Photos: Emily Chalk.
Steve Hathaway is a father of four and an accidental underwater cameraman, who turned out to be so good, his footage for BBC series Blue Planet II won a BAFTA award.
And for the past 12 years, he’s been sharing his love of marine life with daughter Riley, filming their adventures for the educational school programme Young Ocean Explorers that they founded together.
“I’m so lucky to have grown up with this kind of passion in my house,” smiles Riley, 24, who fronts the videos and delivers in-person presentations to schools.
“It’s a scary time for nature, but dad is inspiring and it brings me hope. We want every kid in New Zealand loving and learning about our moana.”
The idea for Young Ocean Explorers first came in 2012, when Steve and then 12-year-old Riley made a video together about turtles for a school project.
As Riley presented it to the classroom, Steve watched on, stunned to see how captivated the students were.
“I saw these 30 kids, their eyes wide open and deathly silent for seven minutes, and thought, ‘Wow, this is powerful,’” says Steve, 55. “I’ve always been more connected to the ocean than the land.
“In Aotearoa, we’re world renowned for our beautiful scenery, national parks, kea, kauri and kiwi. But we also have one of the largest oceans in the world and about 80 percent of our native species live there. I wanted to inspire a generation of kids to grow up knowing about and loving our oceans.”
Since then, the Snells Beach father-daughter duo have filmed many unforgettable experiences.
Watching baby turtles hatching in Heron Island was a bucket-list item for Riley, as was her first time snorkelling at Rangitāhua/ Kermadec Islands.
“I was freshly 14 and had never seen anything like it,” she enthuses. “12 Galapagos sharks surrounded us. I was very nervous, jumped on Dad’s back and wanted to hop out, but I’m so glad I didn’t because it was such a cool moment.”
Reflecting on how far she’s come, Riley reveals as a young child, she was so scared of the ocean, even the thought of seaweed or being out on the family boat made her uncomfortable.
Now that timid girl is barely recognisable as she talks about swimming with great white sharks in South Australia – “The door to the cage was open and they were swimming around us” – or manta rays in the Hauraki Gulf.
“It’s really special as a dad seeing my daughter develop,” shares Steve, who is also dad to Alana, 28, Dylan, 21, and Lucas, 15. A passionate fisherman from a young age, he explains for a long time life as it is now was a pipe dream as he spent the first 20 years of his career as a builder.
Then at 38, with the support of his wife Jo, he decided to take a leap and try his hand at making his own underwater show.
Initially Steve planned to be the presenter, but struggling to get good enough underwater footage from others, he started shooting it himself.
“Out of desperation, I got into underwater filming,” he explains. “One of my highlights was coming home in the evenings and playing back the footage I’d shot on the TV for the kids.”
A series of chance encounters with the right people, including orca expert and biologist Ingrid Visser, led to Steve quickly working on a number of local and international documentaries.
“Watching the behind- the-scenes footage of a cameraman on The Blue Planet I flying out to sea and jumping in the water to get the shot, I thought, ‘Man, that guy’s the luckiest person on the planet.’ Fast-forward a couple of years and it was me with The Blue Planet II director filming with false killer whales around the boat.”
In 2018, alongside the camera crew, he won a BAFTA for his work on the acclaimed documentary.
“For someone who is an accidental underwater cameraman, it’s been a wild journey,” laughs Steve, who also worked on the recent TVNZ series Mammals.
On February 28, Steve and Riley will launch this year’s Young Ocean Explorers 21-day challenge in schools across the country.
With 3000 classrooms having already participated in previous years, they’re excited for even more Kiwi kids to learn all about the ocean, its inhabitants and how to look after it.
“It inspires and drives me knowing we’re giving kids incredible adventure stories,” he says. “And having a great personality like Riley in front of the camera means we can take them into a world far beyond what they’re currently experiencing.”
To find out more about your child’s class joining the 21-day challenge, visit youngoceanexplorers.com.
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