Luke Tipple: Bio

My earliest memory is being thrown in the ocean by my father and returning to the surface laughing."

"I was born on September 4th 1979 in the city of Adelaide, Australia. My father is a unique mix of missionary and visionary entrepreneur and my mother displays her compassionate nature as a nurse. While still very young my parents traveled around Australia preaching and starting churches.

Dad taught me about the ocean, strapping me to the front of his surf kayak to go spearfishing at age five and encouraging me and my brother to get into the surf.

The wandering continued throughout my youth as I attended 6 different primary schools and 2 high schools before graduation. By this time I was living in South Australia and living a fairly typical teenage lifestyle, surfing and diving everyday, racing cars and playing in a punk band with my brother Mark.

I began university as a business major, thinking to travel in my fathers footsteps, but after a year I yearned for something more.

I was screaming to break out of my home turf so, two weeks before my 21st birthday, I interviewed for a job on a cruise ship. The un-glamorous life of a busboy on the Alaskan run was far from the senoritas and margaritas I envisioned so I returned home and after a brief stint in sales applied to James Cook University on the Barrier Reef to study Marine Biology.

While attending classes in animal behavior and conservation I continued my dive education and earned my Dive Masters on the Barrier Reef. After a year as President of my university I undertook an exchange program to Miami University to further my study of sharks at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

With only one semester left until graduation I was offered a position as a Dive Officer on a super-yacht in the Mediterranean, my itchy feet couldn't refuse. Based in Palma, Mallorca I spent a year cruising the Mediterranean and Red Seas on our $20M vessel. I was given the privilege of spending $250K on dive gear for our billionaire owner while at the same time I was trained in Hyperbaric Medicine, Technical mixed gas diving and became a Dive Instructor. After my contract expired I reluctantly resigned and returned to Australia to graduate.

Upon graduation I accepted a research position working with Whale Sharks on the island of Utila, Honduras. Serving as lead Marine Biologist, myself and my team worked with the government to pass new tourism regulations to help protect the sharks. I led the successful tagging and biopsy program, personally tagging over 20 sharks in one season, and was featured in a documentary for British television.

I spend 3 months a year at Isla Guadalupe diving with Great White Sharks and 2 months a year diving with Tiger Sharks in the Bahamas. To date I've logged over 2000 dives, have conducted many dives below 300ft, worked and dove with over a dozen species of sharks and guided hundreds of select clients while encountering apex predators.

My recent foray into the vicarious world of television and film production has me excited about the possibilties that come with great opportunity. I'm now called upon to consult with production teams in order to keep their team safe while diving with Apex predators as well as lending professional credibility to nature programming.

My work is my life and the ocean is my passion. I plan to extend my message of education and conservation through the medium of television and the internet, I hope day by day to inspire others to come into my world and have a deeper appreciation for our greatest resource.

After all, it's where we all came from…

- L.S.T