Could do gongs.
Matt Waters (36:17):
Yeah, it's not like they could get out of the way
too quick, is it? No. Um, hey,but I didn't that was quite a
few questions actually, that Igot from a lot of people was
about accommodation over inNingaloo. It's all old hotels
and guest houses and that kindof thing.
Kirsten Sheppard (36:38):
huge variety.
You've got luxury resorts,you've got hotel motel style
options. You've got campsites intown where you can get either a
chalet or obviously camp ifyou've got a tent or a camper
van, and then down in thenational parks or the cape range
National Park is just a 30minute drive from x mouse over
(36:59):
to the west side of the cape.
And there's some amazing bushcamping in the cat range as well
and just snorkeling right offthe beach there so yeah, a big
range for those of you that wantthe the bush camping or those
you want the resort with thepool and cocktails, and
everything in between
Matt Waters (37:17):
happy days.
Kirsten Sheppard (37:18):
Lots of lots of options and of course heaps
of holiday homes that at themoment as well. So
Matt Waters (37:23):
at the moment
Kirsten Sheppard (37:25):
at the moment Yeah, that's another story for
the day.
Matt Waters (37:28):
What was it all was it all headed ship? what's
what's the long term goals fordive Ningaloo?
Kirsten Sheppard (37:35):
A dive Ningaloo on the spot? Yeah.
Okay. Well, we're very happydoing a day tours, which our
boat goes out every day anddives Northern Ireland's
Ningaloo Reef, lighthouse Bay.
We also have the exclusivelicense for diving on the Navy
Pier, which you may have heardabout the Navy Pier. voted Yeah,
concentrated on the top 10dives. It is incredible because
(37:59):
of its diversity. That's whatit's very famous for it is a low
of visibility dive. You know, ifyou've got eight meters, it's
good day average is about five.
But the sheer amount of fishlife under there just just
Trumps any visibility.
Matt Waters (38:16):
I was watching a little bit of Facebook stalking
earlier today. And I look at oneof the videos from a few months
ago. And it was a journalist ofsome sort that was going for a
dive there. And that you've gota grip of that. Yeah, it's it's
a little bit big. 150 kilos,correct. 120 kilos, it must be
Kirsten Sheppard (38:43):
two and a half meters long, 2.3 meters long and
yeah, he's huge. And he can beboisterous as well. He's um,
he's got personality here. Youknow, when you dive in Long You
got a feeling you're beingwatched or whatever and you look
over your shoulder and and he'sthere from you just staring at
you. He's particularly active ona night dive as well. I've
(39:03):
actually been pushed out the wayI've been looking at a fish with
my torch and he's pushed me outthe way to come in and eat that
fish that I'm shining my torchon which kill a bit bad which
makes it a great experience buthe's great some days he's a
little more in social interest.
You can see him up at the topcruising around the pylons, but
(39:24):
Sundays he will actually get upclose and personal. Yeah. We
call him BFG Big Friendly groper
Matt Waters (39:33):
friendly.
Kirsten Sheppard (39:34):
Yeah, very friendly.
But yeah, huge amount of Marinelife. I mean, she just calls it
Ravallion Barracuda, and thenyou've just got so many
different species of nudibranchthere as well. So from the big
to the small it we really, itcovers it all. And we can do
deep dives and night dives thereas well. And during the winter
months when the water getscooler, down to 20 degrees that
(39:56):
I was telling you about so toget so jealous about as hot 28
at the moment, it does getcooler here, sometimes we get
our greener shocks comingthrough as well. So a decent
population of those under thepier. So, and regular sightings
of those, so most twins, andyou've got
Matt Waters (40:15):
exclusive diving there
Kirsten Sheppard (40:17):
do Yes, we do.
Yes, it is yes.
Matt Waters (40:21):
And certainly a way to control the amount of divers
in the water as well. And
Kirsten Sheppard (40:26):
absolutely.
And you also have, I mean, it'sthe sanctuary. So people, you
know, driving passing boats haveto pass quite some distance
away. So it is protected. It'sactually an active military base
as well. So we're limited on thenumber of people we can take,
because obviously, it has to gothrough the fence land and
through secure areas. But youknow, being a sanctuary zone,
(40:47):
you really tell you know,there's huge blue bones down
there and coral trout, and oftenthe divers are looking around
and looking at me, I'm rubbingtheir bellies. But we can
actually only dive on the slackquarter so you can get some some
big currents around there. So atslac quarter, it's beautiful
conditions to jump in. But thatalso kind of adds to the limit
(41:09):
of when you can dive daily aswell. So it's a different time
every day.
Matt Waters (41:15):
Yeah, yeah. So all of the locations that you've
dived in the era of Ningaloo,which is your favorite
Kirsten Sheppard (41:25):
question.
That's a hard one. Um, look, theNavy, the Navy Pier is great for
the diversity. It really is. Youknow, people are filling out
their logbooks, and they theyrun out of space in the note
section. There's, there's justso much the mute the soft coral
at the murin Islands isstunning. And maybe there's an
inference from my parents, butyou know, they come up from a
(41:47):
dive and they said, Wow, thatsurf curl is just incredible.
And some of the largest softcorals they've seen before
anywhere in the world. So youknow that that really is special
and very different from the restof the Ningaloo, which is a lot
more hard coral and searchchannels and things like that.
But then, then on the west sideand lighthouse phase, you know,
(42:08):
you get this sharks, I haven'tanswered that question at all.
However,
Matt Waters (42:12):
none of them
Kirsten Sheppard (42:15):
every day, it's so good.
And of course, you know, if youdive it enough, you know, you
see a bit of everything and somedays obviously clearer than
others. Oh, yeah. All of them.
What a rubbish answer. Yeah,
Matt Waters (42:29):
yeah. very precise.
Well,
Kirsten Sheppard (42:32):
politically correct. Maybe?
Matt Waters (42:34):
Well, we got it.
We've got to put a little bit ofbalance on it as well, because a
bit a little bit of focus onwhat you've just said. Your dad
saying that. It's some of thebiggest corals and all that kind
of thing that he's seen. Yeah.
For those people who don't knowof Shep's dad, Shep's dad is
also known as Professor CharlesShepard, OBE. And he he was
(42:59):
fundamental in creating correctme if I'm wrong, but he was
fundamental in creating thelargest marine reserve. Yes.
Kirsten Sheppard (43:11):
Yeah, no, take marine park in the world at I
think blue still now. So yeah.
And the shaker said,archipelago, my parents have
been there for decades, spanningsort of four decades of work
there. They still go every year.
Obviously, they haven't beenlast year with with COVID. But
(43:33):
yeah, it's been a lot of hardwork into this area and, and
that the OP ob was recognitionfor that work as well. But yeah,
they cornered they love it. Andthey've obviously seen huge
changes over time as well. Notnecessarily for the best. But,
(43:54):
you know, the shakerarchipelago, you can get to
privately you know, can't flythere. It's the US as British
Indian Ocean territory, butthere's a US based on Diego
Garcia, the largest island andalthough you can sail there from
maybe Seychelles, it's a longway away. It's in the middle of
the Indian Ocean, so you can'tget there. So it really, you
know, at the start of theircareer diving that was pristine.
(44:16):
Yeah.
Matt Waters (44:17):
Yeah. Anyone that doesn't know the Chagos
archipelago it ch ag o 's justGoogle it and look on the maps
to see where it is is literallyin the middle of bloody nowhere
Kirsten Sheppard (44:30):
yeah so yeah, hard to get to which has
obviously helped keep itpristine but you know being no
take there still have a lot offish boats coming over. So it is
patrolled. Oh, good to ensurethat it is yeah. Unfortunately,
not such a great story for thecoral reef there. And due to
warming, sea temperature levelrises. So it's I think a bit I
(44:56):
think it's still great, buthaving seen it over four
decades. It's probably And notsuch good shape as it as it used
to be, which is quite sad forthe people going over there now
to see how it's changed over theyears. But yeah, very, very
important work and they're veryproud of both of them.
Matt Waters (45:13):
So you should be I'm sure they're proud, very
proud of you, too. Speaking ofglobal temperatures and water
temperatures are like anything.
Do you see any kind offluctuations, any kind of
bleaching going on over atNingaloo? There was a there was
a pie on the ash because therewas a few a few months in 2017.
And there's quite a bit ofbleaching that occurred in Papua
(45:34):
New Guinea. And just wonderingwhether the the temperatures and
water flow follow through anddown to that side of Australia.
Kirsten Sheppard (45:44):
Yes, we have seen some we are definitely more
fortunate than a lot of otherreefs. In that we have two
different currents that comethrough and one is a quarter
current. In the eight years I'vebeen here I've seen two
bleaching events. They've beensignificant but not
catastrophic. And they haverecovered fairly quickly
afterwards. But we have blue andcurrent, which brings water down
(46:08):
and a lot of tropical species.
So that's where we get you know,more of the tropical fish coming
down for the infant blue andcurrent and tropical corals. So
even though we're more temperateclimates, we have that advantage
and then we've got the Ningaloocurrent which brings cool water
from the south up whichgenerally even so we have some
incredibly baking hot summers itgenerally stabilizes the water
(46:31):
temperatures of the roof. Soalthough the Gulf can get
considerably warmer on the westside of the peninsula where a
lot of the Ningaloo is generallystays a lot cooler. So we're
very fortunate, there actuallyhas been predictions that the
Ningaloo is going to be one ofthe few less surviving coral
reefs as they start to degradearound the world. We're sitting
(46:55):
in a good spot in in terms oflongevity obviously the issue is
still the same anywhere aroundthe world. Yeah,
Matt Waters (47:07):
yeah. They just got a
Kirsten Sheppard (47:09):
tough subject because it is you know,
seriously happening and it isalready Yeah, yeah.
Matt Waters (47:16):
It's Yeah, a completely other topic. We won't
go down that rabbit hole No.
Crying into our beers.
Kirsten Sheppard (47:23):
Well then I definitely wanted to get
Matt Waters (47:27):
so what's what's the general day to day living
for you like over there then? Isit just all 100% focus on the
the dive shop? Or do you gettime to yourself
Kirsten Sheppard (47:40):
it's about finding balance. And I have
struggled with that over theyear years. When I started out
we were obviously very smallcompany. So I was pretty much
when the first two years ofoperating I was on the boat
every day answering phone callson the flybridge of the boat
taking bookings for the nextday. As we expanded I got
(48:02):
someone to answer the callsduring the day and then it got
to the point that okay, officemanager required and that
obviously just made everything alot easier. But you know, as
your business progresses andgets bigger we got the Navy Pier
license, our little day schoolor sun went boom and then became
a lot bigger and more peopleword got out to that as and and
(48:24):
yet we and we got busier. So Ido very much try to keep the
balance. At the end of day youdon't become a diver or dive
professional or open a diveschool to become rich
as you know asyou do it for the lifestyle so
it's always about managing thatlifestyle. So I do make sure
that I get out diving at leastcouple of times a week on tours
(48:47):
and, and try and minimize theamount of paperwork to be done
that again, in any business.
There's always always pickedwhat to do so yeah, finding the
balance and still keepingdiving.
Matt Waters (49:03):
I do have to ask as well, because obviously I've
looked on your website andwithin your little team. You
have a dude that looks like hecould be my best friend
straightaway. Skipper and ChefJoe Reynolds he's he's cooking
up a storm on the boat
Kirsten Sheppard (49:21):
kicking off his dog. He actually I need to
update my website.
Matt Waters (49:25):
Oh, the time that's it I'm not coming down. I
need to do there's no there's nothere's no snags on the Barbie.
I'm not coming.
Kirsten Sheppard (49:33):
We do still do the barbecue. Joe Joe is
actually a chef as well and aSkipper so it was perfect. He
was always on barbecue duty. Butnow we do a barbecue on the boat
every day. Oh these love ofbarbecue so I mean barbecue and
diving. What a greatcombination. But also the
international tourists it wouldjust be a bit of a novelty as
well. You know you've got yourgeneral backpack is there like
barbecue on a boat? Who wouldhave thought of this thing ever?
Matt Waters (49:57):
It was some sad lettuce lately Yeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (50:00):
Hot Dog and slow definitely.
Matt Waters (50:03):
Well, it's one of the things I'm trying. I was
actually at the gym earliertoday got hold of the manager,
and it's a huge gym. And I'veasked her to find one of them
members of staff that ispossibly a diver but more
importantly a nutritionist,because I want to delve into the
calorific burn rate that we havewhen we go dive in. Because I've
(50:25):
posted about it many times andpeople are very surprised to
hear how many calories you burnjust in 30 minutes of being
submerged?
Kirsten Sheppard (50:31):
Absolutely.
Isn't it the equivalent to likean hour dive is equivalent to an
hour workout or something likethat? Yeah,
Matt Waters (50:37):
it's most make the most. Most analysis or reports
are saying between 680 and 720calories for an hour submerged,
which is crazy. And of course,that's why I see
Kirsten Sheppard (50:50):
breakfast Sundays, I'm diving.
Matt Waters (50:53):
That's why I saw Joe and fell in love with him
straightaway because of thesnags.
Kirsten Sheppard (50:59):
I think I assume it's all the off gassing
as well, that burns all thecalories too, because you're not
moving a lot underwater. It'sdefinitely far easier than doing
an hour workout. So
Matt Waters (51:10):
it makes sense as well. Because I don't know about
you, but when I was workinghammer and Tong in the industry
every day teaching every day fora number of years. You know, I'm
sitting here at 120 kilos. I was93 kilos back then and the
weight just fell off. Yes, notime to
Kirsten Sheppard (51:26):
work hard. Oh, yeah, I was the fittest I've
ever been when I was workingKotel four dives a day. And then
of course, so on our dive boat.
Here in the Ningaloo. We have acompressor and banks on board so
there's no carton of cylindersthat you may remember very well
you may still have nightmaresabout it, pulling Becca off at
the at the jetty, Kotel andbeing sort of five other boats
(51:48):
between you in the jetty and youhaving to carry 50 tanks over
this
Matt Waters (51:55):
a few times. Yeah, but then when I was working at
Big Blue, and we could get bythe beach is great. But then,
when the compressors broke, andthen all the tanks had to come
back to land and then getrefilled. You're looking at 120
to 150 tanks getting shipped.
Just one way. It's crazy.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:14):
We were muscley then
Matt Waters (52:17):
even the women were meatheads. Right, let's let's
let's round it out, shall weship I'm sure you've got to get
back to work and Rod nine needto have another beer.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:31):
It's five o'clock now and it's definitely
time for me to have a beer.
Matt Waters (52:35):
Good idea. Good idea. So just we'll put it in
the show notes anyway, but justto give a quick shout out on
your your social media and yourwebsites and all that kind of
stuff. how people can get aholdof you.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:45):
Sounds good yet so on Instagram, we're
diving glue and our Facebookwe're diving in glue, keeping it
nice and easy, easy,straightforward.
Matt Waters (52:54):
The website dive Ningaloo diving glue.com au
Yeah, yes is that um,
Kirsten Sheppard (53:00):
Ningaloo spelt in I NGLW. Yeah, you often get
that question? Yeah.
Matt Waters (53:07):
Okay. So
Kirsten Sheppard (53:08):
yeah, like as followers and I will obviously
share this podcast once. Onceonce it's often online,
Matt Waters (53:16):
you share it far and wide. You can even put I
tell you what, I'll give you theembed thing. So you can place it
on your website. Now Joe's gone.
You could probably put it there.
Okay. And now in allseriousness, let's get a let's
do a liveaboard. next July.
Kirsten Sheppard (53:33):
That would be great. love to have you.
Matt Waters (53:35):
Do we get we get special prices? Sure. We'll talk
about that later. Show me
Kirsten Sheppard (53:39):
that too quickly.
Matt Waters (53:46):
Well, I'm going to celebrate that one. Share. It's
been an absolute pleasure. Speakto dad, I'd love him to come on
the show. Okay, and if he saysno, I'm still gonna praise Him.
Anyway. Thanks again, and I'llspeak to you soon. Sounds good.
Thanks. Thanks, everybody.
(54:08):
For the podcast for theinquisitive diver.
The podcast for the inquisitive diver. Hey, they
dive buddies and welcome to theshow. I'm super jealous of my
next guest. She's based in theridiculously spectacular
location that is Ningaloo Reef.
A dive pro and dive shop owner.
Kirsten Shepherd also has apretty epic dad too. We'll chat
about his awesomeness later. Fornow, Shep. Welcome to the show,
(00:25):
lady.
Kirsten Sheppard (00:26):
Hey, Matt.
Thanks so much. Very well.
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
It's pleasure to be here.
Matt Waters (00:30):
Good, good. And speaking of here, you're not
here because it's freezing onthis side of the world, or this
side of Australia standard.
We're starting to go into winternow and I'm getting really
chilly. How are you doing overthat side?
Kirsten Sheppard (00:41):
Still sweating. Still 40 degrees
today. But looking forward tolike you're looking forward to
it cooling down a little bitsoon.
Matt Waters (00:49):
Yeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (00:50):
Sorry about that.
Matt Waters (00:53):
We've got so much we can talk about in this one.
Much. But let's start with you.
Where did the I'm guessing amight know where the watery kind
of scuba diving knowledge camefrom. But where did it start?
Kirsten Sheppard (01:10):
He could probably take a guess. I'm
originally from the UK. And bothof my parents are marine
biologists or coral reefecologists. So I grew up
spending a lot of time overseas,snorkeling, and then when I was
old enough learning to dive Iwas lucky enough to be able to
(01:30):
do that in the Bahamas, not inthe icy waters of the UK. very
fortunate there. So yes, so Istarted off years ago, diving
and snorkeling all around theworld. And it just became a
passion. For a long time, it wasjust a hobby. And I actually
(01:51):
have a master's in forensicpsychology actually. So used to
work as a forensic psychologistin the UK. But realized, after a
while, it wasn't quite for me.
And I wanted to go down that thediving route. And so several
years later, and a lot of hardwork. I'm here in Western
Australia with a dive companythat I run with my partner.
Matt Waters (02:16):
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's a location I've not
been to yet and I emphasize yet,but I'm super, super excited.
I'm at least in the same countryas whoever it is.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:28):
Hopefully, we'll get you over soon.
Matt Waters (02:31):
Now, we do have to mention that little island in
Thailand, Koh tao.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:36):
Yes, of course.
Matt Waters (02:38):
And you did your pro training there.
Kirsten Sheppard (02:41):
I did my pro training there. Yes, I was
already a rescue diver with afew 100 dives under my belt over
the years. But when I got tocoetail in Thailand, you know
exactly what I'm talking about.
There's a real appeal of thislittle island. It's got some
great diving, it's got some, youknow, great community and
nightlife as well. So what wasmeant to be just staying for a
few months ended up staying intonearly two years on the island.
(03:03):
And and yes, that's where I didmy instructor training as well
met some great people and wehave a lot of mutual friends.
Matt Waters (03:11):
It appears that we've not actually met yet, but
you know, just looking on socialmedia and it's all the same
people. Got to have a shout downto the octo boys. Questi.
Kirsten Sheppard (03:21):
Yes, yeah. So, I guess I realized that the
diving industry was something Iwanted to pursue and stay into.
And I knew if I didn't leaveKotel sooner rather than later,
I'd never leave, as a lot ofpeople have been coding that. So
came over to Western Australia,while I could still get a
(03:41):
working holiday visa, and whatactually started out working on
a worship boat, but reallywanted to diving. So I met my
partner and we decided to stepthat up together. Okay, that was
six years ago or eight yearsI've been in Australia, but six
years ago, we started upgardening glue. So going for a
little while now.
Matt Waters (04:02):
Yeah, because we only just missed each other on
Koh Tao because you left in thesame year that I arrived. And I
was at the dive shop just downthe road from where you are, or
where you were.
Kirsten Sheppard (04:13):
Think we had a two month over last year.
Matt Waters (04:18):
And it was the same thing. I mean, I went there for
Well, I went to Southeast Asiato start a trip, a diving trip
for six months on my own justlugging around doing some
diamond and I got to Koh Tao andnever left. I was four and a
half years later when I didactually leave and go to Papua
New Guinea.
Kirsten Sheppard (04:36):
Hopefully is a peaceful place as well. Yeah.
Matt Waters (04:40):
So yeah, so we got from Koh Tao over to Ningaloo.
And you started what what yearwas it? You started on? dive
Ningaloo? What year did youopen?
Kirsten Sheppard (04:54):
It was 2014 that we registered and started
up. There's a lot of people workinvolved in getting a dive
school up and running so youknow getting licenses and
accreditation took a while. Sothat took nearly a year really
to get everything up andrunning. And the boat we bought
was a dual wrapper in that, youknow, it was a good price but it
(05:17):
needed a lot of work doing toit. So a lot of the year was
actually spent refitting theboat and refurbishing everything
and getting it sort of ready fordiving and capable for diving.
So I remember actually, the daybefore our first charter, we
were just laying the carpetgetting the final touches in so
(05:39):
yeah, it's definitely a processgetting to where we are now.
Matt Waters (05:42):
Yeah. I bet it was quite unnerving as well. opening
up your first time and gettingyour first customers on board.
Kirsten Sheppard (05:50):
Absolutely.
Yes. And obviously you wanted togive everyone the best day
possible and so it is very nervewracking knowing that you're
doing everything right we knowthe diving here is great so that
sells itself but you know justmaking sure that we had
everything in place beforehandthe right equipment and
everything so yeah, very nervewracking, but I feel I know fell
into the swing of it prettypretty easily.
Matt Waters (06:13):
Yeah. Welcome that paints a picture for me because
Ningaloo Reef is off broome,correct?
Kirsten Sheppard (06:21):
No.
Matt Waters (06:23):
See, I told I told you I wasn't. I wasn't gonna
look at it because I would justwant to get it firsthand from
you. Paint me a picture of whereit is,
Kirsten Sheppard (06:32):
unfortunately get crocodiles up in brooms so
that that would not be quitesuch fun experience. The
Ningaloo Reef is off x now,which is in the northwest of
Australia. It's a littlepeninsula that sticks out
halfway between Perth and broom,actually. The reef itself is 260
(06:53):
kilometers long. So it's adecent sized reef. Wow. And it's
a fringing reef, which meansit's very close to land. I like
the barrier reef, which takesthe trouble to get to, you know,
the closest part of the reefwhere it where it comes in is
really just a few 100 metersoffshore. So we're very lucky in
that, you know, it makes it easyfor day trips and accessibility.
Unknown (07:14):
And so exmouth, the town itself, what kind of size
is it?
Kirsten Sheppard (07:20):
Population fluctuates a lot with a high
season and low season as littleas sort of two and a half 1000
people really that's a smalltown. Yeah.
Matt Waters (07:30):
So everybody knows everyone
Kirsten Sheppard (07:32):
everyone knows everyone has its advantages and
disadvantages, as you canimagine. But it can during the
high tourist season, it can getto about six 7000. With with
workers and seasonal workers andthings like that. And then even
even more since COVID. And nointernational travel allowed,
we're finding that we've had abit of a boost, even from those
(07:54):
numbers. So yeah, yes, littletown,
Matt Waters (07:57):
I was gonna COVID must have been quite good for
wha and people visiting, becauseone who kind of got locked down
and just closed all the borders.
And you didn't you got a lot ofpeople that can't go anywhere
else.
Kirsten Sheppard (08:12):
I think it pissed off a lot of people in
other states because you tellsomeone that you can't do
something, they only want to doit. Exactly, yeah, who ever
wanted to come? Obviously, weall got the lockdown, which was
a nerve wracking time for acouple of months when everything
shut down. Or you can onlyoperate with two other people,
which means you can't really runtours, you know, it doesn't work
(08:33):
like that. But once things didopen back up, we were all very
surprised because it seemed likethe whole of Perth came to x
mouth all in one month. So itwas a nice little boost after
quite a nerve wracking time.
Obviously, it's had its otherdisadvantages in that. It's
people from wi which is great,but it's hard when people from
(08:54):
overseas to booked and thenborder closures have happened.
And so there's been a lot ofcancellations or obviously
missing our international marketas well. But really, we're very
lucky where we are on the grandscheme of things. We are
probably one of the luckiestsort of parts of the world to be
in tourism. So
Matt Waters (09:14):
yeah, I'm more than happy that I'm here in Australia
and not in the UK right now.
That's for sure.
Kirsten Sheppard (09:20):
Absolutely.
Yes. Well, my family are in theUK. So it's I'm obviously
hearing what's happening tothem. So it's Yeah, makes you
feel even luckier. Yeah,definitely.
Matt Waters (09:31):
So going on about the town a bit more. As soon as
I've got a goat beer in my hand.
What's it what's what's thenightlife like though man, is
it? Is it large enough to have aselection of bars or is it
everyone go to bed at nineo'clock at night ready for
diamond the next day?
Kirsten Sheppard (09:44):
No, you can definitely find a party in Exner
for sure. Okay. There's there'sa number of bars, there's
probably about five bars. Butthere's two microbreweries as
well that do some great beer andgreat pizzas and things like
that. so and they always havelive music or comedy nights or
bands that have been travelingaround australia to come and
(10:07):
visit so i think we even had theworld record breaker with
cracker in one time so you get agood variety of of performances
there but also good night yeahdefinitely a party around did
you hire him
Matt Waters (10:22):
straightaway crack the whip on the on the staff
great
Kirsten Sheppard (10:25):
entertainment on the boat
longest week crack or fastestwhip crack or something
impressive he was he was verygood
Matt Waters (10:38):
the seasons over there
Kirsten Sheppard (10:40):
we do operate all year round ourselves but it
is definitely a seasonal town wedon't have a wet season it's
desert it's dry always we dohave a cyclone season luckily
we're on the edge of it so we'reit's very unusual for us to see
cyclone does mean weoccasionally get some rain
dumped on us
Matt Waters (10:57):
you were getting into a cyclone when we first
started to chat about coming onthe podcast
Kirsten Sheppard (11:03):
i believe so yes
Unknown (11:07):
i'll speak to you in a few days after the cyclones
Kirsten Sheppard (11:11):
it was coming straight for us and we got
everything packed away took theroof and the clears off the boat
which is a pain in the ass toget back on and then last minute
it skirted around us so it waskind of all for nothing bit of
an anticlimax actually but butobviously very lucky that there
was no high winds and damage tothe town so yeah that's when we
(11:32):
get rain but otherwise itsummers are hot summers mid 40s
to high 40s most days andwinters do cooled down but it's
still still shorts and t shirtsin the day but it does get quite
cold at night and it's thewinter months that we get the
big marine life the megafaunathat comes through so well shark
(11:53):
season which is what theningaloo reef i guess is most
famous for even though thatsnorkeling not diving is
studying now starts around midmarch and depending on the
whalesharks usually followsthrough to august september time
okay we do get some mentors allyear round but you'll see big
numbers sort of from may onwardsmay to sort of the end of the
(12:16):
year october november and thenof course we get our humpback
whale migration as well and weget a huge amount of humpbacks
come through and that's usuallywe start to see them around june
but usually july in the bignumbers again through to sort of
november october november sothat's when we get the big stuff
but of course we get we getturtles all year round during
the summer months is whenthey're nesting and hatching so
(12:38):
all through sort of november tomarch they're either nesting on
the beach or i've seen a fewtimes in the last few weeks and
seen the eruption of babieshatching which is just
incredible every time you see itso even if you come outside of
the the peak season there's alot of amazing brain activity
Matt Waters (12:55):
you mentioned that the whale sharks is snorkeling
only what's that what's thebackground to that is that just
to protect the animals or justnot to have too many lunatics
scuba diving all over the place
Kirsten Sheppard (13:06):
probably it's i mean logistically it
would be very hard to divethey're usually on the surface
and swimming quite quickly soyou know you're swimming along
next to them if you had scubagear on that would be pretty
difficult also most of you whoget on the tours you know
generally snorkel is not diversso it makes it a lot more
accessible to everyone but iguess you're sometimes the whale
(13:28):
sharks do dive you're out wayoff the reef possibly in 100
meters of water if they start todive you'd get people following
them down the disaster sosnorkeling is just logistically
much easier in and out the wateryou hop in and out several times
chasing after the shark and andit's on the surface so
Matt Waters (13:49):
and there's a they migratory adults are they
juveniles now you see
Kirsten Sheppard (13:53):
they're mainly juveniles we do get some bigger
ones but majority of the onesyou see are juveniles around
that sort of five meter mark andmajority of males again you do
get females as well but a lot ofresearch going into where they
go outside of the whalesharkseason and why just the the type
(14:14):
that we get why the juvenileswere or the the breeding females
so they're doing a lot oftagging and things to try and
figure out where they are
Matt Waters (14:22):
well you know, is there a team down there?
Kirsten Sheppard (14:25):
no there's there is organizations that do
taking yes but the spotters thatwork on worship boats can also
remove the tags if they do seewhale sharks with them and
collect them as well
Unknown (14:37):
okay that sounds cool does mum and dad get involved in
that at all
Kirsten Sheppard (14:46):
i'm not in the whale sharks so i did work on
whaleshark boats when i firstgot here but as i said mr diving
and they're they're mainly coralreef ecologists rather than mega
fauna so They they love the reefand that's what they're really
interested in. Give them a pieceof coral over Wireshark any day
(15:07):
for sure. Really?
Yeah.
There's some great coral heretoo.
Matt Waters (15:11):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
Kirsten Sheppard (15:13):
I just realized I hadn't put you on Do
Not Disturb. So I just
Matt Waters (15:19):
you can wind up buying a case of Goat if that
went off, you know?
Kirsten Sheppard (15:24):
That I caught it in time.
Surely that stuff's any anycheap. It is.
Matt Waters (15:31):
Well, so cheap.
It's like 20 bucks for six cans.
Which when I got into Australiathree years ago, might 20 bucks
for six beers. That'soutrageous. You know?
Kirsten Sheppard (15:40):
Yeah. 20 Thanks for that. Exactly. Yeah,
yeah.
Matt Waters (15:44):
So frankly, over here, but it's even more
expensive over there, isn't it?
On the
Kirsten Sheppard (15:48):
way she is? It is there is. We joke that
there's a bit of an exchangerate at the W a border is a bit
more expensive. I think it's allrelative with oil and gas and
things. Some people are earningsome big wages over here. So
yes, it does make thingssometimes a bit a bit more
challenging.
Matt Waters (16:07):
I suppose logistically as well, because if
you're that far away from Perth,because you've got to fly from
Perth, we need to get up tobroom and then come down to you
guys. Is that right?
Kirsten Sheppard (16:15):
You can fly directly from Perth to x mouse.
Okay. It's under two hourflight. Now I'm 45 Qantas fly.
And during the peak season,there's two flights a day. So
it's pretty easy. If you driveit's 12 160 kilometers, so it's
gonna take you a good good fullday to get there. People usually
(16:36):
stop off on the way like stopoff there to Cal berry or Shark
Bay on the way and split it overtwo to three days. But I have
done that trip in one day, manymany times too many times. And
it's it's an easy drive becauseit's long straight roads but
have nothing it's just a bush So
Matt Waters (16:54):
no, that's where a Tesla would come in handy. Stick
it in Drive and just go and youcan have a little siesta on
Route and not have to worryabout it sleep
Kirsten Sheppard (17:01):
watch a movie that's
Matt Waters (17:05):
when I do come over I'm gonna fly
Kirsten Sheppard (17:08):
much easier.
Yeah.
It's a good road trip though. Imean, there's lots to see off
the wha coastline on the way upso got to do at least once
depending on your timings.
Matt Waters (17:17):
Well, maybe maybe I wouldn't say got to just right
now. I just got to get
Kirsten Sheppard (17:26):
flying Cz and the airport's 25 minutes out of
town so it's Yeah.
Matt Waters (17:31):
Now we did briefly touch on the point you've got
some exciting stuff going onwith dive Ningaloo? Like a
little boat coming in?
Kirsten Sheppard (17:44):
as little boat. Yes.
Matt Waters (17:46):
Not so little boat, I should say.
Kirsten Sheppard (17:48):
biggest of all our boats. But yeah, 24 meters.
So decent sized boat. That'smine. Yes. So our new project we
are launching a liveaboardsomething we've been talking
about for a while. And then justthe right boat came along. The
timing wasn't right with COVID.
We bought the boat Two monthslater, we went into lockdown
(18:10):
going What have we done. Butthat's an exciting project.
Again, a do a wrapper with seemto be a big fan of it at the
time. And then when we'reactually doing it, we're like
Why? Again? But you know,obviously it's financially you
know, buying a boat that'sreally due up not only is it
(18:30):
financially the better option,but you can also then pick how
you want it to be done. Exactly.
You can design it, you've got ablank slate.
Matt Waters (18:39):
You put your own stamp on it.
Kirsten Sheppard (18:42):
Exactly. So that's what I'm telling myself
right now that we're in theprocess of doing it up. This is
the preferred option, honestly.
So yes, so we bought her. Yeah,back in January. And then
obviously just she sat in inovaries for a while as we
couldn't get her. And then wehad a great fun trip mid of last
(19:02):
year bringing her from Cannesround which brought her in
Harvey Bay, bringing her aroundto x now so we got stopped and
see the beautiful Kimberly onthe way round and made a great
trip of it. And yeah, so we'rewe're still getting the
equipment ready and everythingon her but if all goes to plan,
then she will be ready to runour first charters at the end of
(19:26):
this year. We're launching inDecember.
Matt Waters (19:29):
Amazing. And how many other liveaboards are in
the area.
Kirsten Sheppard (19:35):
Um, there's another liveaboard in Coral Bay.
It is a smaller one. It's thesailing boat and they do diving
and snorkeling. So we're hopingto just we're doing dedicated
dive boat only seven nighttrips, four or five times a day.
So some nights there'll be anight dive included as well. So
you'll really get a good divingfix throughout the week.
(19:58):
Otherwise, there's this Noothers in this area. You know,
there's a lot of liveaboards upin the Kimberley, but there's no
diving up there with the crocsand ripping current. So they're
all sightseeing ones. So there'sdefinitely a gap in the market.
So
Matt Waters (20:11):
sure, Kimberly's, you can only dive it like, is it
six weeks out of the year orsomething like that? and dive
boats that do go out there but avery small window.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:21):
They they typically as far as I'm aware,
there's no diving, because theystill get sued of their 10 meter
tides and whirlpools which wewitnessed, bringing the boat
round. You ever been in awhirlpool? it's exhilarating. To
say the least. The Rowley shoalshas got diving as well.
Matt Waters (20:39):
That's the one we might see the geography still
off. It's Rowley shoals I wasthinking of.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:46):
Yes. Yep.
Matt Waters (20:48):
So you're effectively going to be the only
dedicated scuba divingliveaboard in town.
Kirsten Sheppard (20:55):
Yes, correct.
Yeah. And it's going to be ninedouble cabins. They're being
built. And all on suites. All onsuite. So nice high end luxury,
you know, doing it, doing it.
Well. Nice luxury, high endliveaboard Hot Tub on the back
(21:15):
deck. cocktail bar. verycivilized. Everything you want
when you book diving holiday,nice. All Nitrox on board. And
yeah, so we're still figuringout a lot of the details. So I'm
releasing some more details soonin the next couple of months.
Once we finalize pricing anditinerary and things like that,
(21:37):
but in the next couple of monthspeople be able to start booking.
Matt Waters (21:40):
Awesome. Well, in that case, looking at this
calendar I've got in front ofme, so I want to see whalesharks
because the missus has seenwhale sharks over your side, but
just snorkeling never on scuba.
Possible see one if we're goingto do liveaboards you never
know.
Kirsten Sheppard (22:00):
You never know.
Matt Waters (22:02):
whales. I love seeing whales even just the nice
just think instantly FindingDory that's great. answers.
Dolphins. Okay, I want July.
July is a good month to get getthem all together Big Three for
sure. Yes. And the humpbackwhales. I most dives we hear
(22:23):
their song underwater. And it'sjust magical. really is and when
they close you can you canactually feel this song
vibrating in your chest. It'sthat loud. Yeah, it's a very
special moment when you firstrealize that humpback whale song
isn't amazing. I've onlyexperienced them in South Africa
where it was really shivers butI got my I had my camera on
(22:47):
record ready to go just in casethey passed by. And I left it
running. I know you can see hisship is but you can hear the
noise and it's just so relaxing.
It's it's an amazing sensation.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:00):
I saw that your sleep sounds that you fall
asleep.
Matt Waters (23:02):
It's ingrained in my brain. I tell you I don't
even need to turn it on on thebrain.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:09):
Well, I have been on dives and head of fright
when I look up and there's ahumpback whale swimming past me
and your your clothes fi andthen they pop up so and then
massive. You know that's reallyquite something to see
underwater, but it doessometimes happen. They're
curious and they just feelbubbles and sintesi and check
you out and then swim off. So
Matt Waters (23:30):
there's been some amazing photos taken over there
with humpbacks in there. Yes,there has.
Kirsten Sheppard (23:35):
Yes.
Matt Waters (23:37):
All I know. Was it that one. Was it was it Davey
Palfrey that got some awesomeshots or was he was that Tonga?
Okay, remember?
Unknown (23:45):
Tonga is a hot spot as well. Wonderful.
Matt Waters (23:50):
Davey Palfrey.
He's now in Bahamas where youstarted today. Okay, he's doing
a Bimini sharpening. Tangent manhere goes away. Obviously the
other guy, Alex. Alex kid.
That's the one. Yeah, he's gotsome amazing photos. Nice,
(24:10):
sensational. And there's I'veseen quite a few photos in the
past where it looks relativelyshallow and over sand. And it
was was it tigershark? Or maybe?
Yeah, really. I've only everseen one tiger shark. And that
was in Galapagos Galapagos acouple years ago. And I was
almost crying in my mask was nothappy. But at the same time.
(24:34):
It's the first time I had kindof gotten asked which wasn't
expected to see it.
Kirsten Sheppard (24:44):
bull sharks will do that to me. But no, we
get we get quite a lot of Tigersharks. I mean, there's a lot of
turtles here. They're well fed.
They're not, not anything toworry about. But yet we we see
them on diets and they'rebeautiful, very curious, very
placid. Nice. Let's get yourHammerhead here to
Matt Waters (25:03):
really
Kirsten Sheppard (25:07):
go ahead and sculpt. Yep that's the beauty of
the Ningaloo you never know whatwill turn up yeah, it's still
getting surprised after eightyears of diving here I'm still
seeing new stuff whether it'slittle nudibranches I've not
seen before or whether it's yeahHammerhead swim past me on a
diet. It's Yeah, it's just aspecial
Matt Waters (25:26):
I love seeing macro well I love all of it. But we do
a lot of macro diving aroundhere. And the missus jazz she's
not that interested in macro.
But I caught her was a couplemonths ago. We're on a dive just
off Colonel and I just had tolook over to see what she was up
to. And she had a GoPro filmingand at Bank of not that I forget
it and I'm never gonna let herForget it.
Kirsten Sheppard (25:50):
I wonder how many manta rays and sharks I've
missed just swimming over thetop of my head while I'm staring
at the slipper nudibranch
Matt Waters (25:59):
I was working with it a DM years ago. In fact, it
was Ko Tao. And we were off thedeep side if you can call it
deep side of twins. And I'm alittle bit further out from him.
And he's he's literally got hisface in the wall looking for
nudie banks. He's one of thosethat he just loves the macro.
And all of a sudden, you know,this shadow comes over and as
(26:23):
well sharp. So I'm thinking thetank thing big, big, big thing.
And looking down trying to getSteven trying to get his
attention. And he he almostwhipped around looking at a
scowl through his mask straightback to his money disturbing
Kirsten Sheppard (26:38):
me for
Matt Waters (26:41):
a bloody idiot. Oh, yeah. Look at this Nudibranchs
Kirsten Sheppard (26:45):
jacket twins.
Great. My very first WhalesharkI saw was at Green Rock in Koh
Tao.
Matt Waters (26:52):
So that was quite a hot spot actually green rock.
Kirsten Sheppard (26:54):
Okay. In current how it through my as I'm
chasing past this after thisthing. It was great.
Matt Waters (27:02):
Going back to the liveaboard Let's do let's do a
scuba go trip next July.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:09):
Okay, let's do it. Sounds good.
Matt Waters (27:11):
Yeah, I've got lots of people that would be keen on
that. There's a couple that willbe listening to this podcast
that have just been on me forthe last couple of months. When
when do we go? What should wedo? When it's finally here? We
go with her. So yeah, salvoYeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:27):
We can take 18 of you. Happy Days, nine, nine
double cabins or they can betwins as well. So you know 18
scuba goats. Yeah, coming myway.
Matt Waters (27:38):
A lot of fun.
Kirsten Sheppard (27:40):
Awesome. And I will try and lock in the Big
Three for you then. Oh,
Matt Waters (27:43):
yeah, see what I can do. Yeah, just text them.
Make sure that they turn up
Kirsten Sheppard (27:47):
arranger arrange to meet time, no
worries.
Matt Waters (27:51):
That should be should be really exciting,
though, isn't it? Because you'regonna have so much freedom,
rather than going to theparticular dive locations that
you do for sure you've got thatfreedom to roam.
Kirsten Sheppard (28:00):
I'm so excited about that. Obviously, after all
these years of diving, you know,I still love the dive sites. And
there's some incredible dives.
But I'm excited to explore newterritory being daytrips you'll
see this so far you can get anddo dives and come back in a day.
with seven nights we can we cango pretty far and explore,
explore parts where there'sgoing to be you know, no one's
(28:21):
going to die for years.
Matt Waters (28:25):
Yeah, I've when I was working up in Papua New
Guinea, I was one of the kickersof the job was that if there was
no guests around, or they justdecided that they wanted to have
a sister instead, we could justgo out and take a dive boat out
and the reefs were justcountless. So you know just find
a reef jump in see what's there.
Kirsten Sheppard (28:45):
It's any good?
It's naturally the GPS Yeah, toexplore new spots. Yeah. So
hopefully we'll find some, somegreat typography in some some
great walls and bombs and thingsthat we can add to our list. So
yeah, the first we're going tobe doing a lot of exploring
ourselves that the first fewtrips are also going to be that
so it's you know, I think everytrip will say to the guests All
right, this is a new spot. Letus know if it's good. It looks
(29:08):
good on the sounder. Let me knowit's down there. So I think
that's going to be quiteexciting to get as well to go
Okay, well, no one's ever doneit before. Let's
Matt Waters (29:17):
Yeah,
Kirsten Sheppard (29:17):
let's check it out. And it's the Ningaloo you
can't really have a bad dive. So
Matt Waters (29:22):
sounds so good.
Kirsten Sheppard (29:24):
Where were you in Papua New Guinea out of
interest.
Matt Waters (29:26):
I was at Tufi Resort. It's on the northern or
north eastern coastline of themain island. So you go you go
into Port Moresby, and it's likea 15 minute flight. going north.
To Fear Itself sits it sits ontop of the almost rock faces of
(29:46):
the IRAs or the fjords as peoplecall them, which is incorrect
because it's not in Sweden oranything like that. It's an IRA.
But it's very interesting thereas well. And in fact, your mum
and dad, if ever they got theOpportunity send them to to fee.
If the coral heads, they willabsolutely bloody love it
because it's got almost likethree stages of perfection to
(30:11):
deterioration by man. So writingclose to land, it's all been
over fish by the local villages,and all the rubbish has gone in
over the years. So you don'thave massive amounts of big
species. And the coral tends tohave a lot of algae on it, and
it's almost dead, you know. Butthen you go the inner reefs,
(30:32):
which are about 4k, offshore,and there's nowhere near as much
algae but a few more fish and afew more big stuff. But then you
get to the outer reefs, whichare 20k. And it sounds like a
hell of a journey. But, youknow, if you're not there in
winter time, then it's it'sglass flat Anyway, you get out
there, and you'd be forgiven forthinking that you're jumping
(30:55):
into a virgin water thatsomeone's never seen before.
It's beautiful. And the coralsyou just probably would want to
mainline to the boat and juststay there forever. It's a
fantastic location.
Kirsten Sheppard (31:08):
Well, you're reading the Coral Triangle there
so 18 months ago, my partnerwent to Papua New Guinea we went
to betclan we could travel preCOVID we went to kavieng we went
to rebel when he was bornactually and so so did a few
days around there and he hadcorals stunning.
Matt Waters (31:28):
Yeah, it is. Yeah, there's quite a bit. In fact
kavieng do dolphins and stufflike that? That is Kakapo up
that way
Kirsten Sheppard (31:38):
um we Kapow
Matt Waters (31:43):
you might be familiar there's quite a few
quite a few small islands offthe coastline and shallow ranks
and stuff like that.
Kirsten Sheppard (31:54):
Yes, yes lovely Japanese planes and Rex
Yeah.
Matt Waters (31:59):
Well to fee if you imagine the coastline between
two wildly which is the furthestto the east along the main
coastline of Papua New Guinea.
And then to fee between the twois the famous blackjack dive the
world war two record 48 meters.
(32:23):
And that's that's that's a diveand a half to beautiful. I've
not done KVM yet, though.
Kirsten Sheppard (32:32):
Beautiful place. Yeah, highly recommended.
Yeah, really nice. After afterthe Ningaloo.
Matt Waters (32:37):
Yeah, yeah, we'll do it. We'll do a skip, skip go
trip to the Ningaloo and thenwe'll do a skip ego trip to sci
fi to alien cave Yang. Okay.
Kirsten Sheppard (32:46):
Yeah, I'll join you on that one.
Matt Waters (32:49):
Excellent. Now, what I did, what I did want to
ask is, or just ask, or justactually just give a bloody good
shout out to all you guys overon the West Coast because it was
not too long ago that the subseaseven proposals were withdrawn.
Kirsten Sheppard (33:11):
Right, yes.
Matt Waters (33:13):
I'll let you backfill that once.
Kirsten Sheppard (33:18):
A subsea seven was a oil and gas project
basically to build a bundlepipeline onshore, and then
launch it via a small sort ofrailway pipeline into the water
where it was then floated out tovarious guests that forms off
(33:40):
the coast. Where they werelooking at doing it was in the
Ningaloo Gulf, Gulf Gulf. Andit's a real nursery, the
ectomorph Gulf. And there's alot of research not done on it,
you know, we're still findingout that there's actually some
endangered species, a small fishin the Exmouth Gulf is a
breeding ground for do gongs andhumpback whales. So, of course,
(34:01):
there was a lot of concern, whatthis would do to the local
environment. So there was a bigpush from protecting glue, and
the KIPP conservation group toto really get it out to to the
public knowledge and to actuallyget the EPA the Environmental
Protection done on it.
Basically, they decided theyneed more information and then
(34:26):
subsea seven did pull out thatum, I did do my fair share of
banner waving and he's like thatat the time just to get just to
raise awareness of of the areabecause x North Gulf is is a
spectacular place. And actuallywe do we do dives in the Gulf as
well. A lot of soft corals, weget sponge gardens and things
like that, and it's anincredible marine life, the
(34:48):
visibility is lower. But you cansee very clearly the diversity
and the amount of marine lifeand especially juvenile, fish
and mammals as well. In this soit's it's yeah obviously it's a
very sensitive subject in thattwo sides of it in terms of jobs
and development of x now, butfor me it was definitely a win
(35:11):
for the environment. Yeah,definitely.
Matt Waters (35:15):
Well it is. There's there is two sides to it, but
Sod 'em sorry, people hate mefor that I don't care, if we get
rid of everything in the oceansand there's nothing left of this
planet anyway. So you know,
Kirsten Sheppard (35:28):
and I feel that's a bit of the appeal of x
mouth You know, there's a lot ofsmall quaint little lovely towns
in in Western Australia, but inthe northwest it is dominated
largely by mining and oil andgas towns. So you know, we're
one of the last few towns in thenorthwest that that isn't has
that as one of the majorindustries tourism is a major
industry so it's, you know, Ithink it's nice to keep it that
(35:52):
way as well.
Matt Waters (35:54):
Keep it that way forever. They can they can go
and do their oil and gas stuffelsewhere
Kirsten Sheppard (36:00):
as well so they've moved on so I'm sure
they found somewhere else wherethey'll where they'll do it
where there's already the setupas well. So yeah, that
definitely was definitely was awin for the for tourism and also
of course all the marine marinecreatures here. Yeah. Yeah.
Could do gongs.
Matt Waters (36:17):
Yeah, it's not like they could get out of the way
too quick, is it? No. Um, hey,but I didn't that was quite a
few questions actually, that Igot from a lot of people was
about accommodation over inNingaloo. It's all old hotels
and guest houses and that kindof thing.
Kirsten Sheppard (36:38):
huge variety.
You've got luxury resorts,you've got hotel motel style
options. You've got campsites intown where you can get either a
chalet or obviously camp ifyou've got a tent or a camper
van, and then down in thenational parks or the cape range
National Park is just a 30minute drive from x mouse over
(36:59):
to the west side of the cape.
And there's some amazing bushcamping in the cat range as well
and just snorkeling right offthe beach there so yeah, a big
range for those of you that wantthe the bush camping or those
you want the resort with thepool and cocktails, and
everything in between
Matt Waters (37:17):
happy days.
Kirsten Sheppard (37:18):
Lots of lots of options and of course heaps
of holiday homes that at themoment as well. So
Matt Waters (37:23):
at the moment
Kirsten Sheppard (37:25):
at the moment Yeah, that's another story for
the day.
Matt Waters (37:28):
What was it all was it all headed ship? what's
what's the long term goals fordive Ningaloo?
Kirsten Sheppard (37:35):
A dive Ningaloo on the spot? Yeah.
Okay. Well, we're very happydoing a day tours, which our
boat goes out every day anddives Northern Ireland's
Ningaloo Reef, lighthouse Bay.
We also have the exclusivelicense for diving on the Navy
Pier, which you may have heardabout the Navy Pier. voted Yeah,
concentrated on the top 10dives. It is incredible because
(37:59):
of its diversity. That's whatit's very famous for it is a low
of visibility dive. You know, ifyou've got eight meters, it's
good day average is about five.
But the sheer amount of fishlife under there just just
Trumps any visibility.
Matt Waters (38:16):
I was watching a little bit of Facebook stalking
earlier today. And I look at oneof the videos from a few months
ago. And it was a journalist ofsome sort that was going for a
dive there. And that you've gota grip of that. Yeah, it's it's
a little bit big. 150 kilos,correct. 120 kilos, it must be
Kirsten Sheppard (38:43):
two and a half meters long, 2.3 meters long and
yeah, he's huge. And he can beboisterous as well. He's um,
he's got personality here. Youknow, when you dive in Long You
got a feeling you're beingwatched or whatever and you look
over your shoulder and and he'sthere from you just staring at
you. He's particularly active ona night dive as well. I've
(39:03):
actually been pushed out the wayI've been looking at a fish with
my torch and he's pushed me outthe way to come in and eat that
fish that I'm shining my torchon which kill a bit bad which
makes it a great experience buthe's great some days he's a
little more in social interest.
You can see him up at the topcruising around the pylons, but
(39:24):
Sundays he will actually get upclose and personal. Yeah. We
call him BFG Big Friendly groper
Matt Waters (39:33):
friendly.
Kirsten Sheppard (39:34):
Yeah, very friendly.
But yeah, huge amount of Marinelife. I mean, she just calls it
Ravallion Barracuda, and thenyou've just got so many
different species of nudibranchthere as well. So from the big
to the small it we really, itcovers it all. And we can do
deep dives and night dives thereas well. And during the winter
months when the water getscooler, down to 20 degrees that
(39:56):
I was telling you about so toget so jealous about as hot 28
at the moment, it does getcooler here, sometimes we get
our greener shocks comingthrough as well. So a decent
population of those under thepier. So, and regular sightings
of those, so most twins, andyou've got
Matt Waters (40:15):
exclusive diving there
Kirsten Sheppard (40:17):
do Yes, we do.
Yes, it is yes.
Matt Waters (40:21):
And certainly a way to control the amount of divers
in the water as well. And
Kirsten Sheppard (40:26):
absolutely.
And you also have, I mean, it'sthe sanctuary. So people, you
know, driving passing boats haveto pass quite some distance
away. So it is protected. It'sactually an active military base
as well. So we're limited on thenumber of people we can take,
because obviously, it has to gothrough the fence land and
through secure areas. But youknow, being a sanctuary zone,
(40:47):
you really tell you know,there's huge blue bones down
there and coral trout, and oftenthe divers are looking around
and looking at me, I'm rubbingtheir bellies. But we can
actually only dive on the slackquarter so you can get some some
big currents around there. So atslac quarter, it's beautiful
conditions to jump in. But thatalso kind of adds to the limit
(41:09):
of when you can dive daily aswell. So it's a different time
every day.
Matt Waters (41:15):
Yeah, yeah. So all of the locations that you've
dived in the era of Ningaloo,which is your favorite
Kirsten Sheppard (41:25):
question.
That's a hard one. Um, look, theNavy, the Navy Pier is great for
the diversity. It really is. Youknow, people are filling out
their logbooks, and they theyrun out of space in the note
section. There's, there's justso much the mute the soft coral
at the murin Islands isstunning. And maybe there's an
inference from my parents, butyou know, they come up from a
(41:47):
dive and they said, Wow, thatsurf curl is just incredible.
And some of the largest softcorals they've seen before
anywhere in the world. So youknow that that really is special
and very different from the restof the Ningaloo, which is a lot
more hard coral and searchchannels and things like that.
But then, then on the west sideand lighthouse phase, you know,
(42:08):
you get this sharks, I haven'tanswered that question at all.
However,
Matt Waters (42:12):
none of them
Kirsten Sheppard (42:15):
every day, it's so good.
And of course, you know, if youdive it enough, you know, you
see a bit of everything and somedays obviously clearer than
others. Oh, yeah. All of them.
What a rubbish answer. Yeah,
Matt Waters (42:29):
yeah. very precise.
Well,
Kirsten Sheppard (42:32):
politically correct. Maybe?
Matt Waters (42:34):
Well, we got it.
We've got to put a little bit ofbalance on it as well, because a
bit a little bit of focus onwhat you've just said. Your dad
saying that. It's some of thebiggest corals and all that kind
of thing that he's seen. Yeah.
For those people who don't knowof Shep's dad, Shep's dad is
also known as Professor CharlesShepard, OBE. And he he was
(42:59):
fundamental in creating correctme if I'm wrong, but he was
fundamental in creating thelargest marine reserve. Yes.
Kirsten Sheppard (43:11):
Yeah, no, take marine park in the world at I
think blue still now. So yeah.
And the shaker said,archipelago, my parents have
been there for decades, spanningsort of four decades of work
there. They still go every year.
Obviously, they haven't beenlast year with with COVID. But
(43:33):
yeah, it's been a lot of hardwork into this area and, and
that the OP ob was recognitionfor that work as well. But yeah,
they cornered they love it. Andthey've obviously seen huge
changes over time as well. Notnecessarily for the best. But,
(43:54):
you know, the shakerarchipelago, you can get to
privately you know, can't flythere. It's the US as British
Indian Ocean territory, butthere's a US based on Diego
Garcia, the largest island andalthough you can sail there from
maybe Seychelles, it's a longway away. It's in the middle of
the Indian Ocean, so you can'tget there. So it really, you
know, at the start of theircareer diving that was pristine.
(44:16):
Yeah.
Matt Waters (44:17):
Yeah. Anyone that doesn't know the Chagos
archipelago it ch ag o 's justGoogle it and look on the maps
to see where it is is literallyin the middle of bloody nowhere
Kirsten Sheppard (44:30):
yeah so yeah, hard to get to which has
obviously helped keep itpristine but you know being no
take there still have a lot offish boats coming over. So it is
patrolled. Oh, good to ensurethat it is yeah. Unfortunately,
not such a great story for thecoral reef there. And due to
warming, sea temperature levelrises. So it's I think a bit I
(44:56):
think it's still great, buthaving seen it over four
decades. It's probably And notsuch good shape as it as it used
to be, which is quite sad forthe people going over there now
to see how it's changed over theyears. But yeah, very, very
important work and they're veryproud of both of them.
Matt Waters (45:13):
So you should be I'm sure they're proud, very
proud of you, too. Speaking ofglobal temperatures and water
temperatures are like anything.
Do you see any kind offluctuations, any kind of
bleaching going on over atNingaloo? There was a there was
a pie on the ash because therewas a few a few months in 2017.
And there's quite a bit ofbleaching that occurred in Papua
(45:34):
New Guinea. And just wonderingwhether the the temperatures and
water flow follow through anddown to that side of Australia.
Kirsten Sheppard (45:44):
Yes, we have seen some we are definitely more
fortunate than a lot of otherreefs. In that we have two
different currents that comethrough and one is a quarter
current. In the eight years I'vebeen here I've seen two
bleaching events. They've beensignificant but not
catastrophic. And they haverecovered fairly quickly
afterwards. But we have blue andcurrent, which brings water down
(46:08):
and a lot of tropical species.
So that's where we get you know,more of the tropical fish coming
down for the infant blue andcurrent and tropical corals. So
even though we're more temperateclimates, we have that advantage
and then we've got the Ningaloocurrent which brings cool water
from the south up whichgenerally even so we have some
incredibly baking hot summers itgenerally stabilizes the water
(46:31):
temperatures of the roof. Soalthough the Gulf can get
considerably warmer on the westside of the peninsula where a
lot of the Ningaloo is generallystays a lot cooler. So we're
very fortunate, there actuallyhas been predictions that the
Ningaloo is going to be one ofthe few less surviving coral
reefs as they start to degradearound the world. We're sitting
(46:55):
in a good spot in in terms oflongevity obviously the issue is
still the same anywhere aroundthe world. Yeah,
Matt Waters (47:07):
yeah. They just got a
Kirsten Sheppard (47:09):
tough subject because it is you know,
seriously happening and it isalready Yeah, yeah.
Matt Waters (47:16):
It's Yeah, a completely other topic. We won't
go down that rabbit hole No.
Crying into our beers.
Kirsten Sheppard (47:23):
Well then I definitely wanted to get
Matt Waters (47:27):
so what's what's the general day to day living
for you like over there then? Isit just all 100% focus on the
the dive shop? Or do you gettime to yourself
Kirsten Sheppard (47:40):
it's about finding balance. And I have
struggled with that over theyear years. When I started out
we were obviously very smallcompany. So I was pretty much
when the first two years ofoperating I was on the boat
every day answering phone callson the flybridge of the boat
taking bookings for the nextday. As we expanded I got
(48:02):
someone to answer the callsduring the day and then it got
to the point that okay, officemanager required and that
obviously just made everything alot easier. But you know, as
your business progresses andgets bigger we got the Navy Pier
license, our little day schoolor sun went boom and then became
a lot bigger and more peopleword got out to that as and and
(48:24):
yet we and we got busier. So Ido very much try to keep the
balance. At the end of day youdon't become a diver or dive
professional or open a diveschool to become rich
as you know asyou do it for the lifestyle so
it's always about managing thatlifestyle. So I do make sure
that I get out diving at leastcouple of times a week on tours
(48:47):
and, and try and minimize theamount of paperwork to be done
that again, in any business.
There's always always pickedwhat to do so yeah, finding the
balance and still keepingdiving.
Matt Waters (49:03):
I do have to ask as well, because obviously I've
looked on your website andwithin your little team. You
have a dude that looks like hecould be my best friend
straightaway. Skipper and ChefJoe Reynolds he's he's cooking
up a storm on the boat
Kirsten Sheppard (49:21):
kicking off his dog. He actually I need to
update my website.
Matt Waters (49:25):
Oh, the time that's it I'm not coming down. I
need to do there's no there's nothere's no snags on the Barbie.
I'm not coming.
Kirsten Sheppard (49:33):
We do still do the barbecue. Joe Joe is
actually a chef as well and aSkipper so it was perfect. He
was always on barbecue duty. Butnow we do a barbecue on the boat
every day. Oh these love ofbarbecue so I mean barbecue and
diving. What a greatcombination. But also the
international tourists it wouldjust be a bit of a novelty as
well. You know you've got yourgeneral backpack is there like
barbecue on a boat? Who wouldhave thought of this thing ever?
Matt Waters (49:57):
It was some sad lettuce lately Yeah.
Kirsten Sheppard (50:00):
Hot Dog and slow definitely.
Matt Waters (50:03):
Well, it's one of the things I'm trying. I was
actually at the gym earliertoday got hold of the manager,
and it's a huge gym. And I'veasked her to find one of them
members of staff that ispossibly a diver but more
importantly a nutritionist,because I want to delve into the
calorific burn rate that we havewhen we go dive in. Because I've
(50:25):
posted about it many times andpeople are very surprised to
hear how many calories you burnjust in 30 minutes of being
submerged?
Kirsten Sheppard (50:31):
Absolutely.
Isn't it the equivalent to likean hour dive is equivalent to an
hour workout or something likethat? Yeah,
Matt Waters (50:37):
it's most make the most. Most analysis or reports
are saying between 680 and 720calories for an hour submerged,
which is crazy. And of course,that's why I see
Kirsten Sheppard (50:50):
breakfast Sundays, I'm diving.
Matt Waters (50:53):
That's why I saw Joe and fell in love with him
straightaway because of thesnags.
Kirsten Sheppard (50:59):
I think I assume it's all the off gassing
as well, that burns all thecalories too, because you're not
moving a lot underwater. It'sdefinitely far easier than doing
an hour workout. So
Matt Waters (51:10):
it makes sense as well. Because I don't know about
you, but when I was workinghammer and Tong in the industry
every day teaching every day fora number of years. You know, I'm
sitting here at 120 kilos. I was93 kilos back then and the
weight just fell off. Yes, notime to
Kirsten Sheppard (51:26):
work hard. Oh, yeah, I was the fittest I've
ever been when I was workingKotel four dives a day. And then
of course, so on our dive boat.
Here in the Ningaloo. We have acompressor and banks on board so
there's no carton of cylindersthat you may remember very well
you may still have nightmaresabout it, pulling Becca off at
the at the jetty, Kotel andbeing sort of five other boats
(51:48):
between you in the jetty and youhaving to carry 50 tanks over
this
Matt Waters (51:55):
a few times. Yeah, but then when I was working at
Big Blue, and we could get bythe beach is great. But then,
when the compressors broke, andthen all the tanks had to come
back to land and then getrefilled. You're looking at 120
to 150 tanks getting shipped.
Just one way. It's crazy.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:14):
We were muscley then
Matt Waters (52:17):
even the women were meatheads. Right, let's let's
let's round it out, shall weship I'm sure you've got to get
back to work and Rod nine needto have another beer.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:31):
It's five o'clock now and it's definitely
time for me to have a beer.
Matt Waters (52:35):
Good idea. Good idea. So just we'll put it in
the show notes anyway, but justto give a quick shout out on
your your social media and yourwebsites and all that kind of
stuff. how people can get aholdof you.
Kirsten Sheppard (52:45):
Sounds good yet so on Instagram, we're
diving glue and our Facebookwe're diving in glue, keeping it
nice and easy, easy,straightforward.
Matt Waters (52:54):
The website dive Ningaloo diving glue.com au
Yeah, yes is that um,
Kirsten Sheppard (53:00):
Ningaloo spelt in I NGLW. Yeah, you often get
that question? Yeah.
Matt Waters (53:07):
Okay. So
Kirsten Sheppard (53:08):
yeah, like as followers and I will obviously
share this podcast once. Onceonce it's often online,
Matt Waters (53:16):
you share it far and wide. You can even put I
tell you what, I'll give you theembed thing. So you can place it
on your website. Now Joe's gone.
You could probably put it there.
Okay. And now in allseriousness, let's get a let's
do a liveaboard. next July.
Kirsten Sheppard (53:33):
That would be great. love to have you.
Matt Waters (53:35):
Do we get we get special prices? Sure. We'll talk
about that later. Show me
Kirsten Sheppard (53:39):
that too quickly.
Matt Waters (53:46):
Well, I'm going to celebrate that one. Share. It's
been an absolute pleasure. Speakto dad, I'd love him to come on
the show. Okay, and if he saysno, I'm still gonna praise Him.
Anyway. Thanks again, and I'llspeak to you soon. Sounds good.
Thanks. Thanks, everybody.
(54:08):
For the podcast for theinquisitive diver.
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