SHE has assisted in a number of episodes of the TV series, American Survivor as a scuba diving instructor; worked on Keith Richard’s (of The Rolling Stones) sailboat in Costa Rica and worked as a safety diver for the filming of the 2008 James Bond Quantum of Solace movie in Panama.
Westville local and St Mary’s Old Girl, Herveline Tindall, after an adventurous spell travelling around, finally returned to Durban where she rediscovered her roots and decided to settle down.
“I became a scuba diving instructor in 2001 as a way to take a gap year before doing my postgraduate degree,” she said.
This “gap year” lasted a decade as Herveline landed her first international scuba job on a live-aboard-boat in the Bahamas.
“I learnt to dive with sharks and really gain my confidence with clients and people of different cultures and from countries,” said Herveline.
After a family tragedy, her family encouraged her to continue with her travels.
“I put my CV in at the yacht mall in Cape Town and got offered a job as a cook on a sailboat that was sailing across the Atlantic,” she recalled.
Even though her family owned a French restaurant, ‘Le Troquet,’ Herveline knew that cooking wasn’t her forte.
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She spent three months out at sea stopping at islands such as St Helena, Ascension Island and Fernando de Noronha and this experience enhanced her love for the ocean.
“I ended up in Costa Rica and managed to get on as a crew member, on a sailboat owned by none other than Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones.
“We were unpaid crew on the boat to take people out on excursions to scuba dive and surf, working on tips and excursion money. In exchange, we kept the boat clean and maintained it,” said Herveline as she looked back with nostalgia on her time on the wooden ship.
After a month sailing adventure through Costa Rica and Panama, Herveline grabbed the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I handed in my CV at a dive shop in Panama City. Fortune came knocking on my door,” she said.
“That very day I went to the shop, a production assistant from the American reality TV show, Survivor was looking for an English speaking scuba instructor. So before I could take in my luck, I was ferried across to the “Pearl Islands” as a private instructor to Mark Burnett’s children, aged 8 and 10 at the time.”
Mark Burnett produced the show and him and his crew have been nominated for a total of 143 Emmys.”Having my own hotel room and all the food I’d dreamed of for months was a dream come true.
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One day Mark asked me if I wanted to go and watch the filming of a survivor challenge. It was so exciting seeing the crew and cameras everywhere and seeing the contestants as smelly, skinny and insect-bitten as I had been a week before, made me silently chuckle,” she remembers fondly.
After a week on the island teaching and meeting the crew, Mark Bennett urged Tindall to introduce herself to the owners of the Marine Team company.
“They ran all the logistics to do with boating and the water. I got offered a job as safety diver for the remainder of the show (Series 7, the Pearl Islands) and then three months later, they were shooting Series 8 called the All Stars. I ended up teaching some of the contestants who were voted off early and weren’t able to fly home. This was how the show kept secret who the final contestants were in the show,” revealed Herveline.
“My daily duties, if I wasn’t with the contestants, was as boat crew (taking crew to islands to build various challenges), assisting on the dock or taking a camera crew for underwater ‘beauty filming’. This was my highlight to be underwater.”
Herveline worked in six survivor shows in total as a marine assistant and said Palau was her favourite diving destination. She also enjoyed the Cook Islands and Fiji.
“I travelled throughout South America and Australia and Europe. It was incredible!” she said.
Stirred, not shaken Herveline also had the privilege to work on one of the most famous movie franchises of all time.
“In 2008, I got offered a position as safety diver for the upcoming filming of James Bond’s Quantum of Solace, which was being filmed in Panama,” she said.
She had a few months to upgrade her scuba qualification to commercial diver as the British film production wanted a higher qualification, which she did mainly in the Durban harbour and shire quarry.
“I flew across and worked for a few weeks before a freak accident caused me to break my arm on set and I was sent home with a six-month instruction not to work,” she said.
“I wasn’t so sad as I was renting Peace Cottage (on the beach between uMhlanga and uMdloti) so I could wake up to dolphins on my doorstep. “It was then when I realised that in fact KZN is my home and I was done with travelling,” she said.
Herveline now runs, Streamline Swim and has been an instructor for 10 years. “I met my amazing husband, Warwick and I have two children,” said Herveline who’s happy to be settled down.
“We finally found our dream property to build my own dream swim school in the very suburb I grew up in, Westville. It’s a fully enclosed pool and I just love what I do,” she said.
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