Special Release - E054 Matt Jevon - Diving after COVID-19

Speaking Sidemount

It's awesome to be able to bring you with the support of XDEEP, another great episode from the Speaking Sidemount Patreon vault.

In this episode, I catch up with my old friend Matt Jevon, just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. I first met Matt Jevon back in late 2015 when I was being taught and mentored by Tom Steiner at Gozo Technical Diving. Matt and I teamed up on a bunch of awesome dives and also did our fair share of après-diving at a few of the great restaurants on Gozo.

Matt is the founder/instructor at South West Technical Diving in Kinsale Ireland where teaches the full gambit of tech courses including sidemount, cave, and rebreather courses. He is also a sports psychologist, rugby and conditioning coach and consults to businesses on strategy at senior management and board levels.

As you'll soon hear, Matt was seriously infected with COVID-19 a few months back which included a period of hospitalisation. Matt shares his first-hand knowledge of the virus and also what he has learned during his recovery and his research into the longer-term impacts for divers.

We also discuss our time at Gozo Technical and what we learned being part of and observing dive training there. Matt tells us about the diving in Ireland including the Lusitania and the wrecks of Malin head.

We get into Matt's thoughts on sidemount in a variety of environments, sidemount CCR and his work with the Divesoft Liberty.

We close with a discussion using Matt's knowledge and experience as a psychologist on how to best deal with the current pandemic and its effect on our lives.