Q&A: Mike Mason

We chat to Mike Mason about being the only instructor for The Human Diver programme in the Asia-Pacific region, how his role in the RAAF aids his teaching, his love of wreck diving, and why grey nurse sharks got him back into diving.

Photographs courtesy of Mike Mason

A: I enjoyed snorkelling as a child but always wanted to spend more time down deeper in among all the coral and fish. I first learned to dive back in the late-90s in the Caribbean. I didn’t dive again for a few years after that until a friend of mine in Australia told me about the grey nurse shark sanctuaries near where I now live. I saw his pictures of these magnificent creatures and had to see them for myself - and have been diving regularly ever since!

As well as big marine life, a big attraction for me is the adrenaline rush I get when going down a shotline to a wreck. Whether it’s a new wreck for me or one I’ve done before, when I get halfway down the line so that the surface is out of sight and the line is stretching off into the blue, I can’t help asking myself ‘what’s down there?’

A: The Human Diver was founded by Gareth Lock, who is passionate about diving and safety. He has a great deal of experience educating individuals and teams about the benefits of applying Human Factors to diving to make it safer and more enjoyable. I have lived and breathed Human Factors throughout my professional life in the military and when I came across The Human Diver website and Facebook page, it instantly resonated with me as something I wanted to be part of to improve my own diving as well as that of people diving with me. I started discussing some ideas with Gareth and am now part of The Human Diver instructor team.

A: ‘Apply Human Factors, master the dive’ is The Human Diver’s core statement. Most accidents and incidents are not down to equipment failures or poor technical skills, they are down to things like complacency, communication breakdowns, lack of situation awareness, poor teamwork and/or leadership. These are all part of the world of Human Factors and The Human Diver offers courses, training and support that is focused on learning about and embracing Human Factors within the context of diving with the ultimate aim of making it safer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brandnew Open Water student, you teach people to dive with rebreathers in caves or you’re somewhere in between, The Human Diver has something for you.

A: Currently, there are nine instructors globally who provide training for The Human Diver. I am the only one based in the Asia-Pacific region so have a fairly big catchment area! My intention is to run the Level 1 webinar-based courses at a sensible time for our timezones and also the Level 2 face-to-face classes. I want to help people get more out of their diving and, as such, am totally happy to provide presentations to clubs or dive groups either online or in person. I can be contacted via The Human Diver website if anyone wants to get in touch.

A: One thing you realise when you study Human Factors is that they’re relevant to everything we do. Human behaviour is largely the same regardless of the context - we’re only human, after all! The world of aviation was probably the first industry to really explore why humans behave the way they do and how Human Factors are involved when things go wrong. It makes sense that aviation has done this given the potentially serious consequences of Human Error. I’ve been involved professionally with military aviation for over 20 years and, during my career, have done multiple courses focused on leadership, teamwork and Human Factors. I’m also a qualified flying instructor and experienced supervisor and have deployed multiple times on high-tempo exercises and operations all over the world. I believe that all my training and experience in military aviation makes me qualified to teach others about Human Factors as I’ve lived and breathed them for a long time. By combining that qualification from my professional life with my experience as an active diver and part time Dive Master, I think I offer a good level of credibility as an instructor for The Human Diver.

A: I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced a fair variety of diving in many different countries. To pick the mostmemorable moment is tough! Probably the most-memorable actual dive I’ve done was a night dive with manta rays in

Hawaii with my fiancé, Amanda. We were the last group in the water which meant that to start with, we were sat on the seabed about six to eight metres from the main source of action (lots of manta rays doing their feeding acrobatics). However, as the other groups ran low on gas, our torches became the only source of light to illuminate the plankton and I actually had to move my torch out of the way to make sure the mantas didn’t swim into it! Absolutely awesome.

The most-memorable specific moment in diving was on the wreck of the Bianca C off the coast of Grenada. Up until that point, all the diving I’d done had been in water where I could see the seabed from the surface. This was my first proper dive into the deep blue. We rolled off the boat, got to the shotline, dumped all the air from our BCDs and down we went. The line stretched off into the abyss but the image of the wreck gradually coming into view was something I’ll never forget. As I mentioned earlier, the gradual emergence of a wreck is still something I really enjoy whenever I’m going down a shotline.

A: Fortunately, there aren’t many of these to choose from. I was in Scotland a few years ago diving the wreck of the San Tiburcio, which lies in about 38m, although the top of the wreck is at about 25m. When my buddy and I went down the shotline, we discovered that we’d missed the wreck and the shot was being dragged across the muddy sand. Vis wasn’t that good and it was pretty dark. I couldn’t really focus on anything. I started to see stars in my eyes and began to panic that I might be about to pass out, which wouldn’t have been ideal at 38m! I quickly got my buddy’s attention and gave him the hand signal that I wasn’t ok.

We made our way back up the line and I quickly felt back to normal. To this day I’m not sure exactly what caused the stars in my eyes. My equipment and gas were checked to be all ok. I think it was just because there was nothing for my eyes to focus on. Now, when in similar conditions, I will regularly look at my computer or hand in front of my face to ‘recage’ my eyes and, so far, I’ve never experienced anything similar. It’s not a nice feeling thinking you might be about to pass out underwater.

A: Chuuk Lagoon is probably at the top of the list. I’m working towards getting trimix qualified on my CCR and am very keen to get to Chuuk and explore the wrecks there. I did Scapa Flow (which was epic) when I lived in Scotland and I think Chuuk will be similar with the bonus of warmer water and better vis. Chuuk is also a lot more accessible now that I live in Australia! A real mecca for deep CCR diving are the wrecks off Malin Head in Ireland. I have a long way to go in terms of technical training and experience before I can dive there with any degree of competence, but it is definitely on my bucket list. I’d also like to visit the Galapagos Islands one day to see some of the amazing wildlife both above and below the surface.

A: To be fair, there is a great deal of Australia that I am yet to explore in terms of diving but so far, the best dive site I’ve been to is Fish Rock, which is just off South West Rocks in NSW. It has a huge variety of life - grey nurse sharks, wobbegongs, rays, turtles, lobster, inquisitive grouper, to name a few. Plus, the cave swim-through is really interesting.

A: There are a few things on my to-do list in the short to medium term. In no particular order: As mentioned, I’m looking to get qualified with trimix on my CCR. I’m saving up for my own boat that I can take offshore with mates to dive some of the deeper wrecks along the NSW coast. I would like to do more diving with Amanda and my stepdaughter but they aren’t too keen on cold water! I really want to build my reputation as an instructor with The Human Diver. In the long term, Amanda and I have a plan of buying our own yacht and spending a few years sailing around the world. It would certainly be a good way of getting to isolated dive destinations… n