CAT PHONES AMBASSADOR PROFILE: UNDERWATER EXPLORER ANDY TORBET

Job title:  Underwater explorer

Age: 40 (Shares birthday with Jacques Cousteau)

Nationality: Scottish

Working Locations: From the Arctic to the Antarctic and everywhere in between.

Mobile phone hazards: Water, cold, heat and humidity, long periods without power.

Phone for the job: Cat^® S60

I SPENT 10 YEARS IN THE ARMY

I did bomb disposal, I was a diver, paratrooper, I ran the army’s underwater bomb disposal team. I started getting sponsorship to do my own expeditions and do safety work for TV companies. Those combined to do front of camera work. I also work with universities and my own exploration projects. It’s important to do stuff that’s not just about me having fun.

A LOT OF PEOPLE MIGHT WONDER WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO GO CAVE DIVING

You go into a big black hole filled with water. But there are two things. There’s that exploration element, what lies beyond that next corner. There’s so much potential under water to explore; to go to places that genuinely no one has ever been.

But there’s genuine beauty as well. When the water’s clear it’s like being on another planet. If it’s white it looks like you’re on the moon. If it’s bright red it’s like being on Mars. It’s as close to being an astronaut as you can get.

UNDERWATER IS WHERE IT’S AT

If you want to be an explorer and actually discover stuff that’s genuinely new, then underwater is where it’s at. Tech diving opens up a huge amount of potential but even snorkelling you can find things. In the UK we have 20,000 miles of coastline, 10,000 miles rivers, and nearly 10,000 lakes. Only a fraction of that has been seen by the human eye and the majority is in one or two metres of water. Facebook is full of people calling themselves adventurers. Doing Mt Blanc doesn’t make you an adventurer. If you really want to be a genuine explorer and see something never been done before, just go underwater – even with a snorkel!

THE GEAR WE USE

To go deep you need a lot of kit and it weighs a ton. We use mixed gases. You have to understand the science and the physics of the gases to plan your dive. You need to be a bit of a geek to be honest. You’re also heavily reliant on technology, just as you are in space.

The big bit of technology I love is my rebreather which basically recycles one breath of air which is exactly the same technology that astronauts use. If you lose your ability to see you’re not coming home so I have some pretty powerful torch lights for that.

I CARRY AT LEAST TWO KNIVES 

Getting tangled in a cave on your own would be problematical. I always carry a knife strapped to my crotch strap because, in the dark, on my own and when panicking, I’ll always know where my balls are.

CAVE DIVING IS SEEN AS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS THINGS TO DO

The cave diving environment is arguably the most hostile environment on earth and not very forgiving of mistakes. In climbing you could have a fall and twist an ankle or break a leg or die. In cave diving no one gets injured; you’re either ok or you’re dead. But if you approach cave diving with the right attitude it can be made entirely safe. A cave is very predictable environment, unlike driving your car down the motorway, there’s no external factors like cars hitting you. If you understand where the risks are, you can mitigate those risks by having a plan B, C, D, so if the worst happens, you’ve got a back up plan you can whip out which sees you home safe.

“It’s much more fun now that I’m not partially terrified.”

I AM NOT AN ADRENALINE JUNKIE 

I have a wife, a son and I’ve got another son on the way soon. I do not have a death wish. I’m one of the most paranoid and cautious people you can meet. You do everything you can to make it as safe as possible. Your priority beyond having fun and doing the exploring is to go home at the end of the day. When I started skydiving it was pretty scary and you do get an adrenaline rush. But the more skydiving I did the more relaxed I was, the more aware I was of what I was doing. It’s much more fun now that I’m not partially terrified.

MY LIFE AND WORK IS VERY MOBILE 

I work around the world on filming and exploration projects, so I live off my phone. The work I do is 99% outdoors. It’s in the sun, rain, snow, on boats, up mountains, so I need a phone that can deal with those conditions. I also drop things a lot; I’ve destroyed quite a few phones in the past, some in cool ways, dropping them off cliffs or from boats but also in the bath or down the toilet, which is less cool.

WHY THE CAT S60 IS USEFUL 

I can use it with dripping wet gloves on. That’s handy. I also do a lot of solo projects so the SOS button is quite useful. If there are any problems I can hit the SOS button or I can have it programmed so that it will automatically send a text to someone after a certain time who can then call the cavalry. That’s also genuinely quite a handy feature.

KNOWING SURFACE TEMPERATURE IS IMPORTANT

It’s always interesting to see what the water temperature is like before you go in. Surface temperature is quite important because when we’re decompressing, we spend the majority of our time in the shallow water. If you have two hours of decompression, an hour of that might be at 6m so it’s crucially important to know the temperature.

HOT AND COLD DIVES

I’ve dived all around the world, from 28ºC in the South China Sea to diving off icebergs in the Arctic where the water at surface was 0º and at 30m was -2ºC. But it tends to be the longer dives that are worse. A few years ago in Finland I had two hours of decompression at 0ºC. I was a broken man at the end of it.

I’VE HAD SOME CLOSE CALLS, BUT NOT AS MANY AS YOU THINK

People assume I’ll have lots of hairy stories of near death underwater. But I’ve never had any from cave diving as the whole point is to make sure you don’t get into any of those situations in the first place.

“I’m always hoping the next dive will better than the last.”

MY BEST DIVE 

I’m always hoping the next dive will better than the last. The top dive of recent years was diving the Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic which was sank off Greece in WW1. The visibility was phenomenal. You sink down through the blue – you’re in freefall and laid beneath your feet is the 900ft long perfectly preserved twin of the Titanic. It was first rediscovered by Jacques Cousteau in 1975. His birthday is 11 June which is also my birthday. I also dived the Britannic on 11 June, so it was pretty special.

IF I HAD A LIMITLESS BUDGET…

I’d go to Mars! Who wouldn’t want to go?