Meet the Crew

Way before any of this, I was one of the first women in all of Australasia to work as a commercial diver — building things underwater for a company called Undersea Construction. Chain links the size of your body. Ten-tonne mooring blocks. You learn very fast: you've got to think smarter, not harder.

From there, the work kept coming — through AusAID, the United Nations, the Department of Conservation, NIWA. I've been lucky to travel to some of the most incredible dive sites globally, reaching over 45 countries by boat. Scientific research in the sub-Antarctic. Operations on remote islands with almost no infrastructure. Seasons on superyachts in places that don't appear on tourist maps.

My father was an incredible captain, diver, and adventurer — the kind of man National Geographic would hire to take them to Antarctica. He never once told me I couldn't do something. Never mentioned I was a girl. If there was a job to be done, all hands on deck.

The last time I was on Nauru, I was four months pregnant with my eldest daughter. And that was it. The insurance wouldn't cover me. The lifestyle didn't suit. I lost my career the moment I became a mother.

But something else grew in its place. A softness. A slowness. A femininity I hadn't had room for before. Commercial diving is machinery, noise, equipment, brute force. Freediving is one breath. Stillness. Going inward. It matched who I was becoming.

When my eldest two girls were three and four, I took them to Indonesia and started teaching freediving. These two worlds — motherhood and the ocean — were the first things in my life that could live harmoniously together. I didn't have to choose.

Everything I've learned — from commercial diving, from the Pacific, from 25 years of teaching — I've poured into one place. Freedive Aotearoa, right here in the Bay of Islands.

I'm one of only two SSI Freediving Instructor Trainers in New Zealand — and the first woman to hold that qualification. I run internationally recognised courses from your very first breath-hold through to instructor level. I also teach mermaid courses — yes, the tail is involved — which is how a lot of people, especially young women and kids, find their way to the ocean for the first time.

The ocean doesn't care what you're wearing. The breath is the same. The calm is the same.

After seeing 45 countries, I chose the Bay of Islands. Not Auckland. Not Queenstown. Here — because the ocean here demanded it. Every expedition through our Signature Series has been chosen the same way: from a lifetime of searching, not a brochure.

Wherever I go, I go local. I work with operators I've known for years — often a decade or more. When in Northland, do as the Northlanders do. When in Niue, do as the Niueans do.