Dad, Diving & Philosophy

Diving has always been an integral part of Ocean Mead's life. The daughter of multiple award-winning underwater photography superstar Andy Belcher and author Angie Belcher spent her early years hanging out at her parents' dive shop, and she and her brother Ben would spend hours looking at slide shows of magnificent underwater photos taken by her dad, who tragically passed earlier this year.

A love of the water runs deep in the family. Ocean now runs Auckland Sea Kayaks with her husband Nic, doing guided tours around the Hauraki Gulf, and curating high school youth development programmes. A keen sailor, she also takes part in competitive sailing through the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squad. 

Here, Ocean shares some of her childhood memories, as part of Dive Pacific's series of tributes to Andy.

"I learned to dive when I was 12. Dad didn’t teach me himself, but if my memory is right, PADI had just introduced Junior Open Water or lowered the minimum age to 12 - so the minute I was old enough, I was enrolled. I’d spent years watching my parents dive while I was left behind on the boat, so the idea of finally being able to join them was incredibly exciting. I was among the youngest in New Zealand at the time to complete the course.

Most of my training dives were in Lake Rotoiti and at Pilot Bay in Mount Maunganui - not the most exciting places to dive, but solid environments to learn in. Dad never pushed me into it, but he was insanely excited every time I completed a dive.

After I passed my Junior Open Water certification, we went to Vanuatu. Looking back, I think I probably learned to dive specifically for that trip - it was a paid job for the Vanuatu Tourism Board, and Dad needed models for his photos. Much easier to bundle it into a family holiday and take the kids, haha. That was always how it worked growing up. We tagged along on all of Dad’s work trips and called them holidays. A lot of those “holidays” involved sitting on the side of the road while he took photos in the middle of nowhere - but looking back, it was pretty epic.

In a way, all that early tropical diving ruined me for life. I was spoiled from the start, diving some of the best sites in the world and assuming that was just what diving was like.

It's not."

Diving the SS President Coolidge

"On that first trip to Vanuatu, diving the President Coolidge was a huge moment for me, and diving with Boris, the resident grouper, is something I’ll never forget. Dad was completely fascinated by that fish, and we have so many photos from that period of our lives.

We also dived Million Dollar Point, which really opened my eyes to both the range of diving opportunities out there and the layer of war history underwater - something I hadn’t really been interested in before.

That trip to the Coolidge was pretty funny, actually. I remember all these hardcore technical divers doing their decompression stops, and I’d just be cruising around as a kid, having not been anywhere near as deep. I’d swim straight through their groups, signalling “OK” to everyone and trying to “chat” and interact. There wasn’t much conversation you could have with a regulator in your mouth, but I was just as social as my father and keen to be part of the action.

Dad took us along on all of his photographic jobs, which meant he always had some cheap — or free — models to work with. At the time it just felt normal, but looking back, it was pretty special. Being in the water with him and watching how he worked shaped how I connect with the ocean and how I see the world today.

Abstract reflections

In his early days of photography, Dad spent a lot of time diving at Hamurana Springs. The water was crystal clear and freezing, and it became his main stomping ground. It was there that he earned his first awards and accolades. He was drawn to the abstract reflections on the surface, and his creative eye started experimenting with different ways to capture them.

He’d convince friends and family to model for him: they had to stay completely still — no breathing, no bubbles, no ripples. It was painstaking and pretty gruelling for the models, but absolute heaven for Dad!

He loved the abstract most of all. Dad would spend long periods kneeling on the sea floor, staring intently at a tiny shrimp, inside a clam, or right up close with an anemone. He was always looking into places most people didn’t bother to look — shooting macro.

There could be the world’s biggest sunfish cruising past right in front of him, and he’d often be completely oblivious. He was in macro-land.

"Make them look light!"

A recent memory shared by one of Dad’s friends, Steve Dickenson, was that "he travelled with more luggage than the Kardashians — and somehow it always ended up in your hands". 

That was completely true to form. When we were kids, Dad would give us the heaviest camera bags, load them onto our backs at the airport, and tell us to “make them look light” so he could get around luggage limits.

There is a vast collection of his work - there are thousands of old slides waiting for me. It's a legacy he's left behind, and going through them will be a journey of discovery for me."

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing more stories and photos from Andy's extraordinary life. 

Click here for more stories and photos from this true Kiwi legend.