Community
Meet GUE’s NextGen Scholarship Winner
Meet one of the newest members of the family, 25-year old Annika Andresen from New Zealand, GUE’s first ever NextGen scholarship recipient.
by Amanda White
Header photo by Matthew Coutts. Annika diving at the Mokohinau-Islands.
As a way to empower the next generation of divers, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) created the NextGen Scholarship, which provides a year of training and other benefits to deserving divers on their quest for excellence.
We are excited to announce that the first-ever NextGen scholarship recipient has been selected. Annika Andresen from New Zealand will be our 2019-2020 NextGen scholarship winner! Annika is 25 years old with a Masters of Architecture, where she studied the role architecture plays on the connection people have with their environment. She has also worked on dive boats, is a PADI open water dive instructor, and currently works for Blake, an environmental trust, as an environmental educator.
InDepth caught up with Annika to learn a bit more about her and how this scholarship will help her achieve her goals.
InDepth
We got to know you a little bit through your video and application, but we have a couple more questions to get to know you a little bit better and share your story with our community. What influenced you to pursue diving, and how old were you when you started?
Annika Andresen
I grew up sailing around the east coast of the North Island on a little 9-meter (30-foot) yacht with my family— my parents and two brothers. We were always around or in the water, and my dad let us have a go on his dive gear when we were seven to see what it was like to breathe underwater. We didn’t really go under the water, we were just on the surface, but as we got older we joined him on more of his dives. It wasn’t until my first year of university where I got enough money to do my open water course in 2013, but it feels like I have been diving my whole life.
What attracted you to diving over other water sports?
Just being closer to everything and being fully immersed. If I was snorkelling, there is only so long I could hold my breath, so I really wanted to learn how to dive so I could actually stay submerged and watch the different marine life swimming around and become part of the environment. That’s kind of what started it off. I had a good friend in the Auckland University Underwater Club who was also interested, so we did the course together. After my first year at University I wanted to get a summer job that involved something to do with the ocean. I emailed Kate Malcolm at Dive! Tutukaka, asking if there were any jobs working on the boats as crew. On my trial we saw dolphins almost every day, got to take customers in the water to experience the marine life, and were teaching everyone about the importance of our marine environment. I couldn’t believe this was a real job. I moved up to Tutukaka, where I got to go out to the Poor Knights Islands every day, and on my days off, I was able to gain more diving experience, joining the dive masters with their group. I think it was then when I really fell in love with diving. I was like, “This is what I want to do. This is what I want to fully throw myself into and learn as much as I can.”
How has your connection with the underwater world influenced the rest of your, I guess, so to speak, dry land life?
At the moment, it’s very much influenced… well, I guess the underwater world has always influenced my life. I remember at primary school, every time I was drawing something, it was something to do with the water. My teachers said, “Oh, you’ve got to expand and draw other things,” but that’s all that I wanted to do. In intermediate, we were doing a project about the ocean and I remember sitting down with the teacher and saying, ‘“Instead of just reading about it, why don’t we actually take them out to Goat Island (New Zealand’s oldest marine reserve)?” So somehow, I convinced my teacher and parents to take my whole class to my teacher’s house who had a pool. During one afternoon, we taught them how to snorkel, going through how to put on a mask, and snorkel, and how to be comfortable in the water.
Then the following week, we went up to Goat Island. My dad and I guided my class around the bay, pointing out all the different species while my mom rowed our dinghy (that had a little glass bottom) for the three people that didn’t like being in the water. Everyone was really excited to see the fish. In my architectural degree, all of my designs always included water or a connection to the environment. One of my favorite designs was a marine rehabilitation center sited in the Bay of Islands for different marine species. So I guess everything has always been influenced by the underwater world…for me, it’s my home. I always feel very calm on the water and then diving just ramped everything up a lot more. Now whatever I do seems to be associated with or to revolve around diving or anything to do with water.
Do you participate in any other water sports besides snorkeling and swimming?
Yeah, I love sailing. I do a lot of sailing. Normally every Friday night, I will go down with a group of girls and we do rum racing. So if you win the race, you get a bottle of rum, and then there’s other sailing regattas during the weekend if I’m not diving. If I can’t go diving or sailing, normally the weather is perfect for surfing. My car always has a combination of dive gear, surfboard on top, my wet weather gear, and a towel. I also really like free-diving as well because it’s just very different from scuba-diving, and there are some species I don’t want to scare off with my bubbles.
We saw from your video that you work for Blake. How did you get involved in conservation?
I have always been interested in volunteering for conservation projects and encouraging others to do the same. I was very lucky. In 2016-2017, I was chosen for Blake’s ambassador program where I worked with Antarctica, New Zealand, and the Antarctic Heritage Trust. Through the program, I was able to go to Antarctica and work with the team down there to conserve Sir Edmund Hillary’s Hut.
When I finished my thesis last year, BLAKE approached me over the summer and asked me to help kickstart a new project. This has been the pilot year for NZ-VR, where we have a roadshow traveling to different schools in Auckland. We have 60 VR headsets and spent the year teaching four classes a day, ranging from 10-year-olds to 15-year-olds, about our underwater environment. We put a headset on each student showing 360° footage from New Zealand Geographic that is taken all around New Zealand, comparing and contrasting environments from the very pristine northern parts of New Zealand to degraded environments from human impact that are closer to human populations.
By the end of the year, my colleague and I will have taught 20,000 students in the Auckland region. Hopefully, depending on funding for the project, we want to get two more educators and double the amount of headsets to reach twice as many students and further expand into the surrounding regions. It’s a really awesome organization where they were able to just give me the support that I needed to really push the idea of learning through experience. This is really exciting, as this was what my thesis was based around, and I can combine my passion for the underwater world and creative thinking towards conservation.
Wow. What an inspiring job to have.
Yeah, it’s pretty incredible to be able to get students excited about the ocean, to remove that element of fear if they don’t like the water for some students, and show others that don’t get the opportunity to be able to experience what it is like beneath the surface. It gets students to be immersed and learn empathy toward our environment. The other awesome addition to the videos is the natural underwater sounds New Zealand Geographic recorded, so when the students are experiencing these videos, they can hear everything that you would be able to hear underwater.
What attracted you to GUE?
Very good question. It was actually when I had just started scuba diving, I think I had done 20 dives. At the time, I was seeing someone who had done the GUE Tech One course and he said it would be a really good way of refining my skills and gaining a lot more confidence in the water. I had previously met Mel Jeavons and Jamie Obern on the dive boats and was really interested in the diving they were doing.
I did the Fundamentals course with Jamie on a single tank with a wetsuit just because that’s what I was diving in at the time and what I was comfortable with. Over the next two years, I worked on gaining more diving experience and talking to Jamie, and finally, I was like, okay, I’m ready to go on to twins now. I got my tech pass a year after that. I really valued being able to dive and not disturb any of the environment around me, especially while working at the Poor Knights.
It wasn’t until I started working as a divemaster and guiding people around that it really showed the difference. I was very conscious that I didn’t want to destroy the environment that I was showing people. And being able to share that with people, sharing techniques I had learned or explaining certain elements in diving, I realized this gave confidence to my divers as well. I wanted to ensure every diver had a positive experience, and so they could enjoy their dive and fall in love with the ocean just like I have, giving them a reason to protect it.
What are your diving goals now?
To spend as much time in the water as I can. I would love to dive along the side of a huge iceberg in Antarctica, explore the wrecks of Truk Lagoon, or swim alongside schooling hammerheads in the Galapagos. This list could go on forever…
Furthering my diving skills, I’ve always wanted to try cave diving, and I am truly fascinated by the amazing pictures I have seen from cave divers. There are some caves in New Zealand, which is not an easy place to learn to cave dive, but it has always been one of my life goals to see first-hand what this incredible environment is like.
Over the last year, I have been looking into the GUE Tech One course, and this came after a dive on the MV Rena (a container ship that ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef in 2011). Four and a half years later, the exclusion zone was lifted, and I was lucky enough to dive the wreck a couple of days later. The wreck was split in two and the stern section of the Rena starts in 26 m/85 ft, continuing further down the reef face to 70 m/230 ft. I was stuck at 30 m/100 ft, and I was looking down at this amazing container ship, and I was just like, ‘oh, this is why I want to get my Tech One,’ because looking down on the wreck is just not the same, and the wreck, although so close, seemed so far away.
I have always dreamt of taking every single person beneath the surface and showing them some of the amazing things I have been lucky enough to see. So, one of my main personal goals would be to inspire as many people as I can and take them on my journey to share the importance and beauty of our ocean.
How do you feel the GUE scholarship will help you achieve these? As both a diver and a conservationist?
Just meeting everyone, building on my knowledge, and developing my skills as a diver. Gaining a greater understanding of conservation projects, hearing their diving stories, what they’ve learned, and then being able to share these experiences with everyone. That would be awesome. This scholarship is an amazing platform for me to be an ambassador for the protection of our oceans as well as for women in the marine environment and diving.
It’s a great community, that’s for sure. Had you heard of Jarrod Jablonski before he called you to tell you that you were awarded the scholarship?
I had, because I read everyone’s profiles. I was really nervous when I got the phone call. I started my interview talking to Dorota, and then she got up to get someone. I didn’t know what was going on. Jarrod sat down and it took a little bit to register, and when he said his name I went into a bit of a shock and I was like, ‘What? He’s actually talking to me?’ But yes, it was a bit of a stunned moment; that it was actually him that was talking to me online.
Annika will be joining GUE for their 2019 Conference in Florida from November 9-11th. If you are interested in attending the conference, registration closes on November 4th.
Dive Deeper
Amanda White is the editor for InDepth, and Global Underwater Explorers Content and Brand manager. Her main passion in life is protecting the environment; whether that means working to minimize her own footprint or working on a broader scale to protect wildlife, the oceans, and other bodies of water. She received her GUE Recreational Level 1 certificate in November 2016 and has been lucky enough to join GUE and Project Baseline projects. Amanda holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with an emphasis on strategic communications and a minor in creative writing from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Cave
The Aftermath Of Love: Don Shirley and Dave Shaw
Our young Italian poet-explorer Andrea Murdoch Alpini makes a pilgrimage to visit cave explorer Don Shirley at the legendary Bushmansgat cave in South Africa. In addition to guiding the author through the cave, Shirley and Alpini dive into history and the memories of the tragic loss in 2005 of Shirley’s dive buddy David Shaw, who died while trying to recover the body of a lost diver at 270 m/882 ft. The story features Alpini’s short documentary, “Komati Springs: The Aftermath of Love.”
Text by Andrea Murdock Alpini
🎶 Pre-dive clicklist: Where is My Mind by Pixies🎶
South Africa, Komati Springs.
On October 28, 2004, two cave divers and long-time friends, Don Shirley and David Shaw, planned a dive at Boesmansgat (also known in English as “Bushman’s Hole”) a deep, submerged freshwater cave (or sinkhole) in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Dave dove to 280 meters, touched the bottom and started exploring. At that time, Shaw had recently broken four records at one time: depth on a rebreather, depth in a cave on a rebreather, depth at altitude on a rebreather, and depth running a line. While on the dive at Boesmansgat, he found a body that had been there for nearly ten years, 20-year-old diver Deon Dreyer.
After obtaining permission to retrieve the body from Dreyer’s parents, the two friends returned three months later. They enrolled eight support rebreather divers (all of whom were close to Don) and Gordon Hiles, a cameraman from Cape Town, who filmed the entire process—from the preparation on the surface to the operation at the bottom of the cave. The surface marshal was Verna van Schaik, who held the women’s world record for depth at the time. Little did they know that Dave would not come back from his 333rd dive, one that he himself recorded with an underwater camera.
Researchers have determined that while attempting the retrieval, Dave ran into physical difficulties with the lines from the body bag and the wires from the light head. The physical effort of trying to free himself led to his death for what is believed to be respiratory insufficiency (see video below). Don Shirley nearly died as well, and apparently was left with permanent damage that has impaired his balance.
Nearly 20 years later, our own Andrea Murdock Alpini visits Don and has this to say:
February 2023—I arrive at the mine owned by cave expert and pioneer of deep diving, Don Shirley. The place is fantastic—the wild nature, the warm water, and the dives are amazing. Every day I spend at least 230 minutes underwater, filming the mines and what is left of man’s influence in this beautiful and God-forgotten corner of Africa. Every day I have time to talk, plan dives, and prepare the blends together with Don Shirley.
The following is a part of the story that links Don Shirley to South Africa. Stories and places intertwine between Komati Springs, Boesmansgat (or “Bushman’s Hole”) and then the fatal dive with his friend Dave Shaw.
Monkeys arrive on time every 12 hours. They showed up last night at about 5:00. They came down from the trees in large groups. They start playing, throwing themselves from one branch to another, chasing each other. Mothers hug their little ones. Some of them play with oxygen cylinders, the smaller ones instead with methane gas tanks, the ones we use for cooking. We are surrounded by gas blenders of all kinds.
A herdsman’s hat rests on the workbench. Two hands with delicate, thin skin take adapters, cylinders, and whips.They open and close taps. Notebooks report all the consumption for each charge, strictly written in liters with the utmost precision. Impressions: An Amaranth t-shirt, an unmistakable logo, that of the IANTD. A pair of jeans and then some boots. He has a slight physique, he is lean and athletic with a beard that is white now, and a few days’ old.
While he works carefully, I do not disturb him, for I know well that when mixing, one is not to be interrupted, at least this is so for anyone who loves precision. Then, when he’s done, we have time to talk a little bit together.
We sit at his desk and then go to the board to plan the dive in the mine.
Don shows me the map of the first level. He explains some important facts to me, then his hands pull out a second sheet with the plan redesigned from memory of the second level at 24 m/70 ft deep. “This is the guitar level,” he says.
At first I don’t understand. He chuckles. I look at the shape he drew and, yes, that floor plan is a cross between a Fender Stratocaster and a Picasso guitar. Anyway, it’s a guitar, no doubt.
We begin planning the dive together. It’s exciting to hear him talk; he speaks in a soft, elegant tone, and it moves me. I look at his index finger moving. I listen to his words, but I also look at his eyes.
He gives me some advice but also tells me, “This mine is more similar to a cave. I have left it as it is. I want people to explore it and not follow any lines.”
Freedom of thought, plurality of choices. Acceptance of risk, inclusion of the other in what belongs to you. It’s clear that Don’s vision of diving is uncommon. Freedom is beautiful, but it is the most dangerous thing there is, if mishandled.
The next day, we have an appointment at 7 o’clock at the lake. Before diving this morning, we saw where the “Tunnel of Love” originates on the surface, a curious gallery which I came across underwater. There are two parts of the mine that survived the destruction of the mining facility after its closure. One of these is the tunnel where we are going, the other part is perched in the middle of the mountain.
Don explains that the tunnel is now frequented by the wild animals who go to drink there, so we follow their trail. The water has flooded everything up to just a few meters below the surface of the bush. Don cuts the underbrush that makes the path difficult. He wears his faithful herdsman’s hat and never takes it off. The ground begins to tilt slightly, a good sign that we are about to arrive. A series of stones suggest that here the path has been paved. “It was covered in wood,” Don explains.
The path that started from the building where the miners lived is now demolished. Following it, we arrive at what was called “The Tunnel of Love.”
The tunnel that was the mine’s main entry point. Narrow and difficult, the tunnel led to level one—now underwater at a depth of 18 m/60 ft.
We turn on the headlamps and enter. A small colony of bats flaps its wings upon our arrival. The water touches our boots. Some roots filter from the rock and stretch to the resurgence. The scenery is evocative.
Don kneels, peering at the water, and something. He looks at the water and something changes within him. Something has changed in our shared dialogue.
It’s as if Don takes on another language as he speaks. He always looks straight ahead. His vocabulary changes, and with it his tone of voice. We talk about politics, economics, the future of Komati Springs, the origin of the name of the place, the history of the mine, but we never mention two topics: diving and Dave Shaw.
Don’s a real caveman. I know that those who love caves are not ordinary people. We who do are a little bit mad to do what we do and love, but he’s different. He is comfortable here; he has found his dimension.
I remember asking him a question when we were inside the Tunnel of Love, breaking one of the long silences: “What thoughts are going through your mind?” He seemed to have reached a meditative state, a kind of catharsis. He replied, “I am just relaxing. This is a peaceful place. “
Around nine o’clock, we travel again to the lake, leaving the dry caves behind.
The first dive lasted 135 minutes, the second 95 minutes. Once the equipment is set up, I return to the cottage to dry everything and recharge the cylinders.
Don’s hands this time are again without gloves. Before we start mixing, we walk into his office.The walls are lined with articles he has published over the years.
He shows me the medals for valor he got when he was on duty in the British Army. When we return to a small corridor that acts as a barrier, my eyes fall on two photographs. “Is that Dave?” I ask. “That’s him. We were here in Komati,” Don tells me. “You see? This is his hat,” and he points to what is on his head.
The Consequences of Love
These are the consequences of love, I think. A friendship that transcends time, life, but also death.
It’s time to prepare the blends for tomorrow. As the oxygen pumps out, Don asks me, “Have you ever seen our Boesmasgat’s diving slates?” Obviously, I had never seen the decompression tables of that famous and tragic dive to 280 m/920 ft depth at 1,600 meters (nearly 5,000 feet) altitude.
“Hang on a sec.” Don picks up a small black box with a yellow label and brings it to me. He opens it. “These are the original dive charts. These are mine; these are Dave’s.” The box also contains the famous blackboard with the inscription, (“DAVE NOT COMING BACK”) from the documentary, as well as a pair of underwater gloves used in that dive, and then the heirloom of his CCR computer that broke due to excessive hydrostatic pressure.
He exits the room. He leaves me with those emotionally charged objects in my hands. I can’t see them any differently. They obviously have historical value; but, for me, the human sense prevails. I look at the decompression tables, touch the gloves, and think about the hands that wore them, that read the various whiteboards, and I imagine the scenes of that time.
I place everything back in the box. I hand it to Don as I would hand him a precious urn. In part, it is one. I find it hard to express myself in that moment. He understands why.
At this point I ask him, “What was the true meaning of that extreme dive that Dave wanted to do? Why did he do it?”
“He just wanted to explore the bottom of that cave,” Don said. “Wherever Dave went, he wanted to get to the bottom. That’s how we’ve always done it together. So that’s what we did here at the mine.”
Don then tells me a series of details and information about that place, about the geological stratification of the cave; he talks a little about the owner of the land where the famous sinkhole is located, and finally he talks about many other aspects of their failed dive. I promised to keep it to myself, and I will do so, forever.
Such is a connection that endures over time.
DIVE DEEPER
Wikipedia: Dave Shaw
YouTube: Diver Records Doom | Last Moments-Dave Shaw
Wikipedia: Dave Not Coming Back (2020) A critically acclaimed film that centers on diver Dave Shaw’s death while attempting to recover the body of Deon Dreyer from the submerged Boesmansgat cave in 2005.
Shock Ya: Don Shirley Fondly Remembers Scuba Diving with David Shaw in Dave Not Coming Back Exclusive Clip
Outside: Raising the Dead (2005) by Tim Zimmerman
Other stories by the prolific Andrea Alpini Murdock:
InDEPTH: Finessing the Grande Dame of the Abyss
InDEPTH: Hal Watts: Plan Your Dive
InDEPTH: I See A Darkness: A Descent Into Germany’s Felicitas MineInDEPTH: Stefano Carletti: The Man Who Immortalized The Wreck of the Andrea Doria
Andrea Murdock Alpini is a TDI and PSAI technical trimix and advanced wreck-overhead instructor based in Italy. He is fascinated by deep wrecks, historical research, decompression studies, caves, filming, and writing. He holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and an MBA in Economics for The Arts. Andrea is also the founder of PHY Diving Equipment. His life revolves around teaching open circuit scuba diving, conducting expeditions, developing gear, and writing essays about his philosophy of wreck and cave diving. He published his first book, Deep Blue: storie di relitti e luoghi insoliti (2018) and IMMERSIONI SELVAGGE, published in the Fall of 2022.
