I want you to picture this. Imagine you spend a ton of money to go to Hawaii, the big island Kona, Hawaii. And the idea of going to Hawaii is to connect with nature. And one of the ways to connect with nature is to do a manorway dive. Now this is a dive at night. So it's already a little nerve wracking to dive at night, but when you get in the water, you have this beautiful experience and it's a life-changing experience. But how many is too many operators that are offering this service?
We're going to talk to Martina Wing from the Manorway group as well as from the Hawaii Ocean Watch. She is here to talk about her experience with the Manorway operating experience, but also with making sure that the Manorays are protected. And that also the people who are the tourists who are going to pay for the service are also having a good time and that they're safe. It's been a little bit since the operating industry has grown for the Manorway experience.
And so she wants to talk about how that's grown and how regulations need to be put into place to protect Manorays as well as the operators, as well as the people. And we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin.
And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we have Martina Wing, who is the owner of Manorway Advocates, a tour operator that takes people out on to have a beautiful experience with seeing Manorays eat at night, diving at night.
Imagine what this is this this experience can do for you to connect with the ocean, to connect with these majestic animals, just sort of diving through doing backflips in the water, eating plankton at night. It's crazy to think about it. I am a an advanced open water dive diver. I've done dives at night in a lake, not in the ocean. And being able to see this is quite the experience. People get nervous when they go in. They come out with their life changing experience. And it's amazing.
And Martina is here to talk about that experience and why it's so important for people to connect with the ocean in this way, but also that we need to protect these Manorays from this operating business going crazy in terms of the number of operators that come in, having the snorkelers come by as well as divers, what to expect, and sort of what the questions to ask when you are going to talk to these dive operators about this experience. So there's a lot to cover in this episode.
Martina was great in in divulging a lot of stuff that's been going on and, you know, things that need to be done, regulations that need to be put into place and why they haven't been put into place. We're still asking that question and her efforts to push forward regulations for these boat operators or these dive operators. So we're going to talk about that all in today's episode. And so here is the interview with Martina Wing talking about Manorae diving operations.
Enjoy the interview and I'll talk to you after. Hey Martina, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about Manorae's? I'm so ready. Thanks for letting me be on your podcast. Oh, I am so excited. I don't get to talk about Manorae's a lot. And so I'm very excited to be able to talk about Manorae's. And we're talking about in a very different context today.
There's sometimes I have another podcast called Beyond Jaws where we get into the science like of the physiology and all the morphologies and stuff of stingrays. Today we're going to be getting into a different type. We're going to get into the conservation of Manorae's but also from a in the eyes and the lens of a tour operator that has also a nonprofit to protect, you know, ocean animals, not just the Manorae's but the entire environment.
And we're going to be in the area of Hawaii, which is a lot of fun because I'm about to head over there with my family in a couple of weeks. So I'm very excited about that. But Martina before we get into the conservation aspect and everything that you do, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do? All right. So I'm live in Hawaii and I came the first time to Hawaii as a tourist in 1998. I'm on the big island. It's on the west side. It's the Kona area.
And when I came as a tourist, it was just let's go into the ocean. And I had my certification and went diving. It's actually this month. February is my anniversary month. Twenty seven years that I saw the Manorae's for the first time. And it is here on this coastline. It's a special tour. So in general, you talk about ocean recreation. You go somewhere tropical and maybe a tour operator. You go on a boat and go someplace. And it's usually it happens during the day.
But this particular activity is takes place at night because we take advantage of plankton being concentrating around light at night. And the manor population on this coastline has learned of about 30 years now when there's light in the ocean at night, there could be is a high potential that plankton is there in abundance. And then the manor is going to feed there. Right. So when so when I was doing it in 98 for the very first time, the activity commercially started in 1991.
So not too many years. I was one location at this point and I saw the manor is and it really, really touched my heart. There are big fish, the harmonies. They have no teeth, no stinger, no bar. And I was diving very bad diver, you know, just a few dives under my belt. But it's a guided tour. So the dive masters took care of me and you get real close ups. And I mean, really like Manor is flying over your head when you're diving. You're staying on the bottom. So you're not in that space.
But the idea is lights on the bottom. There's actually not today lights on the surface to from the snorkellers. This is incredible cool setup with lights at night in the ocean. The plankton is in abundance usually on those nights. And the manor is I've learned it's the class conditioning of an animal, in this case, a fish in the ocean to come to a place where lights attract plankton. And the manor is have a nice dinner and you have an incredible show. And it really touched my heart.
That changed my whole life. I can imagine Germany had finished school, engineering school. And then the tourists came here at first. And then the end of that story in a short form is I actually bought the video on my very first night dive with the manor is and it was my mom. The HS tapes. Yes. We probably remember this. I do. And then I bought the just tape from this camera person on the boat and I purchased it and I did go home. But I met this guy a little more.
Well, in other stories, I bought the video and married the guy. So I moved to Hawaii. We are together here and running a business. First, it was based on photography underwater photography. And now we're also to operate. So it's a span of 27 years. But, yeah, you can actually say that it was an unreal journey. But I just had turned 30 at that point and finished with school. I had a sad chapter of my life at that point and a lot of grief.
And then I did this manor a dive and being around these animals, they're just like lighting so gracefully through the water that comes so close was angel like, you know, it's open my heart to there's more to life. And so the grief bubble kind of opened up a little bit. And yeah, it is very, it was very powerful. And I believe I still remember that so vividly. And when I have my guests now all these years, they come out of the water.
And they say that's one of the best things they've done in their life. And it's a perpetual story from guest after guest. They don't know what to expect just like me. But then they come out of the water 30, 45 minutes later. And what I'm doing here in Hawaii? Yeah, for sure. And then they go this emotional journey of 30, 45 minutes and accomplish something really, really special.
It's my favorite thing to talk about how people are courageous at the end and and carry that with them for the rest of the life. And in my case, I changed the whole my my whole life. It was definitely life changing, right? It's literally life changing. I mean, that's a phenomenal story. And it's true. I was thinking the same thing. And I was like, this is a night dive in Hawaii. There were so many different species that are there. If you're not used to a night dive, I've gone.
I have my advanced open water. So I've done night diving, but I did it in a freshwater lake here in Ontario. There isn't anything that can harm me other than the water itself. But it's when you're in the ocean, especially in a place like Hawaii and you and maybe you have some preconceived notions that, you know, you're not used to it. What's going on. and maybe you have some preconceived notions of the water, especially at night, predators come out.
But I imagine just being at the bottom of that water, looking up and seeing these beautiful, beautiful fish just kind of glide above you. We've all seen it in documentaries. And you'll probably tell me it doesn't do it justice until you're in the water, seeing it for yourself. It must just be like a movie that's just in better than 4K, just continuing over and in a loop. And it's just got to be one of the most beautiful things in the world.
You probably have music going on in the back of your head as you watch this. Right. Just just phenomenal. And how many like how many dives do you do a week? Like does your does your company do a week? So when I used to do specifically underwater photography, actually, videography. So I always what my husband did selling me that video back in 1998. And I just joined his small one person company, you know, right for videographer. Yeah, that really bad diver, 10 dives next. Yeah, nothing.
You're kind of certified but not qualified for anything. Right. But so that was then for 17 years until 2017. I solely went diving five to six times a week filming the guests like my husband did. For me and the industry had done grown more boats came out and for us because we were so specialized on filming the memories with the guests and making a living of that. Yeah. You know, more and more companies said we want your service.
It was when they didn't have to own videographer or didn't have to take the dive master with the camera was less risky to write as many things happening. Of course. So yeah. And over the years and in 2001, I believe maybe 1999 another dive site, my husband set up another dive site or discovered it and establish it. So then there were two dive sites. And for the longest time, he was at one site, the original where I went to on 1998.
And I was at the other side. So we covered many companies that were just wanting a service. So when you ask me how often was I in the water diving six, five to six times a week, pretty much from March till December, general fabric is really rough. Then you cancel more. But lots and lots and lots of hours on scuba and the dive is shallow. So for someone trying to imagine it, it's the dive is 30 feet deep. It's not that deep. It's really close to
shore. How why our island, you know, it's the tip of the mountain. You see when sticks out of the water and then when you go down into the water, it just, you know, you stay close to shore because when you go further out, it's just really deep. Yes, really deep. So it's a close to shore dive 30 feet deep. But you have to be certified to do the dive. And then eventually there was then also
the switch that snorkellers. And if you think of what it attracted to that people want to do it, most people are not certified. Then the snorkeller market opened up and that happened maybe 2008, nine, 10 normal boats came into the fold of the industry that maybe only the daytime snorkeling then added as a new product snorkeling at night. So you had more people out there. And but then in 2017, I stopped filming and then my husband set up another site further north.
And that's why I operate now as an operator. Okay. And over the years, about 60 companies have established themselves to offer the same tour, either diving or snorkeling. And that's a lot of people. Yeah, get into this in a minute. Yeah. But we are very fortunate. My husband is really looking out for us. Our specialty is Manneri. So he set up with a hotel on a private beach, the tours. So I don't need a boat to get to the Manneri. So it's pretty special. And I'm in the water again from March
till December. Usually we are in the water seven times a week and I personally go four to five times a week. So yeah. Wow. Now does the Manneri outfit, does that have like you guys also own the hotel or you work off of like when I'm a vendor to the hotel. I'm a vendor to the hotel. Okay. That is my for profit company. You see it here, Manteri Advocates. So if you would go to look for us, you know, that would be my website name too. But this is my for profit company.
But we were branded back in 2012, 2013. We used to be photography only. So we were called Ocean Wing, Hawaii in photography. Now we are Manneri Advocates because when the industry grew and grew, nobody was speaking really for the animals. And I really felt compelled to be the advocate for the animal and it's how it works. Now there's a lot in the name to put on second. There's a printer going in the background. Oh, no worries. I can barely hear it. Okay.
It should be good. Now, there's a lot in the name. It's several pages. So. That's right. There's a lot in the name. And, you know, having advocates at the end of that name is really important, obviously to you. And it means a lot in the conservation space. It means that you're not just a tour operator, you're out looking out for the Manneri's. You're an advocate for the Manneri's and in conservation, you are going to speak up for those Manneri's on land where there needs to be protections.
As the industry grew, why did you decide like we need more advocates out there while we're doing these while we're writing these tours and how did that change your like you and your husband's approach when you did the tour operating? Yeah. So this activity works the best if we work together with different companies. You know, if you would do a daytime snorkeling, you can find a space along the shoreline and do your snorkel
there. You want both not much impact to have maybe 10, 20 people in the world. Okay. When on mental experience, you need the light to attract the plankton so the Manneri's come together. And so only to set that up 100 feet away is really detrimental to the whole setup. So we always record the campfire method where we all meet at the campfire.
And the divers sit around a light box, you know, the box and as people sitting around it, that's it on the bottom of the ocean 30 feet, and they have a light that's trying to towards the surface. And then we said also the snorkelers, you guys come to the campfire as well. And then you'll be on top. So the idea of everybody wins, you know, a big proponent. Everybody wins. Conservation is about humans win, but more important, the environment and the animals win. Right.
That's it's just what my heart always has been. And that's what I was I'm trying to always push forward. And when this interesting time, I mean, for maybe 20 years now, it's like the people are like not understanding that our species is not as important, you know, it's like we have to really step back where we're going is
not working. Right. Anyway, and so when more companies with snorkelers started to join the tour business, and they, like I said earlier, they maybe just said, Oh, I have a daytime product. To sell, you know, or maybe a sunset to a business, you know, no, I'm going to add mannerize to it, you know, and then suddenly, instead of having eight boats at the site, that would equal maybe 100 people that you organize at night on the ocean.
We had 15 boats, 20 boats. Yeah, the other night, I read a report, and I actually took a picture of one situation back in 2013. So it's 12 years ago, there were 30 boats at the site. It was a winter night, where this when when the swell create big waves that crash into the shoreline. Everything happening was, I don't know, 4500 people in the water.
Yeah, it was just visually it's like it's just too many people and too many boats, too many risks, too many hazards, you know, and actually then not not just I mean, there were a lot of complaints between the groups and you know, of course, imagine.
We also think about safety for divers to write 400, 500 people, it's hard to keep like even for a dive master or a dive instructor to keep an eye on that many people when there's so many other people like people probably running into each other and so forth, right? Yeah, and you can do everything right. And we had since the 90s participant guidelines, you know, don't touch the mannerizes a really big one. Of course, interfere with the animals just that you eat. Don't touch it, right?
And some other ones and most people just put followed that as well. But then it was really important that the operators get together and create standards as well. And that was prompted because the federal government that's the Coast Guard. And in our statewide is called Department of Land and Natural Resources. They called meeting in 2012. And I said, you guys, all the stakeholders here in this meeting, you have to figure out how to do this right. So we don't get too many reports.
And then it was mandated, you know, it's not come up with operator standards. But unfortunately, they're all still voluntarily, you know, and we and then people came together. It was the beginning of 2013, from January to April, like a three, four months. And we created a document and six pages and it tells you how to do a good manner. I dive as an operator, including the participants and stuff like this. Yeah,
sounds all really good, right? But then when people leave the room, operators, owners of both companies leave the room, they said, it's a general agreement. I'm not a gentleman. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's when really, it got tricky at the sites, highly risk, you know, that's why the downslide happened where it was not about working together when when it comes to the place where losing the environment was losing, mannerize were losing tourists was losing an operator, I believe loses too.
But I always think of the tourists then to it's almost a victimized situation because you sign up, you know, the first 10 minutes I talked is like the best thing ever. But at the same time, you are in a position that you really need to know who you go with. Yeah. And that has safety standards. And again, as you go to the two sides that are original sites, you can do everything right and still something goes wrong. So
this is tricky. And everything is heightened because it's at night, you know, it's not a good thing. Yeah. So in the past, were there operator licenses given out for specific for mannerize? Or was it just because there were not enough that they didn't have to worry about? Like there was never enough to be concerned about it?
Exactly. I just slowly started. And then there was a phase where the Department of Land and Natural Resources, short from the LNR, they had a moratorium on permits for this particular harbor that most people most boats and the farm, it's called Honoka'au. And the other one is called Ke'auho, which is even smaller than Honoka'au. There was a moratorium on permits, but
that was challenged in court. And so there had to be more permits go out, you know, and then but you know, Honoka'au harbor is also an interesting harbor because the one side of the harbor is the recreational, ocean recreation businesses, snorkeling, diving, sunset, something like this. Yeah, the other side is the fishing industry. This in itself, when your conservation is already crashes, because this is keeping that fish alive. It's
killer fish, right? But fishing companies said, I don't make enough of a living on the fishing tours. It's the manner it is too, you know, and then you have this in a mingle of very different business approaches. Yeah, all in the mental industry. And yeah, well, some lot of drama behind the scenes and that all bubbled up over the years, you know. Yeah, I bet you there's a lot. There's probably a good amount of conflict between operators now, too, because
there's so many. It's not as calm or is not as it's probably pretty chaotic when all those boats get together, you know, 20, 30 boats getting together that that becomes a little a little worrisome. Are there any is there any scientists that are involved in like tracking these like, are there any like scientific studies that are being done to track the increase of the amount of operators and tour guides as well as the health of of the stingray or the sorry, manorrhasing?
Yes. So when the state and the federal government said do something about it. Someone at the Dylan are actually was our liaison was a lawyer and she was trying to also see what we can do with the operator that volunteer operator standards and then put it into a whole package. Because if you really want to tighten this together, tight this together that you really have to do it this way, not just voluntarily. That started in I
believe 2014. And in those following two years, I was involved to a role package was created. One of the things we said we have to do the campfire method. It doesn't matter how you call it. Let's call it a central viewing area, right? Yeah, it can fire. Most people can maybe envision this a little bit, but that sits in the desks of someone or is being moved to the next person because that first lawyer then also she had a child and moved on. Then the next lawyer came in
had to be come up to speed. Time goes by. Eventually, you were at the pandemic. Nothing happened there. And then in 2022, a crew member was killed. Oh, wow. Where it was due to the captain being intoxicated, you know, and it's a whole different story. But I feel so bad for everybody involved. You know, of course, now that I'm so critical and speaking about it here on this podcast, I just want people to understand the behind the scenes of the stuff too, right? This is not all good
here, right? No, and in this case, it got really, really bad, you know, and that's when the LNR kind of said, Okay, we have to move forward. That rule package that lays around for a long time, the drafts. And there was a little movement that was actually a public hearing. I think it's now two years old that the last public hearing took place. Yeah, nothing happened. I think there's maybe something behind in the legislator, they need to have some law.
And I think that the laws changed. So the day on earth's hands are really tight to do certain right it right it up. But that doesn't help anybody. I mean, the win win is lost. More and more loose is in the situation. And I believe still people today can have a really good mental experience. But it's diminished. And I wish I wish to move forward with this whole process of regulating the industry.
I mean, obviously, it sounds like regulation needs to be done on all fronts, not just on on the man array fronts, but also on the safety, not only for the crew, but also for the tourists. You know, you don't you don't want to ever see anybody getting hurt, God forbid, you know, passing away, just like we saw, just like you just let us know. And that's not how this this is supposed to go. And obviously, accidents happen and they're, you know, from whoever's mistake, but you want to make sure that
that doesn't happen. And there's regulations to do that to protect people from that, especially tourists, as you as you say, like, you know, people are going to Hawaii, they want to get in touch with nature. And so it's a perfect place to do it. You know, they hear about these man array dives, you know, when people go diving or snorkeling, that's what they're there to
do. That's what they want to do. And they don't want to be taken for not necessarily money without seeing it, but also just having, you know, a couple hundred people there. And so you're not getting that same experience as you know, you were told and stuff. And so you want to make sure that you're, you know, there should be limits on the number of people that are out of time and all this. So, so how would you recommend this regulation be pushed forward from a policy standpoint?
Someone contacted me that was a student from the University of Hawaii, a law student, and she said, Earth Justice was looking at maybe doing something. I'm not sure how far it went to Earth Justice, but I guess a professor was involved. They were trying to do something that as a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii
based on safety of the public. Right. And of course, I had lots of information because if you if you talk to me about man race and everything that's involved in it, it's like pushing a button. I have so much information and I really like to disseminate that information to write people. So things could happen, you know. So in this particular lawsuit, she set up a framework, what could be done. And then I didn't hear from her again. So that could be one venue that the state
of Hawaii is being put on notice. And, you know, interesting enough that nobody remembers that. Most people just don't remember that. The House of Representatives for the state of Hawaii in 2013 had a resolution where it already said this is a dangerous place. You can look it up on our nonprofit website. I tried to put the nonprofit website into a place where it's like telling a history of what happened already. You know, earlier, were there any studies being
done? There has been risk assessments. The risk assessment said it's not just a matter of if something happens, it's when something happens when. Yeah. Yeah. More studies have been done in 2020. A really nice lady, Kirsten Moy. She did an incredible extensive interviews of stakeholders and put together a study. It's all done. You know, it's just a matter of making that push forward. But maybe people do other things right now because the world is so crazy in the first place.
Right. But I feel like for the men race and for us as humans to come back to nature, it's one of the most important things, you know, for 10 years, we have now all our phones and more generations are coming up with more phone usage. And, you know, it's this I think in English you say that, you know, once in a while touch grass, right? Just go outside
and touch the grass, you know. And of course, when you do the men or experience, it's something really special because at night, big food, night, big fish, harmless and I said earlier, you know, from within 40 30 to 45 minutes. Actually, you mentioned it also to you have preconceived ideas can only be bad what's out there. And then you come out of the world. You can like, that's the best thing I've ever done in
my life. So yeah, I get these people closer back to nature and make better decisions for your future and future of your kids and everything where we can keep the environment intact and keep the memories. Going for another, I don't know how many
millions of years, right? Yeah, they're vulnerable because men race have a very slow reproductive rate, you know, it takes 30 12 to 13 months to have one pop, you know, it's 10 to 15 years to be section mature, one pop at a time, you know, and males have to go around every two or four years and maybe have a have a pop, you know, there's, you, it's a species where we have to be very careful about.
So, yeah, and I mean, like we, you know, we've been focusing a lot on the tour operations itself and people not having a good time or being too chaotic, but we do, you know, the main thing, the reason why everybody's there is for these manner race and, and, and for the point that there, even though the foods there, eventually, the manorize may not want to come back because it's too chaotic, maybe they're not, you know, even though they're used to people, they may go decide going somewhere
else, they may get hurt. And, you know, propeller, you know, accidents happen, not to say that anybody's doing it on purpose, but when you have that many people in one area, things can happen to the manorize as well. And if you, you know, if you damage them more, and they, you know, they don't survive, then that could be a big problem in the future, not only for the business, but just for the manorize themselves and their conservation.
Now you, you have this, you know, you have Manor a advocates as a for profit business, and then you started a nonprofit business called Hawaii Ocean Watch. Now, was it because of what you were seeing the growth, the slow growth, or even just where, where the industry is at today in terms of tour operators and manner race? Or was it other things that were involved as well? Yeah, so I'm gonna put a little bit of my business cap now, because at the same time as a top or your business person,
right? Of course. Yeah. And especially if in such a unique niche for a tour operator, you know, it's like, I only have one product, it's looking at mannerize, you know. Yeah. So, so the Hawaii Ocean Watch was formed in 2015. Remember, I said 2012, the state and effect said, Hey, come up with some, some voluntary standards, you know, abide
by them. And we as a group as a camera program, at that point, I had my husband, myself and someone else filming almost every night on these two locations that we had. And we saw what the operators were doing, we could say, Hey, we've jokingly started out, we said, we should make a blacklist of the people that are not doing what the operators said, but of course, from a branding point, it's much better, much better if you say, let's create a green list of the folks that do the right thing.
Yes. Right. Yeah. And so while we were branded to Manner Advocates, it was the effort of like, we're gonna brand this green list of activity providers under the Manner Advocates, you know, all within the same year. But it was straining us as business a lot, you know, we were doing so many things for the nonprofit work, where the for profit company just, I was just, I mean, really financially diet, of course, you know, health issues, all kinds of things happening.
And for us, as a solution was like, we have to bring this green list to a nonprofit concept, you know, and what does it mean? Well, you sign up for 501c3. That's, of course, lots of paperwork, but you mentioned all kinds of things to do. But we felt like the green list of activity providers had a much better place on the nonprofit level. So we could separate those two businesses. And the green list lived there for a long time, and it's still
there. But for the longest time, I was comfortable saying these companies trying the best and abide by those, adhere to those voluntary standards. But it's about two years now that I took it down while you still find the page. Yeah, I came up with five questions. I'm saying, asked five questions when you sign up because we're good heart, good conscious, I cannot say anymore who's doing the right things. Not that they don't want to do it. But with 60 operators, it's a jungle for the customer
to find the right company. Right. And I got some feedback, I think, you know, also from the web links that you have to the green list, I didn't want to lose them was a good solution, I believe, still trying to help the customer coming
to the islands. And we have guests quite often that say I came on to the big island only for the manner is, you know, it hurts me hurts my heart if I hear that, and they would not be able to get the best out of this, you know, of course, because I think that's a good solution. You know, of course, because I know how good of an experience it can be for people and how people see the world actually differently afterwards, you know, in their life, maybe. So yeah, I just maybe tell you a quick
story. I will have a lady. She came to me years ago, and she was super nervous when she was going into the water. And maybe you can see that but I have this necklace with a manor on it. Yeah. And it took place. She succeeded was a great night. And then later I get an email and she said, you know what, this mental experience was so impactful on me, I bought myself also a manor necklace.
And because she felt so much courage afterwards, what you can accomplish, although she had so much anxiety before or intimidation before accomplishment after she said whenever she has today a bad experience, or she's nervous about some, she doesn't know what's going on. She touches a manor a and knows you can do it. And I mean, I'm always like choking up here, but this is the work that can be done through nature experiences where people carry themselves differently afterwards.
And I have lots of stories like that, you know, but of course, these stories stick with me. And I wish that for so many people, I wish I could tell everybody a show man everybody the manners, but obviously, it's not working, you know, to write only three locations on the coastline and there's a limit of how many people you can have in a space at night in the ocean. And yeah, so that's really interesting.
Now, I just want to go over some of the questions that people can ask because some of the people here that are in our audience, you know, they want to, they probably want to participate in something like this, but they want to make sure they're getting the right to operator. So maybe we can go through each of the questions. So the first one was, which man of viewing site do you go to? So which is the better one? And which is the ones that are less safe, I guess, or more unsafe?
So it's three locations on the coastline. The southern one is in the me say south, it's really when you look at the map, it's south, it's called a mental village. It's in care home. It's spelling is Hawaiian spelling. Yeah, yeah. The other one is by the airport, which is the corner airport, and it's called mental heaven. It's a nickname, you know, so yeah. And then the third location is further north, it's called mentor point.
But the access to that from from the shoreline is private, you would take the only three boat companies that can work up there because they are limited by by permits up there to you know, so. So that would be the coastline. When you think of safety, I think dive companies still have the safest record versus companies that solely do snorkeling. And I say that as that companies have to have dive masters, they are professionals, and they have better training versus a
company that only does snorkeling. And I don't want to say anything about it. Say anything about anybody right now. I'm just, in general, it's a transient workforce. People come here to live their dream, come here for six months and maybe then they leave because they cannot make it an expensive place to live. Yeah. So it's hard to build expertise in that experience, right? Over time, as you have like your outfit, probably like 20 some odd years, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I drill down on my crew and what's really important, you know, so I train them well. Now, on the so when people asked, so what should I choose? If you Google, mentor experience and then dive store, you know, I think you would find companies that just have more trained crew versus someone who doesn't. For sure. For sure. Of course, as always, someone who could say, yeah, this company or this company, but you know, I think
that's a general rule. Yeah, most people just don't know much about an ocean recreation industry. Of course. Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. All right. The second question is, does the boat stay at the site or if and if so, how? So why is that important to know how they stay at the site? Yeah, so boats just to create this lit up area, you know, the boats are supposed to stay where they park and so the people get into the water and out of the water and your guide would always know where
the boat is. That's the ideal situation. And on this coastline, we have mooring system. A mooring ball is we, well, I say we, but the coastline is set up with subsurface mooring balls. It's actually a big buoy, right? As a chain that goes down to the bottom of the ocean and on the top of the buoy is a little hole like an eye. And so when a boat captain drives the boat up to that mooring, you would as a crew, you jump in and you tie up the
boat through that eye. Yeah, that's just the best situation because the mooring ball holds the boat in place. Engines are off. You don't have to worry about much other than as a captain, you have to watch for the winds, how you swim. Of course. Yeah. And the, it's a good thing. And the activity by in Ke'ahu, unfortunately, I have only four moorings. That's one of the things that we tell the state we need more parking spots, you
know, parking safe parking. And I believe the airport location has maybe seven to nine. Okay. Well, what are we, when you think of the boat night when 20 boats go out, what do they do, right? Some people do daisy chaining. So one boat pies up to the mooring and the other one daisy chains. So I guess I have to save two. But then another boat that drop anchor, you sure hope that that drop on sand versus on coral. But that's another story
I could go down to. And worst case scenario is a boat that life boats, a vessel that never turns the engine off and drops the people off. And then you do the tour with your guide and the boats is somewhere in the dark and watches for your guide and comes back and picks you up. And you really hope that the captain knows what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. Because that night, right? That's also a dangerous situation when it's at night.
If you look at the risk assessment on Hawaii ocean watch, you could see all the studies I have extra page there for the studies. The risk assessment said one of the biggest concerns is the live boating, you know, because it takes place at night and you cannot see the vessel. See, you're not supposed to have lights on on the vessel to in the sense of like, I mean, you have some lights on the top there, red, red light, red, white lights, but that's
just where they are stationed. But you're not supposed to have deck lights on because when you have deck lights on, you actually attract plankton around your boat, but you're supposed to get the viewing area. You know, so it's a dark vessel somewhere around and you are maybe 100 yards away. And unfortunately, having so many customers joining this tool now, a lot of people that are not skilled enough, they're not skilled enough.
For the ocean in the first place. Yeah. I get customer calls regularly and it's like, Hey, I don't know how to swim. Can I join? Oh, dear. Oh, no. No. Let's want to stay on the surprise. So on a minimum age, you know, people sign me. My five and seven year old, they're really good in the ocean. I'm like, yeah, probably during the day. I could believe that, you know, or I had one. They're selling a really good sailors.
Yeah, but I'm in the ocean at night. And this big fish, I think of maturity, how to comprehend everything, because I'm not in a business to traumatize young minds. And I say that because I had older customers over the years that say, Hey, I had bad experience with water when I was young. And I never went back to the ocean because they saw something maybe the pool or I don't know what they experienced. But I just say for me, my personal
business has 12 year old. I try to use 10 year old children use, but let them participate. But we had meltdowns, crying kids. Nobody wins here. Right. So I said to 12 years and stuff like this is just to consider when you do the tour. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's something you definitely definitely have to consider. Now, the fourth question is, oh, actually, no, third question is what is the ratio of crew to guess on the tour? Well, if you're lucky, it's one to six
dive mass. So let's diving. It's usually one to six. Yeah. Okay. It's not going on. Most companies, I believe have one to 10. And my company's one to six. You know, so I feel like the lower it is, the better for the customer for personalized attention. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. One of the things like and that's
the max you want, right? I do want to six, sometimes one to seven, but I always have a swim guide that has been professionally, I mean, definitely they have lifeguard training and most of them have dive master on certified. Yeah, but I'm pretty rigorous on the training. I don't know about other folks. I would think that it's a business. You should do that too. But yeah, I want to mention one more thing while we're on this with what I don't
allow is the full face masks. Are you familiar with those full face masks? Full and then they've got the snorkel thing out here. Yeah, I heard it's not good in like open ocean in situation because it's too fast of breathing. Is that it? Yeah, if you breathe shallow co2 buildup, you know, and then you could get a headache and you may be further away from shore. And then you'd like, okay, I have a headache. How do I get back? Yeah, all kinds of things. That's just another good
idea. But as a guide, I tell you that just as a guide, I don't know what people tell me. They're just mumbling is like, oh, right. I don't know. So I tried that too for a while and that people use a full face mask. But then you come to two or three situations where it's just a borderline. And then I just created policies like, yeah, of course, you can join us. We have the gear for you. But please no full face masks. And it definitely makes
sense. Because especially in an emergency situation, you want to be able to hear that person like that. You don't want to have to like, what did you say? Like you don't have to repeat it because you might have to make a split second decision. And you know, it's it's if you can't hear the person, then that's obviously, obviously a problem. Right? Yeah. The fourth question here, I think you already answered it is how experienced is the crew obviously experience and training.
Experience and training is going to be something that's really important. Dive master is one thing, but also experience in diving in these types of situations, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the questions you could ask when you sign up for it too is like, you know, how
is the crew? Is it is a two year old crew or, you know, could I have someone who is already doing it for longer versus could I sign up on a day where, you know, every crew has schedules and stuff like this, you know, you can ask questions like this. But I've been in a situation when I used to sell my videos. So it's maybe 10 12 years ago, and there was at the harbor, you know, I was setting up my TV to show the videos to the people to make myself but the other end of the harbor was the wash down
area of the boats. And as one night, this guy comes over, and I didn't know him, he's like, Oh, I just, you know, I got off the airplane two days ago, and now I'm a crew member on this boat. Okay. I mean, it's not that I'm not a crew member. Okay. I mean, that happens. I mean, yeah. That's why I can say I know that there is a big, big difference on what you can experience. Right. And I want to visit that I want the tourists to demand good people. You know, it's like, just slide
it by. So, yeah, especially like, I mean, I think this is, and this goes for any kind of scuba diving outfit, really, if you're just scuba diving during the day or at night, you want to make sure that the people you're diving with are experienced, they have, you know, a lot of people are not only the training and the certification, but they also have familiarity with the area, especially on a night dive, having experience on for a number of years, 10 plus years, 510 plus
years. And again, the area and the animal that you're diving with and whatever else can come around, because this is an ocean, it's not as if it's just man rays that are coming around, you have to be able to calm people down in the ocean who are a little nervous at the beginning and at the bottom. There's no room for error at that point. And although it's, you know, I'm sure it's safe, you know, like ninety nine point nine, nine, nine, nine percent of
the time. But you want to have that experience to be there just in case. And so that you can get out of it and just be like, I'm so happy that we had this person here because they could they could help out. I think that's that's a really important factor. That should be for any diving, even snorkeling. I think you're right. I think I never thought about it's like, you know, sometimes you get caught up in a current, you don't realize it. And, and, you know, you need someone to help
you, you know, you never know. Right. So it's definitely important. Now, now this is just it's a really, we are in a really serious business again. Yeah, business person. I'm in a serious business. And I tried to be in the much nicest way I can actually as a German sometimes like very direct. I'm like, no, we can't do it this way. Like what the customer wants for me, you know, right? I mean, we have these really with February, you know, we have really
rough ocean right now. The waves are like four to five feet height when they come into the beach. Yeah, you cannot go through four to five feet height at night to go into the water. But then you have these customers and they get a little antsy on with you on the phone. And I'm just like, that's what I'm doing. And just like, that's a person that is disconnected. It's just about what I as a
species can get out of it. And I wish that people that we really turn the page sooner than later, that look through the lens of the environment, sustainability, what is the animal experience, safety, everything, you know, just not so what do I get out of it. And then if I don't get it, be not very nice, you know, and I'm always happy to educate people because it's a specialized field, you know, but sometimes you really think like, common sense, you know.
Well, for sure. I mean, there are like you said, like until after the dive, when they see it happen, obviously, they're a lot more connected and they understand the beauty. But sometimes the fact that they're out doing it, they just think that they can do it whenever. And that's obviously, there's a season for it. There's a reason there's a season for it. The ocean can be can be dangerous. It can be wavy. It can be, you
know, you have to respect it. And so if it's, you know, if you're not offering at a time because of the seas, don't question it. Just be like, you'll come back another time and come back during that season. Because I think that's, that's really important. This last question here is, what are your cutoff criteria for canceling? We kind of just talked about it in terms of like wave advisories and things like that. Why is that important? Obviously, common sense. But why is that important
for other criteria? And what is that criteria for like cutting? I assume cutting off means we're not going out. Is that what it is? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I call people I say I'm not going. And so if I look at the forecast, so they're really good tools today to see what's happening. So my particular location up on the northern part of the island is there's a webcam and there is a website. I mean, there are many websites with surf forecasts.
I use surfline.com and in particular on this particular bay and the buoys somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, they detect as swells, you know, how the swells are created because of somewhere tropical storm, they create swells. When these swells crash against the shoreline, they then we have the waves, right? And interesting enough, I have to look at the many years I've been here in the winters, we used to have a swell and then a little break in the winter and then another swell, really big ones,
smaller ones. But this year, I haven't worked since January 3. You know, and the forecast tells me right now, I have a 16 day forecast that I probably can resume business on March 5. Because one swell after another, one tropical storm after another was generated somewhere in the Pacific. Hawaii has a lot of water around us. I trust on that one. When you fly here, you fly six hours over water, right? So when so many storms were just generating the swells and then the waves crashing into
the shoreline. And so I have a forecast of that. And if I see this week, for example, I will not work all week. I call the customs two or three days ahead of time and say, it's not that long. I say it's not going to happen. Use your vacation time differently. Right. So that's one of the things. But even when we get to the point, the swells are not as big as in waters, the waves have calmed down. I still need about 48 hours
before I resume for two reasons. First of all, this this bay is sandy, you know, so the sand is all stirred up, you know, you have all that there's no visibility. You want to go into the Pacific. It makes a difference. It's like you want to see something right. And you would not see anything. So I need time and we need the ocean to settle the sediment, you know, and I also need mannerize when I do my tools. People come to see mannerize and they leave the area for a while. And hopefully
they come back. I never know that it's an experience, but we're very fortunate over the years. I can say the manner is somehow always come back. Maybe a new animal comes in, new manner. It comes in and we're naming it and, you know, there's a personality individuality to it. And then some manner is leave the area or maybe go to the other location along the coast. There's a lot of tracking happening because we have the names for the manner.
It's kind of cool. So that is for my location that I see surf height and have a forecast that I would cancel. But then people ask me when I have these guests on the phone and they say, hey, should I go on the boats? I'm like, well, it's going to be a rocky rocky rocky rocky journey because of my location is blown out. You know, the rest of the West Coast is pretty much blown out to the swells that are that happened in the wintertime hit the West Shore. We are on the West side of the island.
They happen to come from the West and from the North and then the rest of the year, they hit the East and the South. You know, some then we're protected in our bay. You know, it's a rocky road. You know, it's like the surface is like this and you have to be ready if you are prone to seasickness or just don't go on the ocean often and on the boat. Then this whole tour could be just not a good memory. You spend a lot of money to be there.
Exactly. Exactly. You spend a lot of money and you want to make sure you have a good time. You want to be able to get the entire experience and that would be that would be great. As we kind of come near to the end of this interview, you know, you have a lot of experience. You know, you have a lot of hopes for this industry. You have a lot of hopes for the manorays. What do you hope that happens and how do you want to play a role in in this sort of pushing this
regulation? What what do you plan on doing through the nonprofit through, you know, through Hawaii, Hawaii Ocean Watch as well as through the manor a advocates? What do you hope to happen? Yeah, I need a little bit more a team around me that are not just in the industry. That lady last year from the University of Hawaii law student gave me like a whole different angle to this
whole thing, right? And I wish the thing is, it's a my business also one woman show for the most, but I have a team, you know, everybody has, but I have so many hats on. I have. Right. Yeah, as a business owner for a small company, you have so many things at the same time. So the time of the day is only so much. So I wish that we can move
forward. I plan with my podcast that I have coming up this year, also to invite folks like our local representatives and I'm like, Hey, guys, 2014, you already had this resolution with the representative half your local leadership representative, you know, it's like, Hey, 11 years ago, you did something. I already wires that no follow up stuff.
So I want to invite people. And also, it's always goes back to good policy that I'm looking for, for a really beautiful experience with manner is we need good policy, but you need good government. So you need to also get engaged with the legislator that create these rules and set it up for us, right? So yes, the citizens can live with that abide by it. And I okay with that, because of course, it's always a process. But again, good policy comes from the
government. That means citizens have to be involved in that just that that it's like things somewhere else is going to do it. So my goal is with the podcast, it's just this up a little more actually just met my Congresswoman on Saturday for the first time she was on the big island for her town hall was a really cool experience. Yeah, I was very engaged. I think the citizens of the United States are waking up to a lot of other things besides ocean, ocean stuff, right? But
environmental stuff. And I wish that we all maybe carry forward for the next let's say the next 10 years, if we all take a little bit more of our time versus just what do I get out of it? How can we as citizens create a country that has good policy through good government, you know, and maybe it gives a lot of people, I mean, for me, it gives me a lot of a lot of intention behind my work. But it's
very content work. I really think I'm on the right side of history here for making the world a better place. Yeah. And I wish more folks feel that way and dedicate time to that, to that goal to that mission. Let's make the world I think for the first time in my all my life, I'm I think I'm 57. I'm not sure. I always forget something in the 50s. But in my first my life, I feel like because so many citizens citizens are now waking
up and want to do good government. Maybe we can really shape something for the first time I feel like I can shape something and yeah, I think that's a good thing. Yeah, it should feel hopefully fuel me and maybe people step into my path that helped me to get regulations for the manner is and what what else needs to be done. I love it. I love it. That was a great way to end off the show. Or to
thank you so much for joining us. If I could invite some people some if you want to come back to my website, I actually have manner and meditations. I don't know if you saw that I did not see that I must have missed that back in the pandemic. I had a meditation teacher with me together. Creating all my archives of video footage of the manner is manner and meditations for and it's for free. It's on the
website and you can sign up for it. So you can actually dive down into the manner is world and just on your device back home and just get a feel of how beautiful the elements are. And it's manner and meditations.com if you want to it has a link to it. And I wish that the message for me is we can do better. Let's do better. Let's dedicate ourselves to do better. And this is the time to really think of our species we can do and must be better. Absolutely. No, I love it. I have it
right here. Perfect. I'm going to link to that as well. This is great. I love the effort. If there's a if there's anything we can do to help out, please let us know. But obviously we're going to we're going to be releasing this podcast and so that I'll get people help. And if you need help with the podcast, let me know. But this has been a great experience having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for the work that you've done in the work that you're going to do.
We really appreciate and can't wait to have you back on. Yes, thank you. Aloha. Thank you, Martina, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was so great to be able to talk to somebody who's been in the industry, but is looking out for the animals that drive the industry. Obviously, there's been an explosion of popularity with Manaree diving. This is something that people really want to take
part in. But there's also an ethics code that you have to abide by when you say, who do I go with? You know, I got to make sure that I'm safe. I got to do it. I got to make sure that there's not too many people out there and that regulations need to be put into place because obviously people aren't really adhering to the voluntary regulations that have been put into place. And so
that is an important aspect. You know, a lot of times when unfortunately when businesses are provided a time to volunteer, not all businesses will volunteer their time to regulate themselves in terms of how they operate their business. Unfortunately, that's
just the way life goes. But it's nice to have people like Martina and her business and other business operators that are similar to her that push for these regulations to ensure that people follow and abide by these rules so that we can protect Manaree's and we can protect the people and the Bova operators that are actually doing this work. This is not easy work. The ocean can be very tough, especially at night and people need to be safe and the Manaree's needs
to be safe. That's priority number one. Both of those are priority number one. So yeah, it was great to talk to Martina. Thank you so much for joining us. Martina, we really appreciate you sharing your information. I'll put the link in the description. We have a link to the website that she mentioned all in the show notes and you can get a hold of me and talk to me if you want. All you have to do is just hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the
ocean. And if you have any comments or questions, you can put them in the comment section just down below if you're watching this on YouTube or on Spotify or if you can contact me through Instagram if you're listening to the audio episode. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew from the true North strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.