The Grey NATO - 121 - Proteus, Dive Watches, And Fried Chicken With Fabien Cousteau
Published on Thu, 13 Aug 2020 06:00:13 -0400
Synopsis
This podcast episode features an interview with Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. They discuss Fabien's ambitious new project called Proteus, which aims to build the world's largest underwater marine laboratory and living quarters off the coast of Curacao. Fabien shares details about the goals, design, and timeline of Proteus, which will allow scientists and researchers to live and work underwater for extended periods to study the ocean environment. The conversation also touches on Fabien's experiences following in his grandfather's footsteps, his passion for diving and ocean advocacy, and his interest in mechanical watches.
Links
Transcript
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| Unknown | Hello and welcome to another episode of the GrayNado, a Houdinki podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 121, and we thank you for listening. Jason, this is a pretty dope episode. I mean, people at this point would have seen the title, which kind of gives it away, but this is kind of like a long time coming. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's been in the works for a long time. I think, you know, I talked to Fabian Cousteau at Baselworld last year, met up with him before the show. He was doing some Seiko stuff there at the time. And, uh, we were in the lobby of his hotel and we were talking, Oh, we should, we should do an interview. We should do a podcast, get together. And then just this past March, um, I was going to be in New York for a few things and we were going to do a couple of recordings in the office there. And he's in New York, he's based there for the most part. And he was going to come over and meet us and record. And of course, a pandemic descended on the world and we had to scrap that. And finally, here we are. So I'm excited. I think people will really like this. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, it was really kind of him to come on. And the nice thing is, it's one of these things where you know him, so it didn't have to come off like a press release or, you know, a kind of like you have 15 minutes with the guy who just won this sports title. And like, you know what I mean? So I was pretty thrilled. I got to sit, I helped produce the recording, you know, actually recording it on my end. And yeah, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. So we'll get to that in just a few minutes. Jason, I know that you had some mechanical failures this weekend. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So I had the Land Rover in at one of the shops I use last week for some welding work. I had a bit of a corrosion hole in the rear crossmember. And so I had my guy Tony across town, he's pretty proficient with a welding torch. He patched that up whenever and I drove it home, picked up Ghoshani, we went to down the road here, there was a little park with a food truck, got some food, we're headed back home and I just started off from a stop sign and I heard a bang from the rear and suddenly there was no power to the rear wheels. So I thought it would have been the differential which is kind of one of those things that you always dread just sort of blowing up on the road. But when I looked, the drive shaft was still turning. And that means that it probably wasn't the differential. And then as I did a little more research, I found that the rear half axles that go from the differential out to each of the wheels, one of those probably broke. Apparently it's a fairly common issue with these. And so I had it I had it towed to my other shop, Expedition Auto Works, which specializes in Land Rovers here, and they did all my work for the overdrive and the new exhaust and the springs a couple of months ago. And, you know, it's been a year. I mean, for three years, I have hardly had any stranding issues or any big problems with this truck, and my expectation was I would be getting it towed every week. And so maybe this is my year for big repairs, and hopefully this is the last of it so I can actually enjoy it for a bit this fall. |
| Unknown | Yeah. I mean, fingers crossed for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Never, never super fun to have that kind of stuff go down. I, uh, I spent a little portion of my weekend attempting to diagnose a kind of a handbrake issue, a parking brake issue with the, with the Jeep. And I've got it where it will now hold its weight. Oh yeah. Um, but it's, it's at the max point of the travel for the handle, which is not how you want to have these things calibrated. Right. Um, I just, I ended up, uh, it's, it's been such, you know, we took a week, we kind of took a weekend off in changing this or a week off in changing our schedule from weekly to biweekly, plus a kind of floater Q.A. episode for those of you who are maybe didn't catch number one twenty. But since taking that off, it really didn't free up any time in my schedule and just like way too busy for the summer with with work with Hodinke. So kind of has become sort of a morning, noon and night thing. And I had all sorts of plans for Saturday and then some stuff with this bottoms you can read about it on the site if you want. I genuinely don't have the emotional energy to talk about it anymore, but, uh, this Seiko only bottoms, you know, auction that they had planned for roughly when this episode will come out, um, kind of blew up and you know, there, there goes the weekend and that kind of thing. So I, uh, I had plans to more accurately diagnose the issue. I was able to get in and actually look at the mechanism, which is this kind of weird way of setting up a, It doesn't mean, you know, it would take kind of, you watch a YouTube video if you're that interested. It uses this kind of like clock spring in a cam to connect back to a drum brake on the rear axle. And I know that the, at least I assume that that drum brake is working correctly because the hill rollback assist functions, and I assume that's what it uses. And it works really well. You have to give it considerably more revs to make that disable when you're on a hill. But yeah, I'm not not too sure, but it is holding, which is a big plus. The other thing I did, you know, I guess since we spoke last time, just remembering now that we're chatting about vehicle stuff, I had my first opportunity to drive a vehicle with a trailer on it. Oh, OK. It was just a trailer full of junk from this property that we're kind of refurbishing. Yeah. An oven, you know, some vanities, that sort of thing. And, you know, the Jeep does a lovely job level, at least within my very limited purview of towing something. But the dump, the fill station where we where we took this trailer was it's kind of sand based. Oh yeah. And I knew that backing up a trailer was difficult. I've done it like in joke video games and that sort of thing. Yeah. Academically, I knew it was hard. It's a whole different thing on on in like five or six inches of loose sand. Jeez. Um, so I, I was that jabroni at the, uh, at the dump who, who, you know, had his fancy four by four and could, could not back up in a straight line at, at any, you know, at any time. So at a certain point we just kind of gave up and picked up things and carried them to the extra 10 or 15 feet or whatever. But yeah, that was a humbling experience. You know, you can You spend a lot of time, you can learn to maybe slide a quarter million dollar supercar around a corner or, you know, light up the wheels, leaving a corner on a track or something, but I couldn't back up a trailer at, you know, three miles an hour in some sand. I backed it up around the cottage property and it wasn't too bad, but the sand made all the difference for me. Oh, sure. Super fun. Geez. Not so much fun. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's one of those life skills that I've never mastered and You know, we're not too proud to say we're not experts at everything here. And that's definitely, definitely one. If I were to get a trailer, we've, we've talked about getting, you know, like a little teardrop camper trailer, renting one or, you know, something or, or getting a trailer that I could tow the Land Rover on, you know? So when I do get stranded, I could pull it to the shop in the Volvo or something, but, uh, I'm, I'm not too proud to admit that, uh, that would be a comical. comical scenario to see me backing stuff around. I would definitely do a lot of practicing in a parking lot before I did it in public. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I definitely need a lot more practice before I embarrass myself at the dump again. Anything else new? Yeah, well, I finally watched Predator. So last |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, so last week, you know, my review of the SNJ-029, the Safarni Seiko published. I've had it for, you know, about a month now and I've been wearing it a lot. And, you know, in my story, I came out and I said, look, I've never watched Predator or Commando. And those are the movies that made this watch famous among watch nerds. And in the comments, there was no shortage of people saying, you know, you've got to watch Predator. You've got to watch Predator. Forget Commando. Predator is the one to watch. It's a good 80s action film. So Friday night, you know, actually it was Ghoshani who suggested it. She said, you know, maybe we should watch Predator, you know. So we rented it. I think we, you know, paid up three bucks to Amazon or Netflix or iTunes or something like that and watched it. And, you know, my expectations were low, and it met them. It wasn't a great movie. I can see why I probably have skipped it all these years, but, you know, it was entertaining, and I can see why people liked it, but boy, the plot line and the special effects obviously were very 80s, so not terrific, but I don't know, it just felt, you know, as a kind of a jungly, action movie with some fun people in it. You know, Carl Weathers and our former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura was in it. But, you know, just the plot was so dumb. It was it was so simplistic. There was there was no kind of any depth or intrigue to it. It was. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I think with that one, because I went through and I know that at some point when I was younger, maybe my early teens, I saw Predator. Yeah. And I remember back then thinking like, Oh, it's so violent. It's so, um, these guys are so like muscly, tough guys. Like, you know, it leaves an impression when you're 13 or 14. Yeah. And then when I wrote my piece for the SNJ 025, I went back through to see if I could get better wrist shots. Oh yeah. I got myself a blu-ray of it and, and, and kind of did the scan and watched kind of key elements and parts of it came back to me. And I was like, man, this is kind of like when you, um, It's kind of like when you play a video game. Yeah. And like if you hit the timing right, like when the game is new or when it's kind of a talking point, it always kind of sits in your memory as being pretty solid. Yeah. And then you go back to play it now and you're like, oh, man, like there's a bunch of kind of just things about this that they wouldn't do if they made it again today. |
| Filler | Oh, yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. And certainly that franchise, the Predator franchise has continued Shane Black made an actually pretty entertaining predator offshoot film last year. Now I'm blanking on what it's called. Yeah, did you ever see the nice guys? |
| Jason Heaton | No. |
| Unknown | Oh, yeah, it's pretty great. Nice guys is crazy funny. That's with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Oh, not at all a movie for kid. This is the same same dude that made a kiss kiss bang bang. Okay. Yeah. Which is kind of the last Robert Downey Jr. film before he went on to do Iron Man, and we kind of lost him from movies. He got good movies for a while. Yeah. Oh, it was just... So he wrote... It was called The Predator, 2018. Oh, okay. Okay. It's pretty silly, but they're all silly. I mean, let's face it. Yeah. If you want... I think he also wrote The Nice Guys, and that one's excellent. Like I said, not at all a film for kids, but a really kind of funny 70s sort of themed cop drama. |
| Filler | Okay. |
| Unknown | And then Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is excellent. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, the one thing I find about watching movies from, well, old movies in general, especially these action movies, is the, and maybe it's just our TV, but we have a fairly decent TV, is that the sound, the audio, it's like during quiet times, you can hardly hear the dialogue. And, you know, so I turned the volume way up on the TV and we're like craning our ears, you know, our necks to like listen. And then comes an action scene and it's like six minutes of, you know, just full on, you know, rocket launcher, machine gun fire and swelling orchestra, you know, soundtrack and whatever. And it's deafeningly loud. You know, the cats jump off the bed and like I'm reaching, scrambling for the remote to turn it down. I mean, it's so frustrating. It's like that leveling is just way off. |
| Unknown | Yeah. I mean, a lot of it. And the funny thing is because it was shot on film. Yeah. The video quality has, you know, is in theory almost limitless. Yeah. Assuming you can scan it and then reproduce it. Yeah. So you see these things in Blu-ray and you're like, oh, this is incredible. And they've clearly done a lot of remastering for the audio to kind of make the best they can out of it. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Unknown | But it's a silly thing. And then, you know, the whole that like cult of Arnold at that time was also such a special thing. And |
| Jason Heaton | directly speaks to how long and the fact that we're calling the watch the safari yeah right right he's impressive i mean i'll give him that he is absolutely impressive he's he's really impressive i mean his his physical presence in that movie um you know i i've seen gosh maybe two other arnie movies besides this one i don't know but you know terminator of course was was was awesome i might have seen conan the barbarian many many years ago but i don't remember it But I mean, yeah, he's impressive. I mean, I'll give him that and I was watching this. I'm Telling Ghoshani. |
| Unknown | I'm like, you know this this guy went on to be a fairly well-respected governor of one of the biggest Economies in the world, you know and by the by the time that he came to the US I've listened to this interview So these are words from his mouth, but like by the time he came to the US he was already a millionaire Wow. By investing in local real estate. And you know, there's a fantastic story of how he made money as a kid in Austria when he thought he was going to be a cop at the time, I believe. He was just like an entrepreneur from the time he was five years old. Like he used to buy ice cream on one side of a lake, a big lake that people traveled to to swim in. Yeah. And he would run it to the other side where the ice cream guys wouldn't sell. |
| Unknown | Huh. |
| Unknown | But he had to get there before it melted. So it was like super intense. I think Arnold's a very inspirational. I got a chance to meet him at Basel a few years ago, and he was very sweet. We sat down and chatted for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. He was launching a watch company, I think called Arnold. And it was mostly for the South American and Mexican market. And I think it was like a friend or a family friend of his had a factory somewhere in South America that they were... Obviously, they were more kind of like large on all these other problems in their day or their life and it really ruined their workout. Yeah. And then he'll just be one of the commenters and like, it's, it's the real Arnold Gov or something like that. Like it's a verified account and he'll, he'll write 300 words of just like, man, do you have any idea how many bad workouts I've had? Uh, it's fine. Like you're, you keep going, be proud of yourself. There was a little while, there was a thing where like, if you, you know, three people tagged him on something like called his name three times, he would show up and leave like a a really positive comment. Yeah. Yeah. His Reddit presence is really, really quite fun. Wow. That's really cool. I like him a lot and I think it's cool that he's still getting to do some movies. I've seen some of the more recent stuff and thought it was solid Arnold performances. Yeah, right. It's great. Yeah. But yeah, as far as the watch goes, man, I think those safaris are dope. I know that we've talked about them you know, in the past and risk checks and such. But I've now recommended them since your piece came out to a couple people who I knew would kind of like a larger sort of cool watch that didn't have to cost a ton. And you didn't have to feel that bad, like you can get it covered in sand and take the bezel off and all that kind of stuff, which is all pretty clever. So well done. And I thought the Ghoshani's photos were really cool with all the kind of caked on mud and that kind of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, we had fun with that. I thought you don't see a lot of watch reviews with Dirty watches and it sure makes shooting that easier when you don't have to worry about a smudge or a fingerprint. |
| Unknown | Just lean in. Yeah, right. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of watches, what what are you wearing today? |
| Unknown | I actually pulled one out of the the pulled one out of the box the other day. It's just the the Halio C4th Roldorf edition. Oh, nice. Yeah. So this is a watch that Jason at Hallios and Jason at Roaldorf, two different Jasons, but both two of my favorite three Jasons out there. They they got me for when I left Vancouver last two Decembers ago. Right. To move back here. And it was just kind of a parting gift. And they're these a version, a very limited version of the the C4, the bezel, the C4 design. And it has a black DLC case, a sort of metallic green tuxedo dial with a sort of cream center. Yeah, beautiful. And then these are assembled in Vancouver by the folks at Roaldorf and, you know, with ETA 2892s rather than the normal Miota. It's a really special thing. It's absolutely one of my favorite watches. It has some really nice stuff on the case back. And, you know, it's just kind of that solid connection back to Vancouver and some people that, you know, I'd very much like to have been hanging out with this summer. Yeah. My Oyster crew. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah yeah well speaking actually speaking of Roaldorf I'm glad you reminded me so I got a package in the mail a couple of days ago from Jason at Roaldorf and he had he kindly sent me um his shop is starting to carry t-shirts kind of watch themed t-shirts and he sent me one of them uh it's uh kind of the the dial text from a red Submariner so oh yeah I saw this on your Instagram Yeah, and I've had a Millsub one that I can't remember where I got many years ago. People always ask me every time I post a picture or I'm pictured with it on and they say, where'd you get that shirt? And I can never remember. Well, if you go to Raldorf's website, we'll put a link in the show notes. He is now selling these kind of watch themed t-shirts and he has a few different styles. There's a T Swiss T and there's a standard Submariner one with the depth rating. And this happens to be the red sub version. And Jason knew that I had a red sub in my collection and he thought I should have the matching t-shirts. He was probably troubled that I was wearing that mil sub one when I don't have a mil sub. But yeah, nice soft cotton. The printing's great. I really love it. So shout out to him for sending that over. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. Great people. A great store for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | What have you got on wrist? On my wrist, I am trying out the Garmin Instinct Solar Tactical. I like this a lot. Yeah, we're both, we're both, you know, garment people. Uh, my dad said, you know, boy, you guys must sell a lot of garments because you, um, you talk about them a lot and, and, you know, we're, we're certainly a danger of overexposure of our garments, but you know, we love these watches and, uh, I'm trying out this, this instinct solar, the, the solar version of the instinct is brand new. It just came out, uh, gosh, probably less than a month ago. And, um, this tactical version is one that's actually made with, uh, military use in mind. So it has a few, added little widgets that are made for people putting themselves in harm's way. There's a stealth mode that allows you to actually shut down. It immediately shuts down all the tracking, all the Bluetooth, the GPS, the Wi-Fi kind of shuts that off. There's a night vision mode. |
| Unknown | And then this would be like a super, super low brightness of some sort. |
| Jason Heaton | I don't know. So that doesn't interfere with night vision goggles. Yeah. Yeah. You can actually still read the dial. Oh, that's cool. And then I think this has the jump master app her feature. So, uh, if you're doing, um, high altitude, high opening or high altitude, low opening. So the two kinds of parachuting or, you know, that they do in the military where you're either opening your canopy, your parachute at a high altitude or low, um, Halo is what people know. The one has, um, there's that feature which tracks your altitude and kind of gives you the, the the proper altitude to open your canopy. It's, uh, something I will never use cause I'm slightly terrified of skydiving, but, uh, it's cool to see. And then I got the moss green color, which is a really fun kind of gray green olive drab. Yeah. So I think the big story with this one is the solar aspect of it. I, it's kind of the missing piece for the garments that I have in my collection. I mean the battery life is, is very respectable in, in the Phoenix and the descent that I have, but the, to add the solar element to the Instinct, which it hasn't had before, makes it kind of a really killer watch because you can just wear it indefinitely without having to be tethered to a charging cable every couple of days. So I think that's really neat. Yeah. So I've worn it, you know, biking and gardening and hiking around and stuff. And, you know, it's that classic Instinct feel, super light on the wrist. You don't even feel it. Great, comfortable strap and just a lot of great features. Killer. Yeah. Great watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah, awesome. Well, what do you say we get into it? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, you know, just by way of introduction, you know, he doesn't really need much introduction, but Fabien Cousteau spoke with with me last week. He's the first grandchild of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the famous ocean explorer and filmmaker. But Fabian's become quite the explorer and ocean advocate of his own over the past couple of decades. He's done TV specials with National Geographic and PBS. He did kind of a well-known series of shark shows where he actually had designed what's called like a wet submarine where he actually just he could fit inside of it and it was the shape of a great white shark and kind of moved like a great white shark and then They dropped him in, you know, I think it was in Guadalupe or something with actual, you know, schooling great whites, uh, and, and he interacted with them. So that was, that was pretty amazing. Uh, and then he did a TV series with his father, Jean-Michel Cousteau and his sister Selene that was on PBS. Um, but where I met Fabian was back in 2014 when he undertook the mission 31 project, which was a month long, Stay at the Aquarius underwater habitat in the Florida Keys, and we talked a little bit about it in this upcoming interview But it was it was pretty neat he Set the record for the longest stay by a person At any time kind of continuous stay in an underwater habitat. He was actually there for 31 days which was the reason it was called mission 31 and he had kind of a rotating group of scientists and Even some visiting celebrities and guests were able to come down and visit him and stay for a while and do research. And it was quite a project. I wrote it up for Hodinkee back then, and we'll put a link in the show notes. But I got to dive down to Aquarius, and he greeted me in the moon pool when I came up underneath. And I spent slightly less than an hour inside visiting with him. So that was quite an experience. And then since then, we've stayed in touch. And Fabian's a really you know, easy guy to talk to, really, really fun guy. He's into vintage motorcycles and, um, uh, you know, in addition to all the diving and stuff that he does. So, um, he has a big project coming up that was kind of the reason he's popped up in the news lately. And that is Proteus, which is a really ambitious underwater laboratory slash, uh, living quarters that, that he's proposed to build off the coast of Curacao. And I'm not going to go into too much detail because he definitely, gives some good background on what he has in mind on the interview, but it's pretty exciting stuff. It's very ambitious stuff, and I think it, you know, he's a Cousteau, and to see the stuff that his grandfather did, you know, carries right through here, and I think it's really neat. I hope it comes to fruition, and I'm really excited about it. So, without further ado, here's my chat with Fabian Cousteau. Well, hi, Fabian. Thanks for coming on The Graynado. It's really a pleasure to chat with you. Jason, it's a pleasure to chat with you. There's a little background here. We were actually going to meet back in, gosh, I think it was in March out in New York. I was coming out there for a few things, and we were actually going to meet in person and do this talk at the Hodinkee headquarters there in Manhattan. But the world has obviously turned upside down, and here we are doing it over a Zoom call. How has it been? How's your kind of lockdown life been? you're probably better than most at isolation, given your experience in Aquarius. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Well, we're just lucky that we have the technology to do this at all. You know, just a decade and a half ago, we wouldn't even be doing this. As far as social isolation, you know, I wouldn't be good at my job if I weren't comfortable with it. But you know, whether it's going up the Amazon with a small group of people for 11 months or whether it's going down to Aquarius with the with five other roommates and, you know, 400 square feet for 31 days. One has to be prepared to be isolated in small spaces for long periods of time. That said, it's been, it's been great. You know, I mean, it's been great. It's, it's been tolerable since that, you know, one of the lucky ones that hasn't gotten COVID yet. My, I would say that being isolated or being separated from my wife and daughter who were stuck in Florida for three months and over three months. And I was up here up here, meaning Connecticut and in the middle of the woods. Um, you know, it's that part, you know, missing family of course is, is always tough. Um, I know that, um, our eight year old was having a really, really hard time with not being at school and the friends and all that. Anyone, any parent, uh, who, who's been through this knows. Yeah. But overall, you know, I can't say I'm surprised. Yeah. What we're going through. Yeah. At the same time, especially as a global global community. And it's just emphasized, I believe, to most people that science is a real thing. And science is something we must be fundamentally based on as far as, you know, a thought process or decision making process. And science is is crucial for all sorts of things, including the fun stuff. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? And how has that played into how you've spent the past few months? Depends what mood I'm in, I guess. I mean, do you typically surround yourself with a lot of people? Are you the type that kind of needs, you know, the energy from social interaction or are you okay? You know, kind of. |
| Fabien Cousteau | I love being by myself. I love, I'm very comfortable. Uh, spending time with myself because there's always something to do. So there's always, it's never idle hands. Yeah. Uh, whether it's, you know, working on the house here, uh, you know, fixing the toilet or working on my motorcycle or, or, you know, with thanks to social media, I mean, work is still going on. I mean, funding isn't coming, but there's still preparation work regardless. So it, you know, even if it's virtual interaction, there's a lot of it. Zoom platforms, Skype platforms, you name it, WebEx, etc. And of course, not to mention the fact of bombardment of emails and texts. It's certainly not a lonely place to be. Personal, you know, human contact is a wonderful thing. And I certainly enjoy it as much as anybody else. But, you know, I don't, maybe my cravings don't kick in till much later than the average person. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But you're, you're also someone who has done a lot of traveling and, and traveling for, for work and for speaking and for, you know, just diving and I'm assuming vacations and things like that. And, um, uh, you know, is this the longest you've had to stay put for, for quite a while, quite a few years, or have you actually been able to get out and go some places, uh, in some fashion? |
| Fabien Cousteau | I think that's probably the hardest part is not traveling, I've moved 32 times in my life between France and the United States, mostly, and Belgium and England a little bit. So, you know, and travel, as with you, I'm sure. Travel is a routine part of my life. There's not a month usually where I don't travel somewhere under normal circumstances. And I enjoy travel. I love meeting new people, new cultures, seeing new places, experiencing new things, tasting new foods. Um, you know, and of course, uh, being able to explore and, uh, I think, yeah, being stuck at home for this extended period of time has been tough. Uh, we were just getting ready to start my travel schedule again when the U S took a turn for the worst just recently. And so of course, no country on this planet wants someone coming from the United States, understandably so. Uh, so it's got, it's made things much more difficult, not only as an individual for my own work, but also as a group for our expeditions and everything else. It's, it makes things extremely difficult, if not almost impossible. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. We, um, after that, uh, aborted trip to New York in March, my wife and I were going to go down to one of our favorite places, Bonaire, which is a place I know that is near and dear to you. Um, and that got, that got axed as well. So we've been, We've been here for months, and admittedly, I've kind of settled into a home life. We've been doing more gardening and bike rides and that sort of stuff, but I'm getting the itch. Speaking of the Southern Caribbean, I think this is probably a good segue to talk a little bit about Proteus, your latest project. You're brave for launching something like this in the middle of the pandemic, but I also think it's probably not a bad time to capture people's imaginations and attention as well. I don't know if you've found that, but maybe before we actually jump into talking about specifics, you can give a little elevator pitch about what Proteus is and what your plan is. Sure. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Well, to just make a quick comment on what you had said about traveling to island nations, which are small countries, they're all based on tourism, or most of them are based, at least a majority of their economics on tourism. And so this is hurting them quite a bit, but they also have to be extremely cautious because they don't have the resources to treat COVID patients the way industrialized or first world, large, powerful, or economically powerful nations can. So, their precaution is really an investment in making sure that they have an industry in the future. With regard to Proteus, Proteus slates to be the international space station underwater. To be a little bit more specific, Proteus is going to be by far the largest undersea marine laboratory in the world. And if you look at the history of habitats, Habitats are basically, let's call them houses underwater, vessels underwater, if you will. The very distinct difference between a vessel or habitat underwater and a submarine, for example, that a submarine travels, it is isolated from the environment. The inside pressure is one atmosphere. So it's conducive to your average daily life, so to speak, whereas a habitat is typically immobile, stays stationary. So it's more like a house or office building, if you will. And it's at multiple atmospheres of pressure inside. Typically these days, if you're running air, it's no more than three atmospheres. And so the inside pressure is the same as the outside pressure, because instead of being isolated from your environment, you have a hole cut out. That's the equivalent of a moon pool, so to speak, where you go in and out. Your front door, if you will, And that extra pressure, three atmospheres, in the case of Aquarius or in the case of Proteus, which is the maximum you as a human being, me as a human being, should be exposed to in terms of partial pressures of oxygen, because any more than that can conjure up issues of oxygen toxicity, is really kind of the limit the safe limit. Um, if you want to go deeper with a habitat, you start running into trimix and heliox mixes and things like that. Um, and those are much more costly. So on an economic level, uh, three atmospheres is really the sweet spot and it gives you extended range as a, uh, uh, we call, we, we call them aquanauts. Uh, aquanaut is, is like an astronaut in space. Uh, the definition of an aquanaut is someone who lives, works, sleeps, eats, in or out of an underwater habitat for more than 24 hours. So you become saturated. And the training to become an aquanaut is very similar in many ways to training to be an astronaut or some other extreme job. The idea, however, is that once you're down below and saturated, you trade your access to the topside world for unprecedented access to the bottom world, which is pretty awesome. Sure. I mean, you know, you can go up at 20 meters, um, virtually indefinitely to go and work and, and, and do your, uh, do the scientific research and everything else. Of course, you know, we get tired and we get hungry and we need to go to the bathroom, but other than those limitations, that's, that's pretty awesome. If you want to go deeper, 150 feet, uh, you know, your, your range is about five and a half hours with no deco obligations. So it gives you a huge leg up. Um, If you want to go deeper than that, obviously the dive tables are very different than what a recreational dive table is, but it functions the similar way. Or in the case of Proteus, which will be about 10 times the size of the last undersea marine laboratory in the world called Aquarius. Aquarius is nine miles offshore and 60 feet down in the Florida Keys in Penny Camp State Park. Aquarius is 400 square feet internal space. Proteus will be 10 times that. Oh, wow. |
| Jason Heaton | So, oh my gosh. So, so 4,000 square feet. |
| Fabien Cousteau | About 4,000 square feet, depending on what the schematics end up being anywhere from 3,800 to 4,000 square feet. And that is done by design, by design, because the idea is to be able to offer a platform that could do mid and long-term research. and house, uh, twice as many people. And, uh, with that capability, we can have a full-size med bay, uh, meaning a med bay, which doubles into a deco chamber so that you can switch out teams without interrupting the workflow. You can have people staying down, not for days and weeks, but weeks and months, and maybe even longer. You, uh, we will have, um, deployment of ROVs, AUVs, and submarine docking station, as well, of course, as the capabilities of sending out aquanaut teams. The laboratories inside Proteus will be state-of-the-art, will be modular in nature, will be the envy of even the topside world, because now, all of a sudden, Proteus will offer the ability to do the research on site rather than going down for limited periods of time, plucking samples, bringing them back up to the surface, which has a tendency to corrupt the samples. And then of course, freezing them and flying them halfway around the world, where they'll spend time in a freeze locker for months, maybe years before they get analyzed, which of course corrupts those samples or has a tendency to. you know, in this world, in this day and age, uh, we certainly didn't time it with the COVID crisis. We were supposed to announce this back in April. Uh, that was our projected date. Uh, we, uh, held on as long as possible and then we just had to let the horses go. Um, and so despite the fact that the COVID crisis is here, um, we've, been able to garner a lot of positive interest. And I think the world needs good news, honestly, all the bad news that's going on, or hopeful news. And this is a platform that can be a great unifier. I see it a little bit like the United Nations of International Space Stations in that a multitude of universities, higher order institutions, corporations, government entities, individuals, which we will be able to sponsor. to use this platform, this very unique platform. |
| Jason Heaton | Do you see, um, yourself as in this case with Aquarius, it was a, it was a much, uh, it was, had a very defined beginning and end. It was, it was a month long. Um, there was, uh, there were rotating teams and there were visitors and there were, um, uh, you know, webinars and meetings with school children and this sort of thing that was over a very defined period. Do you see yourself in this case as more of a, facilitator or something that you want to launch this and then sort of make it available to others. I mean, you're not planning on spending months and months of your own time there. I'm assuming you'll, you'll be visiting regularly, but this is something that you would like to put into the world like the international space station and make available for whomever can assume they're going to rent time or, or, you know, whatever to, to use this for their own purposes. Is that kind of the idea? |
| Fabien Cousteau | Well, that's a very good question. And, uh, no, I don't plan on spending the rest of my life underwater, although that would, that does sound pretty awesome. I wouldn't ask anybody to do what I'm not willing to do myself. So, um, with that said, Proteus is meant to be a very unique platform to cater to the needs of today and tomorrow's research. It's, uh, the, the structure itself is modular in nature. As a matter of fact, it has a little brother slated to be part of this project. That'll be at about 70 or 80 meters deep. So that's a Heliox environment. And as such, you can do special missions down there depending on what your needs are. The first mission will be a bit of a shakedown mission, of course, considering there are a lot of never been tried before aspects to this. and I stand by what I say, I'm not going to let anyone do what I'm not willing to do myself, but, uh, we'll, we'll execute the first mission to make sure that we, uh, we have all the bugs worked out. Uh, we'll be able to start kicking off some of the basic experiments, uh, setting up the sensor arrays, uh, setting up, uh, the life aboard Proteus, uh, which will be conducive to, uh, hydroponics, uh, growing some of your own food, uh, because I've got to say one of the, as a French person, I know I don't sound it, but one of the French, uh, one, one of my aspects is, uh, I, the hardest thing for me to do during mission 31 was to eat the food that we have to eat is basically freeze dried food, astronaut food. Most of the time. Sure. It's awful. It's awful. I mean, uh, it it's, it's fine one or two days, but when you're burning three times as many calories underwater, uh, and you have to eat three times as much food, And it's always freeze dried food that's reconstituted by hot water or microwave. It's tedious very quickly. And I could only imagine what astronauts have to go through. So it's, it's one of the aspects we want to be able to bring in, uh, fresh sustenance that either we grow ourselves inside or outside produce. Beyond this, of course, there'll be the ability to look at biochem in the ocean. There'll be ability to look at, uh, biodiversity, of course, biomimicry, you know, engineering feats, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And anything that's beyond the range of an aquanaut, it will be catered to by ROVs as well as the submersible, which will be docked at the station. |
| Jason Heaton | Sure. Amazing. Now, of course, I cannot fail to mention, as preparation for this interview, I had to go back and watch World Without Sun. So for those who might not be aware, this was Fabian's grandfather, Jacques-Yves Cousteau. If anybody who doesn't know who he is, you can click off right now and go to Wikipedia. The great film, I don't know what year that was made, but it was around his experiment called Con Shelf, which was... 1965. 65, okay. Which was fantastic. Watching it, you know, you brought up food and this, and of course, you know, they were smoking cigarettes and eating well and cutting their hair and... playing music and all this sort of thing. It was fantastic. It was just fantastic. They had, and, and when you mentioned the deeper, um, facility with Proteus, it made me think of, of what they called the deep cabin, which was kind of their, I'm guessing a far cruder concept than what you have in mind, um, at a deeper depth than, than kind of their big house, I think is what they called the, the main facility. Um, but incredibly ambitious project. And I, I love that. Um, when I saw the, the press materials come through about Proteus, it was, It was so exciting to me because I think this is the sort of project, you know, as you mentioned, we need some hope, we need some optimism in the world. And I think, uh, this level of ambition is something that we need. I think not just because of, you know, to counteract bad news in the world. I just think, uh, um, you know, it's things like this, it's things like SpaceX, it's things like, you know, whatever that, that, um, that are great. I love the, the big, the big dream of this. Um, what's kind of your, your, timetable for this? And how do you plan to raise the money? I'm guessing this is quite a costly endeavor and will take a while to kind of get off the ground, so to speak. |
| Fabien Cousteau | No, those are all very valid questions. One of the things that we're based on is the exploits of pioneers prior to us, because they've done some fantastic work from all the various underwater habitat platforms. My grandfather's conch shelf one was arguably the first actual habitat And then Conshelf 2, which you mentioned, which was fantastic. It was the largest, I believe, in history. And the reason for that is there were several different buildings. One of them was the main house, the starfish house. The second one was the saucer hangar, which looked a little bit like a sea urchin. And then, of course, the deep house, which was precariously anchored to the side of a cliff, so to speak. And then, of course, there's a garden shed and all sorts of other things. So it was a very complex setup, especially for 1964. The movie came out in 65. And it just showed and highlighted, you know, not only the science that they were doing, but also the, the daily living, uh, and trying to relate it a little bit back to, uh, land dwellers to the average person who may never get a chance to do this, of course, but more importantly, who need to connect with the importance of the ocean and how fantastic it is. And so, you know, between those and the sea labs and the hydro labs of the world and tech tights and all that, all those exploits and those pioneers really were building on the foundation that, that, that they constructed. And we're addressing a lot of the shortcomings and frustrations that past aquanauts have had and past engineers have had. In today's world, we have the blessing of some of the advanced research and technologies that can either be directly implemented or adapted to this. The modular nature of Proteus will give us the ability to expand as needs be. with regard to the main structure as well as some of the ancillary aspects of it, including the deep structure. The fact that it's in Curaçao in the marine protected area will be something of great interest to marine biologists, of course, because Curaçao has one of the most rich and diverse coral reefs in the Caribbean still to this day. albeit it is impacted to some extent, less so than many, but to some extent with the effects of climate change and human activity. And those are some of the things that we'll be carefully monitoring in real time every day with the arrays that we're setting up between the microplastics and the hydrocarbons and all that sort of thing, as well as the activities of the aquanauts doing all sorts of other research, including looking at various biochemical compositions, which could address, you know, things like cancer research, you know, breast cancer or leukemia, which can address, you know, pain, chronic pain, using pain mitigators from ocean derived resources that can address virals. So developing antivirals, including things like pandemics, like what we're dealing with now, in a much more efficient way. Because one of the things that is asked is, why would you want to do something like this? Why do we need something like this? And to me, I'm kind of surprised at that question because in where we are as a species, our trajectory as a species, our future, our future existence and wellbeing, especially of our kids and grandkids, we must have tools like this. so that we can get a better feel for the pulse of the health of our ocean, because our ocean is our life support system. Full stop. There's no question about that. No ocean, no life, no healthy ocean, no healthy future. And when we look at the numbers of sea life that we have wiped out, and I intentionally don't say seafood because seafood has no value connotation. When you say sea life, people start paying attention. Oh yeah, that's a living thing. It has value. And when we look at those things, we're going bankrupt. We're going bankrupt on land, or we already have, and we're going bankrupt in the ocean. And so those are very fundamental aspects that we need to look at if we are to look at a viable trajectory for our species down the road. And by default, we have to protect that natural resource bank account, meaning we have to protect that web of life, as if our lives depended on it. And so to add another arrow in the quiver of, um, of solution building, uh, we need to have an underwater laboratory that's capable of keeping up with today's world, uh, in a way that is capable of generating solutions, uh, in short order, uh, in months, uh, not years and decades. |
| Jason Heaton | So what's, um, in terms of the milestones ahead, you know, going forward from today and, and, and, actually opening for business, so to speak. What, what do you see happening? I mean, is this a five-year project or do you aim to kind of have it up, have it up and running before then? |
| Fabien Cousteau | So, you know, I mean, we're, we're working under lift. I mean, it's a, it's such a big project. It's a big project. It's certainly not an impossible project. I don't believe anything's impossible with the, you know, the human element connected to it. You know, we've, we've been pushed to creating miracles when needs be. look at the space race and the interspace race, which is called the ocean race. In the 1960s, there was great interest, great investment. Lots of amazing things happened in the 60s and into the 70s with both those things. And I believe that we're now in the renewed cycle of interest, of course, in space exploration and interesting approaches of the public-private partnerships, such as NASA and SpaceX, for example. but also within the context of ocean exploration. We've explored less than 5% of our ocean world to date, yet we're talking about 99% of our world's living space. And much of the biodiversity, much of the unexplored territories of this planet, virtually all are in the ocean. And that's very exciting. That to me, every time I go diving, maybe one, One question is answered and 12 more are posed because of all the wonders, the Pandora's box that's opened in front of your very eyes. So imagine what a scientist would feel like if they're given the gift of time underwater. And that's really the absolutely necessary aspect of this is being able to give the necessary time underwater to do the research, various types of research that can only be done from uh, pragmatically speaking from a habitat and shortening that time of research so that we can come to those solutions. I have in front of me, I know this is an audio podcast, but I have in front of me a list of, um, just in, in the, in the pharma world, uh, of preclinical phase one, two, three, and then approved drugs that come from chemical compositions, uh, of various, uh, flora and fauna in the ocean. Uh, and they include some fundamental things that we all care about, uh, treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, antivirals, pain, breast cancer, and the list goes on and on and on. So, and this is just barely scratching the surface because like I said, we really haven't been paying attention to our oceans the way we should. I think that by highlighting those values, we can also highlight the value of protecting our ocean, creating more marine protected areas, which would be equivalent to Socking away the the the capital and then living off the interest that the ocean bears sure If you look at the biomass on this planet in in terms of numbers 95% of the world's biomass today is Represented by human beings and livestock Domesticated animals livestock that's how little is left of our natural world in terms of of biomass. And that's pretty scary. So it's a two prong approach. To answer your question, and I'm sorry, I went off on a tangent. To answer your question about timing, RevOcean is a $500 million project. It's a largest research vessel out there, and I wholeheartedly support them. But we have a lot of research vessels out there. We don't have a lot of interspace research stations in the ocean. We don't have any actually, we just have, well, we have the 30 year old habitat off of, uh, off the keys. But that's really about it for us. Our total budget's $134 million, you know, comparatively very small. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Fabien Cousteau | And our projected timeline, let's say someone comes up and says, here's your 134 million or 135 million. Um, how long is it going to take? Uh, it would take us 32 to 36 months to install products at the bottom. Wow. |
| Jason Heaton | So it's only three years. That's, That's impressive. I would have thought a lot, a lot longer than that, but I think, uh, I assume this would be, will be built in a modular fashion on land and then shipped out. And it has to, uh, you have a space, you have a spot that's, uh, already earmarked or not earmarked, but, uh, you've put a pin on the map, so to speak off of, uh, Curacao. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. I have several pins on the map. With Curacao, we have an MOU with the government. We have a projected location. We're doing a feasibility study as we speak on the location. It's looking excellent. Curacao is fantastic because it's a seamount. And as such, the topography is varied quite a bit within a short distance. So it allows for a lot of different types of research. It allows for deep water as well as shallow water research and mid-layer as well. We're working with the local organization that takes care of the marine protected areas as well as the land parks, CARMABI, and we want to make sure that they're happy and excited. And Curaçao is just the first of several pins in the map. The idea really is to have a network of these seven or eight of these in various configurations, not necessarily as big, but strategically located in different parts of the world so that we have a better understanding of what's happening and we can help share that data with the world so that we can be proactive about decision making. And that saves time, that saves money, that saves lives. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, with, with an, with a venture like this and, and with looking back at, at Conshelf for instance, and kind of comparing the eras in which these are being launched or built, Um, there's a certain element of, how do I put it? Uh, PR or exposure or marketing that has to go along with it, whether it's for raising money or just, you know, making people aware of it. I have to think that, you know, back in the mid sixties or late sixties or even into the seventies, there were fewer TV channels, fewer media outlets. Uh, there was no social media. Um, Do you think that the impact that your grandfather had on the world, everybody says, oh, I learned to dive because I watched Jacques Cousteau on television. That has changed. And I just wonder what your perspective is on, A, sort of being a Cousteau, but also living in an era where you're active on social media and you do plenty of interviews and podcasts and things like this. Is it more difficult now to kind of get people's attention and keep people's attention nowadays in the environment that we live in? |
| Fabien Cousteau | Well, I think nothing is black and white, right? Today's world allows for a lot more flexibility and a lot more opportunities. It's also more challenging, of course, when you want to get notice and you need a subject matter, more importantly, to get notice. You know, there's a lot of white noise out there and oftentimes the messaging gets drowned out. So it is more challenging. Being a Cousteau is always a double-edged sword. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I was going to ask you that. I was, I was going to ask, I'm sure there's a pressure that comes with it, but there also are benefits. But, uh, I, you know, I, on the one hand, I don't envy you for it, but I also think, uh, it's, it's a tremendous honor, I'm sure as well. And, and does open some doors, uh, to a certain degree. |
| Fabien Cousteau | You know, we're, we're a family like anybody else. Um, we put our pants on one leg at a time and all that. Or your wetsuits. I had to say that. Thank you. More appropriate, I guess. The fact that it, you know, opens doors, obviously blessing. But once you walk through that door, you, you know, you're expected to be better than anybody else. So, so it is a double-edged sword. I will say that, you know, the best inheritance that I ever got from my grandparents, the only inheritance really, is, the philosophy within which I grew and the education that I was blessed with getting by living on Calypso and Alcyon, or working on Calypso and Alcyon, as well as learning what all those amazing pioneers were doing. And they were kind enough to share that with us, us the grandkids. And that is the type of education that I will never forget. Then what it's what makes me who I am and how I think and Seeing the planet from the bottom up gives a different perspective and really gives an understanding of the real need for more people to be connected with our ocean world. I mean, I dream, of course, of exploring the oceans of Mars, if that's ever available in my lifetime. The reality is this is a beautiful planet. This is a very unique planet. This is one that we are all dependent on. And most importantly, we're dependent on what the ocean generates for us, which is every other breath that we take, every glass of water that we drink, the seasons so that we can grow crops and feed our families, the migratory patterns of animals in the ocean that we love to catch or film, and so on and so forth. And so it's really beholden to us, the ones who are lucky enough to look beneath the blue veneer, to share those things with those who may never get a chance to see this, because it's very important for them to be connected as well. So they can make better decisions in their everyday lives and they could be more conscious of what's going on around them. Instead of being surprised at what happens on their front doorstep, to be able to mitigate that and maybe change that outcome before it happens. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, so true. I think also nowadays we're, we have this, um, incredible technology that allows us to, um, convey what's happening under the ocean in high definition, you know, high resolution. I mean, imagine watching world without sun if it was shot in, you know, 4k video or, I mean, it's, um, so what, what you're able to do and what you will be able to do with, with Proteus for instance, is to, to bring this stuff to, to land dwellers and people that don't dive, um, in, in such, you know, lifelike, um, vivid reality. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Um, so produce has a 10. So produce will, will be based on, um, several things that will not only hopefully wow people, but we'll also connect them, uh, as with the Aquarius that, um, we upgraded the systems for mission 31 to be able to broadcast live in HD. on the website and through Skype in the classroom sessions and all that. And we were able to reach 100,000 students during that one month. We plan with the umbilical that we run back to shore to be based on renewable energy. And instead of just solar and wind and all that, we're looking at baseline energy, ocean thermal energy conversion, which is OTEC. And beyond that, that umbilical will also carry not just our energy, water and life support, but also data stream, which means that we'll be able to broadcast in a minimum of 16K live 24-7 to connect with the world so that they can see what we're doing, so we can share what we're doing with the world and really get people excited and interested. And maybe this will be another uh, another, um, space race, except it'll be, uh, inner space. People are really excited to become aquanauts. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I was reading something somewhere, uh, maybe it was an old interview with you that you learned to dive when you were four years old. Is that, was that the case? And who taught you? |
| Fabien Cousteau | So my fourth birthday, uh, funny, funny story. All right. So I'm French, right? I born to French parents. Uh, my grandparents are French, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, We moved to Los Angeles, California, when I was very young. That was the first of 32 moves. And before the birthday rolls around and my father comes up to me and asks me what I'd like to have for my lunch for me and my friends. And being the good little French kid that I am, that I was, I said, can I have... uh, a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and, uh, horrified. And of course being completely puzzled as to where to get one of those. Uh, my father went off into, uh, Los Angeles to go find, uh, the infamous KFC, uh, and by the time he got back, I was buddy breathing at the bottom of the pool with a family friend. And that was, that was really my first foray into there. And my family or my parents more specifically being, um, curious or a little surprised at my, my curiosity and desire got me a little pony bottle with a regulator and some little things and everything else. We went over there to the Channel Islands to go diving. That was my first, my first experience as far as diving. Catalina. |
| Jason Heaton | Amazing. Amazing. Is, is your sister Celine, is she older than you or younger? |
| Fabien Cousteau | My sister is, It depends. Are you talking about? You don't have to tell him, tell us her age. Chronological order or mental order? |
| Jason Heaton | I'm just curious. Maybe a more diplomatic question is how close are you in age? I hope she's not listening. |
| Fabien Cousteau | She's four and a half years younger. Okay. |
| Jason Heaton | You guys seem pretty close. I've seen you doing several things together and yeah. |
| Fabien Cousteau | And she's doing some interesting stuff too. Yeah. You know, we have our own projects and our own focuses, but we try as much as possible to work together whenever there's an opportunity. Yeah. My father as well. And, you know, for example, the Discovery Channel series last year, we all worked on, you know, this year, because again of COVID and the way we're all separated physically, it's much more difficult. But she's working on one of her main focuses these days, which is uh, the indigenous rights, uh, of, uh, the peoples, the uncontacted and little contacted peoples of the Amazon basin. Uh, and she's, uh, she's worked tirelessly for years and years, years on that. And, you know, this is actually falls right back into what we're talking about, which is, you know, water connects everything and everyone you're skiing on top of a mountain, you're skiing on the ocean, you're up at the Amazon river. you're depending on that aquatic ecosystem for your, your livelihood to feed your family, to, uh, to travel, um, to, uh, drink, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so it doesn't matter what our focus is on as a family. We're, we're always in and around water topics. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's true. So we can wrap things up here shortly, but I, I would be remiss to, uh, to skip over, uh, some watch talk because, you know, I mean, |
| Fabien Cousteau | Getting me into the tech weenie aspects of my life. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, there's such an emotional side of, of, you know, traditional dive watches, uh, as opposed to dive computers. And then there's the kind of the, the history and the, you know, the, the artistry of it and all this. But, you know, first of all, your, your grandfather had to have been a watch nerd. I mean, there are entire websites devoted to Jacques Cousteau's watches and his entire team, you know, it was Omegas and Doxa and Aquastar and, lip and you know, all these brands and he just wore so many watches. I mean, it's, uh, you have to have inherited that. I mean, we've, over the years we've crossed paths with, with a couple of different brands, Doxa with Mission 31. And then of course, more recently your relationship with, with Seiko. Was that something that was inherited? Um, what was, what was your first watch? Do you remember it? |
| Fabien Cousteau | You and I have to have a longer chat sometime, but, uh, essentially, um, my passions vary quite a bit. Uh, I love archeology. I love, uh, ancient motorcycles. Uh, I, I have, I have a bit of an addiction there. Uh, mostly, uh, sixties and seventies motorcycles because you know, when you're a little kid and you see them zoom by, you kind of fixate on them. And so I have more than, uh, more than 10. I'll just leave it at that. And I love working on them because for me it's, it's Zen. Uh, and along with that, I'm, I'm very mechanically inclined. I love tinkering. I love, uh, fixing things. And, and it's necessary also when you're in the field and something breaks and you're in the middle of nowhere, there's no FedEx or anything that, that you can, uh, get new equipment. So you have to be able to be, um, self-sufficient. Yeah. And so, uh, with watches, I've always had a fascination with watches, uh, intense to, to, to give you a little bit of insight. You know, the, there's a magazine online, it's called Rolex magazine that has, uh, a lot of information about the Custos watches. Yeah. the, um, I even learned some things on that. For example, my grandfather was right in the dawn of, uh, ocean exploration. And that's right when the big watch companies started getting interested in creating tool watches for diving. And so, as you mentioned, um, they were, uh, essentially using a lot of the prototypes during their expeditions, uh, to test the viability of these different watches from, Rolex and Omega and Aquastar and, you know, Doxa and many, many other, or not many, many, but several other watch companies during their expeditions. Bearing in mind, these were expeditions like once you leave the dock, you probably won't be coming home for three to six months. And these are no cell phones or anything like that. There wasn't even Telex or satellite phone back then. you know, until you got back to a dock or, or some sense of civilization to pick up a landline, you know, one of the landlines that used to have to have to dial with the numbers in a rotary fashion, you know, you basically your family who didn't hear from you and, and, you know, you'd send postcards and letters that would take weeks and weeks to get home. So, um, so it was, it was true blue expeditions and they would test these watches out in extreme conditions. And in uncertain conditions, cause again, this was the dawn of, of diving and dive tables weren't perfected and sometimes they would push their limits. I've heard many, many stories of some of the crew going down past 350 plus feet on air. I mean, as divers know, that's not recommended. But back then they didn't know. They had no idea about oxygen toxicity issues and all that. So, Yeah, yeah. So those watches were definitely tested. And I love the mechanics. I'll tell you something. I always go diving with a mechanical watch alongside my dive computer. Because I'll tell you, if you choose the right mechanical watch, it's a very reliable piece of equipment. And no matter what computer you choose, inevitably, at some point, it will fail. And it's not necessarily anyone's fault. you know, electronics and saltwater don't mix very well and batteries run out. And, uh, you know what can go wrong does when you're out in the extremes. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Do you remember your first, your first watch? I'd have to go downstairs and dig through my piles and my graveyard of watches. I do remember my first watch. Uh, it's, it's nothing really exciting except for one aspect of it. I remember when I was a little kid, my parents for my birthday gave me my first watch and it was a, you know, plastic Chinese made digital watch. Yeah. with an exceptional feature. Uh, not only was it transparent, but it was powered by water. Really? No battery, no, nothing was powered by water. And every time you got wet, it would read, it would, it would, uh, fill the sponges that were inside, which connected the two, um, the two connectors, positive, negative. And it was enough charge to make the watch work. And that would, and that would be enough to work for several days. And so, you know, you take a shower, it recharges and so on. So it was really cool. I still have it. Wow. From there, you know, I've had a variety of different watches from Swiss Army to Tissot to, you know, you name it. Pretty much most, most big watch brands and, you know, most of the Japanese brands as well. Sure. And I just love them. I switch them out. I, you know, depending on my mood or whatever. Right. The watches are partly fashion as well, but for their tool, they're, they're, you know, if they can't live my lifestyle, then they go into, you know, the, the, the graveyard to be forgotten. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. Now, if I remember correctly, um, are you, are you left-handed? I am. I remember you wearing your watch on your right wrist. Is that still the case? That's right. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Yeah, that's right. Whether it's my, uh, whether it's an Apple watch or a Rolex or what have you, it doesn't matter. I always wear it on my right wrist for the very simple reason that being left-handed, just like when you're right-handed, you wear on your left wrist, it's less intrusive. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Fabien Cousteau | So the side benefit to it too, I noticed is the crown doesn't dig into your wrist. |
| Filler | Oh, sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm left-handed as well. And growing up, I always wore a watch on my right wrist and then, I don't know, at some point, within the last 10 years, I switched my left and I don't know if it was when I started using a mouse more regularly, like, you know, if it was interfering, but then within the past year I switched back to my right and it feels like coming home again. You know, it's like where it should be. So I feel you there. I think it's a, it's the right place for it. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Some people wear them, wear one on each wrist. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I heard you say Apple watch, but I'm not even going to ask you about wearing an Apple watch. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Oh, you know, it's for me, it's more of a practical thing for when I'm doing exercise and stuff like that. Honestly, You know, the shortcomings, uh, are the very frustrating ones, uh, of any, um, any watch like that. Uh, the fact that they don't last for, you know, more than a day or two or three on a, on a charge, uh, is very impractical to me. Uh, I, I use it for working out. I use it for that sort of thing. Uh, sometimes for business, because it does remind me, Hey, you've got a zoom call. Hey, you've got, you know, uh, whatever. Uh, someone's trying to get ahold of you. It's urgent, you know, that sort of thing. But, uh, other than that, um, you know, I, I, I love the romance of a mechanical or of a traditional watch. Love the simplicity of it. Uh, it's, it does one thing and one thing. Well, uh, that's all I ask of it. Um, yeah. Sometimes I don't want to be around technology. You know, if I'm in the garage working on my motorcycles, I don't want to be, you know, with my phone next to my hand and, uh, and, and right. the watch. I just want to be left alone and concentrate. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, Hey, it's, uh, it's been a real pleasure talking to you and I really appreciate, um, you taking a lot of time today to fill us in on everything that's going on from your motorcycles to Proteus to, to that strange first watch. I'm going to have to Google that. That's pretty crazy. |
| Fabien Cousteau | I'll take a picture and I'll send it to you. You know, I should take a picture of is the, um, the, the Seiko watches I've accumulated over the last couple of years. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Love to see that. Cool. |
| Fabien Cousteau | All right. I should probably get rid of my, my, my wife thinks I'm completely nuts. Let's get rid of those motorcycles. Get rid of those watches. You don't need all that stuff. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm a hoarder for certain things. I have no idea. |
| Jason Heaton | We'd be happy to help you with that. You know, here on the green, we could do a, we could do a Fabian Cousteau watch auction to raise funds for Proteus. How about that? We'll, we'll talk about that. |
| Fabien Cousteau | Yeah. That would be really cool. Um, we, we do, we, we can, um, and, and really would love to have everyone's help in making this a reality. Proteus is based on a nonprofit platform and as such, you know, it's got its pros and cons, but that means, um, we, we really need all of your help and really appreciate that. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, we'll put links to everything you're working on in our show notes that people always faithfully check out and click on. So that'll be great. And yeah, thanks again for talking and we'll keep in touch. |
| Fabien Cousteau | My pleasure. I'd love to check out your Land Rover one of these days. Oh, of course. We'll do that. |
| Jason Heaton | Once this is all over. I'll try to drive out to New York or something. See you in a month. |
| Fabien Cousteau | All right. Thanks. It'll be a nice ride. Yeah. Take care. |
| Unknown | All right, Jason. I thought that was pretty rad. And obviously a huge thank you to Fabian for coming on and for talking for so long and really giving us a great, great sort of background on what it is to be a Cousteau and the plans for Proteus and the rest of it. I thought that was fascinating. Should you have any questions or require any follow-up, be sure to hit the show notes where we'll have links to everything that was talked about. You can, of course, send us an email, thegrenadoatgmail.com. And lastly, we absolutely recommend you follow Fabian on Instagram. He's at fcousteau, and that's probably as good a spot as ever to be able to keep tabs on what he's up to moving forward. Jason, that was really good. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'm really glad we were finally able to pull that off. And, you know, there were some little nuggets of kind of cool cool stuff in there, like his first watch, that weird water powered one. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Watch. Yeah. That's very strange. And then I had no idea he was so into motorcycles, but yeah, me neither. Really, really fun. Yeah. So, yeah. |
| Unknown | Thanks again, Fabian. All right. Let's get into some final notes. How about you go first as it'll keep us on topic. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, at the risk of over Cousteau, over Cousteau exposure here. This, this is an absolute must watch. for anyone who enjoyed that last interview or anything related to undersea living, and that is Jacques Cousteau's film, World Without Sun, which is available on YouTube. This was his movie from, I believe, 1964 or 65, his Conshelf 2 project, where he did something somewhat similar to what Fabian has in mind for Proteus, and it was in the Red Sea back in 64 when Cousteau built this really incredible undersea habitat complete with a submarine garage and kind of a deeper outpost where some of the divers could go and live separately from the rest that stayed back in the main facility. And, you know, what you're struck by when you watch this movie is, for me, the incredible amount of ambition from that era, for any era, what he was doing was so visionary because at the time, you know, this was an era when undersea living was in its infancy. And I think he was trying to sell the idea that the future of, of the human race potentially is under the, under the ocean. And the more we can normalize living underwater, uh, you know, we can, we can do research, we can harvest resources for better or for worse. We can, uh, you know it's another place on the planet that is untapped and so in this movie he really stressed this idea of normalization so they brought a pet parrot down they were doing you know haircuts and smoking cigarettes and drinking wine and you know all this kind of stuff that some of which you know probably is not highly recommended these days But I was just so struck by the ambition and the design of this place and what they were doing back then. And it's a well-made movie, too. I mean, it's a legitimately good documentary. Yeah, it's great. Well filmed. So World Without Sun, check it out on YouTube. And, you know, maybe one day someone on a podcast will be talking about a Proteus film that Fabian makes. |
| Unknown | I'm looking forward to watching it. Yeah, that'll be that'll be cool. But yeah, World Without Sun is a great pick, whether you have Fabian on the podcast or not. a solid one for sure. Mine is an episode of Chris Harris' podcast, which is the Collecting Cars podcast with Chris Harris, in which he sits down for a chat with Gordon Murray surrounding the launch of Gordon Murray Automotive's T50 supercar. So this is probably the bigger automotive news of the last two weeks. I'm sure that many of you listening have either seen this or You know, certainly caught images of it on Instagram. But Gordon Murray, I will not belabor the history lesson here. I can attempt to be short, but Gordon Murray was the chief architect and designing presence of the hallowed McLaren F1, which was an early 90s three seater supercar with a naturally aspirated V12 sourced from BMW, a six speed manual. And it was at the time and still remains It was the fastest production car in the world at the time. They made 106, 107 chassis total. They made 64 road cars at the time. And then now with the T50, this is something they've been talking about for quite some time, but they've officially gone into testing for the vehicle. So they did a press launch sort of preview. Nobody drove it or anything like that, but it is in many ways a spiritual successor to the F1. It's a little bit smaller. It still is a three seater with a central driving position, a six speed, manual gearbox, it uses a Cosworth sourced V12, a four liter V12, which is amazing. Again, no turbos or superchargers. This one, unlike the F1, revs to 12,100, which is like a Formula One car in the 80s. It's really a thing. I'll link an article where you can do this, but the point is to listen to Murray, who I believe to be the finest performance car designer, certainly the purest of mind and intention in his generation. He made one of the few modern 90s cars that has grown in value like a vintage 60s car. A McLaren F1 at the time would have been the only million dollar car to hit the market, million pounds, in 1992, let's say, and then now you'd be lucky to get one for 15. |
| Filler | Oh, my gosh. |
| Unknown | They're they're worth a lot. And then the special ones are worth a lot more. And then there's some really rare runs in there that, you know, never trade hands publicly. But, you know, 20 million isn't off the table for an F1 that's been cared for. But I think at a project level and what they've shown so far, it's really exciting. And I can't wait to see how they execute on it. And I think it's a super interesting interview if you're even even just a little bit interested in cars. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm going to listen to that because I When this was announced, you know, whatever it was last week, you know, we traded some messages about it. I had seen Henry Catchpole's video. It's great. Yeah. Where he kind of walks around the car with Gordon Murray and the level of detail they go into in that chat was so deep. And my remark to you was, I really respect that deep nerd level There's so much about this car to understand and so much that I don't understand personally because I'm just not that deep nerd into cars like you are, I guess, but I kind of miss that in the watch space. You know, we, I don't want to start a big line of conversation here about it, but you know, like that level of appreciation and detail and thought into every aspect of it, as opposed to just how big it is, what color of the dial, you know, what are the trends of watches these days? I mean, this is like, a Philippe Dufour or something, you know, sitting down with him and asking him why you made the, you know, angle of that bridge, that, you know, specific angle or something like that. And to have him explain why. And I really admire that and appreciate that. And so even though I probably won't understand, you know, 80% of it, I'll definitely give this podcast a try. |
| Unknown | And they don't, they don't talk just about the car. They talk a lot about his upbringing in automotive, in how he got his start in racing. and then how that became a thing with McLaren. And then they're backing from tag at the time. This would have been pre tag Hoyer, but they're, they're backing from tag at the time and the brands, you know, continued to kind of strong connection. It's a, it's a pretty wide ranging sort of chat. And, and I think Harris does a really good job because he's clearly like he just, he's, he's been in the mix long enough to, to see what makes Murray special and what makes his car special. And, It's cool. I really enjoyed it. I'll also link to Henry's video. It was fantastic, as it always is. He always does a good job. I think the really special thing to consider is just how different the automotive industry globally is in 2020 than it was in 1990, when they were at the XP stages of the 1990, 1991. They're at the experimental stages of the F1. versus now. Now, I mean, the biggest news that the T-50 has to deal with this week is that Aston Martin has an SUV. Oh, yeah. Right? Like, it's just a different world now. People don't buy cars and these... At many times, it seems like when a brand wants to make something crazy high-end, they do so to kind of manufacture a price point, not to push some sort of barrier or to make something that they didn't make six months earlier in a different color with a different body kit. Yeah. It's really, really just an interesting, an interesting thing. And yeah, there's a hundred of them and I'm never going to drive one, let alone buy one or, or whatever, but I sure hope I get a chance to see one at some point. Who knows what the, what the summer sort of car scene would have been like what, you know, without COVID as we're recording this, there, there would have been a decent chance that I would have been on a plane to pebble in the next day or two for what's I think probably like my favorite social event. Uh, certainly in North America for pebble beach and Monterey car week. Uh, and, and then of course we would have, you know, maybe, uh, maybe, uh, would have been saying the same thing about, uh, you know, a trip to a Lake Como for a concorso de Alganza. But all of that stuff is, uh, you know, has changed this year. So in some ways I think maybe I'm, I'm attributing. Some extra specialness to a car that nobody's driven yet, because I don't know. I'm excited that at least some things are happening. |
| Filler | Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Really exciting. Cool. Yeah. Well, there you go. Plenty of plenty of rambling when I promised I wouldn't, but I suppose we can probably call the show there again. A huge thank you to Fabian and Jason. Thank you for being able to handle that. You know, you and I had some concerns about a zoom call with three voices and, and, you know, one voice that Fabian didn't know at all. So we just made the call to make it you and him. And I think, I think it worked out really well. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. And thanks again to Fabian for that. And, uh, Thanks to everyone for listening. You can hit the show notes via Hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. And you can follow us on Instagram. I'm at Jason Heaton. James is at J.E. Stacey. Fabian is at F. Cousteau. And follow the show at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com and please keep sending those voice memos. We'll have our August Q&A episode in a couple of weeks, and we're always happy to accept more of your voice memo questions. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts and music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive. |
| Unknown | And we leave you this quote from, I mean, who else? Jacques Yves Cousteau. When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself. |