Radio New Zealand – Live interview with Ellis Emmett – NZ adventurer

Cheviot-based Ellis Emmett is one of the hosts of the Travel Channel’s underwater adventure series ‘Descending’. He’s dived with sharks in South Africa, in a shipwreck off Vanuatu and aquifers off the coast of Iceland.

He’s now planning a five-year sailing odyssey around the globe and has already filmed a pilot – a 6,000km round trip between NZ and Tonga.

Kathryn Ryan interviews Ellis Emmett – New Zealand adventurer on Nine to Noon .

Descending: The hunt for the red devil

This week, Scott and Ellis are in Los Angeles to see if vibrant marine life can exist off the highly developed coast of Southern California. After meeting up with a pair of eco-warriors, the team scours the Sea of Cortez in search of the elusive and fearsome “diablos rojos (red devils)”.

What diving risks were you concerned about in this location?

“Hmmm, let’s see… dangling by a cable below an active fishing boat with fisherman jigging around us with huge hooks, in the dark, over 2000 foot of water, looking for highly aggressive Humboldt squid in heavily shark-filled waters. Yep, that about covers it!” describes Scott.

North & South Magazine article – On The Wild Side

To Ellis Emmett, the world is an adventure playground, above and below the water. He talks to Joanna Wayne about becoming Aotearoa’s answer to Jacques Cousteau. But for a man who’s ventured into some of the most exotic parts of the world, Ellis is still a country boy at heart.

Descending: into South Africa

Scott and Ellis visit South Africa to brave some of the most notorious shark-filled waters in the world. Disaster strikes on what should have been an easy shipwreck dive.

We catch up with Ellis about the South African dive experience.

“Getting the chance to dive amongst a school of 25 – 30 feeding oceanic black tip sharks was one of the highlights of South Africa” says Ellis.

Descending: into The Deep

Continuing their Caribbean island hopping, the Descending team comes face to face with the ocean’s largest carnivore in Dominica, and then goes deeper than they ever have before.

We chat to Ellis about their incredible experiences. “Getting the chance to descend below 1,000 ft beneath the ocean’s surface in a submarine was a once in a life time opportunity”.

“On our dive into the deep we not only did we get to see a little part of our planet that no other human being had ever seen before, but we also got the chance to witness fish species that had only just been discovered” he says.

The Tree House – One of the hosts for Cheviot Spring Festival 2013

Six homes with stunning gardens will be open to visitors on both Friday and Saturday. One is The Tree House, named for the two massive hardwood tree trunks, rising 9 meters from the lounge floor to support the backbone of the three storied super-structure.

The NEWS – Adventure calls Cheviot man

Next on the agenda for Ellis is a sailing adventure series ‘Over the Horizon’ where he, along with director Andre Dupuis, plan to spend 5 years sailing the world, visiting places you can’t buy a ticket to and experiencing cultures that are relatively unknown.

Ellis and Andre recently returned from a 6,000 km sailing expedition into the Central Pacific, where they filmed a pilot for the new show. They encountered humpback whales, long lost shipwrecks, incredible aquatic cave systems and amazing cultures.

Descending: The Dive God

We island-hopped throughout the Caribbean in order to try to show off a number of dive flavours.

Each of the islands seem to excel at one type of diving or another. Big fish, wall dives, macro-dives, shipwrecks etc. So we made sure we kept on the move.
A lot of small aircraft flights and a lot of great skippers got us to where we needed to go.

Echo Bay Media travels the world filming Descending diving doc

Filming was also planned for Egypt, but although in 2010 the country was still a year away from a violent revolution, a tourism issue nonetheless forced a filming cancellation.

“The Sharm El Sheikh region of Egypt was within our grasp but became unattainable to us right at the last minute,” recalls producer Jeff Wilson: “I had literally just walked out the front door of the Cairo press and television centre having finally secured our permit and received a phone call stating that it had already been revoked. As it happened, a series of shark attacks in the region’s waters had prompted the government to pull the plug on our production.”

SKY Watch magazine article – with Descending’s Ellis Emmett

Kiwi Ellis Emmett loves a challenge. A self-described “hyperactive daredevil” born and raised in New Zealand, Emmett’s extensive travels have led him to team up with Canadian friends Scott Wilson and Andre Dupuis to film Travel Channel’s underwater adventure series, Descending. SKYWATCH caught up with Emmett to find out what makes him tick.