Todd Thimios

I always find it incredible, just to be doing something like diving a vertical wall in the middle of the Pacific, dropping all the way down to 400 or 500 metres, sitting on the sand in the pitch black, rubbing legs with the billionaire sitting next to you. There’s the realisation that what you’re doing is absolutely ridiculous – I think those are some of the highlights of what I do as a dive master and submersible pilot for superyacht clients.

I grew up in Cairns in northern Queensland, Australia, and my family were all keen fishermen so we spent every weekend out on the reef – that was my childhood. In my 20s I moved to Lord Howe Island, around a third of the way to New Zealand, and became a dive instructor there. It’s an incredibly beautiful place, a kind of utopia that’s very hard to leave and I ended up staying there for six years as a dive professional, making my living every day in the water and operating the dive boat. But I realised I had to leave to challenge myself more, so I travelled to Monaco and the South of France.

I had been wondering how I could up my dive-guiding career to be able to dive all over the world but getting paid proper money so as not to be the stereotypical dive-bum! But even though I was a dive instructor, getting into the superyacht industry was tricky because a decade ago the roles were still fairly typical – captain, chief officer, deckhand, stew and the like – and me looking for a strictly diving role was not straightforward. It took a while, but I did get a job fairly quickly as a dive deckhand and as soon as we started diving it quickly turned into a pure dive guide role. That then very quickly morphed into a combination of dive instructor, underwater photographer, submersible pilot and other unique aspects on board.

I started out on an 85-metre motor yacht and we spent four years doing a one-and-a-half times circumnavigation, during which time I also turned into the film guide and submersible operator for the onboard sub that went down to 400 metres. From there my position expanded to flying ahead of the yacht to scout out locations and organise itineraries in advance – it was a position that didn’t exist before and it was incredible! But no matter how good things are, you want to up it again eventually, so I left that yacht and started doing the same thing but as a freelance for many yachts from a 60-metre sailing yacht to a 95-metre motor yacht. At the same time, I had always dived with a camera, so underwater photography became another element I focused on more and more.

I’ve had a wealth of incredible experiences underwater that stand out as highlights; giving guests incredible encounters like diving with whale sharks in the Galapagos, hammerhead sharks in Cocos Island, or whales in Tahiti and Tonga. It’s always a really emotional thing for me just to see these high-profile superyacht guests really get high on life with a natural encounter, and the submarine stuff, well it’s out of this world – sitting on the ocean floor, feeling very, very small with a very interesting billionaire character next to you and hundreds of metres of water above you in the middle of the Pacific!

Probably one of my favourite destinations to lead private guests to is the Arctic, to dive with orcas. It’s the pinnacle of mega fauna in the water – it’s out of this world. Orcas are just so intelligent and amazing, it’s incredible to be in the water with them. These sorts of experiences not only highlight what superyachting can offer, they can also change people’s attitudes and get them more interested in conservation. When a guest has an experience like that, you see it flick a switch very quickly. I’ve had the luxury of building itineraries like these and seeing guests just flip out and change their lifestyles because of it.

Unregulated commercial fishing is a massive problem around the world and it’s interesting when you see guests’ minds opened by it, because they see it now first hand; it’s the same with plastics which are a no-brainer and you see it non-stop – it’s a fundamental issue and a lot of the yachts are getting very conscious about that.

For me personally, I also support the building of coral nurseries for reef regeneration, particularly in Cairns which is a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. There are a few small coral nurseries working to rehabilitate the Reef, and I support them through my own fine art photography whereby I donate proceeds from sales to the Reef Restoration Foundation. I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef and I’ve seen a change in my lifetime – it’s always changing and evolving, but I’ve seen deterioration as well. It’s good to raise money and awareness for the coral nurseries, for the future of the Reef. 

And I now see superyacht owners, guests and crew waking up to the problems, in particular the waste element. I think a lot of owners are becoming more conscious about plastic waste. It’s where the underwater element can play a difference, because when you facilitate a passion for diving and they get to see and experience the mega fauna and the reefs up close, from there they start to make conscious decisions. It’s one of the many positive sides of what has been an amazing line of work, made possible by superyachting.