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Music.

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Welcome back to The Undiscovered You, a podcast for people who feel like they

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have so much more to offer but are somehow stuck where they are.

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I'm your host, Kimberly Johnston, and today I'm speaking to Kirstie Andrews,

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who is an underwater photographer by night and an in-house lawyer by day.

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She's also a multi-award-winning photographer, a monthly columnist for Scuba

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Magazine that has a circulation of over 30k.

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She's an author in terms of being a contributor to Wild and Temperate Seas,

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which is a book all about scuba diving in the UK.

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Welcome to the show, Kirstie. Hi, thanks for having me.

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100% excited to hear about scuba diving and photography in the UK.

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Two things I would never put together, scuba diving and the United Kingdom.

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Tell me a little bit about that. What in the world are you seeing around the

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waters of the United Kingdom? Well, you're not alone in that opinion, I'd say. and

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and that's part of the thrill for me actually is is

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trying to talk to people about how great it is

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and how how accessible it is and the types of

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fantastic things that you can see I mean I'd

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say our our shores are full of life and

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more so in fact than lots of places around the world they're a bit colder and

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so you need to make sure you're wearing the right kind of gear but you can see

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some fantastic things I mean if you're into really big exciting animals then

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we have over 20 types of shark in UK waters,

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including the second biggest shark in the sea across the whole world, the basking shark.

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We've got important colonies of grey seals, which are really fun to snorkel with.

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Beyond that, we've also got incredibly colourful waters that are full of life.

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And yes, sometimes weather's not conducive, like

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for the last couple of weeks unfortunately but when it is

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good it really is fantastic diving in

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the UK amazing and so how long have

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you been doing this for when did you get into scuba diving

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and did the photography come with it or does the photography come first and

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then the scuba diving how did this all work out for you not at all I was a terrible

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beginner with photography I did I had to give some thought to this in advance

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of the interview and toss up some sums and And I suppose there have been definite phases in my love of,

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obsession with, preoccupation with scuba diving.

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And it's actually been, well, over 20 years. I started when I was 18.

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So you can do the sums there. You just gave your age away.

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As a young thing about to go to university, I did a working gap year. year.

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But right at the end of it, I went to Thailand, like so many thousands of other

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people and learned to dive when I was 18, which was fantastic.

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And then I, I went to university. And although I went to university in Leeds originally,

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which is literally as far from the sea as you can get in the UK,

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the Sub-Aqua Club there was really vibrant, great community.

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And I loved that. I really blossomed.

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And for me at that time, it was all about being a member of the British Sub-Aqua Club and teaching.

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Teaching so sort of getting my qualifications and then teaching others

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and that community was was brilliant and and

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that was my sort of initially what I get

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got out of scuba diving and then I think

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what kept me in was love of wildlife and learning

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more and more about the types of life we have in the sea and

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that naturally seeped into wanting to

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take photos of it I had friends who got into that

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before I did I was probably a bit of a late starter it's probably

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about halfway through my diving career that

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I picked up a camera I actually I

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remember there's a there's a

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dive show every year where manufacturers and holiday companies and get together

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and talk about stuff we love doing and I remember I picked up a secondhand camera

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from someone at that show and also a copy of Martin Edge's book The Underwater

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Photographer which is the sort of. The bible I suppose the the manual for beginners

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and I took both of them the next week on holiday with

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me and on a red sea liverboard

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where I was just diving all day and before every dive I'd be flicking through

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going what setting oh what am I doing okay give this a go I was completely clueless

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but I loved it and ever since then and that's over 10 years ago now I've you

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know the photography has definitely been to the fore that's a long hunt for

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you no I love it and and when you You were doing that assuming that was all

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digital. So you were in a space where you're practicing on digital?

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Yeah, that's right. I've got lots of friends who started online.

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Before digital. And I think actually when I first did my course,

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we were given a camera on film, but that doesn't really count, I think.

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So yeah, I never experienced the real challenge of underwater photography on film.

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As I say, friends of mine had a Nikonas 5 and that type of camera,

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which actually produced great results. But my goodness, I don't know if I would have been incapable because

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there's so yeah so many

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things you've got to get right and you don't find out until you

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develop your film whether you got them right and oh my

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goodness I'm in total awe of those people who managed it then and I'm very grateful

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to have my digital camera yeah and I mean anybody that's gone on holiday with

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one of those underwater film cameras can attest to the fact that the photos

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are never great you know you have the you have a couple that may have come out really well Well,

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so I can imagine if your job is to catch the right photo and actually you're

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sitting there with the pressure of that and knowing it's film and knowing you only have,

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you know, 32 shots or whatever it is, it would be quite, quite an experience.

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So I think there's probably some, some joys in being able to have the digital

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side of things, but also, you know, I think you still have to do a lot of post-production.

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So it's not like you've got the, you got the shot and that's it.

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You actually have to take time in post-production, don't you?

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Yes, still definitely. And I enjoy that. We talk about it as the digital darkroom.

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And some photographers may be a bit poo-poo about processing.

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Some people are real geniuses, and it's only the start of the process, taking the photo.

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And I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle. I do think it's a necessary part

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of creating the image that you want to do some processing.

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And it's just another skill, which I quite enjoy getting the hang of.

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What do you use just out of interest for your processing? For almost all of

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it, I use Adobe Lightroom, which is really easy to use and has incredible amounts

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of things you can do with it.

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That's great. So tell me a little bit about your monthly columnist in Scuba

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Magazine. What type of stuff do you write about?

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Well, my brief is anything I want, which is a little bit worrying.

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So bread baking? no it's got to be scuba related yeah I suppose um.

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Whatever has happened to me takes my fancy

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relating to the world of scuba so I kind of

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I try and vary it a little bit so I might interview someone

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as you're doing with me now but on a very much shortened scale

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I might talk about a location that I've

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been to recently recently I might maybe just

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a feature of diving which I looking at

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it again I think is something very odd one of my favorite

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columns I wrote just after we were allowed to dive

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again post-covid was about mask spitting which is if if you are already a scuba

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diver you'll know that it is quite well quite common across the world some countries

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tend to use artificial sprays but in the UK we We very much spit in our mask so that we can see in it.

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And it's a bit of an essential. But in a world of COVID, we suddenly realized, oh, hang on.

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This has other factors that we need to think about. So it's just,

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yeah, a commentary on diving life, I suppose.

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And what was your most recent article on? So the one that you just published. Yeah.

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I, well, there've been a couple of good ones recently. I think I've actually,

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I've got scuba mag on my doorstep. I haven't opened it yet.

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And it's our, it's actually the 70th anniversary of the British Subaqua Club.

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So again, looking back to the, the pioneers of the past is just incredible, I think.

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And so the one hot off the press that I haven't opened yet is about my appreciation

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actually for those diving pioneers. I recently went on a dive trip to St Kilda which is one of the most far-flung

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outreaches of the British Isles and I was.

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Thrilled to even get out there because you got it at the right weather to get

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out there and then it's visually spectacular it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site

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both above and below the water so really brilliant place. Where is it north south east west?

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It's very west so it's west of the

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the outer hebrides okay wow 40 miles

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from the nearest bit of outer hebrides so how

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do you get there on a liveaboard a boat

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that we live on which if you're overseas liveaboards

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tend to be incredibly glamorous and full of

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all all types of luxury whereas in

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the uk they're often converted fishing boats so a bit of

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a different experience but nonetheless good and and

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fun and and that was was great but my column

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was actually just appreciating that before I

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was born even I think chap called Gordon Ridley

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had written a guide to diving in St Kilda he

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he founded an expedition scheme and he he ran some expeditions you know again

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before the the sort of nice big boats that we've got now were being used and

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and he wrote this guide to diving with some beautiful illustrations illustrations

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and 180, I think, different dive sites.

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And, you know, that is something that I can use now to inform myself.

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And, you know, I think that's great. I think I really feel that power of contributing

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to wider knowledge and wanting to do that.

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But I think if I go back to my previous article, the contrast I wrote about

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when I bumped into a great white shark underwater earlier this year.

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So that was good. Wait, wait, sorry, sorry, sorry.

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Back that one up again. You bumped into a great white shark

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tell me more well actually thankfully I didn't bump

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in literally I was probably about two meters away at the

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closest but that's still pretty close that is really close where were you I

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was in South Africa in Alishol I'm really really glad to say you weren't like

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in Bournemouth or you know right off down in Dorset yeah somewhere right off

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the coast so you're down in South Africa diving where one might think that there

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may be a great white nearby nearby. You happen to come upon one, but that's pretty close quarters to be next to a Great White.

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Yes, it is. I will seek just to say that I wouldn't rule out having Great Whites in UK waters. Same.

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Soon or even now, and we don't know about it, it's quite possible on their roots.

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We've got food for them here. And yes, as waters change, perhaps. But yes, more likely in South Africa,

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although actually it wasn't quite the season for them. So it was a surprise.

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And we were just doing a normal dive on the reef and the shark swam towards us.

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It was absolutely incredible. incredible and she

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was a female and she was I think

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certainly between four and five meters in size really really

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large just one and swimming directly towards me I would say as well and is that

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like a danger moment where you're like she thinks I'm a seal I'm about to get

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eaten like what's going through your head in that moment no well no I don't know if I'm.

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I don't know if I'm just foolish I mean I absolutely I love

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sharks I think they are incredible they're beautiful and so

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I think mainly to the extent that I was thinking

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and I'm not sure how much I was actually thinking I was thinking

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come close come close so that I can take a photo

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yeah yeah the obsessive underwater photographer and

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my strobes only carry it probably a couple of

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meters at most so she has to be pretty close for me to get what I

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would consider a usable photo and and she

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was quite relaxed so you can tell the shark's body

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language broadly and I could tell that she

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was very relaxed the fins were were out wide and just

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curious but having said that of course she can

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change that quite quickly and she's

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a wild animal and I suppose it's it's

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something it's not the type of thing that I worry about because if she

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were going to bite me or eat me or whatever I

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would had no say in the matter and it probably would have happened before well

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the catastrophic thing would have happened before I was aware of it so

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it's not something that I worry about and and really she was just curious about

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me in the group and when when my flash went off when I took a photo she actually

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wasn't sure what's this I wasn't expecting that and turned away from me and

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towards the other divers and then when she saw the group of divers she thought

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oh there's a lot of you actually and swam off so.

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It was wonderful, but it was quite brief. And I love that you can kind of tell

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the body language of the shark the same way you think about,

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you know, you can tell if a horse is angry, you can tell if a dog's angry.

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And the more time you spend with them, the more you can recognize that.

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And so I think, you know, because we have this innate fear against sharks,

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because of things like Jaws and all the different movies that we've seen that,

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you know, the sharks come and attack people. I wonder if actually we took the time to kind of recognize the same way you

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would with a dog. There are certain dogs you wouldn't go up and pet because

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you can see they're in a state of anxiety or they're snarling,

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for instance, or they are barking. You know the signs.

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And I wonder if we actually knew that about sharks, whether we'd have a different

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relationship with them. You said fins out. What else do we need to be looking for? Just in case,

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you know, we're scuba diving and this lovely female great white is coming towards

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us and we're super relaxed. How do we know if she's relaxed? relaxed well yeah

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as i say out wide tends to be more relaxed and as there's

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maybe some more emotions the fins drop and become

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sort of rigid i'm by no means a

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shark expert but i do i try and educate myself as

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much as possible and there's certainly different types of sharks that are

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more of a threat and usually it's

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not it's because

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of how sophisticated their senses are actually

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so bull sharks have been responsible for a lot of fatalities and things and

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that tends to be because they're not very sophisticated in their sight and their

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smell in comparison with some sharks and so they're more likely to to mistake

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a usually a swimmer or a surfer for their prey.

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Whereas other sharks less so and

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i mean by a factor of many many

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times we are more of a a threat to

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sharks yeah yeah especially yeah boats and jet skis and

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big nets and all the rest of it yeah and and

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i mean there's i think there's about 200 and some odd species of sharks and

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there are only several of them that would even harm you isn't there something

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there's something you probably know the stats a lot better than i do well i

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wish i'd got my notes with me because i mean there'd be more more as i say there's

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over 20 species of shark in uk waters alone so there's certainly Certainly more species than that,

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but we are what with bycatch or long lining,

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then we are directly responsible for their deaths, but also in our destruction

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of their habitat and in climate change and changes there, you know,

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it's a really sad tale for them. And sharks, you know, we might think of them as big, scary predators,

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but it's certainly been shown, you know, as a top predator, they are responsible

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for a healthy ecosystem. You know so if we if we lose the sharks and

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that impacts the sea as a whole i was

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watching a special and they were talking about was it is

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it rockfish or something that there's something they sell that is in

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fish and chip shops it's actually shark yes it

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might well be yeah i can't remember what it was called but

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i was yeah and i think it was called rockfish or something but it

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was actually it's actually shrimps maybe rock salmon yeah

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yeah and it was actually it was actually shark which

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i was just like and they did they did a whole bunch of they took it and

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they studied it and they took it back to the labs and like no this actually

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is it is shark yeah there's a really good charity operating in the uk called

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bite back who are who would recommend checking out you know on their social

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media and things for educating yourself and your friends about that kind of thing.

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So this is something i really want to go back to because something you said

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you said you've been doing this for about 20 years now.

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We know we've had a massive amount of climate change that's happened that's

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already impacted our waters around the world.

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We've seen, you know, there's lots of reports coming out around the Great Barrier

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Reef. If we get much more of an increase in water temperature,

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you know, that a lot of that's going to be dying. What have you noticed in terms of your diving, your photography,

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the waters around the UK or elsewhere that

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you've seen the impact of climate change in the

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waters in general it's a really important question and it is something i do

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i do think about but i am conscious i'm not a scientist and i wouldn't want

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to make sweeping statements without the the backdrop to that certainly diving abroad.

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Which i i try and do sort of maybe once a year

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these days you know try and be a little bit bit thoughtful about travel

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i have noticed going

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to the tropics that coral coral

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has bleached even in the coral

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triangle the sort of the most beautiful areas

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of underwater coral reefs in the

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world in indonesia and the philippines say coral bleaching

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which is indicating that it's it's dying and that's

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due to rising temperatures and also in

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the wildlife that we that i've seen there's effects called

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el nino and la nina which are changes

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in the ocean currents due to climate change which

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mean that cold water or warm

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streams aren't found perhaps where you might expect them

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to be and that changes the wildlife so i've had a few trips where i haven't

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seen the really big animals because the water's been warmer than normal and

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they've stayed very deep so perhaps I might expect to see mantas and they are

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there because scientists monitor them and perhaps have tagged them.

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And we know that they're on the site, but they're maybe a hundred meters below

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where I am because the water's... But certainly seeing the bleached corals is a really sad sight.

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And in the UK, it's perhaps more difficult to tell, but I do think it's important,

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particularly people like me who dive in the UK a lot, to try and contribute to that data.

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So in recent times, I've tried. I'm not the best, but I'm trying to be better at recording what I see.

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And there's an organization called Sea Search that is citizen science arm of

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the Marine Conservation Society and they collect reports both on dive sites

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and also on key species so they can see populations as they ebb and flow.

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There have been some success stories, so things like crawfish they in the 1980s

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and 1990s there was an absolute population dive.

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Because they were overfished not least by divers actually who

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picked them up and when I started my diving career I wasn't expecting to see

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one wouldn't have known what one looked like really but now there was a no-take

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sort of more of a I'm not sure to what what extent it was litigation,

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but voluntary no-take in some cases, they can now be caught.

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But we are seeing them bounce back very much. And I often see them now on the South Coast.

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And people who are more rigorous with their science than I am have definitely

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seen that there's a real population boom, which is lovely to see.

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That's so cool. Thank you for sharing a positive story. That's always good to hear as well.

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I lived in Ecuador when I was in high school, And we had the pepinillo de mar.

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So the sea cucumbers were being overfished and were massively depleted.

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And they actually were used as a delicatessen in certain dishes.

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And so they actually had to get the Navy out there to protect the pepinillo de mar.

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And it was a proper skirmish. It was a real thing because they were worth quite

21:20

a bit of money for these fishermen. So yeah it's interesting how sometimes you

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know you have to you have to protect it in order to have it come back and sometimes

21:28

they're over fish sometimes they're over caught and it's interesting

21:31

to hear that you're not noticing anything specifically like you're

21:34

not seeing a depletion of something in your

21:37

own dive so you're not going back to the same place over and over

21:40

and seeing a big change in the i

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call it the floor and the fauna but i don't know what would the language would

21:46

you be that you'd use for yeah for sure it's mostly fauna underwater most things

21:52

are animals even if they look like plants i like it i like them so for people

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that wanted to dive in the uk where would you say top places to go would be oh.

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Hmm so many places i

22:07

mean i'm lucky i live in in bristol which i

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can achieve various coasts relatively easily

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so i happily dive devon dorset cornwall

22:17

wales and i particularly love scotland and

22:20

the various coasts of scotland and some of the sea locks there so difficult

22:26

to choose a favorite i suppose if you're learning then diving or snorkeling

22:32

on the south coast probably a bit more achievable for a lot of people it's a

22:36

bit warmer and less scary but there's so much to see,

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and yeah scotland's got a special place in my heart

22:43

i think any place specifically in scotland that

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you love some of

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the sea locks they're all different um i've got a

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few favorites and the west coast and

22:56

the east coast oh it's too hard anywhere anywhere and i hear there's a book

23:02

called wild and temperate that you may have been a contributor to that might

23:06

actually be all about yeah so what is it it's all about scuba diving in the

23:10

uk right it is yeah so probably good one for getting some ideas about where to dive around.

23:16

A chap called will appleyard put that together and

23:19

probably around covid time when we had nothing think better to do

23:22

than put a book together and it's a it's a guide to

23:25

diving spots across the uk and he got some

23:28

passionate people to talk about their favorite places

23:31

so there's a good area on devon there's specialists

23:35

on the east coast i think will did dorset himself and

23:38

and i covered some of my favorites right up

23:41

in the far north of scotland for that one oh and

23:44

so is that available on amazon or where can we get a copy of that

23:47

it is yeah wild and temperate seas wild and temperate

23:50

seas okay fabulous I think I'm going to grab that because I'm

23:53

so I'm so curious about diving here so I

23:56

grew up in very warm climates still a

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lot of like warm water scuba a lot of warm water snorkeling

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but then I've never even ventured I barely have ventured in to go swimming much

24:07

so the water is so cold so I think I need to get a wetsuit and I think I need

24:12

to at least get a snorkel to uh to start trying that out yeah definitely definitely

24:17

so we're talking about balance.

24:20

So really focusing a lot on your underwater photography and the scuba diving

24:25

that you do and how, you know, this is something that you're really passionate

24:29

about and that comes through pretty clearly. And I love it when people have passions alongside of their day jobs.

24:36

So my first question is how much of your time, so if you were doing a pie chart

24:39

with a hundred percent of your time, and let's assume that, you know,

24:43

50% of it's sleeping, no, about, let's say, I am good at sleeping.

24:48

That's a decent amount of sleeping what percentage would you put on scuba and

24:54

underwater photography and post-production and writing and doing all that how

24:58

much time do you think you spend, Oh, wow. Well, being a lawyer, I should be good at measuring my time by the

25:04

minutes, but I'll probably not. And I do work full time, although many friends joke with me that they don't think I do.

25:11

It's funny that we try and cultivate this impression on social media and such,

25:16

don't we, that we're always out having fun.

25:18

But no, I do work full time. but but then

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yes i i suppose with almost all

25:25

of my free time i am either heading to

25:28

the coast or planning a trip looking

25:32

at the weather forecast hopefully and or

25:35

or looking at my catalog and maybe doing a bit

25:38

of image polishing i do you know i

25:41

do spend a lot of time doing that but i get a lot of enjoyment out of

25:44

all of that i'm lucky my partner's got similar obsessions to

25:47

me so I'm not going to put a number on

25:49

it because that'll probably scare me but yeah it's

25:53

almost my free time I suppose and and you just said something

25:56

that's really interesting there so your partner also does is it are they into

26:00

underwater photography and also into scuba diving etc yes yes absolutely so

26:08

does that help yeah it does help but we egg each other on we're We're probably

26:12

both a bit competitive and we both love it.

26:16

Absolutely. So that's brilliant.

26:19

Cool. And when you take the photographs, what are they used for?

26:22

So do you have a gallery? Do you sell them online? What do you do with your photography?

26:28

I mean, the vast majority sit there on my hard drive. I don't do very much,

26:32

of course, because I enjoy the process of it and the taking of it.

26:37

So even if I didn't do anything with them, I don't suppose that would matter too much.

26:42

Because I still love scuba diving for the sake of it. Just the feeling of being

26:47

weightless underwater is one.

26:50

And I still enjoy the challenge, the technical challenge of photography.

26:54

So, you know, that is what taking the photos is for predominantly for me.

26:58

But having said that, yes, there's also an aspect of it, which is a bit competitive

27:03

in trying to create the best photos I can and then pitting myself against my friends and beyond.

27:12

So I help to run a photo group locally of other underwater photographers and

27:17

we sort of have a monthly competition. There's a British Society of Underwater Photographers and we do the same.

27:25

And then there's other competitions, whether it be underwater specific or,

27:30

and wildlife more broadly. So I do sometimes enter some of those too.

27:35

And you've won a few. Tell us a bit about your winnings.

27:43

Yeah. It's terrible talking about your winnings because you think,

27:45

what if I never win anything ever again? Well, then you would have had these winnings to pin up. So let's hear

27:50

about the ones that you've won already yeah I

27:54

so there I

27:57

mean there's a lot of photo competitions out there so

28:00

if it's something people are interested in doing you know

28:02

anything from sort of a magazine monthly competition

28:06

to you know all kinds of things around so I

28:10

don't enter everything because I think you could do that as a full-time job

28:12

but some of them when I really admire the the quality of what what they're putting

28:17

together and the organization doing it there's some good ones so I suppose I'm

28:21

really pleased to have done well in the British Wildlife Photography Awards a couple of times.

28:28

I think I got some postcards

28:31

made by them with one of my images so I've got a collection of

28:34

those at home which I can't like but yeah I've been highly commended

28:37

and runner-up is the highest I've gotten there but that's nice

28:40

also underwater photographer of the

28:43

year obviously plays to my my strengths that's a

28:46

really highly rated competition amongst underwater photographers of course and

28:53

I I'm really proud actually that I've managed to get at least an image in there

28:58

for the last seven years I think I've won one of the British categories three times so that's,

29:04

you know I'm really proud of that they you know

29:07

thousands of entrants not not as many perhaps as

29:10

then to British Wildlife Photography Awards where it's not

29:13

just underwater crazy people you know I'm

29:16

pleased with that and the European Wildlife

29:19

Photography Awards I got an image

29:22

through to those a couple of years ago which I really like because looking at

29:27

the collection of images that that wins that they are beautiful they have a

29:31

very artistic stylish type of image that they award and so I was just pleased

29:36

to be part of the collection there and that was a feather in my cap as well.

29:41

I bought the British Wildlife Photography Awards calendar for my daughter this year.

29:46

And so every month we turn it over and it is. They're beautiful images.

29:51

There are some that are quite funny. There are some that are quite emotive. It's really, I really like it.

29:56

And some of them have a bit of a social aspect to them too.

29:59

Like you'll have, you know, a ring that's got like a ring, you know,

30:02

for the, what are they called? Soda, soda.

30:04

I'm going to call it soda pop, which is such a Latin American thing.

30:08

So yeah, the plastic that's kind of around a fin or something on a turtle,

30:13

and it can be quite emotive as well.

30:16

So I like the fact that photography can be art, it can be something that can

30:21

share information with people, it can be funny, and it can also be something

30:25

that's kind of highlighting a social issue that needs to be brought to life.

30:29

And that works underwater as well, because we see a lot, obviously,

30:32

in the news, we see lots of photography now because a lot of our news is on our phones.

30:37

So I love the fact that it's able to be used in that way as well.

30:42

Yeah, increasingly so, I think, and the competition's trying to have an environmental

30:47

message to them, and rightly so.

30:49

And as a photographer, I don't want to see quite distressing images of wildlife

30:54

being harmed in various ways, often by human hands.

30:58

But it's an important message to get out there yeah

31:01

yeah it really is so you're using quite a

31:04

bit of your time on the photography we're sleeping as well and

31:07

then we're working full time tell me about full-time work so this is not even

31:12

not even four days a week not even four and a half days a week this is five

31:15

days a week that you're working yeah but now that's it that balance works we'll

31:20

see moving forward i always keep it under review i suppose but for now it works Thanks.

31:27

Yeah, so yeah, I do work full time. I'm very grateful that I think my employer has a,

31:33

whether it's my immediate team, or the organisation generally,

31:36

they seem to have quite a positive and supportive attitude towards people having work life balance.

31:44

And that extends beyond maybe what might be standard to people like me who are

31:49

a bit unusual in how they want to spend all of their free time,

31:52

but I still get support and an element of flexibility.

31:57

And I really value that. I think it engenders loyalty in your employees when

32:02

they feel that there's a bit of give and take on that front.

32:05

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. And a lot of times when we talk

32:08

about work-life balance or balancing life in work and life out of work,

32:12

because I think that there's life in work as well. I don't think it's like work and life balance.

32:17

You know, we We think about people with caring responsibilities or we think

32:21

about people that have something that they're dealing with outside of work that

32:27

they need to be able to deal with. And I think it's really important, as you say, that it engenders loyalty when

32:32

you also are able to do your passion projects outside of work.

32:37

Because actually, when you're able to do the passion projects outside of work,

32:41

you're able to bring that passion to the work that you're doing as well.

32:43

Because you're a happier, more well-balanced person.

32:46

You're not feeling like you're not doing what you want to do when you're at work.

32:51

You're actually able to do your job when you're there, recognize the value of

32:55

it, paying your bills, recognizing the fact that you've trained as a lawyer.

32:58

You've spent a lot of time and effort to do this, and this is what your speciality

33:03

is, and you can still do that as well as the time and effort you've put into

33:08

this passion of scuba diving and of underwater photography.

33:12

Yeah, that's it. It's all part of the picture. Yeah, I do agree with you there.

33:16

And obviously, having a quite corporate job enables me to dedicate my time and

33:22

resources elsewhere for the rest of my life.

33:24

So for now, the balance is right.

33:27

But I think all of us should be looking at that on an ongoing basis and seeing what works. Yeah.

33:32

And let me ask you, in terms of what you do that you think works well.

33:36

So have there been times when things have been in better better balance than

33:39

not? And when is that looked well?

33:42

And when is it maybe not, maybe fallen short of the word well?

33:51

Well, yeah, I mean, it is a tricky one, isn't it?

33:54

I think all of us, when we have a stressful time at work, we value perhaps the

34:00

weekend, you know, the time when you're not at work for downtime,

34:03

but that stress impacts us sort of mentally and physically in ways perhaps we we don't envisage.

34:10

And I've seen it to an extent with myself, but also with friends who have been

34:15

really busy and they come away with me for the weekend and then their brain

34:21

just can't keep up and they make a stupid mistake.

34:24

So for example, in cold British waters, they forget to do their suit up properly

34:29

and they get absolutely drenched. That is an absolute classic.

34:32

And I often put it it down to people who's just a bit

34:35

frazzled and generally

34:40

speaking I I'm I'm

34:43

quite a relaxed person and I can deal but yeah I do have my moments when it

34:47

all gets a bit much and I suppose sometimes I feel you know it's great to fill

34:52

your weekends with brilliant exciting things but it is also important to have

34:57

just a relax actually and perhaps not to be doing anything and so.

35:03

Well but then it's always fun to to plan a

35:06

good exciting dive so yeah I uh I'm

35:09

not sure I take my own advice on that one but I think we need to keep

35:12

an eye on ourselves to make sure that we're not doing too much because ultimately

35:15

scuba diving it's it

35:18

can be a risky activity and you don't want to be going into it so tired that

35:23

you're not prepared properly what i think is really interesting as well and

35:28

maybe this is one for you answer is you said when you're kind of weightless

35:32

in the water and you're in there you really enjoy that is that also rejuvenation time for you.

35:37

Mm, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think there's that, you know,

35:43

a lot of times people think, oh, I need downtime. So I need to sit on the couch and watch TV. And actually, that's,

35:48

that's not necessarily the best thing for you.

35:51

Because it is kind of, you know, your brain still ticking along,

35:55

you know, a lot of things that you watch can cause stress.

35:57

You know, you'll have emotional reactions to things.

36:00

So actually, you end up in a very heightened state of emotion when when you

36:04

watch certain things and actually going out and going for a walk or in your case,

36:08

going scuba diving or going for a swim or listening to music or reading a book

36:13

or just finding that space and time for yourself is really important because as you say,

36:19

even if it's an exciting dive off the back of an exciting week.

36:23

You know, you do need to be in a mental state where you can do that safely or

36:27

where you can show up to work in a way that's actually going to be beneficial

36:30

for your employer that you're not exhausted and, you know, falling asleep at at your desk.

36:34

And so it's quite interesting to hear you say that sometimes actually taking

36:39

that time off at the weekend is actually the way that you need to operate in

36:44

order to regenerate and to rejuvenate. And that is part of the balance.

36:48

It's not just about, what am I doing outside of work? What am I doing in work?

36:53

It's also about what are you doing to relax? What are you doing to reset?

36:56

What are you doing to detox, to unwind, to actually just get your brain to be

37:01

in a state of, I mean, it used to have a Sabbath.

37:06

It used to be a Sabbath that everything was shut down on Sundays,

37:08

even all the shops and everything.

37:10

You couldn't go and do anything on a Sunday, and everybody had to shut down.

37:14

But now we're like a 24-7 cycle, and so you have to find that time in your own

37:20

life that allows you to shut down.

37:22

I'm smiling because it is definitely still like that in Devon where my partner lives.

37:26

I can't do anything on a Sunday. but yeah yeah

37:30

i mean you're right sitting on the sofa isn't usually

37:34

the the best answer every now and then but you know get getting out and about

37:38

and some fresh air and sincere certainly does it for me but maybe it's just

37:42

a case of toning things down a bit so perhaps instead of driving for eight hours

37:47

to get to scotland maybe just you know heading to the nearest bit of coastline instead and yeah.

37:54

Do you get in the water just from the beach as well?

37:57

Or do you have to kind of just suit up and then just go straight in?

38:03

Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, you can do that for sure. I have some friends in

38:07

Dorset who are always just heading in even to a couple of meters of water.

38:13

And I was there doing that on a night dive myself last weekend.

38:18

And it was absolutely fantastic. just wading

38:22

into the water swimming out five minutes and

38:25

then in in three meters of water there was this fantastic squid

38:30

i love cephalopods i find them beautiful and fun

38:33

and fascinating so a really happy hour and a half in the dark hours on saturday

38:38

night i mean that's just wading in so you absolutely can do that it is different

38:44

to taking a boat or traveling a long way but it's it's just as fun in many ways. That's really cool.

38:51

Well, it's almost reached that time for me to ask you our two final questions.

38:56

So my first question for you is along this journey, what have you discovered

39:01

about yourself along the way? Well, I suppose I've, I've always been a bit of a slow learner about myself.

39:10

It would be fair to say and I think

39:13

I've got to a place now a pretty happy place when I yeah I have my kind of corporate

39:21

career but I'm also pretty happy with the diving and photography side of it

39:24

and I guess it's been an outlet for a side of me that otherwise I wasn't I was

39:29

neglecting which is partly creative and.

39:32

Partly sort of learning and

39:35

the competitiveness and the passion for

39:39

sure so I've learned

39:41

a lot about myself in in through this activity in

39:46

ways that yeah the rest of my life I sort of focus

39:49

on other things so it's very very precious

39:52

to me I love it and I like that idea of you

39:55

know I often say finding that thing that you really love to

39:58

do if it's not in work find it outside of

40:01

work work so you can just fulfill that passion because sometimes

40:04

you'll have you know if you're in if you're in high school if you're

40:07

in university and you do something really creative

40:10

so you do you know plays or you do singing

40:13

or you do art or you do you know diving i mean you were part of you know in

40:18

your university you were part of a dive club and then you leave and you go out

40:22

into the corporate world and you're not doing that anymore there's actually

40:25

a bit of a mourning a bit of a a loss from not being able to have those creative outlets.

40:31

And so sometimes, you know, you do unhealthy stuff around that and sometimes

40:35

you find it in other ways. And so I love that you've been able to find that creative outlet.

40:40

And I would encourage listeners if they're feeling a bit of a drought around

40:42

that, see if you can go and, you know, do an art class or, you know,

40:47

go find a scuba team that's near you that, what are they called?

40:51

You're not called scuba teams. what are they called go find a

40:57

dive club or go find a dance class or something that can

41:00

help you to to have that outlet because again that's part of that balance is

41:04

finding the joy in in life finding the joy in what you do yeah and I suppose

41:09

I haven't focused on it much today at it not intentionally but there's definitely

41:13

the community side to that as well which I've also found and and really appreciate.

41:18

Finding your tribe is a really valuable thing, isn't it? And it's quite a niche hobby that I have.

41:23

But equally, the people that also do that are good friends and very precious

41:28

relationships through that as well. And I can imagine like having the like-minded people means you're spending the time with them.

41:35

Because you said you spend all your free time when you're not working doing this.

41:39

And so it's actually, that's your group of friends. You can go diving with your partner.

41:43

You can go off with friends on a weekend for a night dive, you know, in Devon.

41:47

Like you can find those ways to amalgamate the two because you have those similar passions.

41:53

And as you said, you found your tribe. I love that. and final

41:57

question is what's the best piece of advice you've ever

41:59

received heard overheard read in

42:02

a really good scuba magazine this is

42:07

a tricky one i i've had

42:11

good advice through over the years from a

42:14

number of friends and contemporaries or mentors underwater i often and value

42:21

constructive criticism and I remember going on a workshop with with Alex Mustard

42:27

who's he's a friend but also an incredibly fantastic photographer and teacher and him telling me that,

42:33

he sort of he did the whole sandwich of feedback as you do of saying that uh

42:38

yeah this is okay but this is really not very good.

42:43

And I do value that I think you you learn through people being honest with you

42:49

but having said that also through my photo group, various chairmen of that over the years.

42:57

Arthur Kingdon used to be chairman of BUPG, another fantastic photographer.

43:01

And it's incredibly encouraging to up and coming new members.

43:06

And he'd always find something nice to say about your photo when it was on screen.

43:09

And if he couldn't think of anything, he'd sort of say, good effort, which is lovely.

43:15

But in terms of.

43:18

Advice i suppose i think the something

43:22

which can be applied to what i do but to

43:25

any number of other things as well is that

43:28

whole principle that it's

43:32

the time you put in beforehand that's so important

43:35

that preparation and it's definitely true in what i do because we have physical

43:41

constraints diving as to how much time we can spend in the water whether it's

43:45

the cold or how much gas we've got up with this or whatever so you might only

43:48

be on a day's diving spending two hours in the water,

43:54

but before then you are you're spending

43:57

time prepping your kit choosing your camera learning your techniques in my case

44:02

i think it's really important to learn about the marine life you're looking

44:05

to to see whether that be its its behavior when and where you're likely to see

44:10

it looking at the condition you know all of these things that you think about

44:13

beforehand are so important so So,

44:16

you know, the advice that I'm sure I've had in a number of ways over the years

44:20

and I would give to others is that that time spent preparing for what you do

44:26

is really valuable time. And it's all part of the fun as well.

44:30

Yeah, I love that. And even just, you know, as we said, your passion comes through

44:35

in this, but also the knowledge that you've acquired through this comes through as well.

44:39

I know you said you're not a scientist, you're not an expert several times,

44:43

but actually I think you're probably getting pretty close.

44:47

So this is an absolute pleasure. And Kirstie, thank you so much for sharing your love of diving.

44:52

Thank you for teaching us a little bit about scuba diving in the UK.

44:56

I'm definitely going to be picking up this book that you contribute to,

44:59

Wild and Temperate Seas. It sounds fabulous.

45:02

And just really sharing about the balance that you found and how you've managed

45:06

to do that and just really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you for coming on the show.

45:11

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

45:16

Join me next time when I speak to our next guest about how they are balancing

45:19

on the proverbial seesaw. If you're looking for an executive coach or want to get in touch,

45:25

check out my website, kljconsulting.co.uk, or shoot me an email on the Undiscovered

45:31

You podcast at gmail.com. If you're enjoying the podcast and would like to support me in putting out more

45:37

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45:43

Don't forget to follow, subscribe, like and comment below and I hope that you're

45:50

one step closer to discovering. Music.