Rottnest Island is Perth’s aquatic playground and I was lucky enough to be invited out for a couple of days on a 49 foot Riveria motor cruiser in the new year. Clearly this isn’t my motor cruiser but what a great way to spend my summer holidays.

For us south of the equator – you just can’t beat the beautiful summer days of the Christmas season. The days hit 42 degrees Celsius but we hardly knew, stepping off the back of the boat into the refreshing water provided a cool respite from the heat.

Powered by twin Caterpillar 3176 marine engines, this motor cruiser is luxury with a forward double berth, a starboard double berth with private head and shower whilst the port berth houses single bunks and a shared head and shower. An onboard desalination plant generates 100 litres of freshwater per hour so you never have to pull into a jetty to replenish water supplies, the fuel tanks hold 2000 litres so when you do pull into the fueling jetty, you will know about it though.

I couldn’t believe the community set up in the bays, sure there was plenty of boats moored in the vicinity and not only was everybody courteous to other boaties, but the respect shown was amazing. All throughout the day and evening, tenders chugged ashore delivering people to the island for their daily activities, they also took people fishing and diving with a number of boats having a small transport tender and a larger utility boat to visit the bays of the island.

The local rocklobster provide a wonderful supply of easily caught local delicacies to supplement the stores brought onboard as well as the local Dhufish, Snapper and Baldchin Groper that this wonderful island provides. I still have 12 years until retirement and I think I will be counting down every day until then.

Recently browsing through the duty-free shops at Perth International Airport, I wandered over to see their Omega wrist watch collection only to find to my utter surprise that they were running a limited Christmas special on selected Seamaster Omega Planet Ocean dive watches.

I couldn’t believe it, the top of the range Planet Ocean was now priced cheaper than the next watch down in their range, the Seamaster Diver 300 as they weren’t discounted. I have to say I was tempted, my credit card was only $100 in debit and I had no major bills pending. I see myself as not a materialistic person, I own my property outright and the property is modest.

I drive a sixteen year old Toyota RAV4 2-door that recently had the roof and side panels repainted and whilst I save for and purchase reasonably good quality clothing, I avoid over-priced designer wear instead opting for quality yet I was pretty close to having a more expensive watch than the car I drive. Had they had the style I was seeking, I may have pushed the limits of my spending limit. From my experiences being previously employed in the mining industry, it is normally the people that cannot afford the luxury items that tend to purchase them – I would fall into that bracket.

I ask myself what attracts me to quality Swiss timepieces and I’m unable to properly answer that question. So place me in front of high quality timepieces – I lose all perspective. I just love both the engineering and style of Swiss watches and see a object of beauty in an Omega, Breitling, IWC, Rado, Longines, Tag Heuer, Friedrich Constance, Jaeger Le Coulter, Rolex and Girard Perregaux.

I don’t have the funds to collect such exquisite timepieces but given the opportunity I do like to admire these from a distance. I don’t see myself as a materialistic person but the evidence would indicate otherwise. I decided not to put a sizable bill on my credit card declining this offer despite the fact that I received a reasonable tax return that I could have shifted onto my credit card to pay for this watch.

As we moved from the Padang Bai cruise ship jetty to the wall on the other side of the bay, we slowly steamed past the Odyssey submarine on the surface loading guests on-board. I thought to myself, keep an eye out underwater as I might get a chance to view it underwater – that would be cool.

I wasn’t disappointed, having the submarine cruise past was pretty cool, you could see the flash of the cameras from the portholes. Although it was a little difficult to actually see the faces of the people inside, it was pretty cool to see this submarine glide past – this really made for a nice dive.

Padang Bai on Bali’s west coast is the stepping point for the ferry to the three Gili islands of Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air west of the island of Lombok. For me, Padang Bai is a bit of a run down village with most people here for the ferry, still, it is worth a look for a day or two for some different dives in Bali.

Departing from Manila International Airport is a whole lot easier now. What was once an experience that potentially deterred you ever wanting to return to the country has transformed into a fairly slick operation these days – it was not before time. The construction of the new terminal allows a fluid movement of passengers with minimal disruption, the long lines where you thought you might miss your flight have been replaced by free-flowing check-in desks. 

Moving through immigration is painless, your departure tax is now pre-paid so that bottleneck has been removed and passenger scanning in certainly more efficient than Unites States airports. Being a reasonably frequent traveler to not only the Philippines and South-East Asia, but also travelling through European and American airports, you develop a feel for a well organised and managed operation. Manila International Airport has vastly improved from what it used to be.

I was midway through a dive at Eva’s Point at Sipalay in the Philippines just hovering on the sloping wall and just about to head over to the vertical drop-off, I was pretty relaxed. The dive guide’s frantic rapping of his stainless steel spike against his tank drew me from my hypnotic state to look up and over in his direction when it dawned on me why he was trying to get my attention.

 

Three triggerfish had made their move towards me with the closest about a metre from my head. Had I been aware, I would have seen them all charge me at once and I would have had time to get in the defensive position using my fins as a decoy. As they tend to attack your fins especially when mounting a rear attack, the first you know of their presence is them biting your fins.

A frontal assault is a different battle when your head is exposed, the powerful jaws of the triggerfish allows them to bite chunks of coral off with ease – this is not what I want biting into my head. My first experience with a triggerfish was in Papua New Guinea about 20 years ago when one attacked the head of a Japanese diver, he lost huge chunks from his head – it was not a pretty sight.

I have been involved in a dual triggerfish duel about 3 or 4 years back, having to fend off two at once whilst maintaining my decompression ceiling. This was an experience I was not keen to repeat; now three of them in a group was looking a real task. My first movement was to throw a right hook, this missed wildly but bought me a little time. As I was within reasonable distance from the group, I was able to make my way over to the others and with weight of numbers the triggerfish weren’t going to take this any further.

The little triggerfish didn’t concern me too much, it was the medium sized triggerfish that was the first one to lunge at me and get things rolling. I have successfully fought off triggerfish of that size before, it takes a battle but you can get out of their territory reasonably unscathed. It was the large triggerfish that scared me the most, this thing was massive and powerfully built. This was going to take some work to defeat, I wouldn’t want to endure an attack from this big fella as a one-on-one let alone working together with the other two.

Much to my delight they didn’t pursue me into the group, all of a sudden they were outnumbered and just hung back and watched for a while before leaving the group alone. Later on the boat, the old German lady was laughing and saying I normally look so calm underwater, this wasn’t the case, yet I wasn’t worried – I know the damage these bastards can inflict.

Applying for an MBA normally sees a number of high flying candidates coming from senior management roles, mid-level managers, finance and consulting. But does this really represent the full spectrum of MBA applicants? I don’t think so. Certainly the senior managers, finance specialists and consultants would be prime candidates for executive MBA programs but what about the majority of applicants?

I saw a promotional slide where the MBA graduate reflected on his trade background and I thought that tradespeople are really under-represented in MBA programs. For my way of thinking, tradespeople are excellent candidates with their technical knowledge, project skills, diagnostic and troubleshooting abilities, work ethic and ability to work under pressure. Trades related candidates are very pragmatic, engineering trades work in a systematic manner to problem-solve in a results driven methodology.

Even more so, candidates from technical trades make ideal mid-level managers owing to their extensive operational experience once they have gained experience from leading-hand, foreman and superintendent roles. From an operational perspective, technical tradespeople know the business from a bottom-up viewpoint. All technical tradespeople need to do is learn the language of business and become more conceptual in their thinking. Such candidates need to learn the art of leadership to get the job done through the efforts of the team – it isn’t that much of a step up.

I never look forward to a Perth to Bali or Bali to Perth flight, this isn’t a normal airline clientele and flights never appear to be routine. Today I was hopeful, this was a day families would be attending luncheons at the resort and an empty flight awaited me. I imagined flying on Christmas day to be a fairly quiet flight based on previous experiences.

I recall a Garuda flight on Christmas day from Bali to Perth to be almost empty except for half a dozen people on board, this was a decade ago. This was a midday flight and I guess everyone was busy having Christmas lunch in their Balinese resort. After a long lunch at a resort, I was taking a later flight, this was a 18:20 flight and I was expecting similar circumstances. In the boarding lounge much to my surprise, there were more people than I expected, but still, this wasn’t looking like a full flight and I was pretty happy.

I was feeling pretty relaxed during boarding, then the chaos started. A whole bunch of people with unruly children arrived late, I was already seated, still feeling good at this stage and thought they were ready to close the door. That’s when the horrible screaming, crying and poorly disciplined children and the mayhem erupted. I quickly reached for my tablet and headphones and cranked the volume up in an attempt to drown out the noise – this was to no avail.

The whole duration of the flight had screaming children running up and down the aisles, children climbing over everything, kicking seats, pushing the flight attendant button, yelling, turning the overhead reading lights on and off, constant crying and of course the all too frequent scream. This group of parents just let these kids run riot for the whole flight, this was a flight that had descended into chaos.

I’m not a parent so maybe I’m a little intolerant to parent’s issues but I also know bad parenting too. We had certain standards of behaviour as kids growing up in the 70s, we knew what we were allowed to do and what we weren’t and we knew the consequences of not behaving. Christmas day is for the kids and today they certainly did as they wished.

I was recently discussing company values with a friend as she is employed for less than an ethical company. She lamented the owner’s lack of regard for worker rights; ultimately she was true and correct.

I responded with my analysis of the organisation that fulfilled the obligations of a capitalist business inherited by the owner paying scant regard to ethical values, the triple bottom line, sustainability and corporate social responsibility her company met none of this criteria.

The business is there solely to make the owner richer; he pays the minimum rates of pay to stop people seeking employment elsewhere – that’s about it. He has created a culture of blame that lacks innovation, accountability and motivation. No need to discuss modern management practices and the role of stakeholders in decision making – he just isn’t interested.

Whilst economist Milton Friedman claimed the sole role of the organisation is purely to make a profit in the late 1960s; I feel the era of stakeholder involvement and corporate social responsibility has advanced to such a degree since he made his remarks that businesses now ranked on their sustainability programs now compete on their green credentials.

Diving is overpriced in Bali, there is no doubt about that. I really haven’t done enough diving around Amed and that needs to change. There is plenty of good dive sites midway up the island, all to often, my trips involve diving after a few days relaxing in the south and I should spend more time staying in Amed as I really like they area and I get out of Kuta.

What I really need to organise is a long weekend away dedicated to diving during the cold and rainy Perth winter. I often threaten to take a long weekend diving up around Amed but never seem to get it organised, maybe 2017 is the year I actually get this short dive weekend organised. Tulumben is the best known area in Bali for diving owing to the Liberty wreck but just down the road is the small village of Amed, this is a pretty good and underestimated area of Bali diving. 

There was the planking craze that had everybody mimicking the trend. The ice bucket challenge was pretty popular too – everybody had to get in on this craze. To be fair, the ice bucket challenge was a great idea devised to raise awareness for motor neuron disease and raise money for this worthwhile charity. What I hope doesn’t take off is roofing – this is seriously dangerous. There was no skill involved in either the planking or ice bucket challenge but everyone had fun, this is not the case with roofing. This is not an activity to be copied – there wouldn’t be too many second chances here.

Russian Instagram sensation Angela Nikolau is probably one of the more famous exponents of roofing. Whilst this is no doubt linked to her stunning good looks, balance, poise and athleticism; this modern day adventurer doesn’t appear to have any fears. I have to admit, when I scroll through some of her photographs, I feel more than a few pangs of anxiety.

Check out her Instagram feed at https://www.instagram.com/angela_nikolau/?hl=en