The Grey NATO - 153 - Gombessa 6, Mysterious Rings, and Decompressing With Laurent Ballesta
Published on Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:00:20 -0400
Synopsis
The podcast episode features an interview with French marine biologist and underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta. He was interviewed while decompressing after completing the Gombessa 6 expedition, where his team explored and studied mysterious coral rings off the coast of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea using advanced saturation diving techniques. Ballesta discusses the challenges of the expedition, the scientific objectives, the role of art and photography in his work, and his collaboration with Blancpain to develop a new dive watch prototype.
Links
Transcript
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| James | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 153 and we thank you for listening. Hey James, it's good to be back. Yeah. Had a nice week off and I just up front, I just want to give a big thanks to Cole Pennington for filling in for me. I listened to that episode late last week, and it was fantastic. You guys had a great chat. It seems like you had a lot of fun without me there. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, we may do for certain. It's not really the same. It almost feels like I'm recording some other show, a hooding radio or something to sit there and chit chat with Cole. But yeah, he brought his A game as always and had lots of stuff to talk about. And it's always nice to catch up with Cole. You know, I think he's well in the wheelhouse and the comments were really great. Thanks to everyone who hit on the sub stack and showed Cole some love and some questions and the rest. at least looking through those. I'm not sure if all have been answered yet, but I'm sure they will be in time. So yeah, all of that, uh, all of that's great. |
| James | Your, your trip away was good. Trip was great. It was, um, it was kind of a proper vacation. You know, we packed really light. We, we didn't, uh, have any big ambitions of, uh, going diving or anything. We were in the Florida Keys, um, on Isla Morada specifically, which is kind of the second of the big, bigger islands down there as you head down from Miami. And, uh, yeah, like I said, we, we just really just wanted to, keep the schedule open and just spend a few days looking at the ocean and reading books and that sort of thing. And that's exactly what we did. We had a nice little cottage on the water with a little sliver of a beach that allowed us to kind of get in and go snorkeling every day. And, you know, we'd kind of lie in the shade and read. And then if it got too warm, we'd slip in the water and swim around a bit and come back and dry off and read some more. So it was fun. And then, um, you know, I got a lot of good recommendations about the keys, about, you know, where to stay and where to eat and, and that sort of stuff from our friend, Martha Ressler, who we interviewed, uh, on an earlier episode of, of the gray NATO. She's, uh, a director at the coral restoration foundation. And we were connected with Martha through our friends at Oris. And we actually interviewed Martha on an episode that we did from Colorado. The last time we were out there skiing with, with Oris. And Martha lives in Key Largo, and so she passed along some great recommendations. And then Ghoshani and I met her for dinner one night and had a nice chat, could catch up with her. That's great. Yeah, it was great. And then one day, it was kind of a rainy morning, and we decided let's... There's a wonderful museum that I recommend to anybody down there called the History of Diving Museum. And I've been there a couple of times before, but it's on Isla Mirada, and it's... You know, 15 bucks for admission, just a small private museum, but they've got a huge selection of vintage diving equipment, you know, hundreds of diving helmets. I mean, just like it's like full of helmets and old gear and old scuba gear. And they've even got a couple of watches in the case and it just kind of walks you through the whole history of man's time underwater. So we did that for a morning and that was really fun. And other than that, it was just kind of chill. It was great. rented a Jeep. Yeah, it was fun. |
| Jason Heaton | That's great. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. And for those curious or who may have missed it, Martha's episode of the show was episode 99 was the last one that we were able to record kind of face to face one of our high altitude episodes in the Rockies. So that one's worth checking out. I'll drop it in the show notes, of course, but Yeah, I'm glad to hear that you had a good time kind of getting away and enjoying some vacation. And any remarkable snorkel events or great meals or anything like that? |
| James | Well, we ate well, certainly. And if you find yourself in the Keys, there's a great little place that Martha recommended called Bad Boy Burrito and Bad Boy Sushi. They're kind of all in the same little, kind of a little hidden They call it like the Village Square, I think, on Isla Morada. And it's these shops that are kind of set back from the main road. You know, if you've driven through the Keys, it's a lot of kind of tacky souvenir shops and old kind of rundown motels and restaurants and really touristy things. And then every once in a while, you find these little pockets or these little gems that exist down there. And this was one of them. And it was kind of back from the road and had little outdoor tables. And I just got a poke bowl. you know, with like sushi rice and some avocado and I had mine with salmon, but they had a tuna one and it was just, it was just delightful. And then, and then the night we met Martha, we were up on Key Largo and we went to a place called Arthur's and it's a sort of a Jamaican restaurant and certainly not picturesque. It's like a real hole in the wall. I don't think there are any windows in the place and kind of garishly painted on the inside, but man, it was good. Um, yeah, that was, that was fun. |
| Jason Heaton | I wasn't sure if it was just you and Ghoshani every day from about three in the afternoon at Margaritaville. I remember my first time in the Keys, I only, you know, it was a short stop. And yeah, we just walked around. I don't even remember where we were specifically, but that was the whole, you know, it was three blocks of kind of a touristy area in a town. And yeah, it was, you know, rickshaw rides and Margaritaville. |
| James | Yeah, we tried to avoid that stuff. We really wanted to spend time kind of on our own at this cottage, just looking at the sea. And we did that. And the snorkeling was, you know, it's amazing there. It's incredibly shallow. So we would walk out hundreds of yards and the water would be knee deep. |
| Unknown | Oh, wow. |
| James | I mean, seriously, we never actually got to water that was deeper than my hips, maybe. And that was at high tide. So really shallow which was kind of good and bad. I mean it was and it was bathwater warm Mostly just seagrass that close to the shore and we wanted to get out maybe and do some snorkeling offshore on an alligator reef, but The day we finally got the ambition up and called a place. They said, you know, it's just too windy We're not gonna go out today. So we were quite happy to just stay closer in but we you know, we I saw a barracuda and some parrotfish and That sort of stuff under the dock and then it was really interesting and one One night. In fact, it was our last night there. We just walked out to the edge of the dock and looked at the stars and then I had my My phone with me and I just kind of turned the flashlight on and aimed it into the water and there was this big Stingray like right on the sand right below the dock. I was like, okay, that's that's cool. Just waiting for you So that was kind of a good send-off. Yeah. Yeah, so Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was good, good to, to get in the water and, and, uh, you know, just experience some of the tropical sea breeze. You just, you can't mimic that anywhere. I, you know, we've, we certainly have had plenty of hot, humid weather here in Minnesota, but there's something about that same weather transplanted next to the ocean where you get that steady offshore breeze that just kind of blows across you and you're sitting under a sea grape tree and drinking a good beer. It was just a, well, well needed and very much appreciated. So that was, uh, that was great. And again, you know, thanks for holding down the fort while I was gone. That was, uh, made it, made it nice to get away. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I, uh, I have not done much at all. I mean, since, since I recorded the last episode of, I pretty much just worked and then dipped up to the cottage and did some swimming and, you know, sat around a fire and ate some good food with some family. So pretty, pretty chill, but that's, uh, that's kind of what summer is these days. Currently, you know, I'm, uh, Uh, I was planning on doing a little bit of snorkeling up at the cottage and, uh, the, we just never really had the right day for it. The, the calm days were also pretty dark. Yeah. And then the brighter day was, um, was pretty choppy. So you, you wouldn't quite get, uh, the experience I was looking for, but I did buy a couple. You've, I assume you've seen these, that's a silly question to ask. Have you seen them, but you know, those kind of like full face snorkel mass that have like a, a tube that emanates from the center top of the mass for the snorkel. Yeah, me neither. I actually don't really like the feeling of full face mask. I tried one like a scuba full face mask and I tried one in a store when I was first getting into scuba because they were kind of maybe not a hot item, but kind of an interesting thing that some people were into at the time. And I don't really know to this day how you do the how you evacuate that mask or, or if you, if you do your certification with the mask like that, how do you take it off entirely and put it back on? Right. Yeah. So I'm not really sure about that kind of stuff, but maybe it's something you don't, maybe you don't get certified with, with that sort of a full face mask. But I did buy a couple of those for my daughters who are quite keen on, um, on coming snorkeling with me. So we'll see if that works. They've been trying, they've been attempting to wear my mask, which doesn't really, really fit their small faces. And, uh, And so there's a lot of, you know, water and fog and the rest of it. But yeah, we'll see if that works. I can, I can report back cause I'm sure there's a handful of folks in the audience who might, who might be interested in that either for themselves or for, uh, the younger people in their lives. Uh, so we'll, we'll get to that, uh, hopefully this coming weekend, uh, you know, we're recording this on a Tuesday. Uh, it'll go up obviously for everyone listening, you know, on the Thursday and then within 24 hours, I hope to be jumping off that dock again. So yeah, we'll, uh, we'll do our best there, but, um, Yeah, maybe time for a simple risk check. I went up, like I said, to the cottage this weekend. I wore my SPB because we were doing more construction, building another floor with my brother's help, along with some other kind of small tasks. |
| Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And I like this watch because I literally never bother taking it off. I've built multiple floors. I've done dump runs. I work on the Jeep. I just like it the way it is. And it fits really well. And then the other thing that stands out, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's one of the original things that brought me to watches, but this is another one where like you get in the tent at night, you grab a flashlight, you give it a couple seconds and it just glows all night. Oh yeah. So you can see really easily. You can check the time. Plus I just think the five-year-old in me just loves the loom on the Seiko. So yeah, this one, um, in some ways it's kind of, you know, now when I see any other new Seikos come up, I always go like, Oh, I really like that. And then I go, but I probably won't like it more than my one, four, three. It's kind of slowed my kind of Seiko pace in many ways. |
| James | Yeah. And every time I see them now in pictures, and I don't know if it's just been steady erosion, but I really have grown to love that watch to the point where I'm like all starting to kind of, you know, look at my budget and think, can I afford one of these? Should I look around for one? |
| Jason Heaton | Cause like, you know, you should get one. |
| James | Yeah. I mean, they're, they're cool. And I don't know about the other, you know, which, which dial configuration I like. I mean, the blue dial version was kind of neat. Then there's that sort of brown guilty looking one. Yeah, it's a cool watch. And, and, you know, you're wearing it like you described in your recent Hodinkee article about beaters. And I think, you know, it's funny that that's become like your cottage construction watch and whatever, but then when you're done with the hot sweaty work, you can keep it on and just jump in the lake. And then that's, that's the best thing you can say about it. |
| Jason Heaton | you know, I, I've got it on a, on a great NATO predictably. And it's just, it's super easy because the, the, it's a nicely broken in UTA NATO and it, uh, yeah, it just, it works really well. It doesn't, it sits, it dries out nicely. I've, you know, I have no complaints at this one. I, it's one of those ones where the, the, the only thing I have to do with this watch, or even with, with a lot of my other dive watches, but especially with this one, cause it is pretty new is, you know, I'm, I'm walking down the dock, I'm going to jump in. I just very quickly reached down and give the crown a little twist, make sure it's all the way in. Oh yeah. And then you're good. And, uh, it, yeah, it's always fun to have a watch on in the water or around the water. And, and it is that time of year where you're, you're keeping an eye on, on things outside of kind of a work pace. So it is handy to have a watch. I'm not in front of my computer. I don't have my phone in my hand to, to see the time and that kind of thing. So it is also just nicely useful to, uh, to kind of keep on top of the day at the, at the cottage. |
| James | Yeah. And I think, I think what What so many of us forget about, you know, when we talk about watches and dive watches and water resistance is there is, you know, you talked about the thrill of seeing that loom when you're in the tent at night and that sort of childlike feel. I think there's that same sensation of seeing a watch underwater, even if you're two feet underwater. You know, I remember even before diving, you know, wearing a watch in like the pool at the Y or swimming laps. You put your face under and you see your watch underwater and you kind of twist your wrist a little bit to kind of get that bit of distortion that you sometimes see. And I don't know, there's a little thrill or if you're snorkeling or free diving or something and you just dive down a little bit and look at your watch underwater, there's a small thrill to that. And I think that's one of the pleasures of summer for one thing. But yeah, that's cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, summer. It has that vacation feel because if it's a pool or the lake or the keys or whatever, like, yeah, there's something and there's something just about seeing it break the surface in front of you when you're swimming. Yeah. I don't know. This is this is obviously very inside baseball or inside watch enthusiasm. But yeah, dive watches have not lost any of their appeal to me, especially these these Seiko's with their super loom and the rest. But this watch I love probably even more than when I did the week on the wrist last year. I just I just think it's perfect. Yeah. It's, it's, it's expensive in the world of, of Seiko dive watches, but I think it's worth every penny. |
| James | Yeah. And I think, you know, there's a, there's a real sign that, you know, certainly there's always the honeymoon period and last summer when you got it and I got my, my deep star, um, you know, there's that initial phase where you just don't take it off and you think this is, this is my forever watch, you know, you wear it for two months straight and you think I'm not taking this thing off. But then the true test is, you know, a year in after it's been bashed up and used a lot, if you're still thinking the same thing, you still look down at it and love it. You know that that's a, that's a real keeper. That's how I feel about the, the deep star as well. |
| Jason Heaton | So absolutely. That's cool. So, uh, yeah, the deep stars that I had on the weekend before, and it's, I, the chronograph is so useful at times. Yeah. It's so nice to have between, you know, between the, the deep star, the SPV 143 and then the, the Synchron military. Yeah. Uh, it's almost hard to decide which one I'm going to take up. I will not take multiple watches to the cottage. Cause this is like, I've been packing the same book. to read since I started going up, you know, a couple months ago and I haven't, I put it in my backpack every time. Best intentions, of course. Yeah. It's, um, uh, another one of Ted Chiang's, which I am genuinely excited to read. And then I get up there and you just start spending time with people. And then by the end of the day, you're tired. You get in the tent and you just fall asleep. Uh, so I haven't been, uh, maybe I'm more of a winter reader. I got through a few books last winter, which is a decent pace for me. It's been a treat, and it's always fun to get a chance to do more with a watch than just sit at the desk, so. Yeah. How about you? What's on risk on this fine summer day? |
| James | Well, I chose an appropriate one for today's episode. I'm wearing the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaph. This is the Hodinkee limited edition that I was generously gifted by the gang at Hodinkee for my 50th birthday. You know, it's a watch that comes out of the box. every now and then, and then I wear it and I'm like, this is like, it truly is almost like the perfect watch. And the fact that Ghoshani and I can share it and she wears it a lot as well. I don't know. It's like, this is a 38 millimeter watch. No date. I mean, it is, it is the simplest watch. And when I look at it and I think this is potentially, I don't know if I look across my collection, like it might be the nicest watch I own, you know, like in terms of a modern watch. like the pedigree, the movement, you know, anti-magnetic movement, you know, in-house hundred hour power reserve, et cetera, et cetera. But yet, you know, I wear it on a NATO strap and I look at it and it's like, it's so nondescript. It like from a distance or to the uninitiated, it just looks like I'm wearing a little tiny whatever, you know, just, just nothing remarkable, but it's, it's just such a satisfying, fantastic watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I remember the last time or not the last time but the only time I got to see that we were sitting and having a drink together at the Explorers Club in New York. Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. That was some time ago. It feels like forever ago. I come across that photo in my in my uh, light room role with some frequency. And I always go, I remember that. That was a nice hangout, you know, cause I hadn't been in there before you gave me a little tour, walked around, saw a few things and then sat down and had a nice scotch. And it was a good afternoon before, if I remember correctly, the same night we went to that fantastic, um, Thai restaurant. |
| Unknown | Oh yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Um, and the food there was just, uh, was that Jai? Someone's going to want to know it's in Manhattan is a Incredible. I'll put it in the show notes. I apologize. It's I want to say it's not Jit Lada That was the one that was down the street for me in Vancouver that we ate at yeah Okay, that we had takeout from but I don't remember that spot in in Manhattan But I can find it and put it in the show notes. The food was incredible. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good time Really good time Wow, certainly was some someday soon. Maybe we'll do something like that. I think so Yeah, two-year hiatus. |
| James | Yeah, and I just noticed today Canada's gonna be opening up the border here soon So who knows? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, they're working out a few different solutions. You know, there's still some concerns essentially. So I'm, I'm kind of casually waiting until I know that I don't have to be doing specific paperwork for the various places I might be going. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, definitely. I wouldn't mind doing, you know, I'm, I'm not super keen on just ramping up work travel when it's cottage season. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, this is the, this is the time of year where I get to spend the most time with my kids and doing stuff that, that doesn't necessarily feel like work. Right. Uh, but I know, I know once that season starts to wrap up, it'll be, it'll be time to return to some sort of a pace, I think, cause as long as things continue, how they're going now. Yeah. Right. So who knows at this point, but, um, when, when possible, we should start thinking about, you know, doing a, doing a makeup, a hangout. Oh yeah. That'd be awesome. The one from March of two years ago. Sorry, March, March of last year, a little over one year. Right. Yeah. Uh, what do you say we get into the main topic? This is an exciting one, uh, kind of a continuation of the topic from episode one 23. It sure is. |
| James | Um, so today we've, uh, we've had an opportunity to catch up with Laurent Ballesta. So Laurent is a French marine biologist and incredible underwater photographer, uh, and, and just bonafide explorer. And, you know, we, we did talk to him in episode one 23, courtesy of our friends at Blancpain kind of made that connection. He's. been a longtime partner of theirs, and his series of expeditions are called Gombessa, and he kind of names each one, Gombessa 1, 2, 3, 4, and he's up to number 6. And in this one, we actually caught up with him at the tail end of Gombessa 6 while he was still in the hyperbaric chamber on board the Bathial station, which is basically a barge that is being towed by a tugboat that contains this entire diving system. So a diving bell and the chamber that he and his partners are living in between dives. And we spoke with him. And it was a video call. And we saw him sitting in the chamber waiting for the last two hours of his decompression to tick down. And that was really exciting. And in this particular expedition, he and his team have been off of the coast of Corsica in the Mediterranean. It's a place called the Cap Course. uh, in French and they've been diving very deep, 120 meters, you know, well over 300 feet, uh, investigating some mysterious, uh, coral rings, very ancient rings of coral that are on the flat seabed there and trying to figure out what caused those. And what's unique about, about how they're doing these, these last two Gombeza expeditions. And I would encourage you to check out episode 123 and get some more background on, on this method. Cause this is what they did with Gombeza 5 as well. is they are doing saturation diving, which means they're living in a compression chamber on board this diving station at the surface. And then they go to and from the seabed in a diving bell, and then exit the bell and swim around freely using standard rebreathers at very deep depths. So they're able to do four or five hour dives on the seabed, and then come back and live in this habitat. So it's crazy advanced, cutting edge diving Um, that, that when you talk to Laurent, he, he makes it seem not matter of fact, he definitely knows how serious this stuff is, but it's, it's just remarkable what, what this guy's doing for, for science and for art. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And there's an incredible series of videos on YouTube. I'll mention this. I'm sure on the other side of the, um, on the other side of the interview, but there's a series of videos on YouTube. They're short. I think the longest one involves, they actually did a call between. the Bathiel station and the international space station. So the longest one is kind of a chit chat with a French astronaut, uh, and, uh, and Laurent and it's fascinating. It's definitely worth watching, but for the bulk of them, they're only a few minutes long and they're kind of like mini segments of a documentary that kind of pieces itself together as you go and explains the mission and some of the challenges. And then some of the interesting things that they found, including, um, ecosystems that, that had life that was very much unexpected at both at that depth and in that area. Yeah. Um, so I don't want to give any of that away. He mentioned some of it in the chat, but please go ahead and watch these videos. It's going to take you a half an hour, maybe 40 minutes to sit down and go through the whole thing. And I think it's a, it's a good background and a good, um, addition to, uh, the stuff that Lauren talks about in this interview. |
| James | Yeah, it's great. And, and a little nugget here to, to listen for towards the end is, uh, he describes, uh, In some vague detail, a new Blancpain watch that he's been working on with Blancpain, and we can't give him too much away, and he certainly couldn't give too much away, but it's pretty exciting when a guy like Laurent Balesta is working with a watch brand to develop a very specific watch, and this is pretty cool. So you'll have to listen for that late in the episode here. |
| Jason Heaton | For sure. So we can get to that recording now. A huge thank you to, of course, Laurent and the entire team at, uh, Gambessa six who were able to facilitate this. And then beyond that, a massive thank you to, uh, block bond. They're kind enough to, to make this connection happen. This isn't something that we would take for granted. Like, like we're, we're, we're not the paper of record for extreme diving or, or incredible scientific process, uh, processes, but, uh, just a huge treat and a big thank you to everyone who I was willing to set up the timing, obviously, they're on the other side of the world. And, and it all worked out. And it was a real treat to see it all come together. So, you know, let's, let's jump right into that now. |
| James | Well, welcome to Laurent Balesta to the Graynado. Those of you who are longtime listeners might remember Laurent joined us back on episode 123, where we learned about the Gombeza 5 expedition, which was the Mediterranean expedition. And Laurent, it's really a pleasure to talk with you while you're in decompression. You're finishing up decompression at the end of Gombeza 6, the Cap Course expedition. So welcome to the Graynado. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you've spent the past few days and weeks on your latest expedition. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Well, the very last A few past days were very boring because it was just decompression. The last four days now, three days and a half, was just deco. So just waiting inside a yellow can and for all my three friends and I. And so there is nothing to say about the last three days except it's the most extreme confitment of the last two years, I think. Everybody now is used to confitment, but this one is quite extreme. It's just five square meter for four of us, no windows and no possibility to talk each other because of the helium and the high pressure paralyze our voice actually. And so, yeah, it's quite extreme, but we know why we do that. It's it's our privilege, privilege to stay hours and hours very deep offshore of Cape of Corsica Island where nobody dove before us. |
| James | Yeah, we we watched the series of video logs that you put up in preparation for this interview, and it looked fascinating. You You did a conversation with the space station with a French astronaut. And, uh, and then you, this time around, you got some support from the French Navy, which was something new. Can you tell us a little bit about how they supported the mission? |
| Laurent Ballesta | All these hubs, all these reports were twice important. First important because they really help us. Second, because it was an owner. an honor to to suddenly have a talk and you know share some thought with Thomas Pesquet in the International Space Station that's just huge huge privilege and to have here the the French Navy in charge of who accept to to trail trailers track us yeah to the place to who had the responsibility to to keep the the deep station at the right place during all the dive and that's very important they must keep it during hours and hours and and in the same time it's an owner because they were here to to make a kind of expertise on our way to dive for themselves for to see if it could be something interesting for US, French Navy divers. So, yeah, yeah. And all is thanks to the Gombessa 5, to what we did in 2019. A lot of people was first a bit sceptic and, and then, was curious and and then was very looks amazed by what we did and wanted to know more. So we were very proud to have all this this prestigious help for this new expedition. |
| James | I have to wonder as I watch and there was a lot of the some history elements in the in the video logs that you put up and I wonder how you see yourself fitting into this legacy of French ocean exploration and diving. Is that, is that an important thing to you? I mean, there's a very rich history in France of, of diving and ocean exploration. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Of course I can be proud of that, but, but it's always dangerous to be too much proud of something. And, and I would say that it's not important actually. It's just a consequence. My first aim is not to go, to enter the legacy of the diving industry or something. It's very simple. It's to solve an underwater mystery. It's to bring back new wildlife images, something never seen before, and try to understand this unbelievable event discovered 10 years ago. It's all the maps behind me. Oh, this huge ring, 20, 30 meters diameters, 1000 of these rings. So it's along kilometers of white and flat valley of sand, deep valley of sand. And there is this dark ring. made by a very little red stone called rhodolith. It's stone algae. So yeah, my main focus is that, is just to solve a true mystery and to solve it in an honest way. That means, for me, try to understand a mystery needs three uh i would say that it means science adventure always yeah and because you three you need the adventurer to dare to go to touch the mystery you need the scientist to understand in a in a in a rational uh way making protocols, not just like not superstition, you know, try to understand really what is the origin, what is the age of this ring. And then you need the artist to share, to give an image who was as amazing as the feeling you can have when you are in front of these large rings on the bottom. |
| James | It's interesting you mentioned science and adventure and art. Obviously, your photography is incredibly beautiful, but it's also a tool to illustrate what you're seeing and the science that you're conducting. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Maybe sometimes it can help the understanding. Yeah. That can help science. Yeah. The same time, sometimes science can help the artist, because when you start to understand an event, a phenomenon, that gives you sometimes some idea about the way to illustrate it. So I think all these things are complementary. |
| James | To me, I think there's an element of inspiration as well. I think if people look at your photos and they're inspired by the beauty of the underwater world, they might then be inspired to, maybe it's a young person, take up a career in marine biology or start diving or something. I think that's such an important piece of it. |
| Laurent Ballesta | I'm always very touched when I heard about something like that, when I receive a letter of a young guy or a girl telling me, ah, now I know what I want to do later when I will be a being and when I would yeah that's all the time very touching and and even a bit surprising because my my main motivation to be honest is not to save the planet is not to give a good advice or or what we have to do or what we don't have to do. If I do this job, it's just because I'm lucky enough to make this crazy dream coming turn into a serious project, to feel as an explorer, to have the capacity to illustrate new wildlife, is all these things. So it's very selfish, actually. It's very selfish. I'm conscientious. I'm very aware that my deep motivation is quite selfish. So, of course, when I heard from outside that, no, no, but it can give motivation to young, it can help to take consideration, to make people aware about what is existing, it can touch me very deep that can make me cry because I'm not waiting for that. I don't want to be waiting for it. I think if you are waiting for that, you're on the wrong way. It's very pretentious and modest. And I know that even if it's a bit selfish, that my main motivation is just to feel like I felt when I was a kid playing Cousteau on the beach with with my brother is to continue to make myself believe I am an explorer, at least for a few weeks. To be an underwater artist, at least for one or two photos. And to be a scientist, if I touch a little bit the beginning of the true of this phenomenon. That's my main motivation. So if they can be very, uh, social consequences or, uh, or conservation, uh, consequences, uh, are more than happy, more than happy because he looks to meet too much to expect. |
| James | Yeah. Did, um, did you come up with any, um, preliminary theories about the coral rings yet? Any ideas as to what? |
| Laurent Ballesta | For the moment, nothing is sure because a lot of analysis needs to be done with the data and the samples we did. But this analysis already started, by the way. But yeah, we start to have a feeling of what it could be. First of all, it looks that it's much older than we thought. It could It could come from an event that happened at least 20,000 years ago, when the sea level was 120 meters lower. It means that when this ring or the thing before the ring, the thing who gives the rings later, we don't know exactly what, at a time where this this thing was very very close to the surface maybe maybe touching the surface and it can be shell reef it can be a warm tubes reef at this time in very shallow water and of course when it's very shallow water it can take first the shape of a dome, then the shape of a circle, like an atoll. And then the sea level went up. And because there is so many current, it's not possible to be just filled by sediment. The sediment is clean all the time in this place. It's one of the most windy places of the Mediterranean Sea with a lot of current. So you can imagine that then Some coral genus reef grew on that when it was much more deeper. So something grew above something already with a particular shape. And then this thing was even not enough. It became also too much deeper for this second kind of reef. And they start to disappear. And The ring, a kind of vestige, a rest of something. But the paradox is that even if what we are watching right now in the modern time, even if this thing is probably the rest of something, in the same time it's not dead. It's something still alive, which is another form of life. But the round of this redstone all around is still alive. It's red algae and the heart of the ring, where most of the time there is a little stone, sometimes not even more than one or two square meters, one or two cube meters. It's full of siphon and a species of siphon I never see before anywhere else. that is already described by science, but living much deeper, where it's impossible to dive. And here there is this big colony of white sea fan. And if you go inside the sea fan, you can find a lot of little shellfish, very rare that I see maybe just one or twice in all my career. And it was dense, so dense, a lot of them and there is also some little nudibranch very special one and one of them is a new species so we were able to to sample it and it's a new species we should be described soon with a new name that we will be able to give a name to a new species thanks to this expedition So yeah we are happy we develop a theory of course nothing is sure about what I told you except the nudie branch but for the history of the ring nothing is is sure yet it's just for the moment my feeling after what we saw what we and and now we are waiting for the data and data analysis, sampling, and we're going to see if we're right or not. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, Laurent, I'm curious when you're, because this is now the sixth time that you've done one of these large missions and the scope of them has kind of increased over time and now you have kind of a wider support. And if I'm correct, this is the second time you've used the Bathiel station? |
| Laurent Ballesta | Yeah. The second time for a mission. And the third time in all, because we, we did a first, uh, saturation short mission just to test ourself at the very beginning. Don't make any film about that. And so it's the second main expedition. Yes, you're right. |
| Jason Heaton | And when, when you're preparing now that you had done, uh, combustive five with this station, when you're preparing for six, what are you most looking forward to? Cause I'm sure there's a lot of preparation that goes into all of it before you even get anywhere near a boat or a dive mask or the rest of it? |
| Laurent Ballesta | With the first experience, we knew what we need to make better. So, for example, how to be much, try to be a bit warmer, to try to cold was not so suffering when we died. So we developed some new equipment as a heating system to make the gas we breathe a bit warmer. It was not even enough, we would like much more warm. But we developed a lot of, we had also a kind of heating electric heating and the worse, uh, below our dry suit and, and all these things together make our dive a bit more comfortable. But anyway, when you, so, so it's been that we stay longer than last time during we, we, we stay more, once we stay more than four hour and a half, but of course, when you finish, you completely exhaust anyway. You push the limit and then you go back to the station. So the thing we have to develop was that, how to stay longer and in a more comfortable way, but also how to dive in rough conditions. Because for the first expedition, we were very shy and scared about where to put the station. And we asked for very flat water. very calm weather condition. And we knew that the Cape of Corsica is one of the worst in Mediterranean Sea. It's very windy, a lot of swell, a lot of current and never in the same way. So it's a huge mess when you are in this place. So we need to find another way to stabilize the station. And that was thanks to the French Navy with a huge trade boat with what we call the dynamic positioning system. It means that without any anchors, there is no anchors, but the boat is with five engines, five propellers around the boat. And so if you give them a GPS point, they can stay as long as you want at the right position. It's very noisy underwater. It was even too much noisy. I remember that the first day I went out of the station, when I heard this noise, I said, it's unbearable. It's stressing. It's writing in our own lungs. So that was very stressful, but you get used to everything anyway. So day after day, it was part of the of the atmosphere, this noise, and we do anyway. So that was one of the problem to solve the positioning. And then what we have to develop during the year before the expedition was the scientific protocols, because to answer the question of the age, the origin of the rings, it's need to make, to dig inside this kind of carrot, stone carrot, and it can be something easy in a mountain you you came with your caterpillar and a big engine and you make this big stone car road as far as you want inside the stone and the water holding just by a diver at 120 meters that was another kind of problem so we were really not to work a lot on that and we were lucky also to have the help of the French Navy because they are used to make this kind of hole in stone for some secret operation and not at such depth actually, much shallower, but we know how to deep dive, they know how to make hole in stone. So we compare, we find the solution together, And we did the first try the first day, and it works immediately. We have some little details to control, but it works. And so we were able to do that. So that's all the things we have to prepare. How to be more comfortable in the water, how to stabilize the station on site, and third, how to make this very complex protocol. That's the thing we work on during the last two years. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I, I highly suggest that anyone listening, check out the video series, which we'll, we'll put in the show notes, but they, they paint the similar, a similar picture where I think it's in episode six or seven, you talk about doing like a good three to four hour dive and your heater wasn't working. So you must've been just like, what's the water temperature? |
| Laurent Ballesta | The water temperature alone doesn't mean it, not really. The water temperature was 13. was 13, 13 Celsius degrees. Well, it's cold. It's not so cold. My friend and I, we are used several times to go diving in much colder water, in Antarctica, in North Pole, in Baikal Lake, in Siberia. We are used to water around zero and even less than zero Celsius, like minus 1.8 Celsius degrees. So we are used to cold water, but we are not used to, you have to understand that into the equation of the cold, there is not only the temperature. It's because on land, we let on side all the other parameters. Because on land, the only parameter that can change is the temperature. But The true equation of the cold of thermodynamic science is temperature, pressure, and nature of the gas or the material around, if they conduct or if they are very isolating. And here is the worst condition because we are breathing helium, so it's the most conductive gas you can have, that you can breathe on. And the pressure is very high. It's 13 times the atmospheric pressure. And that's the main problem, much more than the water temperature. So 13 degrees with such pressure and helium make us colder, faster than in Antarctica, where the water was minus 1.8. So that's why when you have no eating system, when you eating the loops, breeze broke as well. Well, in, in, in just one hour, you start to be very cold. Two hours you're frozen and the last hours to reach three hours or a bit more is just a torture. |
| Jason Heaton | And, you know, we have a lot of, uh, a lot of people who are, you know, kind of traditional scuba divers in our audience. what would be in your mind, aside from the cold and, and the, the, how quickly you kind of shed heat due to the gas and such, what's the big difference between say scuba diving or, or diving where you're diving off of a boat to being able to operate out of something like the, the bath yell system? |
| Laurent Ballesta | First thing is to, to hold, to wear, to wear you all your equipment and the water. You know, I, uh, I do for a few decades now, and it's a kind of ceremony to wear your scuba. Sometimes you can be even stressed before the dive, but you start a kind of ceremony, a kind of protocol. You put your scuba, your fins, you check, you have a way, it's a kind of ritual. And that prepare you psychologically to go in the water, You jump in the water, you are at the surface, the water is not too cold, sometimes at the surface, and so you go slowly to a place where you're not made for. Here, it's much more brutal, it's much more violent. You are already at 120 meters, the door open, and you jump in the water just with your suit just with your dry suit that's it and your mask nothing not even your fin and because the station is too small for our scuba and so you go in the water you arrive in a kind of basket small basket where your rebreather is waiting for you your bailout all your rescue equipment your camera your fins your gloves everything is waiting for you and so you have to wear all this thing underwater and it's a bit more difficult just it's not because it's more difficult it's just because you're not used to even if you're a professional with decades and decades of wearing equipment take off equipment when you have to do that underwater it's you you look like a beginner you don't find the way to put your arm you don't find the clips you You look like a beginner. You know, for my experience, when I am on the diving boat, I need one minute to recognize if a diver is an old diver, a professional, or just a beginner. You don't need to see him underwater. Just look at him putting his scuba. One second, you know if it's a beginner or not. It's easy. When you have to do that very deep, you look like a beginner again. It's not easy. You are stressed. So that's maybe the first difficult thing, the first difference with living from the surface. And the second one is that even if you are a diver used to long dive, most of the time, a long dive means a short time at the bottom and a long ascent. It's all the time like that. Or it's only shallow. But if you want to go a little bit deep, it means a little part at the bottom and a very long one ascending. So the most part of your dive is with low pressure. So the problem of cold is not a problem really. You have to fight during a couple of minutes, 10, 20, 30 minutes when it's deep. So high pressure and cold, but then you go up, the pressure is lower and you put much more oxygen in what you are breathing. So it's, it's, it's easier and it's warmer and, and you, you recover your, your coldness very fast. Here it's, when you say four hours diving, it's four hours at the bottom, four hours with pure helium, four hours in high pressure. So you, you are colder, much faster and tired much faster as well. So that I think the main difference and Also, maybe the last difference, and not the least, is that at the end of the dive, in a normal dive, you can ascend anywhere. No matter if you have enough gas on you, you put your balloon, or you put nothing if you're confident of the place, you go, you make your deco, you go out anywhere, no problem. Then the boat comes, or you swim at the surface, I don't know. Here we have only one exit. It's like to be in a cave. there is only one exit is the dive bell you have to find the dive bell and normally in commercial diving in saturation commercial dives the diver are with an umbilical linked to the bell so they never go very far they make their job they make big and hard work on pipeline of this thing but all the time they are close to the bell and at the end they just have to follow the umbilical and there we are it was our wish. I want to keep free. I want saturation dive, but I want to keep an autonomous diver free to go. And so sometimes we were 100, 200, 300 meters from the dive bell. And of course, the critical point is that you have to be sure to be back to the bell at the end, to be sure that where the bell here is and be sure that the belt don't move as well. So that's also another very important difference. You cannot ascend where you want. There is only one way and it's the dive belt to join the deep station. |
| James | Laurent, I'm looking at the Blancpain clock on the wall behind you and it reminds me that Yeah. Um, so that's, you're, you're tracking your decompression time there. Um, and, and I'm curious during one of the videos, not even two, and a beer on the other side, I'm sure. In one of the videos, uh, I'm not sure if you're at liberty to talk about this, but I caught a glimpse of a, a new Blancpain wristwatch. |
| Laurent Ballesta | The only thing I can tell maybe is that I had this idea that I, with Marc Hayek, And we developed this, an idea of how to make a traditional diving watch for modern dives. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Because everybody knows modern dive, you don't need a watch. You take a computer, an electronic computer, a link to, to your breeze and you have all the data as the, the gas dealing and all this thing and the decompression dealing, everything is done. So how to make, not just as a symbolic, thing a practical thing a useful thing how to make a traditional dive watch do something useful for modern dives and that's this still a prototype that i have here wow and that was very nice and you know for this type of dive it was more than useful it was we must have it because you know for our diving you know that my scuba is waiting for me underwater yeah It's mean that my partners on the surface, prepare my scuba, my rebreather with this computer, everything they check and recheck and is done is ready. And they send the rebreather at the bottom with me. So the time the rebreather is in the water is much sooner than me. So if I go underwater and I just put my rebriszer and look at the computer, it's the wrong time. Because it's already half an hour. If we had some problem, it can be 45 minutes already done. But my dive just started. So that's why it was useful to have the watch because I can turn the bezel and really start the dive time when I went out of the bell. So that was maybe a bit romantic. But at the end, very useful for this type of dive. |
| James | Oh, that's fantastic. Is there a name given to this watch yet or not yet? |
| Laurent Ballesta | I don't know. I don't know yet. Gombesa watch. |
| James | Yeah. I like that. Yeah. You have less than two hours of decompression? |
| Laurent Ballesta | Two hours, 15 minutes. |
| James | Yeah. Almost to the surface. Yeah. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Yeah. |
| James | Well, we'll, um, we're going to let you, uh, we're going to let you go and pack your bags here. Um, and we appreciate your, Uh, checking in with us from the decompression chamber there. Uh, this was really a pleasure to talk to you and congratulations on another successful mission. |
| Laurent Ballesta | Thank you. You're very welcome. |
| James | Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You know, thanks again to Blancpain for setting that up with, uh, Laurent for us and, and obviously to Laurent Ballesta and the whole team at Combessa 6 and just such a huge accomplishment. And I think, uh, I hope people really enjoy that episode. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. You know, episode one 23 wasn't as popular as I expected. And, and I think, you know, maybe Lawrence name isn't, isn't as big as some guests on other podcasts or that sort of thing, but the guy's a hero to Jason and I. Yeah. And, and what he does is so cutting edge and it's so exactly in the same kind of milieu as the, as the, the classic age of, you know, sixties and seventies or ocean exploration. It's these big curiosity driven tech forward, sort of, uh, projects that, that require a lot of coordination and planning and effort and, and kind of push the limits of science in terms of both what they might expect to find, but also how they go about finding it in terms of the tech of the diving and this Bathiel station and, and, and, and this kind of stuff. And it's just such a treat to get a chance to, to have 30 minutes with, um, with Laurent when he's at in the most boring phase of this very exciting process, which is, you know, he was, he was two or two and a half hours from the surface where he can have a plate of food he hasn't enjoyed in a while, or like Jason mentioned a cold beer or something like that. And I'm sure all of that is great, but I, I just think it's special that any of this is still happening. And, uh, and while I don't think it's necessarily the, the sole role of say the great NATO, I do think that all of this is worth a huge audience. What they're doing is interesting and special. And, and if you're, if you're into, you know, the first half of say, uh, shadow divers were that were, um, they explain that the development of tech diving and all these various, um, solutions for going down and, and seeing the, the Doria, uh, I think this is on the same level because imagine they could, they could put this boat just about anywhere and they're not anchored and, and it is this very cutting edge thing. And, and, and I just, uh, yeah, I just, what a special thing to get a chance to do so that, um, I'm, uh, I'm really thrilled that it came together. |
| James | Yeah. And I, I just, you know, to, put a bookend on it. I mean, I think Laurent is, I think the reason he's a bit of a hero to us is, you know, we have such a respect for and an interest in the old Cousteau videos, the TV show episodes, the movies he made. And I think Laurent is kind of the modern equivalent of that. I think with maybe a little bit less eye to publicity, for better or for worse. I think, you know, I mentioned in the beginning of the interview, you know, how he feels about kind of continuing this legacy of French ocean exploration. And he's like, I don't care. It's just a consequence of what I'm doing. It's not a goal, but I think I see that in him. I just see what he's doing, that level of ambition and, uh, and just pushing things forward. I think he'll, he'll be remembered a very long time for the stuff he's doing. So, uh, what a privilege to be able to chat with him. |
| Jason Heaton | And I would say that if you're, if you're listening to this and you'd like to be in some way involved, uh, support, uh, what, what he's up to and the rest of it by one of his books, it might not be in your native language, but the, uh, imagery absolutely will be, uh, it's going to be jaw dropping. I've, you know, I've seen the one that he produced. with Blancpain a few years ago. It was a big coffee table book. Jason, you might have a copy of it. I don't remember, but they had it at Basel and I flipped through it while I was supposed to be taking pictures of watches. And it was just incredible. So if you can source one of their books, follow the YouTube channel, hit like, the rest of it, show them some love. I think it was rad that they were able to carve some time out to be on the show. And I think the project's really impressive. How about final notes? Uh, yeah, you know, I, uh, in, in putting some, some distance between underwater topics, I'll throw my hand up to go first. Uh, this is an article from a little while ago on outside online. Um, you know, obviously we, we talk a lot about the stuff that they publish and they put this up in early June. This is a fascinating article, uh, called the crystal hunters of Chamonix by, um, Simon Ackham or a cam. Uh, it's, it's, It's another like absolutely like a must read. So these are Alpinists that are using a different sort of tool and a different sort of relationship with the mountains in terms of their rules are a little bit different than, than strict mountain climbing, but they go and harvest quartz and fluoride and various kinds of collectible minerals directly out of the Mont Blanc massive near Chamonix. And it's this whole little society of, you know, rockhounds, crystal hounds that are also very high-end, you know, high-performing alpinists. I was just blown away by this. It's one where I had seen the title and I dropped it into pocket and then didn't read it. And then I read it twice this morning because I just found it so fascinating. The photography is also like... Outside almost always gets the photography really, really well and does a really lovely job with it. But this is a step above, especially when it comes to some of the mountain kind of scenery photography. It's all really incredible. And the crystals and sort of this treasure hunting aspect that combines with the typical, you know, they're saying that the typical goals of a mountain climber would be to spend the least amount of time on the mountain, go to the top, come back down, do it safely. And they're like, this is the opposite. We spend as much time as possible and typically in places without moving a lot, which is dangerous. Rockfall the rest. |
| Unknown | Right. |
| Jason Heaton | The fact that they're like, you know, pulling crystals out of the side of these beautiful mountains is such a cool thing to think that, you know, where it came from. And the fact that you might see a crystal in a store or whatever, and someone had to spend eight hours traversing a ridgeline from a hut to do a belay down into a pocket that they had claimed and then sat there with a blowtorch to remove enough ice that they could take. Wow. Start to harvest some of the larger matrixes and a great story, please. Yet another just must read sort of Alpine adjacent story from outside. Wow. I mean that lead image. |
| James | By Simon and the rest of it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Lead image. |
| James | It almost looks like it's from, you know, the 1950s or something. It's just, it's so timeless looking. That's really cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. No, it's a fantastic story. |
| James | Well, I'm circling back to French oceanographer stuff. This is a book that I bought recently, and it's called Water Planet, Revisiting Jacques Cousteau's Undersea World. And it's by a TGN listener, actually. It's a self-published book. The author's name is, actually, he's an artist more than an author, I guess, in this case, Omar Montano. And Omar has an interesting background. He's an artist. I think he's been an art teacher. He's been a diver. He currently lives in California, I believe. And his medium for this book are a series of linoleum block prints. And so every page or every section of the book is inspired by scenes from Cousteau's TV shows, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. And it's almost like you're looking at a series of screen grabs from these various Cousteau shows, just various random sort of scenes that he's reproduced using linoleum blocks and then he prints, obviously, uh, with ink and then every page of the book has a different image on it and he uses quotes directly from Cousteau. Yeah. So, you know, Omar had sent this to me a while ago and I bought the book. He wasn't looking for any specific publicity or anything like that, but, uh, but I bought it. It's a $16 hardcover, um, has a really cool kind of retro looking cover. Yeah. It's just a fun kind of unique look at, at Cousteau through the eyes of an artist who It's just, he was inspired by these shows. He kind of grew up watching Cousteau and it inspired him as a diver. And then he's using his art to create this book. And you can, if you want, you can also buy his individual prints. He has ordering information in the back of the book. So if you want to actually get a print to frame and put up in your house, you could do that as well. So congratulations to Omar. And if you're interested in that, certainly check it out. He's, like I said, he's self-published and it's on lulu.com. So we'll put a link in the show notes. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, that's fantastic. I'm, you just interrupted me ordering one for my coffee for myself. So we can definitely wrap up the show here. So as always, thank you so much for listening. Subscribe to the show notes via notes.thegraynado.com. And thank you again to everyone who's been in there commenting, checking the feed, subscribing to get the whole show delivered to the email, the rest of it. And of course, if you want to, you can simply check the feed for more details and links to the Sub stack you can follow us on instagram at Jason Heaton at J East AC and you can follow the show at the great NATO if you happen to have any questions for us, please write the great NATO at gmail.com or send in a voice memo record your question into the voice memo app on your phone and then email that file to the great NATO at gmail.com will probably actually be doing a Q&A episode next week or perhaps the week after but we've got a bunch of questions So we should definitely be getting to it And finally, if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts and music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive. |
| James | And we leave you with this quote from Jean Giraudoux, who said, only the mediocre are always at their best. |