The Grey NATO - 152 - Cole Pennington II
Published on Thu, 15 Jul 2021 06:00:36 -0400
Synopsis
This episode features Cole Pennington as a guest host, discussing his recent travel experiences including diving, fishing, and exploring different parts of Thailand. He shares stories about encountering the Burmese military on the Thailand-Myanmar border, catching a sailfish in the Andaman Sea, blackwater night diving in Hawaii, and discovering unique dive spots in Utah. Cole also talks about his passion project creating custom watch rolls with themed patches, and previews an upcoming story he wrote for Hodinkee about limited edition Seiko watches in Thailand. The hosts also chat about cars, Goodwood Festival of Speed highlights, and recommend the "Outdoor Chef Life" YouTube channel.
Links
Transcript
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| Blake Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of the GrayNado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 152 and we thank you for listening. This week, our intrepid Jason is on vacation, so we have our good pal Cole Pennington reprising his guest role from episode 107, but he's been promoted to guest host. How you doing Cole? |
| Cole Pennington | I'm just relishing the opportunity to have been promoted to guest host, to be honest. Our first guest host. Yeah, this is great. It's awesome. So because of that, I'm doing quite well. |
| Blake Stacey | There you go. Yeah, this is great. No, we're pumped. You know, now that we're on weekly episodes, obviously I'd like Jason to be able to take vacation. And with the workload that's pretty common now between Hodinkee and TGN and the rest, it's hard to try and do more than one episode a week. Like going to one episode a week really takes a whole day. of my four to seven day work week, trying to stack them up to put them out later on makes it more difficult. Uh, so this way, uh, Jason was able to take his vacation and he's down there. I checked in with him. Today's having a great time. We're absolutely thrilled to have you on, you know, one Oh seven is a really popular episode. People really, really kind of dig what you, what you brought to the, to the show. And I think it's going to be a fun one. Cause you've had, um, unlike me, you know, I've, I've been Largely in my living room my bedroom or my office for the last nearly two years. |
| Cole Pennington | You've been moving around Yeah, I mean, I definitely been trying to and I will say Jason deserves a vacation Oh, absolutely honor to be able to do that. |
| Blake Stacey | Do you do too? Yeah, exactly. I haven't done anything I don't need a vacation Mentally, I might need one. I definitely have done nothing to deserve one So for many of you Cole won't need an intro But he's a fellow watch writer and editor at Hodinke a diver a driver a fisherman and a very well-seasoned traveler You can find him online on Instagram at Cole underscore Pennington. It's an absolute treat to have Cole as a friend, and I'm really pumped for what will almost certainly be, you know, a rambling, tangent-filled sort of episode. If you're new to the show or you haven't been listening to the last few episodes, we've transitioned the entire Show Notes platform to Substack. at, uh, notes.thegraynado.com. So now you can subscribe to the sub stack, which means every Thursday morning, you get an email that has all the show notes, the photos. We talk about an embedded player for the show and access to all the comments, which is, uh, something that's really taken off that there's more people commenting than I think Jason and I expected. And the comments have been great. People are on there sharing everything from interesting sea animals to their favorite hats, to, uh, pens, flashlights, watches, cars, this or that it's been fantastic. I really enjoy it. So if you want to get in on that chit chat, or if you really just want the easiest way to get the, the big picture of the show, the notes, the images, the rest of it, uh, notes out the great native.com, uh, subscribe, you know, sign up for a sub stack account. So you can leave a comment. It doesn't cost anything, uh, to do that. And, uh, but we, we would love to see your name and your thoughts in there. If you have, uh, if you have, uh, the kind of inclination to do so, uh, next up, uh, our, our buddies at tactile turn, they make these really high end pens. Uh, that Jason and I got each got a kind of a sample of a couple of months ago, they reached out and just said they saw a lot of kind of engagement on the link that we had put in the show notes and they offered up a promo code for TGN listeners. Those who've been listening to TGN for a while know that we don't really do promo codes. I'm not super sure how I feel about them, but, um, it's not an affiliate link. I don't make any money if you use it or you don't use it. He doesn't make any money for like, we don't, we don't get any money back, but it's 10% off. So you can use the code TGN. at a tactile turn. The pen is incredible. I'm writing more handwritten notes than I have in a long, long time. Uh, I really, really like using it. I was able to actually just take the, uh, the cartridge from like a Muji gel pen, which is my favorite kind of cheap pen and trim it down and fit it into the body. And it's, it's perfect. So I really like that. Uh, so yeah, check out more from them at a tactile turn.com. The code is TGN for 10% off. It's a good deal to get a few bucks off any of their kind of a non-limited edition pens. And yeah, also, you know, let us know at thenotes.graynoto.com. If you like discount codes, if it's something I should be asking brands for, if you're keen, we can try and do more. If it's something you think is annoying, I'd like to know that too, but my guess is nobody's really going to be too upset about, you know, 10 to $15 off of a great pen. If you're, if you're in the, still in the mode of writing things by hand. Yeah, I think, I think that's everything for kind of the show, top of the show news. Whereabouts are you calling in from? |
| Cole Pennington | I'm, uh, I'm calling in from Salt Lake City, Utah, just Southwest. |
| Blake Stacey | SLC. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | SLC baby. |
| Blake Stacey | How long you been out there? A little while? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. A little while. Um, I love it. Yeah. It's great. I mean, who knows how it's going to go in the winter? I'm not a winter guy, but, um, but yeah, I love it so far. Summer out in the desert is great. Uh, it's kind of an outdoor paradise. I mean, you, you, you know that intuitively that this is like the land of outdoor sports, but you come out here and it's actually true. Everything they say is true. Everyone's got an overland rig. Everyone's got multiple bicycles. Uh, it's, it's, it's awesome. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. So are you in the, you're feeling the deep need for a dirt bike or a clapped out rally car or something like that? |
| Cole Pennington | So yeah, kind of like a, and I had been thinking about this, like a desert build. So the overlanding and the way I've done the Pajero, which you talked about last episode, it's more mud oriented, but now I'm thinking, all right, so what about the desert? And I'm even thinking about something new. So like, so you went one route, you went the Jeep route, right? |
| Blake Stacey | I did. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | The other route to go would be the Tacoma forerunner route. These are kind of that's the fork in the road. And I'm thinking I'm thinking to come on doing the research phase, which is usually the most fun phase of the whole thing, right? |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's the lowest stakes phase. Eventually, you have to actually buy something. And, and you know, it is something that comes up with some frequency, both on this show and with other with other kinds of discussions like The Jeep isn't, it's a pretty flawed vehicle in many ways. And this is why I love it, but I also wouldn't stand here and recommend that other people necessarily go buy a 10-year-old JK. I wanted an SUV with a stick, so that immediately drops your options way down. And I didn't really want a right-hand drive as my daily, so then there's a few more options gone, like the Pajero. And I kind of didn't really want to get into the world of a really well-used German, like an X5, Oh, no, which like a clean X five with a stick is a lovely thing, as is the X three, the three liter X three. But the amount of money I want to spend, I want to buy cash for, I want to spend cash for a car. I don't want to owe on it or anything like that. And, uh, and, and I also don't drive very much, so I don't really have the need to go spend a big wad of cash. I just want to spend the right amount and get a vehicle and it had to be a stick. So that kind of backed me into the, into the Wrangler territory pretty quickly. And the other side of it is I kind of wanted it to be like a bit, like a bit of a joke for my kids. Like I wanted them to, to like, I feel something for a car rather than just have another appliance. Like I looked at Toyota Highlanders. I think that probably would have been the smarter decision, all things considered. Right. A much more, you know, kind of agreeable vehicle on the road, on the highway, that sort of thing. But like, I'm really happy with the Jeep, but not so much for all of its jeepness, more that it it's a manual and my kids think it's kind of funny. |
| Cole Pennington | I'll tell you a quick story about the, uh, the right-hand drive situation. So |
| Blake Stacey | Sure. |
| Cole Pennington | Sure. I was doing this, this road trip driving out here and I'm also driving another right hand drive car. Right. Um, and I didn't know this, but a lot of the middle of the country, like Ohio, Illinois, this kind of area, there's just crazy tolls, a ton of tolls. Yeah. You need the little grabber. Well, so I didn't have the grabber and I kind of lean over. So obviously you pop it into neutral, lean over to take the ticket, press the button and take the ticket. But my left thigh, moved the, and keep in mind my foot's off the clutch, obviously, but I'm leaning across the car, left thigh knocks it into first, which if you think about like leaning over and grabbing something, you're, you're moving in that direction. Yeah. Pops it into first, which you can do. I mean, with enough force, you can pop a car into gear. Absolutely. Yeah. Muscle it. But exactly. But I lurched forward and almost crashed through the, uh, the little gate that goes up and down before stalling out. |
| Blake Stacey | I think, I think they would have been, they would not have been thrilled about that. I'm glad it wasn't almost. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it wasn't almost. It literally just like if, if these things didn't have like stall mechanisms built in, like if it did just go into first and stay there, I would have been clean through the gate and that would have been damaged to public property, which that'd be a hard one to get out of, you know? |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. I think maybe they would have given you some leeway when you're like, I was literally reaching for the toll and put it into gear. They're still going to want you to pay for that little Bullard arm or whatever, but maybe they, maybe they wouldn't drag you away to, uh, you know, uh, Illinois state prison of some sort. |
| Cole Pennington | But yeah, that's so talking about the right-hand drive thing. Yeah. I'm with you that you don't want to do that on a daily. |
| Blake Stacey | I see the appeal of, uh, of having it as the, as your B or your C option as the fun option. And so you took the R 33 out there. |
| Cole Pennington | That's right. Yeah. R 33 GTS 25 T. So kind of your mid range skyline. And, uh, and yeah, that's the car that would have gone through the toll booth. So good thing it didn't for the car's sake too. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, especially cause things like windshields and stuff for those cars aren't exactly, uh, easy to garden variety. Right. The, with the seals, especially, I know on, on our 34s, our 32s and 33s and stuff can be pretty tough. Um, did you catch all of the R33s at, uh, at, uh, festival of speech? |
| Cole Pennington | I saw some. So I, I, I've been seeing it through social, like parsed bits. I didn't sit down and watch it yet, but I know that there was definitely some, some action that I got to check out. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, they did. Um, so they did a bunch of drift runs, which is something they've, they've added to FOS in the last couple of years. And one of them was the, the Advan HKS R33, um, which is like one of the coolest cars ever made the green headlights, like a pure peak. Like it's so it's almost not even fair to call HKS just like a tuner car. because they were doing it at a level that like three other brands, only their contemporaries were touching. I'll drop it in the show notes, of course, but the, um, the festival of speed, which is, uh, for those listening who aren't real car fans, um, is, uh, you know, part of the Goodwood festival series of, of the year. And it's essentially a hill climb and now it's several days. It's been growing, I think, or at least from its YouTube presence, it's been growing and basically people run, it's a hill climb. So there's one course, there's a couple of spectating points. And by, I mean, a lot of people can sit and watch it and it's a huge event, huge social event in the, in the car calendar. Um, and people rip up the Hill to get to the top and summertime and some art summer exhibition, summer drift laps, the drift laps or not laps, the drift runs have barrels that they have to kind of go around in between, and then they have a wall ride section. And then they're kind of scored based on that. And Pastrana had the new, uh, 2020, uh, Subi there for the, the Jim Connor car. which is a bonkers thing. There's a couple insane S14s. I think literally just as we're recording this, the full-timed shootout is premiering on YouTube. So I was going to have that in my final notes, but I haven't been able to actually watch it. I know it's worth watching, so I will put it in the notes, but I don't want to count it as my final notes. So that's a bonus. Yeah, it's a little bonus, but there's some really, really fun stuff to see this year. And, you know, some insane cars, you know, the GT3X 720S, the McLaren, put down an absolutely ridiculous time for a petrol-powered car. Some really, really fun stuff this year. |
| Cole Pennington | And the thing before we move on, the coolest thing about that is that the hill climb, the course is actually Lord March's driveway. So he's the Duke of Richmond. That's literally his driveway. So he's gone on that every day, right? |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. I just think the thing that always strikes me about that being someone's driveway is Think about this, like, you know, two weeks from now, all of the hay bales will be gone and the stands will be gone and the presenters booths will be gone. And he'll just be like driving his Land Rover or whatever back up to the house and his whole driveway will just be covered in tire marks. Yeah, exactly. That's so funny. And, you know, there's a couple pretty good offs, a BMW 8 series of some sort went off at a lot of speed. So there's going to be a good divot in his grass as well from that car hidden, hidden the bales at 80 miles an hour or whatever it was. |
| Cole Pennington | Nice little reminder of the past. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, for sure. No, it's, it's super. Like you've been to some of the good, the Goodwood stuff, right? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. I've been to both festival speed and revival. Fantastic. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. Both are dreams for me. What, what are they like in person, especially festival? |
| Cole Pennington | Uh, festival speed. So very, very different festival speed is obviously it's, here's the thing. When you're walking around, you see a lot of people from the manufacturers and the teams that are making runs. So when I was there, it was like a Volkswagen electric car and IDR or something like that. |
| Blake Stacey | That set the record. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. It set the record. So that was the last time I went. And, uh, you know, a lot of people from Volkswagen and there's not a lot of, uh, yeah, it's cool, but it's cool if you go with someone or you're there for a reason. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | But as a spectator, it's like you are there. The revival though, on the other hand is totally, the vibe is more like a little bit more of a party, right? Yeah, exactly. And that classic, like English polished, uh, it's a party, but it's, it's refined, right? So you're drinking champagne, eating nice food and yeah, it's a great, I hope. So this year obviously wasn't in the cards, right? But maybe revival is we'll see. And, uh, who knows, maybe I'll see you there. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, I w I would love to go, you know, I, I, I put a fairly serious look into seeing if I could make car week happen. Cause I just feel like even if I had to, had to do the, like, sleep on a friend's floor or whatever, even if I could just get one or two days, it might be good for my soul to be around like a proper car event again. Uh, cause I miss it. I miss it a lot. And, um, it doesn't look like it's going to work out this year, but I'll, I'll definitely have to find something, you know, in the calendar, uh, for the future. Cause I, yeah, I miss this stuff. I miss taking the pictures. I miss seeing the cars. It's interesting to see all of the car events, like come back in some version and just how excited that community is. for these things? Yeah. Because there's, you know, this, and it can be hard to kind of explain this to people at Hodinkee. For those of you who don't know Cole, he's also an editor at Hodinkee, my colleague at Hodinkee, uh, but also a pretty, just loves all cars like me. You know, I'm not a brand guy. I'm not even an SUV guy or a car guy, just like anything, especially if it's cool. You know, you posted that, uh, so you found an SRT4. I was so happy for you. It's one of my favorites. I mean, what a cool car. |
| Cole Pennington | We're the same age. And that was kind of like the, the darling of high school, right? It kind of was like that era. And I think that era, these are future collectibles. I'm not going to say to go out and buy one because I want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So don't, but, but I think they are. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. Well, I mean, there's so many other, like, there's a handful of other countries that, that were doing that sort of car before and have continued to do it. And occasionally America just kind of, it's like a stone skipping on the water. They go, we need a fast little sedan. So the SRT four, and then There's nothing for a little while year and then another one. And then there's nothing for a decade. And then there's another one. It's true. And yeah, that little mini Viper sort of scene is, is such a funny thing. If you guys, again, I'll put it in the show notes. It's a essentially the hot, the hottest, raciest, uh, Dodge neon. |
| Cole Pennington | The thing is, it's not a neon. You're doing a disservice calling it a neon, but that's fine. |
| Blake Stacey | It looks just like a neon. Visually it's a neon with like, uh, uh, you know, a copperhead inspired front grill. |
| Cole Pennington | That's true. And, and like a McDonald's arch wing in the back. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. Super fun car. Hilarious. The car scene is a lot more fun than the watch show scene. Agreed. Like watch shows are still more of a trade event. And I'm sure if we, if, if we were deep enough in the car scene to go to the Frankfurt auto show and the, the G like you might, those are probably more analogous to a Basel world or even a watches and wonders, but there's nothing really in the watch world. That's like, um, Concorso or car week or Amelia or any of these, you know, it's just kind of a different scene. It's just the car world is a little bit more about having a good time while standing near a car. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And talking, I think they do want to see the, the Radwood of the watch world would be cool. Like if that could happen and Hey, maybe you and I put it on. |
| Blake Stacey | Have you been to one of their events? |
| Cole Pennington | I did. Yeah. I went to Radwood in Philly. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I, I really liked their podcast, the driving while awesome. Yeah. You know, I think those are, they're, they're solid guys. They, they have great taste in cars, uh, interesting and, and, and otherwise they just kind of noteworthy stuff. And yeah, I, I, uh, I liked that a lot. I'd, I'd love to see a, a Radwood in Toronto or, or, or something that I could, I could dip over to and check out. I don't, I don't have a car to, to put in, but I definitely go hang out. And I think they must've done one just recently. Cause I saw a bunch of it on, um, on Camisa's, uh, Instagram. |
| Cole Pennington | It's coming back, man. Everything's coming back. Cars, watches. Yeah. It's happening. Yeah. Well, not for you, but down here it is. |
| Blake Stacey | Not for me just yet. And I'm, I'm largely okay with that. I don't need all of my work to come back in the summer. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to, talk to me when I, when I don't want to be at my cottage and then yeah, we can, we can start putting me on a plane to go places. But right now I'm pretty happy to spend my weekends jumping off a dock. So you're out in Utah now. What are you doing to kind of fill the days? What's the last couple of weeks been like for you? |
| Cole Pennington | So there's obviously work every day, but what do I do to relax and chill? I think I've been getting back into, BMX riding in the form of a pump track. It's it's very different than a skate park. The idea is not necessarily to do crazy tricks or anything like that It's really to maintain speed around a track and maybe it's like a flow like a flow exactly It's a flow a little bit more like single track sort of work. Yeah, exactly That's it shifting weight around and so forth and I don't think I've seen it paved necessarily But I've seen some of this in the Whistler area exactly that this is kind of the vibe very much Whistler Kind of those little I think they call them North Shore skinnies and all these type of things. So imagine that but paved And really getting into that hardcore and, you know, researching how to build up a bike for this, like taking off the stock tires and putting on what would be the equivalent of slicks in the car world, just so you get nice and stuck in when you're going around the berms and you're glued to the track. So I've been doing that, been riding this GT La Bamba, which was a gift, which I'm loving. It's a sick bike and it really goes back This is the cool thing. |
| Blake Stacey | What brand is that? I'll put it in the show notes. |
| Cole Pennington | It's a, it's a GT, you know, the classic GT. |
| Blake Stacey | The brand is GT? Yeah. Yeah. That's like, okay. I don't know that much about bikes. I don't know GT. |
| Cole Pennington | They were like the king of the nineties BMX bikes. They owned, uh, they owned another brand called Dino, but GT was kind of their premium. |
| Blake Stacey | I remember Dino. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. The Dino comp was the big one. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this, so what was the one that was just a guy's name? |
| Cole Pennington | That was Dave Mira. |
| Blake Stacey | No. Well, I remember Dave Mirra, but there was another bike that everyone that a couple of that was like, it was the thing to have in grade 10, grade eight to grade 10. I'm sorry with the B Bobby. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, I know what you're talking about. Oh my God. How can I know? |
| Blake Stacey | They were like, they were like, there are, it was a flex if you got one of these. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody listening is just screaming at their phone currently. If you can, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Scream louder. We might hear you. Um, yeah, I remember, I remember these things being like, They were the equivalent of having like a Ferrari when you were 13 years old, right? Like if, whether, whether it was something your family made possible or maybe you had some birthday money or whatever. And that was a huge thing. Like, you know, I, where I grew up, you, if you weren't playing hockey, you were at least standing near a half pipe, somebody built in their backyard. |
| Cole Pennington | That's same, same thing for me when I was growing up. And, and here's the thing, and I will recommend it to you too. It feels great to return to that. And there is a more nuanced, mature form of that in, in what they call bombers or dirt jumping bikes. Like it's, so it's 26 inch mountain bike wheels on a BMX geometry frame. And, and you can be an old dude like me and, and, and ride. And it's fun. And, uh, that's really what I've been doing. So that's what I've been filling my days with quite a bit. And then, um, one, one work assignment has me stoked. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. Let's hear about it. |
| Cole Pennington | So work for Hodinkee. Work for Hodinkee. Yeah. Okay. All right. So does the name Brian Shule mean anything to you? |
| Blake Stacey | It certainly does for me. Yeah. The, uh, one of the more kind of public facing SR 71 pilots. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. He is the guy. I mean, he's, he's kind of, so I'm writing a story about him now. I spent like an hour on the phone with him yesterday or on a zoom, but fantastic. He, one of his things is he kind of laments that he's become the speed check guy or the sled driver guy. Cause he's a nature photographer. He's flown. He was actually, He's an honorary Thunderbird. |
| Blake Stacey | So no way. |
| Cole Pennington | One of the crazy tidbits was we were kind of sharing, you know, notes. And I said, Hey, I wrote this pretty cool piece about, uh, how the, I was trying to try to highlight the crossover between aviation and horology. And I was like, Oh, uh, there's a piece I did, I don't know, half a year ago or something about using a marathon stopwatch in the cockpit of a Thunderbird, uh, of an F 16. That's part of Thunderbirds. And this is how they do their solar runs. And he goes, boy, you know, I'm an honorary Thunderbird. And I'm like, and he's like, I know exactly what you're talking about. I know the stopwatch. I've done it. I'm like, Oh my God, I should have known, you know? So yeah, I talked to Brian Shull and this is kind of like a, a meet your heroes scenario. I mean, for both of us, I would say he's probably a hero, right? |
| Blake Stacey | I mean, absolutely. Yeah, no question. |
| Cole Pennington | And yeah, I got to ask him and, and, and I, you know, I asked your questions, which were great too. So before we kind of got together and said, well, what should we talk to this guy about? So the story will come out once I transcribe it, go write the whole thing. But just talking to someone in, in such a casual, and this happens every now with, with our job in the watch world, like, and, and TGN too. I mean, TGN guests have been, you know, you've got some high profile people on here, but yeah, we've gotten lucky a couple of times. Cole Pennington's been on. Nah, nah, nah. But, but, um, just being able to talk casually. And once he, once you kind of pass the, the fan boy, I don't know, first 30 seconds, because we've done this a bunch. Right. So yeah. And you get into the meat and potatoes of conversation. You even have more respect. That's how it turned out for me. And I actually the opposite has been true more than I like to admit, unfortunately. But in this instance, the idea of like, you know, talking to your hero. Yeah. He's better than you even think. But he's he's more. on your level, like he'll level with you. Put it this way. He'll pull you up to his level and talk to you like, you know, like you're one of the boys and that's what happened and really, really enjoyed that. He had some incredible insight and he also, he said some things which have, uh, have not, he hasn't said before and, and kind of how he came. So he hasn't revealed the origin of the speed check story. And I think if I'm recalling correctly, he actually said that to highlight what makes the job fun to like a fifth grader or something. He was talking to kids and saying, this is a serious job. You know, you're, you're not going to death's knocking on your door every day. And then one of the kids said, well, do you ever have fun with it? And he stopped for a second and said, you know, there was one time where I had a lot of fun. And that is what actually that was the birth of the speed check story that, that obviously we can link up in the show notes too. Right. |
| Blake Stacey | So, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a pretty famous story. And my guess is, you know, it's definitely one that like, I've talked about the SR 71 and my interest in the, in the ox cart program and the rest of it on, on the show before. And then people always send me links to the stories. It is the famous one. There's of course, there's the other one, which I believe was at a, a, a military airport in the UK where a pilot attempted to do a low, a low fly by for a school. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | And I believe did something like came out of a pocket of air and dropped quite significantly lower than he expected and ended up, I think, ruining some windows or something like that. I remember that. In a 71. I don't, I think that's a story I only came across once and I'm not sure that it was necessarily verified, but yeah, there's a couple kind of famous stories. Obviously the, the ejection seat story is a pretty crazy one. So there are some, some stuff in the, in the background of that. Yeah. That one, you know, you, you wrote me and said that you were speaking with him and to ask for questions. And I say, well, you let me think about it. Um, and I just kind of mulled on it for a while. And then you reminded me, you know, yesterday or the day before to, uh, to actually get you those questions. But yeah, it's, it's a tough one. Um, every time that I've come across one of those planes, the ones that are on display, there's always somebody within 20 feet of one of the landing gears that knows everything about the plane. And you think you'd know a lot about the plane, or I think, I think I might know a lot about the plane and you meet somebody. I remember I went to the, um, the, um, flight museum of flight just outside of Seattle that's attached to, I believe, the Boeing headquarters there. And they have an MD-21, which is an SR-71 that has a drone that could be fired. You know, you couldn't put manned aircraft over Russia, so they would fly along the border and then fire the drone in and it would do a big lap and take a bunch of pictures and then crash outside of Russia and they would go recover it. And so these MD-21s is a pretty cool thing. the docent at this museum, I could have, I could have, if I could have just handed him money, he would have just kept like, no, no, ignore those people. It's just, I'm, I'm paying for your day here. Um, he was great. Uh, everything about that's great. And any chance to see or hear about those planes always, it just makes me feel like a five-year-old going to my first air show again. It's just, it's a world of complete wonder and, uh, and, and, and fascination. It's great stuff. |
| Cole Pennington | Same. I get the same visceral reaction every time I see you. And I actually, I came across one on accident driving out here, I stopped at the Strategic Air Command Museum in Nebraska. And I didn't know, I didn't even know this existed. I just saw, you know, down here we have these brown and white signs for public museums or whatever. Saw one that said, uh, SAC museum or SAC Air Museum or something. And I was like, well, that sounds cool. I'm a little ahead of schedule. Uh, let me pull in, walked in and there you go. SR-71 hanging right in the main part of the museum. And I was like, oof, man, So yeah, it's been a, been, I've been up to some, some nice things lately. How about yourself? |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, just, you know, like borderline nothing, especially now that I'm on weekly episodes. Uh, you know, it just, I don't have, I don't have that much to talk about one day to another. You know, the, the workload during the pandemic has been higher than it was previously. You know, there's no travel, so now there's more time to do just more writing and more stuff like that. So I find that takes up a lot of time. And then the rest is like stuff that I don't think really makes for like a really interesting story. You know, I'm trying to teach my kids how to snorkel. That's kind of fun. |
| Cole Pennington | That's fine, actually. That's a nice story. |
| Blake Stacey | But like a lot, that's all, that's all that has to be said. That was the whole story. It was four seconds, right? Like, I'm not, I'm not leading quite as adventurous a life, but you know, uh, spending every weekend up at the cottage, uh, tent, tent camping and cooking on the fire and swimming and Rode some quads this week, this past weekend, shot a few guns. Uh, it was all, all kind of fun, you know? Yeah. It's been, it's been so far a fine summer. Uh, just, just trying to make sure that, you know, keep the pace up and make sure that find some time for recreation here or there. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. That's funny. You mentioned that I, I, the other day I did the math, like, okay. So obviously for me, I did have to go into an office, right? And then pandemic changed that. And I did the math on how much time you save commuting and it's in the hundreds of hours, obviously. And then you think like you might get that back to do something productive. On a personal level, but the answer is no, not really, but that's fine with me. Just not having to do it right now. You're not forced to go somewhere, but, and you end up using this time to actually do more work, which is in turn, you become more productive to your employer, which should be a good thing. It's a win for them. Right. But it is interesting. You say that, that the workload increased during the pandemic, because I feel the same way. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, I think I kind of expected it to almost mellow out. Like there'd be less to talk about because people were kind of closing watch factories and pausing production and things like that. But it's just not the way it went. I mean, I think everybody went into like a bit of a panic mode a year and a half ago and thought like, well, you know, there's just so much uncertainty that the result was like, let's just solidify an editorial calendar and crank out a bunch of work. And, you know, we were doing weekly TGNs at that point. because of the increased amount of time that we had. If you're not on two to five flights a week, that's a lot of time saved as well. I'm not spending hours in an Uber, let alone the time I might spend in airport lounges or otherwise. There's still hobby and fascination, but it is much more enclosed. As I've talked a little bit about, I've gotten more and more into hi-fi audio and trying to find things that interest me where I know nothing so I get to start at the bottom. It's what Heaton calls being a civilian. I like that, yeah. And like at a certain point you know so much that like some of the fun could be drawn out of it or it's work. |
| Cole Pennington | Right. |
| Blake Stacey | And that's it's not that work isn't fun but it's not the same kind of fun as just doing something because that's what your brain wants to do for the next hour. I want to read about speakers or I want to learn about Uh, you know, the other night I went on a real tear on E85 Z4s. Uh, you know, first, first gen Z4s, which I think are undervalued right now. And especially because a lot of the attention is on the M Z4s, the 06 to 08s. The three liters, which are perfectly fast enough for North American road, especially the ones around Toronto. And my guess is just think about what tires have done since 2006 to now. Tons. And so, A three liter with a new set of PS4 S's is going to be, it's going to be great. And there's not like there, so many cars have exploded in value. So this, I, I follow more of those rabbit holes now than maybe I used to. I got very deep into Mario golf very briefly. |
| Cole Pennington | You mean the video game? |
| Blake Stacey | It came out a little while ago. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Well, there's a new, a new watch out that you should check out. It's called the Mario connected watch and there's an article on it that I wrote. You're not allowed to talk about that watch on my show. |
| Blake Stacey | Come on. I, uh, I don't get it, but also that, you know, tag tag is a brand that has to address almost the whole world of people who might like a watch. Yeah. And so very few of their products feel like they're meant for me. |
| Cole Pennington | All right. So I won't talk about that, but what I will talk about is I'm going to issue you a little risk check right here. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh yeah. So, Oh, it's Oh, you're, you're, you're, you're running the show. This is fine. I can relax. This is fun. This is fun. You guys could tell there's not a lot of format here. We just have a list of things that we might talk about. Uh, so yeah, let's, I, that is a good point. I think it's, you know, we're 30 plus minutes in, so it is probably time to get to the main topic. And I want to hear about dive trips and, uh, and Southeast Asia and, and, and some great stuff, but yeah, let's do, let's do a risk check. Uh, he usually goes first, so I guess I'll take my turn to go first. Uh, I'm wearing the AquaStar DeepStar. Um, I saw, uh, Jason was kind of, he posted an Instagram photo of some of the things he was taking on his vacation. It included his DeepStar. I'm like, oh, I'll go, I'll go along. And it is, you know, it's just a supremely handy watch. A little on the big side, I've been wearing smaller stuff lately. And so the 41 millimeter somehow manages to feel big. That used to be a small watch in my world. Yeah, totally. On my wrist. But it's big in a way that I find quite pleasing. It has a nice chunkiness to it. And I do really enjoy the chronograph and the water resistance. I've got it on a green NATO. I love this watch. I think it's just the right mix of like, the heritage of that Deepstar design along with, um, you know, it is a little bit bigger and it's a little bit shinier being a brand new watch versus a lot of the vintage ones that you see now, which are pretty, the polish has been worn down by time. Um, but I like it a lot, you know, and it works on a bunch of different straps. I like it quite a bit on a mesh if you want the extra weight. Um, but yeah, but been wearing that, uh, for probably the last three or four days at least, or maybe through last weekend as well. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, that's a that's a cool watch. I have yet to see one in person, unfortunately. And I keep hearing it's a bit of a thick boy, but I kind of like that. |
| Blake Stacey | Like, I think I would say that the easiest way is on my wrist. It wears almost identical to a 41 millimeter Black Bay. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, OK. Well, that's that's an easy one to handle. |
| Blake Stacey | And so it's maybe it's a millimeter thicker, maybe. But in especially because of that skin diver case, you know, the short lugs. Right. It makes the most of that additional size. Um, it would be too much watch on a bracelet for me, but on a thinner mesh, a NATO, a leather, it's all been great. It's super, it's really, really not this time of year for me, but, uh, in, in less sweaty months, uh, you know, just a Horween, you know, shell Cordovan strap is perfect. Dig your stuff nicely. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and how about you? I see, uh, you've got, you've got, uh, some of you wrote about, uh, a great story about last year. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So that's why I chose this watch because last time we talked, it was kind of running up to uh, that, that, that was, that was literally it. So it's the marathon Arctic MSR, the 36 millimeter version. And yeah, I wore it because that's the watch that kind of kicked off this whole, like, all right, let's, let's do something with this time. Let's kind of, uh, you know, make work with what we've got, I guess you would say. And, um, I think that'll kind of lead us into, if we want to talk a little bit about some interesting things. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, for sure. In the show notes, you can check out the story that Cole wrote last year about the Marathon Arctic MSAR in 36 minutes. So that's at the white dial. I think it's their sweetest watch. Me too. It's the perfect size. Also a little bit of a thick guy for 36, but not in any way that's not wearable. You know, so much of the Marathon, like the whole thing that they do, it's going to be, if they make a watch that feels thick, it's thick for a reason. And that, you know, you get that bezel that anything can grab onto. You can have wet hands, you can have You can be covered in mud. You could be wearing gloves like oil. Yeah. No, it's a perfect bezel. So yeah, I think, I think that is a good patch over. Um, do you want to start with some of the dive trips? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So that's one of the things that like BMX, uh, biking that I've gotten into recently, I used to dive all the time back when I was living abroad in an area that was friendly towards diving and, uh, and even, even beyond exactly. And I know we've talked about this and then, Yeah. Obviously, as you get, you know, sucked into the black hole, that's New York and then all this stuff, like you lose touch with what you're about. And, uh, that happened. Stopped diving for a little while. Uh, and over the pandemic, I got back into it. So I think my, my buddies and I, we have like an annual trip or just, we, we try and meet somewhere. So the first one of that, I, it's always been on my list to dive the kelp forests, which I know you actually have experience with them. a few hundred miles or maybe over a thousand miles North of where I went. Um, I went out to the channel islands and this was, this was a thing. It was like a bucket list thing. One of those, I don't know, IMAX movies when you're a kid, you know, cruising through the kelp forest. And I thought, you know, I love forests on land. I love diving. So let's kind of see what this is about. And yeah, we went out and we did a, did a trip near the channel islands and saw, you know, a bunch of Calico bass, Garibaldi, all these fish that I had never seen before. Um, And yeah, it was as magical as I would think. A lot colder. I mean, I knew that about the Pacific, of course, but the actual diving, it's not your Farmer John, let's see, let's go see some colorful things. And were you in a seven mil? I think I was actually in a three and a half, believe it or not. Oh, okay. |
| Blake Stacey | Well, that's, that's going to be on the chilly side. |
| Cole Pennington | It was on the chilly side, but it's a nice. |
| Blake Stacey | How long, what sort of length of the dives? |
| Cole Pennington | 30 to 40 minutes. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, okay. Well, yeah. So you just come out cold. |
| Cole Pennington | Not frozen. And I think we did, we did a day trip. So we left from Santa Barbara, I think is the town we left from. Steamed out to the Channel Islands and we did two, two dives there. So, but that was enough for me like that. It had been, like I said, a bucket list thing. So really, really nice. Any baby great whites? I wish. So that's, that's the thing. |
| Blake Stacey | That's their, that's their realm I believe these days, right? It really is. That's the right temperature point. |
| Cole Pennington | And I heard the other day that there was kind of a massive shark attack right around Which, you know, yeah. And that is rare, but I did see that and I was kind of, you know, keeping an eye out for, for all of these Pacific megafauna. Like I would have loved to see more seals, sea lions, things like that out in the kelp forest. But yeah, I really didn't see a lot of that. You know, the takeaway was that fishing, this would be very technical, but would yield some great catches because there's just so much down there. It's, it's so dense, right? Well, the cold water. Yeah. Yeah. Cold water. And also they have structure. They have these kelp plants, right. And, and one of the coolest things was Garibaldi, these bright orange fish all around. |
| Blake Stacey | They're fun, aren't they? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Against these muted tones. Like, uh, a lot of the growth is, you know, either this kind of like maroon or the greens of the kelp. It's just a very different environment. So that's a good question for you. Like what I'm describing is that similar to what you saw up in Vancouver, those waters. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, so the the spots right off of Vancouver, so that the ones that you would dive commonly like Porto and Whitecliff and Kelvin, if you knew what you're doing, like how to get there and how to dive there without having the neighbors call the cops and the rest. There is a little bit of like a dirt bag diving scenario at Kelvin, but that was my favorite dive site. So there's no almost no kelp. You know, there's lots of other anemones and stuff like that, but no kelp forest there. I think you'd have to go further up into the Emerald Sea, which would be several hundred miles up the way. But certainly, sadly, no Garibaldi's. That's a really hilarious fish. Back in the day when I kept fish, I had parrot cichlids, which are a bright orange fish that has a really goofy look on his face all the time. And they're aggressive, but fun, really fun fish to keep. I really enjoyed having him. You know, that, I think that's more common towards the, yeah, towards the California coast, uh, the Garibaldi's and, and, and that type of, uh, kelp, uh, you know, here or here, not in Toronto, in Vancouver, you'd have, um, you know, Lingcod would be the, the kind of the big thing that, you know, you would see every dive. And then other than that, yep, seals, sea lions. I mean, there's people say killer whales. I don't, I don't, I think killer whales can hear your regulator from a long way away. certainly long enough that you wouldn't see them. Animals don't get that big and that smart and that capable of taking down prey by just spending time around other big animals. |
| Cole Pennington | And they've actually, and I loosely remember the story, something about a pod of killer whales that was hunting great whites to eat the liver of the great white. So, I mean, that's kind of crazy. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. I think that was off of Baja. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, I think so. |
| Blake Stacey | If I remember correctly. But yeah, because I think at least one of the attacks was caught by a drone. Which is insane. And it was like a three whale attack and they basically ended up taking one bite from the shark and just removing, you know, a liver the size of a medium sized child. And then just like being, all right, that's what we wanted. We'll see you later. |
| Cole Pennington | So it's a good thing we didn't see any of these guys out there for me. |
| Blake Stacey | Amazing animal. I would, you know, I've, I've, I love, I love watching those videos, especially, you know, I think it's around Sweden and the littorals are on Sweden. You can snorkel with them if you do chase snorkeling. I'm not even sure if that's fair to the whale. Yeah. I don't, I genuinely don't know. Cause you're, you are getting very close, which is a typically frowned upon at least probably within the North American context of whale watching. Um, but you can, you can chase them down and get in the water and there's some, and they just, they just look like very, they, one of the few animals that I would say would, would be, I'm very scared of no, no legit reason. There's no like recorded attack of a killer whale. They're just, it's one of those things that appears to be operating on an entirely different wavelength than the rest of the ocean. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. The, A pure hunter. You've seen that thing, Blackfish or... Yeah, of course. Yeah, so me too. I mean, I would be... It would definitely startle me if I saw one of those. |
| Blake Stacey | That one and the other one to watch if you're a fan of orcas would be The Whale, which is a story about Luna, a whale that essentially befriended a town way up north on BC coast. Oh, cool. It's... I guess, I think it's Ryan Reynolds is the narrator for that one. It's pretty good. And then there ends up being a battle between the government and the native population there about kind of who, who, whose job is it to actually care for the whale? Because it would very uncommon for a killer whale to leave its, its family pod. Right. And it found this small kind of logging fishing town. Um, and his name is Luna. So I'll put that in the show notes. It's a pretty good one. |
| Cole Pennington | I'll be watching that. That sounds amazing. |
| Blake Stacey | And then I see, uh, I see, uh, Hawaii on the list. Talk to me. It's one of my favorite dive spots, but I didn't, I did not do this type of dive. |
| Cole Pennington | So that was the thing. So obviously I knew I wanted to dive there. Um, and they This was on the big Island Kona. So the structure, you know, Hawaii is a volcanic chain. So you go a few miles off and you're in thousands of feet of water. So this, I think it was the potentially the late seventies, early eighties, a kind of diving was created called blackwater diving. And what that is, it's essentially a drift dive in very, very deep water at night. So. At the dive shop, this was not a planned thing. This was more, I want to dive there, but I don't really know. Went to the dive shop and there was this, you know, the manta rays feeding at night and kind of the, the big ones that, that everyone does. Like a flashlight feeding? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But then she said there's a dive that involves like creepy crowleys. She called it like the creepy crowley dive. I'm like, ah, that sounds kind of interesting. And, uh, yeah. And it turns out, so what you do is you steam out to a few miles off the coast till you're in thousands of feet of water. Night falls, you know, it's pitch black and you get on a tether. You descend to 70 feet on a tether and you can't see, right? You have no idea because at this point there was no full moon, but there was nothing to gauge where you are. So you just watch your depth meter or you'll feel the tether kind of pull you back. So you go down 70 feet, you kind of, you know, find neutral buoyancy there. You start at the bottom. And you turn your lights off, so it's pitch black. So you're literally, it's like a sensory deprivation kind of. And every now and then you turn your lights on, kind of move around, or if you see something interesting, if you have your lights off, you will see bioluminescent creatures floating by you. So it's very like, you know, what I think a crazy trip would be like, like seeing the, and obviously you're floating, right? You're, you're initially buoyant at this point. So you're floating, looking out and, There are, you know, the dive master said, yeah, we saw sharks the other week. We saw, we see whales on these things. So if something happens, like don't freak out, just kind of get in this Zen state of mind. And you do, that's the, it's hard not to. And every now and then you'll turn the light on and you'll see something weird and interesting. Like, cause what happens is that all of the, they're called vertical migrators. So all of the stuff from the deep sea comes up the water column and hangs out to feet. uh, you know, on, on the, uh, pelagic zone where you are 70 feet down. So you see things that you normally would never see. And it was, and obviously since you're drifting, you can get a lot more mileage down there and you slowly ascend, slowly kick up over the course of like, could be as long as an hour and look for different things on the water column. You'll see juvenile, everything juvenile tuna, sailfish, uh, And they're really interesting too. So the juveniles, they hang out down low and come up until they're fully grown. So that was just a totally weird dive. I mean, I've done night diving, but I've never done something where like it's pitch black and you're, it goes away quickly. But at first you think like, wow, what if I did see something big or like the flashlight, the radius of the beam is small, right? So if you turn the flashlight on and something is occupying the entire radius of the, with the light shining on that would spook the hell out of me. Luckily that didn't happen, but that, that was a cool dive trip. And I tested a Sertina, uh, the DS, the pH 500 M, which is there. It's a heritage model, right? |
| Blake Stacey | Is that the orange style one you've got on your Insta? Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | It's a sick looking watch. It really is. And it is a great watch. And yeah, I mean, when we talk about, and Jason is really, I mean, I can't speak to this like Jason can, but Jason has really, told the truth behind testing dive watches, right? It's not as much of a technical field test as it is something more philosophical. |
| Blake Stacey | Absolutely. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And it just made the whole dive more fun and interesting. |
| Blake Stacey | The thing that's great about dive watches is to use them in their world while diving amplifies the experience of diving. Exactly. There's literally only one reason to spend a couple thousand dollars on gear put your life in your own hands and in the hands of whoever serviced your regulator and however old and UV damage your strap, the straps for your mask are or whatever. Um, and then in this case, you know, jump out of a boat in an offshore territory in the dark and trust that the lead will stay connected to the boat and the rest of it. And it's exclusively for an experience that you can't get unless you take all those steps. Right. Right. Like there's no, you, you, you do some, some, well not some, you've done quite a bit of like a, race car driving on track driving. And like, there is no track driving on the road. You could try, you can go crazy if you want, but it's not the same because there's something about having certain safeties there and certain other safeties gone. Right. Parameters. Right. Exactly. And, and it's about that experience. That's why, that's why we have tracks. That's why we have scuba tanks is like, you can do something that you can't do in your day-to-day world. You can't breathe underwater. Normally you can't drive like a maniac unless you know, no one's coming the other way. Right. And that everyone around you is going to operate in a way that's predictable. Yeah, exactly. And to be able to do any of these things, and I assume that the same would play for all sorts of experiences that haven't sparked something in my brain that makes me want to do it. But with diving, to do that, it's one thing to have a dive computer. It's great. That's more of like, that's a safety thing. But there's something wholly cooler and more romantic and just fun about diving with a dive watch. |
| Cole Pennington | That's what it is. I think you touched on it. If you're diving, that's a romantic thing to do anyway. So why not turn up the dial on the romance and so forth. So that, that was that dive. And that was a lot of fun and yeah, a new style of diving. |
| Blake Stacey | I did some night diving in Vancouver and I remember, you know, cause I got certified in cold water in five feet of visibility. So when I went on my, on my night dive, I was like, this isn't that different. I can actually see further. |
| Cole Pennington | That's, that's so funny. |
| Blake Stacey | Like we all had the little neon glow glowers on the tank mounts. So I could see where everyone was. All of a sudden I was in Whitecliffe Park in Vancouver, which is a very common dive site because you can dive at any depth you kind of want. It's a very gradual sort of shelf. Right. And then there's an anemone garden that you can eventually get to, which is quite fun. Even at night, at night, there's a lot going on. Cold water at night is always busy, but it's also the best visibility. And I remember starting the dive really scared. Not scared like I'm not going to tell anyone I was scared. I was too proud or whatever. But I was genuinely scared. It was like maybe my fifth dive or sixth dive. And I was going for my advance. And this was part of the itinerary. And yeah, I remember we got in the water. And once you're underwater and like pulling on your rag, it's the same. And then you look around and you're like, oh, wait, I can see my gloves. And like, it's dark, but it's like, I can see everybody else else's flashlight. We can all do our hand signs. This is fine. I, I would, I, you know, it's, you're saying to, to turn on your flashlight and have whatever it was, take up the whole beam. I do imagine, I do imagine in my, the first place my mind goes thinking about a blackwater dive is yeah. Turning on your light and you have that moment, like in Jurassic park where it's just the T-Rex's eye and the iris gets really small. Just do that. |
| Cole Pennington | And it's a, it's yeah, it's a whale. That's exactly it. And even a whale would be, that would, I would want to end my dive if I saw a whale down there, to be honest. |
| Blake Stacey | I, I, I've wanted, um, yeah, it's, it's one of my life's absolute dreams to, uh, to dive or snorkel with a humpback. |
| Cole Pennington | I think, I mean, this is possible and you should make the, you can make that a short term goal. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. See you Cortez. Cause I think I could, I could probably on the same trip, I could conceivably do that. And whale sharks, which are the two big megafauna that I'd like to see. Cause you can go down to La Paz. And you know, the joke is that if you go the right day, you can kind of walk across the water on their backs. There's enough of them down there. I don't know if that's true anymore, but back in the day, I've heard that too. Yeah. And with so many of those spots, you know, having now being protected, all those, all those big guys are coming back. Cause there's, there's lots of fish in the area. So that can be fun. Um, all right. So, Oh, what, so you were, uh, Sertina was Hawaii. What, what was on wrist for, did you have the Sertina on wrist for California? |
| Cole Pennington | No, that I, I, I had my GMT. my GNC master two on, and yeah, that's not a dive. People say, Oh, that's not a dive watch. Well, I mean, it kind of is, it's based on the sub, right. And also that was more just to christen the watch. That was not a work thing. That was just a, you know, let's get back in the water. Like let's, let's make it happen. But absolutely. So recently, and the piece probably won't come out by the time this airs, who knows, but it doesn't matter anyway. Uh, I did a followup test to the Sertina that, I used in Hawaii, and I did that this past weekend. |
| Blake Stacey | And that was with the DS2 PH200M, which is... You found some tropical diving in the great state of Utah? |
| Cole Pennington | That's right. Yeah, literally, which is insane. You know, hundreds of thousands, millions, whatever it was years ago, this whole area of North America was a giant salt lake. that went away, created the Salt Lake Basin, which is here. So there's high salinity in everything. Like you'll be driving and salt will be on the car, like dust, right? So imagine, so now a geothermal event with an area that has such high salinity and what do you get? You get pretty much the same thing as a tropical ocean, warm water that's salty. So that's how warm though, like in the eighties. Yeah. In the eighties. And actually 91 of them was 90 degrees. And, and I brought a wetsuit to where I was like, Oh man, that's stupid. You don't cause I thought so again, over the pandemic, I was doing some, uh, exploring the Florida aquifer system, which is also similar, but incredibly cold. It's like six to low sixties or something. So I was just, you know, tooling around an aquifer system and thinking like, all right, this is similar, right? This is a whole, with water in the middle of, uh, you know, land. Right. So I was saying it's gotta be cold, get there and yeah, it's warm. And I should have known that to, you know, if it can support tropic life. So this is a place called sea base and it's out West of Salt Lake city. And yeah, it's a series of little, uh, holes with the water is obviously geothermal. That's where it comes from. So it's, it's warm. And then, somewhere along the way, someone introduced tropical fish and figured that, or found that they can survive and not just survive, they thrive. |
| Blake Stacey | So, so when you say a hole, what's, what's the, is it, is it 20 feet across? Is it a thousand feet across? Is it like, is it more like a lagoon? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, I would say similar to lagoon. It's more like there are three distinct holes. One actually is like a cenote type hole. It's, I don't know, 10 feet across and 65 feet down. Then there are two congruent, like, Oh, they're actually connected by a tunnel. So two pools. Yeah. And you can swim through the tunnel from one to the other, uh, two pools that go down to like 23 feet and 13 feet. So it's not particularly deep, but this time of year, the visibility is so bad that you can't even see your hand in front of your face. Oh, really? But that's not the case in the winter. I hear so it, but it is cool. I mean, you will see visibility is good enough to see spadefish, batfish, and some other species I couldn't identify. It looked like a rooster fish, but I don't know if it was, but yeah, there there's stuff down there and they used to have two nurse sharks living in there. No way. Yeah. Which is just wild to think like, and the way out there, like if you're going out from Salt Lake, it is nothing but desert. It looks like, you know, a wasteland on the way out. Then all of a sudden you get to this pool and to think that, you know, the way I was conceptualizing, like how far is this one batfish, whatever, away from the next closest one. And the answer is very far. It's like a lost colony, a lost colony of spadefish or whatever. So, yeah, that was very, very cool. And it was good to test out the Sertina and just to do something interesting. They have a bunch of like little scamps and these were new to me. And you should check them out because I know this is very much your vibe, too. But yeah, it's like an Airstream, but instead of aluminum, it's fiberglass. And they were made in the 70s. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, Heaton almost bought one of these before he bought the white uh the defender yeah wow he was he was looking at um i want to say like a late 70s yep that was early 80s it had been redone but it had this like hilarious white and red exterior a little bit like a teardrop trailer but not teardroppy yeah same idea a little more airstream-ish color shape but yeah that's exactly it so i didn't know he was looking at all this but yeah hilarious name for anything as well the scamp yeah which is like |
| Cole Pennington | Scamp is a kind of grouper-esque fish that lives in the Gulf, too. So when I heard that, I was thinking, ah, interesting, scamp. But yeah, you stay in these scamps, and then you dive. And the diving was OK. I'm not going to say the diving was great. In fact, the diving itself, very short-lived, because visibility was awful. And also, the salinity content feels higher than even the ocean. So buoyancy is kind of hard to get. Sure. |
| Blake Stacey | But it's just cool. Do they just recommend overweighting then? |
| Cole Pennington | You know, the interesting thing about it, when you say they recommend, it's, it's very much your idea. |
| Blake Stacey | There's no one there. Yeah, exactly. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, really? There's, there's someone there. |
| Blake Stacey | It's the Utah, right? What am I thinking? |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. But there's someone there, but it's more like, you know, that's up to you. Weight weighting, like, sure. You can ask them and they'll be like, they'll, they'll look at you funny. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was very much kind of a rogue operation. You get out there and you just do your thing, which, which I like. Deregulation is my middle name. |
| Blake Stacey | I don't, I don't like too many rogues. I agree. I mean, I guess I'm used to whenever I was traveling to dive, I was diving with an outfit of some sort. |
| Cole Pennington | Right. |
| Blake Stacey | Right. And, and usually you can tell, you can tell eventually you stop saying this to people. Like I know what I'm doing. You just listen to what they say. And if it matters to you, you adapt to it. Yeah. But there's, yeah, the, the dive world is full of people who, say nothing and have 10,000 dives. Yeah. And you don't realize how good they are until they're in the water. And then there's a lot of people who are on their 50th dive and don't have a handle on any of it, but we'll tell everyone on the boat how, how to dive and how to set up their, their equipment. So yeah, it's, it is one of those things where sometimes they say, well, in this scenario, you should overweight or underweight or. or that sort of thing. So that, that sounds cool. I hope, I hope you get a chance to go back, um, in the winter and, and see, see what it's like. Maybe actually get to play with some batfish. That's the idea. They're, they're a fun fish to be in the water with not all fish are, some are pretty standoffish. Some are, some get too close and kind of creepy trigger fish, but batfish just kind of follow you around trigger fish. So, you know, on a recent episode, I, I, I explained my general distaste for Mexican hawkfish, uh, cause they'll give you a good chase. Um, if, uh, if, if you get too close, but yeah, that's, uh, That's great. And it's really fun to hear that you've been out doing some diving. Um, I, uh, I'm in the process of, uh, of getting my gear resurfaced and, uh, and, and I guess I'm going to try my hand at something I told myself I really wasn't ever interested in, which is diving in Lake Ontario. |
| Cole Pennington | Ooh, that'll be fun. I'll come up there and do it with you. Really? |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. Well, I mean, if you come up, let's do Tobermory for sure. Let's make it worth it. Just getting in the water, you know? Yeah. I, I miss it quite a bit. It's been, it's been several years at this point, you know, uh, like you were saying between, It's as soon as you give up a hobby that takes that much time, something always slides in to fill its, it's never like you don't just suddenly have a free Saturday all the time. And you're like, Oh, why am I, why do I have nothing to do today? It's like, Oh no, I have two kids. So yeah, I, I have, I have a, you know, three jobs now, uh, that sort of thing. So yeah, it happens now aside from diving. You also spent some time genuinely abroad, like not, not the difference between say Florida, Utah, New York. Yeah. But where did, where'd you head to? |
| Cole Pennington | Started well, Thailand only, but pretty much the idea was like, all right, you know, we've just, the data's there. You can work from anywhere. You know, and also at work we were, you know, encouraged to do some like moonshot things. Right. So I just, I've always wanted to get back. And I've thought about going back seriously, actually. Uh, I used to live there for a while. I think I talked about it last episode or whatever. So, uh, yeah, kind of devised a plan, pitched it. It worked. I don't know how, I don't know what, what kind of gods are smiling upon me that day, but to be honest, you could have, I could have done it anyway. Right. Just could have just gotten right. As long as there's a good internet connection, that's all you really need to do what you need to do. But yeah, long story short pitches trip got approved and actually was there partially for work, but I'll tell you a funny story. on the way there. Something that I think TGN listeners would just find, find funny and interesting. So you have to lay over through Tokyo and you know, doing these, and I'm so stoked for when you go to Japan. I want to, I want to hear everything about that on a TGN episode. So someday man, someday. |
| Blake Stacey | It was so close. It was so close. I think, I think it was going to be March 4th. Ugh. Uh, 2020. So it was such a bummer. I was supposed to be there. So eventually someday, yeah, I'll make it there, but I'm, I'm living, I'm living eviscerally through at this point. So let's hear about your Tokyo layover. |
| Cole Pennington | So yeah, the flight there is like, I don't know, 16 hours or something, or I don't know, maybe not that long, 14. So you're in a bit of a daze and then you have to connect. So Bangkok, there is no way to go direct anymore. There used to be, that's not the case anymore. You connect, Tokyo is the quickest way there. So connecting through Tokyo, And, uh, like I said, a little bit tired and out of it and getting on the next plane from Tokyo to Bangkok on the tramway, uh, it's, it's evening time. And like, we're walking out on the jet way, the jet way, and it's squeaking like crazy. Like it's chit, chit, chit, chit, chit, chit. And you know, there's those little rubber fittings between each module or whatever. |
| Blake Stacey | And yeah, like an accordion. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, exactly. It's a little accordion thing. And, and I'm, I can see the, like the, whatever these blocks are, these metal pieces of the, the jetway moving back and forth. Like I I'm watching the accordions expand and contract. Right. And hearing the squeaking, but I'm looking outside and there's not really any, and I was looking for like, you know, airports, they tend to be windy because obviously it's a big piece of land with no obstructions. Right. So wind can move quickly. So I was looking around, maybe looking at like people's shirts, flapping or something, seeing what the hell is this? that moving around so much for. And they're like, eh, well, whatever. Get on the plane, you know, settle into a nice, uh, Asahi or something and land in Bangkok. And it turns out there was an earthquake and that's what that was. So that was an earthquake, which definitely, I mean, this was not a crazy one. It was a little one, but it was enough to really like make you feel weird, right? Like it felt weird on walking out on the tramway. So that was kind of the way this whole trip got started, which is interesting. Just you start with a little, uh, experiencing an earthquake in Japan for the first time and, and maybe the only time who knows, but it's the first earthquake period I've been through. So that was crazy and, and kind of nice, a nice way to start off, you know, it didn't cause any damage, so it was all good. |
| Blake Stacey | I guess it's lucky that, you know, you were in a suspended thing that's meant to move around a little bit. |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. And it probably was. exacerbated by that, right? Cause it's free floating, it's on some wheels or whatever. But so that was just opening the trip is an interesting little story. Uh, then, yeah, so like I said, it was there for work, but then also did some things that were just, you know, personal, personal things. And one of them, uh, was a Toyota renting a Toyota Hilux, which, uh, yeah, it's like a 2.2 or 2.5 turbo diesel motor. Torquey is all hell five speed. and cruising up around Northern Thailand, which, uh, is, is gorgeous. You, you will fall in love with it when you see it. It's sure. It's stunning. One of the, the little interesting bits up there was that because of COVID up there, you have a bunch of indigenous, uh, what, what they call villages. I mean, that's, that's what they say, right? So these indigenous communities that they actually cordoned off because they didn't want COVID to go in and decimate. I mean, there's no, like hospitals are not around these communities. So yeah, that makes sense. They were doing that all over the country in the North. One of these checkpoints kind of rolled up to and uh, the guy was like, no, turn around right now. He was not happy at all to see some, some, you know, Western dude asked to go through the gate, right? Then, okay, it's turn around, go the other way. One gate they, they did, they, they opened, right? And they probably shouldn't have because we, We were on this road and they took a picture of our passports beforehand because, I don't know, record, a matter of record, right? But then they opened the gate, you keep going and all of a sudden you can look to your left and you see the Burmese military encampment. So it turns out it was the border of Thailand and Burma. |
| Blake Stacey | Shouldn't have been that easy, maybe. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it shouldn't have been that easy, but it was. And the Burmese flag is interesting. It looks like it should be like a Rastafarian thing. It's, it's your, uh, red, yellow, green, and it has a black star in the middle. So look over to the left and see an encampment with the Burmese flag. And then every 20 or so yards, there's young men with, uh, submachine guns lining this road and it kind of snakes in and out of Burma. So you're, you're crossing the border, then coming back in, crossing the border, come back in and why they're there is because. Essentially, like while you're in on the Burmese side of the border, you can get out of the car and you're in Burma, right? You could, but they're there to act as a fence. So that was kind of interesting. And, you know, cruising along that the, and this is a, you probably know about these already, but there is a Japanese cognate of the, the H1 and it's called a Toyota mega cruiser. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, you know, these guys, so meanwhile, like Toyota mega, I mean, I've seen a picture of it or what I read about it on Wikipedia, that sort of thing. Well, I haven't seen one. This was in person and that's great. And they were just cruising up and down this road. And I'm like, Oh my God, what is this? And yeah, so it turns out also at the meanwhile there, and this was, you know, a few months ago, there's a civil war going on in Burma. And, uh, that was one of the hot zones too. So it was one of the rebel held tower territories and, uh, yeah, just kind of cool. It felt very TGN that, that moment, you know, um, and it was cool. Just also the highlights. I don't know if Canada gets them. I don't think so. |
| Blake Stacey | Right? No. Yeah. So no, I think, I think the closest we've had them is like when Top Gear brought them here to, to drive to the South or to the North pole. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, that's right. Yeah. The AT 38 or whatever that like Arctic version. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. With the ridiculous tires and a few other, a few other, you know, I think they probably have beefed up heaters and the rest of it, but yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | So that was cool too. Just kind of the highlights experience and so forth. And, and yeah, that was a wild, wild thing to have happened. It reminded me, yeah. A lot of the stories I've heard on, on TGN and, uh, Yeah, it was just kind of cool to end up somewhere where you wouldn't, wouldn't necessarily think. And in a place where genuinely, if something went wrong, that's it, like, that's it. There's no, there's no, no support system. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. For me and Mar, you, you would be, you're out there. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. Uh, that, that's a, that's a fringe, a fringe player. And probably, you know, in a lot of places, you know, when, when you go through passport control, it's, it's not that they care that you're there. No one cares. if He doesn't see that picture again, or does it just go into the cloud? And that's, I think so. |
| Cole Pennington | And I'm sure on the Myanmar side, they would love to have you, you know, they would love to have you there. So that was just a funny little bit, but that was, uh, that was the mountains. There was another instance that was kind of cool, uh, which was the ocean. So, uh, down in the Andaman sea, we took out a little, yeah, that was, that's the, the Western side of Thailand that, chain of islands down near Southern Thailand, Malaysia, where they, where the border is. Oh, okay. Other side of the Gulf. Yeah, exactly. So Gulf of Thailand on the East, Andaman to the West. And, uh, this is just, just an old fishtail, but it's not going to be exaggerated. Went out on these things called longtails, you know, longtails. Like those wooden. Not offhand, no. They're, imagine just kind of like a, it's a wooden boat. A giant canoe is the architecture, I guess you would say. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. Like, and then with like an outrigger on it. |
| Cole Pennington | They don't have outriggers, but what they do is they take disused pickup truck motors and they mount them on a gimbal and have a direct drive shaft with a little prop. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. So it's kind of, I think, I think I've seen that, that, that vein of thing in, uh, in, uh, Vietnam. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, exactly. This, this whole area. I mean, it's a big thing over there. So a little long tail there. They're not really for the open ocean really. I mean, you can do it, but like one storm rolls in, it's not a good scene, but, uh, rented one of those or hired, hired a guy who kind of knew the water. He was a local, local guide, fishing guide. And he asked like, you know, what kind of fish do you want to go out for today? And I had seen on one of these advertisements, which were like, look like they were made in Microsoft word or something. I saw that someone was holding up a sailfish and I asked him like, how about a sailfish? And he's like, yeah, well, they're not really biting this time of year, but like, who knows, maybe we'll give a shot. Cause you know, you should go for something that you're sure to catch grouper. Something like that. Like, that's what you really should go for. |
| Blake Stacey | You're off the coast of Thailand now and your intention is to catch something for dinner that night? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you do really want to catch something. This isn't just like, I spent $500 to leave the port of San Diego and I better come back with a couple of fish, otherwise I didn't get anything. |
| Cole Pennington | Here's the craziest thing. And this is nuts. And it almost makes me feel bad, but you don't spend $500, you spend $30. It's like, it's somewhere between $30 and $100 for the day, which is insane. Yeah, for sure. Steam out and catch some bait. And then we, the guy says, you know, if there are going to be any sailfish around here, it's going to be in this pass. So we go to the pass and it's beautiful. And, and another TGN point I want to make is that hit, you know, hit home for me was the amount of garbage that's consuming the ocean is it's bad. And, and you can see it and, uh, this kind of underscore the importance of doing something, uh, which I know you and Jason are also a large proponent of, but this stunning place, like the visibility is, you know, almost unlimited. It's electric blue water. It's, you know, you're up, it's white sand beaches. It's everything you would imagine, like the stuff from the movie, the beach, you know, that Leonardo DiCaprio, just, just like that. So the guy takes a PC, just tears a little piece of styrofoam off this, off a cooler or something, and kind of wraps the line around a few times and puts whatever the equivalent of like a, spearing or just a little minnow or something, right? Tosses it in the water and he floats it out, floats it out pretty far away from the boat. And, uh, we're just sitting there, I don't know, drinking a beer, chatting, talking about, oh, we have a few rods in the water and we're pulling up grouper here and there and just catching little things. And all of a sudden, you know, you hear that drag on the big rod and off in the distance, we saw a sailfish breach the water and jump out. And then lost him, lost him. As soon as we caught him, lost him. You just slipped the line. You know, the thing about them that their mouths, there's not a whole lot of, they can, they can spit the hook real easily. And another thing they could do is they can throw their stomachs, which is very interesting. And that will also dislodge the hook often. Yikes. So we knew, and even the guide was like, you know, they're not, this is uncommon that they're here, but we knew they were there. So, all right, we're going to give it another shot. You didn't come this far to come this far, you know, and, uh, Basically 40 minutes goes by an hour or something. And keep in mind that you close to the equator, the sun is like killing us all. Yeah. We're getting cooked. Then all of a sudden you hear that drag start going again. And, uh, yep. There's another sailfish on maybe the same one, maybe not. They, they school up to a degree, but so bring in it, start reeling it in. I mean, it doesn't take a ton of time, but it takes a ton of muscle and we're on this kind of like, I'm not going to call it rinky dink, but I will. Um, I'm this little long tail and using kind of, you know, old fishing equipment that it's rental, right? I mean, this is a charter service. It's not, you know, the best gear. And yeah, pretty much he, the guide is orienting the boat to keep the front pointed towards the sailfish, but he's running under the boat, all sorts of funny stuff. And yeah, it was a pretty long, intense battle, but we got him up next to the boat and guide hops off, grabs the bill with his bare hands. The madman, a true madman. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Kind of hoisted up into the boat and you know, they're gorgeous fish when they first come out of the water. They're really absolutely stunning. |
| Blake Stacey | That special, that sequence from, um, blue planet. Oh, yep. With the, with the bait ball, which was kind of the first time I saw kind of, kind of what they, like, uh, it's like, you know, you see a race car in a, in a museum or parked and you're like, Oh, that's cool. And then it's a different thing if you see it ripping down the corkscrew at Laguna Seca. And to see it, to see the sailfish, like, you know, ripping around divers, grabbing fish, hitting the surface, the gannets and the, the, the birds coming from the top and the rest of it, that sequence was incredible. It was give me a whole different level of respect for that fish. They're just operating on a time moves a little bit differently for something that moves that freely through the water. |
| Cole Pennington | And, and I think they're one of the fastest fish in the ocean and they use that sail to control their pitch and their movements. And yeah, it was just, so that was a grill fish for me. I mean, that was a, first time, hopefully not the last time, but an absolute grill. And it blew me away. Right. Like as a fisherman and so forth, like there are these moments where like this happened and, um, that's great. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. And yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | And is that, is that one that you, you ended up eating? You eat sailfish? Oh yeah. Yeah. So, and how was it? |
| Cole Pennington | So that was even crazier. So you're out there in the Andaman, Coalee Bay is the closest Island, but there's a bunch of small little, you know, uninhabited Islands around the area. So we, cut a little chunk off and the guy had brought some of this Thai hot sauce, Thai seafood hot sauce. It's green. Okay. Yeah. We barbecued it up on the beach. He did a catch and cook same day. So barbecued it on this deserted tropical Island beach. And it was just incredible. Had a great meal. |
| Blake Stacey | Like a, like a scene out of a, out of a meeting. |
| Cole Pennington | It felt just like that. And then obviously the fish is massive. So gave the rest to everyone back on the Island and everyone ate well that night, you know, Let's kill it. That was it. It was a nice experience. |
| Blake Stacey | And then in Thailand, did you get into any watch stuff? Any, any more extensive, you know, car? I mean, the car stuff is kind of limited in Southeast Asia. Cause just cause their relationship with cars is so different than ours. They're a fortune. Typically the tax thing is insane. So owning a car, isn't the same thing as it is here. |
| Cole Pennington | It is true, but there's a very rich, vibrant culture. And the thing is we could talk for hours about this. So we'll keep it, we'll breeze through it, but I will tell you about the car thing. And this is a guy you should link up to on the show notes. There's a few things. So yes, cars are a fortune, but the other thing is, and no judgment or whatever, but there is an incredible wealth gap there too. So the haves will have, you know, and they do. So you get things and you get access to things that are just absolutely insane. So one of the guys who I think we should link up to the show notes is Heng's Garage, H-E-N-G, Possessive Garage. It's a private museum with some of the rarest JDM stuff. There's another guy, uh, Tenster, who you might even follow. I don't know, but he's a big, he's big on Instagram. He's a Porsche collector. Um, and we did, we actually ended up catching the car show there. Like the, the Bangkok automotive show. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, rad. Okay. Yeah. Oh, like, like the trade show. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Like a trade show. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay, cool. |
| Cole Pennington | There's this, the, the coolest thing is that you see a bunch of stuff that just does not come here. Like that's the most neat thing. What, another thing that kind of stuck out was that the Chinese manufacturers are really trying to capitalize on these, these markets. So there's, you know, a bunch of new MG is now a Chinese, the MG that you know. Um, and they're trying to make a huge push in Thailand. Another thing called like Cherry Motors is making a huge push. So I saw things that I'd never seen before, but yeah, the car stuff, I will say like, uh, yeah, there's a ton. Yes, it's true. The relationship is different. It's not as democratic or accessible. But we ended up going to some, you know, incredible museums, meeting people through the car world. And that was just personal, right? There's nothing to do with the work. Just kind of a, just a fun thing to do. On the watch side, that was work. So it was like, I was there to do it and you can't not come back with a good story. And luckily we did. And I won't, you know, I'll, I'll, this will all come out on Hodinkee sometime in September, hopefully if things go to plan. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. |
| Cole Pennington | I won't blow the whole thing up, but I will tell you. There is one that I've kind of been working on for years now, and I just published a little piece on Hodinkee about the yellow monster, which I know you know well too. But it was sort of this- Yeah, it was a great story. Thanks, man. Yeah. It was a quest to answer the question, why are there so many limited edition Seikos in Thailand? So that was kind of the, that was the main goal. Find out why. Answer this question. And it's not a question that's that easy to answer. And it took me to some interesting places, some collectors that I would never have thought even had these things. So much like with cars, there's two things. There's a little bit of Japanese otaku level, like this incredibly deep knowledge, like we're enthusiasts, right? I'm not an obsessive. Yeah, but it's a totally different thing. And along the way, I met some true obsessives who have every single limited edition reference number that you can imagine. So that'll come out there. Then ended up talking to the CEO of Thailand, Seiko Thailand, who is just the coolest dude ever. And you really, you start to see things differently. The difference between the East and the West are highlighted, and then the sort of unity or the commonality between watch people is also highlighted. But yeah, ended up, his name is Akashi-san. He's Japanese, and he's down there kind of taking care of the Thai market. Spent a long time with him, asking him, you know, why is this? To sum it all up, the answer is a perfect storm of good relationships, a healthy market, and life operates differently in the developing world in general, and specifically Southeast Asia, where if you want to do something, it takes a little money and knowing the right people, and that's the answer. The real answer is things can get done because there are no guardrails like there are here. You're not gonna have to go through a million layers bureaucracy. Sure, when dealing with Seiko HQ, you might, but they, they realize that Thailand is a bit of a different animal that you don't try and, you know, fight. You just go with it. And, and that's why we see all these limited editions is because the market has, has learned to appreciate them and actually appreciate them here. You know, some limited editions are hit or miss, but there and there too, but the market loves them. And because early on, a few times it worked, they get the clearance to do it again and again and again. And I will say, when you're ready to do a TGN limited edition, I'll connect you with some people because they can make it happen. |
| Blake Stacey | A limited edition Seiko. It's something that comes up a lot, the idea of a TGN LE. And I love the idea until you actually start doing the math of buying X number of watches so that they can be like, I don't have a quarter million dollars to make to buy enough stock to sell to the people who are currently listening to this episode. You know what I mean? Like, like take, take from a guy who just spent and let's be, let me be clear, deep into the four figures for what is just merch that we're going to announce in the coming months. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | And it was only like one part of the merch. I can't imagine what it would cost to put, to do like 250 watches, 500 watches, like to the extent where like you own them. So when you sell them, the profit's yours rather than, |
| Cole Pennington | right |
| Blake Stacey | who wants the amount of the story that's already been told. Cole did this really great piece called, um, uh, I finally found my holy grail watch. Here's why I didn't buy it. And I'm, I'm not, I'm absolutely going to bury the lead. And like, we don't have to explain the truly fantastic price point of this yellow dial, this yellow dial monster. And I almost guarantee that like, maybe not as ubiquitous as the SKX007, but like a good portion of people listening now, including myself and you have owned a monster, if not five monsters over the time. And it's a huge mistake for me that I sold. I had a series one orange that was perfect. I should have just kept it. It was worth nothing when I sold it. And I just sold it to buy a different $200 watch. And I should definitely rebuy one, but you, you track down this, you know, it's a yellow dial with a black Ria, a limited edition version. And it really is a genuinely special thing, but my jaw hit the floor when I saw what they were asking for. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, it's insane. It's, you know, it was like $7,000, $8,000. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. This is a very good reason why you didn't, why you decided that wasn't going to be the monster for you. |
| Cole Pennington | No. And that's, and that's not the foreigner price. Like that's what they, and here's the thing. I bet you someone will pay that though. Cause I know that he has sold similar ones for a little less than that. I mean, there's some numerology behind the inflated price. |
| Blake Stacey | But I mean, that goes for all sorts of stuff. It's just, it's uncommon to see that number attributed to, not just to a Seiko, but to a Seiko that, if I'm honest, was never really the benchmark for a really well-made watch. No, no. They are adequate timekeepers, a little wobby-sobby when it comes to the fit and finish, especially depending on one reference to another for a 781 or a 779. Could feel very different. You could pull them out of the box at the same time and you know, it's just, it was $150 watch. So it's, it is a weird thing to see $150 watch go to eight grand and know that nothing changed about its actual physical properties. No time, time. It's just, it's so popular. Yeah. The photos turned out really well too. Cause yellow is not an easy one to color, uh, capture. Right. Right. And I thought, I thought you did a really nice job with the, with the photos. Thank you. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | And yeah. Cool story. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And there'll be more. There'll be more. There's also an aviation story, which is, is pretty cool. Or got to do some flying in an ultralight and then talk to a collector who has another thing. Like we talked about like the car scene, like there are crazy collections that you just don't think about. You think, Oh, you know, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, whatever. And you're about to see it. There are insane collections in corners of the world that you just don't really think about. And that's what this whole project kind of highlighted for me was, yeah, when I was talking about the commonality of us all, like there are just insane things and tons of passion and enthusiasm. And yes, it's expressed a little differently and sometimes in a better way. Like I find that you and I both know, like our community can be a bit special at times, you know, so dense, dense at times. Yeah. So, going over and kind of like getting parachuting, parachuting into the same world in a different paradigm or whatever is, is cool. And you get to see how they can do it right sometimes. So I'll get into that. So September that'll happen. And, uh, but yeah, that, that was Thailand in a nutshell. It's a pandemic in a nutshell. Like that's, uh. |
| Blake Stacey | Obviously there's enough here to break into another show eventually, maybe after this next story comes out. have you back on for Cole Pennington three, CP three. Wow. This is just CP two. So let's not go too quick. I do have a couple of quick followups. You know, we're, we're an hour and a half in, we've got some time for, for final notes. Um, you've got a cool patch project that I'd like to hear a little bit about, but when you're doing this kind of travel, I assumed you're not a check bag guy for this. |
| Cole Pennington | I had to be, but normally no. |
| Blake Stacey | Cause you were there for a long time. Uh, three months. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's, that's a different world. So aside from not counting the, the suitcase full of, watches that nobody was watching closely enough and your clothes. What's the kit look like to go there? Because you've got a camera, which means you have batteries and chargers. And I assume you have some other tools. What are you carrying? People are going to want to know. |
| Cole Pennington | All right. So the setup. So I am a gearhead like yourself and like the philosophical approach of putting together something in my head. But for this, it was very much like, Run what you brung, you know, like piece together the kit as, as you can. So I will say started gear wise. So we start with the, the North face, those classic North face duffels. You remember the ones from like the mid to late 2000s? They're, I don't know. They're rubberized in some fashion, ripstop, rubberized coating. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. You can set them down in a, on a dirty surface. That sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. |
| Cole Pennington | So there's that stuffed that full of. the important stuff. So it was electronics, cameras, and so forth. And the camera that I'm using is a Leica that I got from work, actually. It's the... Oh, nice. |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. |
| Cole Pennington | You know, it's... CL? Yeah, like a CL, exactly. Yeah, killer. I want, obviously. You've been happy with it? Yeah. I mean, low light, no, not at all, actually. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, yeah. Well, small sensors, right? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. But in terms of travel, yeah, it's been perfect. And the thing is... It's the right size. Exactly. It's the right size. So that worked out nicely. Then move on to the next thing is the Kaziri. It's an Arcteryx Kaziri, I don't know, maybe like a 18 liter pack. Maybe. Does that sound about right there? |
| Blake Stacey | Uh, it certainly could be. I mean, 18 is not very big. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. This is maybe somewhere between 18 and 30, let's say, but it's something I bought. I used to be a bike mechanic in college and got that, uh, the pro deals. And I went, you know, Went nuts with the arcteric stuff. And here, here's the thing. I mean, it has lasted and that was in college. I graduated in 2010. So I've been using it since then. And, uh, stuff that full of diving gear. I use the, uh, the rocket fins that Jason, I understand also uses and scuba pro scuba pro kit otherwise. And a, uh, a little spear gun, a mini spear gun made by JBL. And then some fishing stuff. I use, I pretty much exclusively use Shimano stuff. So some fishing stuff and then picked up some fishing stuff there. |
| Blake Stacey | And moving, uh, like flying with a spear gun in your bag. Difficult? Checked. So. Checked. Okay. |
| Cole Pennington | I understand. Yes, it does get, I mean, you can, you can do it. Definitely some stuff did get, every single transit point got asked what, what about this stuff and all that. So, Um, and the watch selection, like the daily wear, the idea was to wear the hell out of the GMT. Just wear that. Okay. And, um, brought along the Seiko SRQ 029. Awesome watch. And then Seamaster, I think it might be like a few watches, not obviously not the whole collection. We just brought four or five watches. And then, uh, what else there? Gear wise, a Moishant flashlight. Sure. Yeah. No nice this time. Simply because, oh, that's not true. Uh, yeah. Brought my dive knife. Um, which is a little Amazon job, but has been working like a charm. Uh, and iron Ranger boots, which I know you like to well worn in for Northern jungle hiking, red clouds, collective wax, canvas pants, which I've just accepted that once they reach a certain level of dirtiness, you can't wash these things. You can scrub and clean maybe. But I was just thinking, all right, like they're already like, Grease has found its way in there. Stuff like that. So that's what I used for all the Northern stuff. |
| Blake Stacey | Just to look back, you're hiking around in, in Red Wings, Iron Rangers? |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, wow. That's ballsy. All right. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. You kind of, but up there it's more like you have to, it's not really as, it's more just keep everything protected. |
| Blake Stacey | Cause. I mean, they're, they're amazing boots. It's funny, you know, I guess, I guess I have, I have taken mine just about everywhere I've ever been. That's the thing. It's more like, so that's fair. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | Get your boots worn in somewhere. Cool. Like give them a story too. |
| Blake Stacey | So yeah, for sure. They last forever. |
| Cole Pennington | Exactly. That's the thing. And these are like the reverse grain. So the leather is reversed. |
| Blake Stacey | So, Oh, okay. The, um, yeah, I know, I know the ones. Yeah. So yeah, those, I think have a lug like a vibram sole. So you could like stand on wet concrete without falling over. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. That, I mean, they feel that way and then they definitely worked and then, then some throwaway Nike's and stuff for the South. And, and you know what? I have been toying with the idea of picking up a pair of Crocs for maritime operations. You're out of control. But maybe like some real tree camo Crocs, you know? |
| Blake Stacey | Okay. Yeah. I mean, you do you. I'm not going to gatekeep footwear, but there's a few things I dislike as much as Crocs. I know that. I think they're a pretty hilarious thing to see people wear in general. But I also, Who am I to judge at a certain point? I wear, you know, these days I'm mostly living in camp socks and those like vegan foam Birkenstocks. |
| Cole Pennington | Oh, I know. I know what you're talking about. |
| Blake Stacey | I mean, that's as close as Birkenstocks really getting to making Crocs. So, I mean, I think, you know, to a third party from a different world, it's not, there's no difference. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, we're more similar than different. |
| Blake Stacey | I won't hold Crocs against you. They're popular for a reason, I'm sure. It's just not a reason that speaks to me. So, uh, before we get into final notes, tell me a little bit about the, uh, this patch project. |
| Cole Pennington | So, yeah, I've been collecting patches since I was, you know, a kid. I think they're cool. They're, they're the only kind of physical memento from ideas like, like, I don't know, C-Lab for instance. Like what, what can you own from C-Lab? Nothing, but you can own a patch. And I think, I also have a sub mechanophilia patch, which Jason sent me, which I did a little something special with too, but a while ago had this idea. I mean, I started this project a long time ago, but wanted to make watch pouches with thematic patches. So like, I'll show you one, you can't see this, but, uh, this is a C lab. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, look at that. Very cool. Yeah. It's like a, a kind of a rectangular patch for C lab with a big red arrow facing down. What is that? Um, what's the white line on the arrow? |
| Cole Pennington | That's, it looks like the profile of a man. So it's man in the sea. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Very cool. And then otherwise that's on like a neoprene to watch roll. |
| Cole Pennington | So here's the thing. So Thailand again is a place where industrial manufacturing happens and it's also acceptable. So we went to this fabric market and bought a bunch of different materials, wax, canvas, denim, you know, all sorts of stuff. And this is three and a half mil neoprene, what you would make a wetsuit out of. So obviously the idea is a wetsuit. That's very cool. Yeah, I made them for myself, right? Just interesting things. Here's an Aqualung one, it's the con shelf regulator. And when I was living in Pensacola, there was a little military surplus store that had kind of a rotating selection of patches. Pensacola is, every service is represented there and operations take place there and you'll have mission patches and very cool stuff. So I found like the technician patch of the people, Draeger equipment. Draeger is the scuba equipment. They do, you know, all sorts of stuff. a specific rebreather that they make for the seals. So it's the little like service technician patch for the people working on the seal rebreathers, like very just deep cut, cool stuff, collecting these patches. And I even put out a call on Instagram and you know, like, like you, I talk to readers and stuff. And some guys are, some guys are actually doing things I can't even talk about, like on the show, right? Doing very cool things. And they, they sent in patches from, from their units and. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, no way. |
| Cole Pennington | So I've been collecting them and, you know, I have, you know, I don't know, close to a hundred or something and wanted to do something to give back. And initially I was just going to sell them and take all the money and put it towards like restoring war birds or something like that. Sure. But then I thought, you know, even that I'm not going to do, I'm just going to give them to people, like give these things to people. Like people were kind enough to send me patches and I'll keep some of those just as mementos, you know, the token of the friendship. But then some of the patches I bought, like in Pensacola and things from along the way, just give out. And there are just a bunch of really cool ones. And, you know, some wild stuff, I started doing some research. Like there's this one called, oh man, I'll forget the name now, but it was an operation in Antarctica in the late fifties. And I bought a patch not knowing really what it was. I just thought it was a cool patch. brought it home, start Googling around and it's this incredible, it's a lot like watches. I mean, it's a lot like the always read the case back then, like one little clue sends you down this rabbit hole. So in Thailand, you know, I can't do it on my own, right? I don't know how to make these things. So, uh, you know, linked up with a craftsman who pretty much made all these pouches. So there there's Some on the way to Toronto and Minnesota, too. |
| Blake Stacey | Oh, man, I'm so excited. Well, for anyone listening, maybe, Cole, do you plan on putting them on your Instagram at all? Yeah, yeah. A picture of a bunch of them? Sure. Or send me a picture. I'll put it in the show notes. So if you're listening, subscribe to the show notes, notesoffthegrenado.com, as I talked about at the top of the show. And I'll include a photo in the story. |
| Cole Pennington | Sweet. Yeah. And that was one of the projects that I did in town, which I thought was just really cool. Like, what can you do with patches that intersects our watch hobby and then also kind of tells a larger story. So, so that was that. |
| Blake Stacey | And it's a little bit more chill than putting it on a jean jacket. Yeah, exactly. Like, I feel like as soon as you put it on a piece of clothing, I even felt this with the TGN patches we made back in 16. When I put it on a piece of clothing, I was like, I don't like I make this show and I don't feel like I should put it on, on a piece of clothing. And if it was like a military patch or a C lab patch, I would just feel like a, like a bit of a poser putting it on my jean jacket. But on a watch roll, it's more of like a place of reverence. Right. And, uh, like it has a different context than putting it on a uniform basically. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. It's not, it's not, yeah, like posery at all. Like I found some old Grumman before the Northrop Grumman merger, put it on some, uh, old canvas from a flight suit. And then that's what I put my, my GMT in like, so there's a thematic link between all of this stuff. And that's why it's cool. And you'll see what's coming your way. You'll like it. You'll get the theme behind it. |
| Blake Stacey | I'm pumped, dude. Thanks in advance. Of course, of course. That's awfully sweet of you to think of us. Yeah, so I mean, I think that basically cuts us through most of the notes. We're at a little over an hour and a half now. Wow. And anything you think we missed? |
| Cole Pennington | Nah, I think we covered a lot of ground, I gotta say. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, this has been fun. It's nice to get a chance to catch up with you. You know, we share a phone call every few weeks. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. |
| Blake Stacey | Uh, but usually it's not like it's, it's usually about like work stuff or like day to day stress. It's not this kind of nice, uh, retelling of a time when I think a lot of people, myself included, you know, didn't, didn't get it, didn't get out fishing and diving and, you know, flying ultralight planes. And, and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm proud, proud to know that, you know, people like you exist out there who, who, you know, put some of these experiences ahead of the content schedule. And and actually got out and did some stuff. It makes me feel feel like there's you know there's a world a world on the other side of this where we'll all go back to it. |
| Cole Pennington | It's true. And hopefully we'll never have this again to happen obviously. |
| Blake Stacey | But absolutely. Yeah. Let's let's not think about that if we don't have to at this moment. But how about you say we jump into some final notes. Yes sir. You want to go first. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. So I'd like to recommend a YouTube channel that I've been following for a long time and that I also try and emulate like you know like to actually hit do the things that I see. And it's Outdoor Chef Life. Have you seen it or no? |
| Blake Stacey | I haven't. No. All right. But I clicked into it when I saw it in the show notes. It looks fascinating. Yeah. |
| Cole Pennington | I subscribed. A fella named Taku and his girlfriend, Jocelyn. They're doing a little bit of van life, but really they're about catch and cook, foraging. And what I like about it is the vibe is very authentic. It's not the... Some things almost come together too well. Like I mentioned in an old Seiko piece, Tacoma, a Yeti, like they're, they're buying into a stereotype. |
| Blake Stacey | There is that, there is that aesthetic. Yeah. Like established aesthetic, the starter pack. Yeah, exactly. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. Yeah. And this guy's well beyond that. You don't get that. Like that's a lot of YouTube is that it's like, you can tell they bought the starter pack and the YouTube channel follows, right? Like this is not that. |
| Blake Stacey | And like at a certain level, YouTube tends to reward it. Yeah. It really does. You see something you already have a context for, that's what you click on. That's what people say. Go to like and subscribe. Right. But yeah, there's, there's definitely a lot out there that, that doesn't necessarily follow whether, you know, five years ago, maybe it was like adventure vlogging, um, or, or, you know, extreme sports vlogging. And then that became van life stuff and van life kind of became like a return to like a dirtbag lifestyle, but it's a dirtbag lifestyle with a thousand dollar cooler and you know, a $150,000 van. And, and, and it's, it's, it is kind of a weird thing. So to see, see anyone outside that mold feels a little bit more, You know, for me, whenever I want, when I'm watching any outdoor YouTube stuff, I want to, I want a little bit of that, like Dick Preneke alone in the wilderness, which is like, there's just a legitimacy to the way that he approached all of it. That didn't feel like it needed to be liked or even necessarily wanted to be. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah. And, and that's, so when looking at modern media to find something like that is interesting and this has that authentic vibe. So definitely I would go check that out. Very, very TGN as well. So. |
| Blake Stacey | before I get to mine, what's it, what's a dish that they've made that you've made or something that directly that you've picked up that that's paid off? |
| Cole Pennington | So, all right. |
| Blake Stacey | Cause I can link to a specific episode if that's more valuable than just the channel. |
| Cole Pennington | There's something that I want to do. I've done a few things from him for sure. And I've learned a lot, but a lot of that is freshwater catch and cook stuff. But something I want to do that, that he's done, he goes foraging for harvesting sea urchin. And so basically like, one of his things is, yeah, like how, and number one, he, he is Japanese. So he injects a lot of Japanese influence into what he's making and cooking and the recipes that he's coming up with. And he's a chef by trade too. But one of the things that he has done, and I just think, ah, I gotta go do that, is diving around central California, foraging for, uh, kelp, a specific kind of kelp there and, and sea urchin and extracting the uni, which, you know, if you want to go buy that at the store, that's, I'm |
| Blake Stacey | And it is obviously hard to get. You have to get the urchin off of wherever it is and they like to stay where they are typically. And then you got to break them open and you can eat it right out of the animal basically. And you know the thing that I think the first time for a lot of people, definitely for me, the first time that I kind of came across this as a reference was on Bourdain and No Reservations. At least at one point he said it was his favorite thing to eat. Um, cause it's just something that you very rarely come across, uh, outside of, yeah, restaurants where you're going to pay three figure for a little spoonful of it. Um, I've only ever had it once and it is, you know, it's fantastic. It's a fantastic thing for sure. So I could see that being a pretty fun. I also really, this is something I had always wanted to get into in, in Vancouver was the idea that you could, uh, essentially get a license that would allow you to go in with scuba tanks and grab crab, come right out and throw them in the pot. Oh yeah. And I'm a huge, huge crab lobster fan. Um, like I think a lot of people who give it a chance are, and, uh, it's just something that was always on a list of, uh, mine and one of my main dive buddies, you know, we always talked about doing it and just never kind of put it all together. And I got, got the fishing license and the rest of it. But, uh, I love that idea of, uh, of, yeah, going, going for a free dive and coming up with an urchin or two and eating them all on the side of the beach or whatever, that'd be, that'd be something else for sure. So what about you? So mine, you know, this is a fun one because Jason's not here so I can put him on blast a little bit. I didn't think the reason this didn't come up in last week's episode, which went up Thursday morning, of course, was I didn't really think Hodinkee would publish a Talking Watches in the afternoon on a Thursday. It's very outside of the norm. So when it didn't go up Thursday morning, Um, or when, when it didn't look like it was going to go up Thursday morning, I just didn't bother putting it in the, in the show last when we recorded a week ago. So Tuesday, but it is live. And I saw it in the comments on the last episode. So I know that at least some of you have seen it, but Jason did a talking watches that I think is an absolutely must watch. And it's nice because he's not here. So I don't have to feel bad about making him feel embarrassed or, you know, we're not, not really attention seekers beyond the types that record their own voices for, you know, several hours a week. But Jason did a really lovely job and it was with Jack and recorded remotely, which has all of its own challenges. And Ghoshani was able to help a bunch with the photography and the videography for the piece. And I think it's a really good look at a slice of his watches, the watches that really kind of represent his taste in the dive watch world. And I highly recommend it. It's a pretty easy thing. I don't have to give a lot of context. It's a Talking Watches. with Jason. I mean, we're at 152 episodes now and Jason's been on like 151 of them. Uh, so a lot of you already know him pretty well, but it is a nice thing to see him talk and said, and also to have him talk with someone who's not me. You know, I think Jack came at it at a different level of depth where I would have skipped certain things that I already knew. So it's like, you're not always following the same levels of curiosity as other people. And I think the two of them did really well together. I think it came together nicely. Will and the team, they always do a great job with the videos. So if you manage to somehow miss Jason's Talking Watches, that's absolutely my final notes. Please go and watch it. So I'm proud of him and I like to see his face up in some video every now and then. So check it out if you missed it last week. |
| Cole Pennington | And one of his, one line that stuck with me, he said something like, it doesn't stay in the collection long unless it gets wet or unless you do something. And I was like, oh man, what a good, What a good way to look at this. You know, I agree. You got to watch that. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah. It's, it's something that we, we could certainly dig into, um, you know, at a time when Jason's actually on the show, but I do think, yeah, he has, he has kind of different strata of watches and there's, there's the bottom is this, it's a high turnover, right? And then they filter upwards or downwards, however you want to see it in your mind. But yeah. And I did, I did enjoy that part about this is, this is how I really interface with watches is by diving with them. And then they mean something to me. which I think made sense certainly and probably to a lot of those listening. So yeah, cool. So I think that's it. I can't thank you enough for filling in for my boy Jason when he was away. This has been great. It's been super nice to catch up with you. I never do these on video, but it's nice to see your face and it makes the conversation a little bit more fast in terms of going back and forth when I can see the whites of your eyes, as it were. Dude, thank you so much for being on the show. |
| Cole Pennington | Yeah, no, really. Truly an honor, seriously. And thank you for thinking of me and I hope I did Jason, I did him right by filling in for him. |
| Blake Stacey | Yeah, well, you don't want to do too good a job. I'm sure at least I'm replaceable, so let's keep the bar at an operable level here. Other than that, like I said, thank you so much. And as always, thank you to all of you for listening. You can subscribe to the show via notes.thegrenado.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton, at J.E. Stacey. And for Cole, it's at Cole underscore Pennington. And you can follow the show at The Grey Nato. Should you have any questions for us, please write thegrenado at gmail.com and keep sending in those voice memos. We'll do a Q&A in probably the next two to three weeks. And if you're enjoying the show, we would love it if you could subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. And of course, music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Cole Pennington | And we leave you with this quote from Kraft Eric, a rocket scientist who contributed to the American space program. Man's mind and spirit grow with the space in which they are allowed to operate. |