The League of Extraordinary Divers Podcast

Imagine sitting down to a coffee or cocktail with your favorite diving personality and hearing their stories. The League of Extraordinary Divers podcast brings legends in the diving industry to you. Hosted by Tec Clark, this podcast features diving legends of the past and present sharing some of their best scuba diving stories. You'll hear stories such as their original scuba training, scariest diving stories, funniest diving stories, favorite diving locations, as well as tips for divers.

LXD 027 : Marty Snyderman – Underwater Photographer & Cinematographer

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Marty Snyderman – award-winning photographer, cinematographer, author and marine environment advocate

Today’s guest is one of the top award winning underwater photographers in the diving industry. Marty Snyderman is a legendary photographer, author, instructor, and speaker specializing in the underwater world. Marty’s still photography has been used for decades by the National Geographic Society, Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Oceana, Shark Research Institute, museums and aquaria, and many major publications.

For twenty years he worked as a cameraman and film producer, and he has even been awarded an EMMY for his underwater cinematography. Marty’s cinematography has been seen on numerous National Geographic productions, the PBS series Nature, the Discovery Channel, the BBC, and many other networks around the world. He also filmed the underwater segments in the Warner Brother’s film Free Willy.

Marty is an inductee to DEMA’s SCUBA diving Hall of Fame, and in 2008 he won the prestigious DEMA Reaching Out Award.

Marty currently serves as the Marine Life Editor of Dive Training Magazine and every month he produces at least three columns for the magazine; (1) the underwater photography column entitled Behind The Lens, (2) a natural history piece entitled What’s That, and (3) a column about his life entitled Always Learning. Marty teaches underwater photography seminars in dive centers in North America and at destinations around the globe. He is the Senior Editor and a columnist for California Diving News, and the co-author of a series of apps on underwater photography. Marty serves on the Board of Trustees of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF at reef.org), and he also serves as an advisor to the Shark Research Institute (SRI at sharks.org) and the Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research & Education (COARE at coare.org).

Items In This Podcast

Childhood homework included Jacques Cousteau
Sea Hunt
Semi-pro baseball player
Worked dive boats in Caribbean
Thrown in jail during his scuba instructor course
Howard Hall assigned as his mentor
Crashes a dinner with Stan Waterman
Squid dives at night with Blue Sharks
Right Whale diving
Amazing dive locations
Tips for divers
Encounter with a witch doctor
martysnyderman.com
Marty’s Dive Training Magazine Articles

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Thanks For Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

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LXD 026 : Linden Wolbert – Mermaid & Ocean Advocate

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Linden Wolbert – Mermaid Entrepreneur, Ocean Advocate, and Children’s Educator

Linden Wolbert (AKA Mermaid Linden) is arguably the most successful professional “entrepremermaid” in the world. Not only was she one of the early pioneers of role playing mermaids, but she went on to do so much more.

Through her love for the water and ocean she discovered she had a knack for freediving. Linden, a skilled freediver, can hold her breath for an astounding 5 minutes, and dive to over 115 feet down and back up on a single breath of air. While freediving she tried a monofin, which made her feel like a mermaid and the rest is history!

Linden is on the board of directors of Reef Check Foundation, a non- profit which monitors the health of our world’s coral and rocky reef systems in an effort to conserve and protect them. She designed her own signature line of child and adult swim products for Body Glove, which have been found in the world’s largest retailers. A former PADI scuba diving model, she has completed over 800 dives around the world, and has officiated countless freediving national and world records as a, AIDA International freediving judge. Linden has a Bachelor of Science in Film and Environmental Science from Emerson College and is a PADI Master SCUBA Diver with a 15-year background in ocean conservation and education through visual storytelling and live performance.

Combine those things together and you can see the inspiration for her mini-documentaries for children on her YouTube channel, called the Mermaid Minute series. Which has over 45 Million video views and 80K YouTube subscribers.

You will love her enthusiasm, her stories and especially her heart for the underwater world.

Items in This Podcast

What it Means to be a Mermaid
Freediving Inspiration
Mermaid Minute Series
Line of Body Glove Mermaid Products
Make-A-Wish Foundation
Reef Check Foundation
Favorite Dive Locations
Tips for Divers

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

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LXD 025 : Bill High – Saturation Diver and Cylinder Safety Expert

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Bill High – Fisheries and NOAA Diving Officer, President of NAUI, Saturation Diver, and Founder of Professional Scuba Inspectors (PSI)

Bill High founded PSI, Inc. (Professional Scuba Inspectors), a training company for inspectors of high pressure cylinders. Located near Seattle, Washington, he began training cylinder inspectors in 1983 and set the SCUBA/SCBA industry standard for technical inspections. Presently Bill is a senior consultant to more than 70 cylinder inspector trainers in North America and at numerous international locations. Bill was a diving consultant to the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and a United Nations committee.

Trained as a marine scientist, Bill worked for more than 37 years in the marine science field using scuba and advanced diving systems as essential research tools. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s Bill introduced and promoted diving to numerous marine science agencies that had not yet learned the value of scuba as a research tool. He served as the national diving officer for both US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and National Marine Fisheries Service as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) first National Diving Coordinator. Bill wrote the first scientific diving regulations for each agency. Bill led 4 aquanaut first mission saturation scientific diving programs (Tektite, Hydrolab, Edalhab, Helgoland) and directed 5 major deep submersible research expeditions in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Bill is a prolific writer with more than 160 articles and five books authored or co-authored. His latest book, BENEATH THE SEA– A Sampling of Diving and Other Adventures, recounts many of his technical diving experiences. His book INSPECTING CYLINDERS is the gas industry standard for cylinder safety inspections. The majority of his more than 160 published articles promoted dive industry safety.

Certified as National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) Instructor #175 in 1961, Bill went on to serve NAUI for many years as North Pacific Branch Manager (10 years), Member of the Board of Directors (8 years), President (4 years), Board of Advisors (10 years), Director of International Affairs (3 years) and other duties. He trained more than 8,000 basic and advanced divers before focusing his efforts to promote cylinder safety through technical visual inspections. He personally trained more than 3,000 professional cylinder inspectors and federal hydrostatic re-testers.

Bill’s awards for service to diving have been many including lifetime achievement awards from both NAUI and PADI. He has been honored by inter-state safety agencies, state and community groups. He is the only living person to receive three NOGI Awards (Sports Education (1964), Science (1991) and Distinguished Service (2007). NOGI recognition is among the highest honors awarded in the scuba diving industry. In 2009, Bill was named recipient of the diving industry’s highest recognition, the Reaching Out Award. In 2015, Bill was named to the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame. Bill High is one of the truest pioneers of international diving. His 64-year contribution to recreational diving, educational diving, scientific diving as well as technical diving support is truly remarkable.

Items in this Podcast

Began diving in 1955
Early marine sciences
1960 Part of first NAUI Instructor course in Houston, TX
US Fisheries Diving Officer
1970 Tektite II
Founded the NOAA Diving Manual
Saturation and submersible diving
President of NAUI
The incident that made Bill become a cylinder safety expert
Bill’s role in the “Dolphin Safe Tuna” campaign
Favorite diving location
Tips for divers

Resources

PSICylinders.com

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

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LXD 024 : Eric Douglas – Author and Diving Safety Expert

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Eric Douglas – Author of the famous Mike Scott diving thriller novels, and diving safety expert

In this podcast episode I chat with Eric Douglas. Eric Douglas grew up watching “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” and dreamed of diving with Captain Cousteau. He became a diver, and then a dive instructor. With his journalism degree Eric combined professional diving with writing and contributed articles to diving magazines. That landed him at the headquarters of PADI where he assisted in the development of their training materials. Along the way he embraced health and safety courses and became and EMT and a DMT – a diving medical technician. That opened doors for him to join Divers Alert Network in their training department.

On the side Eric was writing nonfiction works on lobster divers, war veterans, and cancer survivors, and since 2009 he has written the extremely popular Lessons for Life column for Scuba Diving Magazine. One of my favorites.

But then there are his epic novels. Through his fictional works, Eric takes readers on adventures of their own. His stories have everything thriller junkies crave; action, adventure and intrigue, all set against a backdrop of beautiful locations, the ocean, and scuba diving. The fast-paced stories are exciting and inspiring to divers and future divers.

He has authored eight novels and two novellas in the Mike Scott thriller series: Cayman Cowboys, Flooding Hollywood, Guardians’ Keep, Wreck of the Huron, Heart of the Maya, Return to Cayman, Oil and Water, The 3rd Key: Sharks in the Water, Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters and the latest Water Crisis: Day Zero. He has also written a series of dive thriller short stories set on the fictional Withrow Key in the Florida Keys. He authored four children’s stories, collected in the book Sea Turtle Rescue and Other Stories.

Eric currently serves as the Associate Producer for the West Virginia Public Broadcasting show Inside Appalachia.

Items in this Podcast

30 years in diving
Journalism major
Worked at PADI and Divers Alert Network
Favorite dive site is not international
Who he taught how to dive from Baywatch
Mike Scott novels – great fictional reads for divers
Who is Mike Scott based on?

Resources

BooksByEric.com

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

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LXD 023 : Doug McNeese – President of Scuba Schools International (SSI) Business Development

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Doug McNeese – President of SSI’s International Business Development

In this podcast episode I chat with Doug McNeese. Doug is President of Scuba Schools International (SSI)’s International Business Development where he travels the world educating dive centers on how to be more successful in their businesses. Well how does one get to do that? It helps when your father owned a dive center! As you’ll hear in this episode Doug was not only raised working in his father’s dive center, he eventually bought it from his father and opened three more highly successful stores called simply, The Dive Shop.

Doug went on to purchase the National Association of Scuba Diving Schools (NASDS). He made remarkable improvements to NASDS and then saw the opportunity to merge with SSI and nearly a decade later he purchased SSI. And most recently he sold SSI to the HEAD Group where it is flourishing and he is still leading professionals with his secrets to success learned from his early days.

Doug is highly respected in the diving industry and he was awarded the DEMA Reaching out award in 2017. And as you’ll hear he loves to give back to the industry and he has done this through his efforts with both the Platinum Pro Foundation and Sea of Change Foundation.

Items in this Podcast

Learning to dive as a 10 year old in 1962
Worked at his father’s dive shop called The Dive Shop
Purchasing the National Association of Scuba Diving Schools (NASDS)
Merging NASDS with Scuba Schools International (SSI)
SSI and the HEAD Group
Passion for diving leads to a passion for the business of diving
Assisting divers in need
Advice for divers

Resources

Scuba Schools International

Platinum Pro Foundation Nomination Form

Sea of Change Foundation

Sponsor

Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. Do you want to give a shout out to our guest on this podcast? Leave a note in the comments section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

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The League of Extraordinary Divers Podcast

Marty Snyderman – award-winning photographer, cinematographer, author and marine environment advocate

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Linden Wolbert – Mermaid Entrepreneur, Ocean Advocate, and Children’s Educator

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Bill High – Fisheries and NOAA Diving Officer, President of NAUI, Saturation Diver, and Founder of Professional Scuba Inspectors (PSI)

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Eric Douglas – Author of the famous Mike Scott diving thriller novels, and diving safety expert

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Doug McNeese – President of SSI’s International Business Development

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