Outlier TV Out Of The Comfort Zone Interview with Ryan Irvine Mataray Island Resort
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Andrew McCombe:
Andrew McCombe here, from Outlier TV, where we celebrate difference to make a difference. As we share inspiring stories of ordinary people, doing extraordinary things with their businesses and all their lives. Today, I’m going to be speaking to Ryan Irvine. He’s the co-founder of the “Mantaray Island” resort. And he’s going to be my guest on this week’s full Outlier TV episode being released in the next few days. Okay. Let’s go and meet Ryan. Ryan,
Welcome to Outlier. (Cheers mate. Welcome to the Mantaray.)
A beautiful place mate. Now it’s customary on Outlier that we have an out of the comfort zone session with our upcoming Outlier episode participants or interviewees. (This sounds fun.) So what it entails is 10 questions, three minutes answer. The first thing that comes to mind. (Okay. Let’s do it.) Okay. So how does an Aussie backpacker end up developing one of the world’s best three-star, five-coconut resorts?
Ryan Irvine:
Tina is my business partner who I’ve set up the resort with since we started. We came here in 2002. I think we opened the resort in 2004. both of us were very young. I think I was 24 or 25, and Tina was 24 or 23, a year younger than me. And Tina’s from Sweden. We came just from Europe, from backpacking around the world. Living in Canada and did a season over there. I worked in Fiji obviously previously with another travel company, and it just seemed to draw me to the country, and we’d come here surfing. And then we just got an opportunity to start a resort through a contact on the mainland. And we actually opened up another backpackers in Nadi, and we didn’t really have a lot to do with that.
We were more the silent partner in that. And from that, we actually came out and went looking for a bit of a resort up in the Azores, where I had a few friends tell me a bit about the opportunities up here and just how beautiful the area was. And Tina and I jumped on a boat one day, went away for seven days, basically, with not much but some water and some rice and two-minute noodles. That was the go for. And, yeah, we found Mantaray. And as soon as we jumped off the boat and stood on the beach, we knew it was it, you know, both of us were just like, “wow, this was it.” Awesome.
Andrew McCombe:
So 72,000 up the coast from Nadi. And it’s been a long history ever since.
Ryan Irvine:
72 K’s up and about six and a half hours in a local wooden, longboat. It was a classic.
Andrew McCombe:
Alright mate. So we’ve only got three minutes here. So who was your biggest support along the way?
Ryan Irvine:
The biggest support probably was my family and Tina’s family. Yeah. They backed us with some support, and we didn’t really have a lot of money. And luckily our parents like jumped in with a little bit of money. Not very much, believe me. And we started with what we got and opened with what we got and then that was it.
Andrew McCombe:
The rest is history. The weirdest guest request you’ve ever had?
Ryan Irvine:
If someone could go and retrieve their snorkel from our composting toilet. Let’s not go there.
Andrew McCombe:
Okay. How many countries have you been to?
Ryan Irvine:
Uh, quite a lot. I was looking at that thing on Facebook the other day, where everyone lists them actually, and I didn’t count them, but it was definitely more than 20 cause that’s all I could count on my toes and my fingers.
Andrew McCombe:
Okay. Favorite country you’ve ever visited, and why?
Ryan Irvine:
Apart from Fiji, I would have to say now still probably Turkey. when I went there back when I was traveling through Europe and living in London for a few years back in the late nineties, early two thousands, they were just amazing. Went to Gallipoli and just, it’s just beautiful, you know? So it was like, they were so welcoming, and it was great chow, good people. obviously, a lot of things happen when you’ve got a good crew traveling with you. so I’d definitely say Turkey at the moment.
Andrew McCombe:
Awesome. Okay. True or false. You are one of the next contestant on celebrity Survivor in Fiji?
Ryan Irvine:
Never happened. Never happened. Never happened.
Andrew McCombe:
Okay. True or false. Celebrity Survivor will be staged at Mantarey Island resort.
Ryan Irvine:
Well, we’ll have to wait and see for that one, maybe.
Andrew McCombe:
True or false. You are a godfather to a Royal.
Ryan Irvine:
True. (Can you go any further than that?) It’s a Royal family member. So there’s only quite a few of them. There’s not that many.
Andrew McCombe:
Favorite Halloween costume?
Ryan Irvine:
I like to go nude. Yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
True or false. Nicolas Cage is your favorite actor.
Ryan Irvine:
We love Nicholas Cage. Yeah. He’s great.
Andrew McCombe:
What’s your favorite movie?
Ryan Irvine:
The one with the plane. Can’t remember it. Con-Air. (Yeah. And what’s the link with Nicholas Cage?) Oh, we just went out in Vegas one time and like met some of his family and had a great time with him. Yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
So how important is fun when it comes to running one of the world’s best three-star five-coconut resorts?
Ryan Irvine:
I think you’ve got to have fun because it comes back on your staff. And to be honest with you, a lot of people that come to our resort, are amazed at how friendly our local Fijian staff are. Fijians, they’re renowned as the friendliest people in the world. I a hundred percent agree with that. And I think that if you’re not friendly that your staff aren’t going to be friendly. So I think it’s a massive thing. And people are on holidays, why aren’t you friendly, everyone’s out having fun. It’s like give it a crack.
Andrew McCombe:
Okay. So what’s your favorite thing about the Manta rays themselves?
Ryan Irvine:
Every time you swim into Manta ray, it’s always different. You know, like sometimes they come up to you. We’ve got a pretty strict policy up here with our Marine reserve that we stay clear of the Manta rays, per se. We try not to swim after them that much. We definitely don’t touch them. But sometimes when you’re there, they’ll just swim around, and they’ll come right up to you. They’re totally oblivious to you sometimes. And you can get some pretty amazing contacts without contact in there. Sometimes there are some big ones.
We’ve got a lot of local Manta rays here, and we’ve got some that are just massive that we’ve never seen before. And when you’re swimming with them, and it’s only in up to five meters of water, that it gets pretty personal, you know?
And that’s the thing. I never thought that swim with Manta rays would be so personal as like swimming with the whale or something, but it’s amazing. And it blows your mind every time you do it.
Andrew McCombe:
Is it true, you put a mirror at the bottom of the ocean, so you could check yourself out when swimming with the Manta rays?
Ryan Irvine:
Yeah, we did that one time. It wasn’t technically checking ourselves out, but we couldn’t get Joe off the mirror. Our dive instructor, he loved it.
Andrew McCombe:
So kite surfing or surfing?
Ryan Irvine:
Definitely surfing.
Andrew McCombe:
Cloudbreak or Northern beaches for surfing?
Ryan Irvine:
Cloudbreak, best wave in the world. We’ll just keep that quiet though.
Andrew McCombe:
Ever had a near-death experience?
Ryan Irvine:
I’ve had a couple of near-death experiences. A couple in the water, kicked by a couple of cars. But luckily that was probably pretty much it.
Andrew McCombe:
Okay. So three minutes is almost up. Ever been kicked out of a nightclub?
Ryan Irvine:
No, never, no, no. I handle myself well.
Andrew McCombe:
Favorite drink, Sambucca or Fiji Bitter?
Ryan Irvine:
Sambucca. (For what reason?) It’s a fun spirit, gets the party started.
Andrew McCombe:
Which actor would you want to play you in your life movie?
Ryan Irvine:
What’s the fellow that is a, not Captain America. What’s the Aussie guy, from Byron? (Thor.) Him, only because he’s Aussie. (Chris Hemsworth.) Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
Very good. What’s your definition of being rich or wealthy?
Ryan Irvine:
I think rich is being not wealthy. It’s rich in everything around you. And I think it takes a while to actually register with that. And wealthy, I think it’s like, once again, it’s, what’s around you, you know, you can be rich in money, but not, not wealthy in knowledge. I’m not wealthy, but I love what we do. And we love what we’ve got here. And we’re pretty happy.
Andrew McCombe:
Fantastic. What’s your biggest fear?
Ryan Irvine:
Fear of not catching a thousand-pound mile. (And what’s going to happen if you didn’t catch that?) I’m going to catch it.
Andrew McCombe:
So you’re not fearful of it then.
Ryan Irvine:
Well, I am because I haven’t caught it yet. (Yeah. That drives you.) So yeah. I want to catch a thousand-pound mile.
Andrew McCombe:
What’s your secret to happiness?
Ryan Irvine:
Being happy. It’s no secret. You just gotta be happy. It took me a while to be happy. I think it’s just one of those things that in life people aren’t happy all the time, and you get to a point in your life where you think you’re happy, but you’re actually not happy for different reasons. And you’ve got to sit back a little bit and actually enjoy what you’ve got. And we’ve built a place here now, and we’ve sat back and seen what we’ve got, and you’ve got to be happy with it.
Happiness is happiness; whatever you’ve got, that’s nothing not to be happy about. Especially if you’ve done it, you created it yourself, whether it’s, you know, sewing a rug or building a resort or building a skyscraper or jumping out of a plane, you gotta be happy with what you do, and if you’re not, well, there’s not really much that’s gonna make you happy then, is it?
Andrew McCombe:
Okay, last question. What would you like to be remembered for?
Ryan Irvine:
Being a fun, loving, good mate and having a good time in life, pretty much.
Andrew McCombe:
It sounds good to me. Awesome. Cheers.
Well, there it is guys. We’ve now learned a hell of a lot more about Ryan Irvine before our full outlier TV episode released.
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