Expat tales
Around the world with Scuba Steve
Telling his life story to a captive audience on the first night of his first expedition cruise, Steve Traynor had a ‘‘how the hell did I get here?’’ moment.
A former navy man, ship painter, and dive shop owner, Traynor had landed a job as a scuba-diving instructor aboard the month-long Silversea voyage from Honiara to Auckland, and was feeling like a fish out of water aboard the luxury vessel.
‘‘It took me a while to get used to working alongside so many wonderfully talented and intellectual people,’’ the 46-yearold says. ‘‘My first dinner, I was sitting around a table with an orthopaedic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, a guy who made a fortune selling weapons to the Israeli military, and several others who were just as impressive and all millionaires, but they all wanted to hear about me and what I did. For a quiet Kiwi kid who left school at 15, it took a bit of getting used to.’’
Traynor has always had an itinerant lifestyle, moving around a lot as a child before joining the New Zealand Navy, where he moved around a lot more.
When the ship he worked on as a weapons and electrical mechanic went in for a refit and he was facing two years based at the dockyard in Auckland’s Devonport, he decided the time had come to move on again. So he quit and went travelling around Europe.
Back in New Zealand, he did an apprenticeship in painting and decorating, focusing on marine coatings, and painted the hulls of everything from Interislander ferries to super yachts. But when the toxic fumes he breathed in every day gave him asthma, he decided he needed to find (another) new career.
Training to become a diving instructor, he was offered the role of facility manager for a new Dive HQ store in Queenstown. While he admits he didn’t even know where Queenstown was at that point, he accepted, managing the store for two years before setting up his own dive store in Wanaka, where he trained people to dive in alpine lakes.
‘‘It soon became the biggest dive store in the region and I became known as Scuba Steve.’’
Earning ever more diving qualifications, he began leading trips to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu ‘‘to satisfy my need for warm waters’’.
When the stringent Adventure Activities Regulations came into effect in 2014, he was forced to reassess his career path again.
‘‘At the 11th hour, I decided it was time for a change and left for Townsville, North Queensland. By then I had obtained a commercial skipper’s licence and was the captain of a vessel that took divers to a remote island every weekend for camping and diving.’’
Three months in, however, he decided he couldn’t live so far away from his wife and two young daughters, who had remained in Wanaka and ‘‘were desperate for me to return’’.
The day he decided to leave, he received an email from a former student asking if he’d like to join the Silverseas cruise as a divemaster.
‘‘I thought it was a great way to get paid to travel home, so I had a Skype interview that night and got the job,’’ he said.
On board, he was offered two years’ worth of contracts, which would take him around the Pacific, to Africa and the Indian Ocean.
‘‘It was a hell of an opportunity… I was leading expedition dives in places no one had ever dived before.’’
In the intervening years, Traynor has worked as a dive, snorkel and Zodiac master, photographer, videographer, lecturer, and naturalist aboard a variety of expedition ships with a variety of cruise lines.
His favourite destination is Indonesia.
‘‘It’s just so vast and varied. I got to visit an orangutan welfare centre in Borneo and hike into the forest to see them in the wild in Sumatra. I have walked through the Agats with people who were cannibals 60 years ago, and I’ve been to a funeral in Tana Toraja where they keep their dead relatives in the bedroom with them for years until they can afford the elaborate ceremony, which costs as much as 20 buffalos, valued at US$20,000 ($29,500) each.
When Stuff caught up with Traynor, he was in Ushuaia, Argentina, on a 45-day voyage to the Antarctic Peninsula.
A natural adventurer, Traynor appreciates getting paid to travel the world, but it has come at immense cost to his personal relationships.
He and his wife divorced because they were apart so much and he hasn’t been with his youngest daughter on her birthday for eight years. He and his wife remain friends, however, and he adores the children, returning to Wanaka as often as he can to see them.
‘‘I can’t have a relationship as most people envisage them to be. Who wants to have a long-term relationship with someone who is away nine months of the year? Friendships are just as hard to maintain.’’
This year, he took three months off to be there for the birth of his son, Matthew, now seven months, in Kuala Lumpur.
‘‘Despite that break, I still managed to work in Antarctica, Argentina, Uruguay, Iceland, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, and Australia.’’
Next year, he’ll visit the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands, Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Ireland, Scotland, Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada.
But not before he takes a classic Kiwi roadie over Christmas with his girls, from Wanaka to the Bay and Plenty and back, stopping to visit family and friends along the way.
‘‘I seldom get to work in New Zealand these days. It will be nice not to be so far away from home for a change.’’
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