The Grey NATO – 228 – From Rangiroa With Love, Blancpain, and Laurent Ballesta

Published on Thu, 23 Feb 2023 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

tags:

This episode of The Graynado covers Jason's recent trip to French Polynesia to dive with Blancpain and the Gombessa expedition led by Laurent Ballesta. Jason describes the experience of diving in Rangiroa, including swimming with dolphins and sharks, using a rebreather for the first time, and learning about the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe watch designed with input from Ballesta. The episode also features an interview with Ballesta, where he discusses his diving philosophy, developing special equipment for his expeditions, his home life, and other personal insights.

The hosts also discuss Jason's recent family trip, upcoming travel plans, the Graynad's new merchandise (beanies and pins), and anecdotes from listeners including a beginner's guide to hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc and a documentary about swimming the English Channel. They contemplate having Blancpain CEO Mark Hayek on a future episode as well.

Links

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Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton	Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 228, and it's proudly brought to you by our ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. James, it's good to be back in my seat here, back on air with you. Yeah, man. Missed you. Yeah. Gallup covered well for me. So, so Jason, if you're listening to this one, much appreciated and sorry if we confused any listeners with a different Jason, but I think he sounds different enough for me.
James Heaton	He does. Yeah, for sure. No, it was, it was obviously a treat to have him on the show. And if you missed last week's episode, Jason was away and we'll talk all about that in the coming few minutes. But we had him covered by Jason Gallup from Roll Dorf and Co, an old friend. And guys pretty handy on the mic. So it was a fun, it was a fun chat. We had a good time. It was a, it was a big episode. Go ahead and check it out. The response has been great, uh, outside of our normal, but, uh, it's cool to have a co-host every now and then, uh, that isn't Jason or I. And, uh, and with that said, Jason, it's nice to have you back and, and also to know that you had a really good trip that we'll, uh, we'll kind of dig into shortly.
Jason Heaton	Yeah, it was a great trip and I'm happy to kind of recap it. And then of course we have this great interview. We've got some big news. We dropped some new merchandise this week in the TGN shop. As of now, it's available to everybody. We're calling it the TGN Watch Cap Bundle. And as the name suggests, this is a kind of classic watch cap, you know, call it a to call it a beanie, uh, whatever you want. It's, uh, it's made from soft acrylic, kind of a cabling. Admittedly, we tried to get this in by the holidays. I mean, we, we've been noodling on this for, for quite a while and, and we just didn't get our act together in time, but you know, there's plenty of winter left, at least here. We're, we're about to get a major snowstorm this week. Um, so I'm, I'm putting mine to good use, you know, people like beanies and, and I think on the deck of a dive boat, or if you're camping in the summer. you know, climbing in the mountains or whatever you do, you know, a beanie is always nice to kind of have tucked in your bag and it's, uh, it's gray of course. And it has our, our TGN logo on a small tab and a really, really handsome. And then we've bundled it with, if you recall, we, we did a, a pin last year with the TGN logo, kind of a one inch lapel style pin. We've got a new version that we're bundling with the cap, and it's kind of in a blacked-out enamel. It's really sharp. Actually, it's my favorite one.
James Heaton	So the first pin that we did was with white, blue, and orange, and this one, all the spots that are... Well, the TGN text is metal rather than being infilled, and then essentially the background of the logo is in black, so it's kind of like stealthy. It came out even better than I was expecting when we saw the samples and stuff. This one has also kind of been in the works for a little while. And then, yeah, as far as the beanie goes there, I'm going to call it a toque, as is the parlance of my people. But as far as the toque goes, I was really pumped to be able to do one in the first place in that it came in at a fair price. Sometimes toques are crazy expensive, and especially if you get into cashmere or the full wool, I get it. But we didn't necessarily want to go that route. We could maybe for a re-up at some point. But I use these for a variety of things, and it's not just to cover my head. I also use them as camera wraps. Oh, good point. I usually tuck it in, then you have a hat if you need it and you have something to cover the camera if you need it. So that can be kind of handy.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And, and, you know, now that we've been kind of talking it up and how great this cap is, I, I have to say, uh, you know, we weren't quite sure, like we haven't done a cap before, so we, we just weren't sure how many to order. And what we thought was a big number is actually quickly dwindling in our inventory. And that's because, uh, as you might recall, annual subscribers receive a few perks for, for, for doing the a hundred dollar a year, um, membership level with TGN and so we opened up ordering early for our annual subscribers earlier this week and I gotta say response was tremendous. I mean we're well over half our inventory is gone so I guess the moral of the story here is act fast and if you were wondering whether you should sign up for an annual subscription to TGN this might be reason enough just to get early access to this stuff.
James Heaton	Yeah, and what I would say is like Jason kind of hinted at, we didn't really know how many to order of anything, and we kind of never do, but when it's pins or stickers, the overhead's pretty limited. We're still working our way through t-shirts that we bought last year, so we just didn't know what to expect when it came to the hats. If you're not able to get one, if they sell out before you get to it, I would say don't stress too much about it. We will do another run when the cool weather returns, so I would say expect another re-up of the hat, and we'll do more next time. for the fall and then between now and then we have other stuff planned. So I would say just stay in the loop and if it's really crucial that you get the first access, you know, maybe you get two, three extra days before it goes out to the greater website and all the subscribers and the episode comes out, then yeah, consider the annual subscription level because that's one of the perks like Jason explained.
Jason Heaton	But I've been shipping over the past couple of days, you know, just, just hundreds of these and um, you know, since we use FedEx, uh, largely it's a two day or three day turnaround. People should have it, uh, shortly, possibly even by the time this episode goes live for those of you that had early access. So hope you're enjoying them. Be sure to post pictures, tag us, uh, would love to see them on heads around the world.
James Heaton	Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Or holding cameras, whatever you prefer.
Jason Heaton	And then, um, along with the cap, in addition to the pin that we mentioned, we're also including one of our three inch kind of classic TGN decals. And I wanted to, send out a special shout out to David, one of our listeners who actually works for the company that we get our stickers from. And he was kind enough to offer a kind of a store credit to us and that covered our latest restock of stickers. So David, if you're listening to this episode, much appreciated. We thank you so much for that kind and very generous offer.
James Heaton	Yeah, that was super nice, David, for sure. And yeah, I think with that, like that's probably our updates. So you've been back for a little while from Rangaroa from that trip, and we'll get into all those details. I'm kind of really returning to travel season, both for work and otherwise. So I'm actually fresh back from four days away, did a little family trip down to Pennsylvania, took the kids to New York City. So that was kind of nice. It was a busy trip. Obviously, you pack that into a weekend and include the driving. That's not a short bit, but it was really nice to get down there and to move around kind of without the need to, you know, photograph a watch or whatever. Um, but as I say that I'm also now looking just a couple of days, essentially when this comes out, I'll, I'll start my, uh, another trip, which will have me in salt lake. First time in Utah. I'll be there for a day. Um, and my apologies to anyone in the area. It's not a day where I can, uh, crack away anytime. Uh, I'm essentially there for a photo shoot. That'll take the better part of 12 hours. And then I'm heading to New York for a few days. So that kind of spans, you know, episode 228 and then 229. So there's a chance that there won't be a 229 next week. If you're a subscriber, check the Slack updates though, we'll make it clear if we have to postpone the episode a week. Um, but we're still working on that schedule and we still have to obviously get the Q and a up. So, uh, this, this is kind of that busy time of year where you start to, uh, travel starts to open up and, and there's more of this kind of stuff as we lead up to, um, to the nicer weather. So just wanted to give people a heads up on that, but otherwise I haven't really been doing a ton. You know, we made the other episode and then I, uh, last week's episode and then we just moved on to, uh, to this little trip down, down to Pennsylvania.
Jason Heaton	So you were telling me briefly about your, your trip and, and you said it's about a nine or nine and a half hour drive to, to get to Pennsylvania each way.
James Heaton	I think it's like about seven and a half hours really. Um, but it depends again. Yeah. And how long you spend at the border. Usually it's pretty quick these days. And then, you know, with two kids, you're stopping more frequently than you would if it was just me.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. What would you say your, your limit is for, for a single go in the car, like driving? I, to me, nine hours feels about my outer limit of, of what I want to do. I'm more of like a six or seven hour, uh, driving person.
James Heaton	Yeah. It depends on, it depends on the context. Like when I've done this drive alone.
Unknown	Yeah.
James Heaton	No sweat. I have a podcast on, I have control over, the whole sort of thing, you just kind of lean into the driving and enjoy it. You can stop every now and basically my, my tolerance for not being able to fully stretch my legs is roughly the same as the jeeps ability to, to drive on a single tank of gas. So maybe let's call it 500, 520 kilometers, something like that. Yeah. And, and so that's, that's, I guess about five hours. Um, I would say the longest I've ever driven is probably about 19 or 20 hours. in one big push. But that also would have been in an automatic, which does make a difference at that point. I'm not exactly training to do however many hundreds of clutch presses are required for such a trip. So every time you push the limit a little bit, it's almost like the first time you run a little bit further, you get out and my left knee is a little tight. I'm Like that, that's around my limit. It really depends on how you divide it up. Like we've done this drive before where, where we stop at a few locations. Like we've gone down to Watkins Glen and checked out, you know, the, some of the trails in that area are like on route and that makes it a whole different thing. Like if you stop and get a chance to walk around, I could just kind of keep driving.
Unknown	Yeah, true.
Jason Heaton	If you kind of take, take a leisurely pace and kind of make the journey part of the adventure where it's not just, we got to get there by, you know, 4.30 or whatever it is. Yeah. Then it feels like a slog.
James Heaton	yeah, the metric with which we return, because usually you return and you've maximized the amount of time you can spend somewhere and you're coming back based on needing to do something the next day. Yeah. You don't have like a ton of flexibility. And then on top of that with, with kids, like you want them to be back in time to go to bed and not ruin their schedule and the rest of it. Uh, so once you have that kind of pressure, then yeah, I would say probably nine, 10, something like no more than 12 hours is probably about my comfort limit. But I agree that like, There is a huge, more than the numeric difference that you might expect, but there's a big difference between say a four or five hour drive and a nine hour drive. Yeah. So that, but it's not, it's not a tough trip at all. You know, in this time we had great weather and, and you know, we had every type of precipitation on the way down. We saw the whole scale, but it wasn't, wasn't anything that, that caused any sort of actually bad driving conditions.
Jason Heaton	Better than the last time you went down there when you had that, you
James Heaton	drove back came back up in that giant blizzard. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, no, it is what it is. And I do like a drive and I enjoy I enjoy being out on the road in the Jeep. So it's it's always good to do that kind of stuff. And it's nice to go down and see family got to go to New York City for you know, 10 hours by way of the Staten Island Ferry, which was fun, a new experience for me and then just did a bunch of touristy stuff in the city like stuff I haven't done in over a decade. So nice. That was nice. And yeah, nice little family getaway, especially before a week of kind of busier travel.
Jason Heaton	Right. Yeah. Cool. I hope you enjoy, uh, Utah. I can't say that I've ever spent any time there. I know I've passed through, but I don't think I've actually even overnighted in Utah. So that, that should be interesting. Beautiful place though, from what I've seen.
James Heaton	Yeah, I'm, that's the part I'm probably most excited for, um, is to kind of kick around and you guys will see the project when it comes out. It's for Hodinkee, but it's not quite what you're expecting, but it is for Hodinkee and, uh, I'm, I'm looking forward to it, but it is one of those things where if I didn't have this travel maybe on the other side where I have to be in New York pretty quickly. Yeah, it would have been nice to kind of stretch it out, maybe do a little like brewery hangout or something. So give me a chance to return to what I assume will be an absolutely beautiful state and we'll get you on the next path. Yeah. How about you? What have you been up to? What's the jet lag like? Because that's quite a time difference.
Jason Heaton	Yeah, well, you know, we talk about driving distances and times and I'll admit, The trip to French Polynesia isn't as daunting as I had always envisioned it. So our route to go was a four hours from Minneapolis to Seattle and then a nine hour flight from there to Papiat, which is the kind of the capital of Tahiti, which is sort of the main hub down there. And, um, you know, you're there within a day. It's kind of like, uh, it's not that different from going to the Caribbean, although you're there a little later in the day. And then the time difference between, between Minneapolis and, and French Polynesia is, only, um, if that is the right word, uh, four hours. So it's not insurmountable. It's not horrible. I did find that I was waking up while I was there at about three or four in the morning. Cause I'm usually up at six or seven here. And now that we've come back home, I don't know if a week was enough to get fully used to it. So kind of, it's a little wonky, but, but not like the weird, you know, kind of eight hour time difference or, or going to Sri Lanka, which is, you know, 12 and a half hours or something like that. So, which is real tough. Yeah. You know, we're looking at possibly doing, you know, more trips to French Polynesia. We've, we've spent so much time in the Caribbean for dive trips and honestly, to do a two hop trip and be in, in French Polynesia where the diving is just spectacular. I mean, it's, it's looking more like a viable option. I mean, I got to take along. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty awesome. We'll, we'll get into that shortly, but, um, how about, uh, how about some quick risk check? What, what have you been wearing? What are you wearing? What will you be wearing?
James Heaton	Yeah, so for the entire trip down to the States, I just brought one watch and I'm working on the final touches of possibly getting my Pelgos 39. If you're in the Slack, then you'll see on the buying selling channel, I've been selling some watches, just kind of funding the upward consolidation, we'll call it. But I wore the MS 22, the Scurfa.
Unknown	Oh yeah.
James Heaton	And just on a green canvas, which I really, really like. And it's basically perfect, especially when you're traveling, um, staying at somebody else's house. So you just, you don't want to like leave things laying around. Yeah. Right. And that's a watch that you don't ever have to take off. It doesn't really matter. I guess, I guess with the canvas, I wouldn't shower with it on. Yeah. Um, but otherwise, uh, just perfect keeps you on time. Good loom in the middle of the night when it's not your room, it's not your alarm clock, the rest of it. These are just great watches. And, uh, I've really come to really love and appreciate the simple and straightforward nature of that watch and how well it executes on things like comfort and feeling kind of tough and sturdy without really getting in the way.
Jason Heaton	Yeah, and speaking of Skirfa, I noticed Paul Skirfield posted that he was going back to work out on the dive boat just a few days ago, and he's wearing a 10th anniversary Skirfa. I guess it's the 10th anniversary of Skirfa watches. So congrats to Paul. I mean, that's quite a milestone. 10 years is a good long time.
James Heaton	Yeah. Absolutely. And we'll include a photo of that. He put a photo up on his Instagram. We'll put that in the show notes, because it's got a few design notes. It's a luminous bezel. It's a ceramic insert. It's got a frame for the date window, a few little refinements that I think people will probably attach to. So we'll include that in case you missed it.
Jason Heaton	You mentioned the green canvas strap. I'm not sure I've seen a photo of that. Which strap is that? Where did you get that?
James Heaton	Originally, it's from Halios. So I think it's a crown and buckle or was, but I'm not sure. This is a strap I've had since either the first C4 or possibly the Tropic. I'm not sure. I actually just don't remember. It has a Bremont buckle on it because I moved the buckle from the S302 stock strap to this one because this is the strap that I normally have on the 302 pretty much permanently. I like it. It's a little bit more elevated than a NATO, but it has this kind of almost denim-like weave to it or waft, and it looks great. It's super comfortable. It's all broken in, and it's lighter than maybe some of the heavier canvas stuff. I guess that's a silly way of saying it, lighter than being heavier. But yeah, it's like a lighter take than some of the stuff that I've had in the past, from like Hadley Roma, which is a little bit more padded.
Unknown	Right.
James Heaton	And how about you?
Jason Heaton	What's on the wrist? I still have this 50 Fathoms on. It's been about a month now since I got this watch, and I guess I'm still sort of riding a high from this amazing trip. And it's already got a lot of memories attached to it, so I just haven't taken it off in a month. I got it just before the ice diving and wore it there, and then straight on to French Polynesia, where I did a bunch of diving with it. NATO is getting kind of salty and which I like because it's a, it's a black NATO. It's this a triple lot. I think they call it the quantum NATO with the titanium hardware. And it's, you know, the buckles getting a little nicked up and the, I, I'm not a huge fan of all black straps and, but I, I, I'm trying to be patient and trying to think like, this is going to fade out, like, you know, salt for my skin and from diving and sure. Just sort of where, so it's getting there. I mean, it's, it's starting to look good. So, and of course the watch is so much more comfortable than I thought, you know, it's a big watch. It's 45 across, but. The titanium case is just an anonimato. It's really, it's like a daily wear comfort piece, which, which really surprised me. I'm not sure I could pull off the steel long-term, but this is a, this has been great.
James Heaton	So that's what I've got. Yeah, that's awesome, man. What a watch and kind of what, what a way to kind of introduce the whole topic or the main topic of today's show, which is going to be in kind of two pieces. I'll do a quick intro here because it's going to be mostly on you to, to talk your way through it, but we're going to chat about your time in Rangaroa, the trip with Bonk Pon. what that spot is like, what the diving's like, the rest of it. And then we get to actually top it off with another interview with Laurent Balesta. So we had Laurent on a some time ago, it would have been during the pandemic. And, uh, that was while he was under, uh, an extensive decompression and now we've got him on again. And I've, I've at this point, I haven't gone through the entire interview cause I haven't edited the show yet. Uh, but I have gone through parts of it and it's, it's always a treat to have a chance to, to listen to that guy chit chat about what he does and how he approaches work and the rest of it. So I'm pumped.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one. I'm eager for everyone to listen to that.
James Heaton	Yeah, absolutely. So why don't you give us a breakdown of of the trip, you know, how long it was and what it takes to get there and then dig into what the experience was like.
Jason Heaton	Sure. Yeah. I mean, so I've been back for gosh, I think I got home last last Thursday and it was it was a little over a week long trip, you know, with with fairly lengthy travel, as I described, it's, you know, nine hour flight from the west coast of the US. And then you kind of arrive late on the same day and on the way home, we lose a day. Um, all in all, I would say it was about six days on the ground in, in French Polynesia. And specifically I was on the coral atoll of Rangiroa, which is, I believe it's the second largest coral atoll in the world. Um, and it's one of the Tuamotu archipelago, which is a whole string of about a hundred atolls and islands in French Polynesia, about an hour's flight from Tahiti. So we flew into Tahiti, and then took a little hop plane over. And I was there as a guest of, as we mentioned, Blancpain, and as I mentioned in the last show that I was on, and I was there because they had asked me to host and moderate a panel discussion for the introduction of the new 50 Fathoms Tech Gumbessa watch, which we hadn't been able to talk about a couple of shows ago before I went on the trip, but now it's public knowledge, it's been out there, it's been reviewed and talked about and written about all over the place. So I had the privilege of moderating this panel discussion with Laurent and Tatiana, who is a scientist with the Mocharon Protection Society that's working on hammerhead shark research there. And then in Switzerland, we were linked up with Mark Hayek, the CEO of Blancpain and Mark Junot, who's their VP of sales. And so while I was there, you know, between the, all the frolicking in the, in the ocean and kind of the warm weather and, you know, fruity drinks, I did, no less than, than kind of four recording sessions where we did rehearsals and then we did some live stuff and we did some recorded stuff and between linkups with, with Switzerland and then broadcasting this to all of the Blancpain boutiques around the world, you know, it was, it was a complicated, uh, logistical process. And I, I got to hand it to the technical team that, that Blancpain had do this. Um, they, they did a really great job. And, and, uh, from what I'm told from people that were at the boutiques, it came off pretty well. So that was kind of my reason for being there. And then, Of course, diving. Um, I was there a few days early for this, this, uh, recording stuff. And then on the Saturday that, that I was there, I then joined this group of guests that were, you know, some journalists and some VIP collectors that Blancpain invited. And then they had the CEO and an owner of AP diving, which is a company out of the UK that makes the closed circuit rebreathers that, that Laurent and his team on the Gombeza expeditions use. And super nice guy. It was really interesting chatting with him. And then hanging out with all the scientists from the Mokaron Protection Society that are based there on Rangaroa. It's this collection of volunteers and scientists and, you know, they're working with the Gombeza team to do all of these dives in the Rangaroa atoll to observe and photograph and tag great hammerhead sharks, which congregate there. So while we were kind of put up in a pretty swanky resort, um, we spent a lot of time over at their headquarters, which is kind of this communal living space. I would almost compare it to almost like a youth hostel or a backpackers hotel where there's sort of a common space and then everybody sort of lives communally in these, uh, in these kind of different buildings around. And that's where they staged their dives and they download their, their data after the dives and they eat together and they prep and analyze the data. And, uh, and we did our recordings there as well. So, it was, it was kind of fun to be part of that scene and really gave me a taste for the work they're doing and really kind of excited me to, to do more of this kind of stuff in the future. I think, you know, that sort of, um, you know, looking back at, you know, something like, uh, blue water, white death or, or blue Meridian or, you know, that sort of scene where it's this sort of scruffy group of people with a common purpose that are getting together, kind of ad-libbing their way and fixing things on the fly and inventing technologies and, and out doing stuff. It was, uh, it was really kind of thrilling and fun to be part of that. That's very cool. So, you know, there were some dinners and there were some, some interviews and, and of course this recording session that I had to do, but then there was a lot of diving. So the, the people that they invited, these collectors and the journalists from, from China and Hong Kong and a couple from the U S and, and elsewhere in Europe, they wanted everybody to be, to be divers for obvious reasons. And so, uh, we were able to kind of pick our dive times on, on two or three days where they just said, you know, the days are open. Like, you know, where, where do you want to dive? What time do you want to dive? And, and so we went out and, and, and did some just spectacular diving. I mean, the Pacific ocean is just another place. Like if you're used to diving and you know, I don't know the Mediterranean or the Caribbean or something, the Pacific is just this vast wild place and everything seems bigger there and a little bit, I don't want to say scarier, but I mean, you, you've dived in the Pacific and it's, you know, you get mantas and you get dolphins and you get a lot of sharks and just a lot of life and yeah, A couple of dives we dove on the outside of this ring of coral, the atoll, um, where we had a lot of amazing interactions with a pod of dolphins that is kind of familiar with divers. And so they, you're out diving in the blue kind of just off the reef and the, the dolphins kind of swoop down at some point and they just start swimming among all of the divers and interacting with them. And you know, it's, it's kind of this Cardinal rule with divers. Like you don't touch the wildlife, you don't ride the Manta, you don't pet the shark, you don't, And yet these dolphins are so accustomed to divers that they almost brush against you. They, they like ask for it. And so, you know, while I had a camera in my hands, like the dive guide, you know, he would just swim right alongside the dolphin and he would like, you know, scratch their belly or, or their tail or whatever. And the dolphins would just wait and then they would swoop off and come back and wow. And it was really amazing. And so that was kind of the outside of the atoll and then the structure of of Rangiroa and most coral atolls is that there's, it's a ring with a cut at one end, um, called a pass. And as the tide flows in and out, um, you time your, your diving for the inflow of the tide and you kind of ride the current on a drift dive into this big lagoon in the middle. And the current is incredibly strong and it was easily the strongest I've felt. And so you sort of surrender to it and it just whips you along. And you're going through this pass into the middle of the lagoon. And along the way, kind of in the middle of the pass are just schools of barracuda and reef sharks. And we didn't see the hammerheads cause they stay much deeper, but, um, the hammerheads and the dolphins and you know, you certainly can't just stop and observe these things. So you're just like on a conveyor belt, just along for the ride, um, watching all of this go by. And it's, uh, It's quite a scene. It's, it's really an amazing, amazing place. And if anybody is looking for a dive destination, I can't, I can't recommend Rangaroa or, you know, some of the other areas there. Fakarava is another one that, that Laurent's team has done a lot of diving with or in and, and also is supposed to be quite spectacular too. So plenty to explore over there. That sounds great. And then kind of the, you know, as, as we kind of look at the, the watch that was announced, this, this tech Gombessa 50 fathoms, this all new watch that they introduced, um, kind of the point of that watch is that it's geared or was made for and suggested by, uh, Laurent Ballesta for rebreather divers. And so we were given the opportunity to, to try out a closed circuit rebreather. And, you know, this is, the cutting edge kind of the future technology of, of scuba diving in my opinion. And although rebreathers have been around since the 1940s, they've gotten more sophisticated, a little easier to use. But still, I mean to kind of my old fashioned way of thinking of always seemed a little intimidating because of you're, you're relying largely on electronics and sensors and technology to feed you the correct mixture of, of gas to breathe. Um, But, but in essence, for those of you that aren't divers aren't familiar with rebreathers, what it, what it is is if you picture a normal open circuit scuba diving setup, you know, a diver would have a tank on his back and then is blowing bubbles. So you're inhaling air or whatever gas you have in your tank. And then as you exhale, you're, you're blowing out all the carbon dioxide into the water, which is fairly wasteful when you think about it and then limits your air supply to what's on your back. Well, a rebreather has two hoses. that are connected to a unit on your back. And when you exhale, your exhale breath goes around back into the unit where it goes through a soda lime absorbent that scrubs out most of the carbon dioxide. And then the sensors detect the correct mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. And you have a small oxygen tank and it'll squirt in a little bit of oxygen to keep the mixture correct and then loops back and you rebreathe it. So what it allows for is, No bubbles. Um, you're not exhaling bubbles, so it's quiet, very non-intrusive when it comes to kind of photography or observing wildlife. Um, but more importantly, it's, uh, it allows for long duration dives. So whereas you generally get about an hour on a tank of air, uh, you know, Laurent has done, he did as is well known with him. Uh, he did a 24 hour dive where he switched rebreathers only three times during that 24 hours. So he had, his team bring down rebreathers. So he was getting eight hours on each, each setup, which is really remarkable. And he stayed underwater the whole time. And, but typically a rebreather dive is about three hours long. So that is kind of what inspired this watch and why Laurent suggested it to, to Blancpain.
James Heaton	That's super cool. And if for your experience, because you hadn't dove a rebreather before, we have quite a few divers in the audience, of course, what, what's kind of like the major thing that felt different?
Jason Heaton	So the introductory, course that I did. Um, we got an introduction to kind of the technology and how to wear it and how to use it. And then we went out with an instructor and did roughly an hour long dive. So I wasn't out there for three hours, but it was enough to give me the, the, the experience. And we did about a 30 foot, you know, maybe a 10 meter dive on a, on a nice, really pleasant, well lit reef. And the biggest difference is, uh, and this is what, you know, I was told before even doing it as is in buoyancy, because when you think about open circuit diving, you use your, your lungs largely to control your buoyancy. As you inhale, uh, and inflate your lungs, you tend to rise in the water and then when you exhale, you go down and good experienced divers can sort of dial that in to, to a really nice neutral buoyancy where they're never going up and down dramatically with a rebreather because it's a closed system and you're not evacuating any of the bubbles. It's all being recirculated. It's almost the opposite. And so buoyancy is the biggest challenge. You, you, It was funny. I just, when I thought I had the hang of it, I would find myself either kind of sinking or rising and you have to kind of think the opposite. So they say that if you want to descend, you have to exhale through your nose to evacuate some of the bubbles out of the skirt of your, of your mask. If you're going up too quickly and as you're descending, I'm not going to get into too much technical detail on this, but you have to actually add, there's another tank on your back, a small tank called diluent, which is, just regular air and you actually have to press a button. Some of them are automatic, but the one I had was manual. You have to press a button to insert some breathing air. Otherwise you get this sensation that you can't breathe as you're going down because the, what they call the counter lungs, these little bags that fill up on your back, um, get compressed and so you can't get a good breath of air. So that's a little disconcerting. The buoyancy was hard to get used to. And then this notion that, you know, the cardinal rule or the biggest sin is never take your mouthpiece out of your mouth with the circuit closed, with this breathing circuit closed, um, or sorry, open to, to the loop because water will get in and ruin the innards. And so they say, if you're going to, if you have to take it out of your mouth, you have to first close it off and then remove it from your, from your mouth. So it's, I was kind of like paranoid that I was going to do something like that. Not that I ever typically take my mouthpiece out, but, um, even on the surface, when you're getting in and out of the boat, the, you know, the instructor's like, wait, don't, you know, don't be careful, you know? So it's a few things like that. The diving itself, was great. It's, it's very quiet. We were able to kind of be among schools of fish without them getting spooked. Um, the instructor was actually able to talk to me because you know, it's a big hollow tube on both sides. It's not the little hose that you have when you're trying to talk in a, in a regular scuba mouthpiece. So that was, that was very different. Um, wow. It was a really neat experience. And then the way Blancpain set it up, it was a nice sort of logical, tie-in with this watch and, and to see Laurent and his team always going out with rebreathers and kind of the work they do for these really long, deep dives. And then to hear about this watch that he had been testing when you and I interviewed him the first time in, in the decompression chamber. And we even brought it up to him because we had the screenshot of the watch I thought was a really cool tie-in and looking back after hearing the kind of the whole backstory now about the tech bombessa watch. Um, and if you look at that, that old screenshot, It was actually a, it was a 500 fathoms prototype case. So Blancpain makes this bigger watch called the 500 fathoms, which has a deeper depth rating and it's titanium, but it also had a GMT hand. And Laurent was using this watch, uh, at some point and thought, what if you could regear the 24 hour hand to make it a three hour hand? Sure. And, uh, so he suggested that to Demar Kayak and Blancpain and they made up a prototype and he tested it during that month in the Mediterranean during decompression. And he actually is the co-holder of that patent, which I think is, uh, is just really a neat detail about, about that watch. And I think it speaks a lot to kind of Blancpain's commitment to diving and sort of the absolute nerdiness of, of their CEO and his passion for diving.
James Heaton	That, yeah, for sure. That, I think that's super cool. And the watch, I think it's fascinating because it's such a, um, a simple solution for, offering something usable that doesn't add any complexity to the diving, right? Because if you're already using a watch, if you're already using a watch as your backup to your computer, then you'd be spinning the bezel. But if you're spinning the bezel for a standard dive watch, which would obviously elapse 60 minutes, either you're trying to do it multiple times or factor for how many times the mint hand has passed the marker. And this relies on the exact same concept, And while it provides no function topside, you do still get the ability to simply... So to my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but that fourth hand does one lap every three hours, but there's no starting or stopping it. It just runs. Right, just runs. So when you get in the water, you don't have to fiddle with a crown or a pusher or any of that kind of stuff. You just turn the bezel and you have a three-hour measure, which seems like a very clever, straightforward solution. Sure, niche. There's diving and then there's rebreathing diving. And then there's, you know, people who are doing three hour rebreather dives. Um, so sure. But I mean, if somebody is going to make it, at least you made it with someone who's using it, right? Like, you know how there's all those things where when, when you see the launch of a, maybe a big, very technical watch and it doesn't have this footing in some part of actual the world, even if it is very niche, which of course what Lauren does by design is very niche. He is essentially the, you know, apex sports diver in the world. Yeah. Especially when it comes to something like producing content at that depth. I just thought it was fascinating that, that, you know, this is a watch that kind of reflects their longstanding partnership between, uh, what Laurent does and Blancpain and then to see them go ahead and make a watch that, yeah, he's patented as part of it. And it's essentially a tool for what they do that in some ways they're selling as an exhibition I like it. I think, I think the program kind of makes sense, which gives me kind of warm and fuzzies.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And, and as a watch itself, I mean, I had a chance to wear it for a while as well as on my rebreather dive. And it's, it's really an amazingly well engineered, nicely fitting watch too. I mean, it's, it has the kind of the 50 fathoms vibe that kind of similar bezel style and kind of general aesthetic cues, but it's, it's feels very modern. Um, kind of the angles to it and the, the font that they use and, and things like that. And, and the, the strap for instance, is, is lugless. So there, there are no strap lugs. And so you think a watch that's 47 millimeters across is going to be just this behemoth on the wrist. But the best analogy that I can come up with is, you know, I, I've had a couple of Seiko kind of a Marine master Emperor tunas, or, you know, the big tuna can watches over the years. And I think those are, you know, 47, 48 millimeters. And you're like, man, that's a, That's a monster. But without lugs, I mean, essentially then the lug to lug, if you even consider it that, the space across your wrist is the same. And that's actually entirely reasonable when you think about any other watch that would have a 47 or 48 millimeter lug to lug measurement. Because this watch does not have strap lugs. The rubber strap is integrated into the case and then just kind of goes down and around your wrist. And so even Ghoshani was wearing it on her small wrist and it looked great. And being titanium, it was very comfortable. I liked it. I mean, this is a $28,000 watch. So this is, it's a very arcane use, very niche, you know, complication and kind of audience. Um, I think that's part of why I like it. Like I'll never own this watch, but there were a couple of collectors that were there that I was like, these people were passionate divers, you know, um, some of them rebreather divers, some of them tech divers. And they're like, yeah, I've already put my order in. And I'm like, okay, that's you're the audience. That's really cool.
James Heaton	Um, But I would also say like, I think we have evidence like in the last few months that there's a market for this. Look what Rolex made. Right. True. Which doesn't have a complication specific to diving and is even bigger. Yeah. In some ways, this is like a more directly useful and more wearable, especially because like you said, the lug thing and the strap design, then something like the deep sea challenge, does it go to the bottom of the ocean? No, of course not. It has that specificity to tech diving and rebreathe diving. It makes a lot of sense for me if you were in that niche, someone who really knows or follows Laurent, someone who's at the point in their life where they do collect Blancpain. None of that's a head-scratcher for me. I think for normal guys, like maybe someone like myself, you go like, well, that's a cool thing. I wouldn't need it. I don't think it would necessarily present an appeal specific enough to my lifestyle for that, but it I mean, you'd only have to zoom out a little bit to find that the market very limited, I think, but the market for a watch like that, yes, it's expensive, of course, that goes beyond saying, but it is kind of a clever thing with a very cool backstory. And I think the other thing to mention is something that you brought up in one of our Slack convos, I think, where, you know, a lot of dive watches are rooted in the past, almost exclusively, whereas this is rooted in like right now, like you could go out and buy Laurent's book, and see him wearing a version of this watch or his next book wearing this watch conceivably, right? Yeah, right. So I think it reflects like a modern version of the same appeal that kind of made dive watches interesting to people who didn't dive. Right, right. And I think like you just have to like dive watches to a very extreme sense to see the world in which this is an interesting thing and a cool kind of footnote to the now extensive chapters of the Gombeza projects and Blancpain's support therein.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And I think, you know, you mentioned the deep sea challenge and it seems like a lot of brands are really leaning hard on the, on the depth ratings. I mean, look at Omega, look at, look at Rolex and, um, to, you know, Laurent, I think brought it up or maybe it was Mark Hayek in our event or while I was there, you know, depth is, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's less useful. I mean, I like that they've kind of gone in a completely different direction with something that is equally audacious in terms of price and new design, but they've kind of skipped over the, you know, 10,000 meter, whatever. I mean, this is, this is a watch that kind of is, is for an entirely different kind of diving rather than being strapped on the outside of a submersible. And, uh, I like that they did it. So, yeah. And you mentioned Gombeza. I mean, it's the 10 year anniversary officially of, of Laurent's Gombeza expeditions. And just, just go to Blancpain's website or, you know, we can throw a link in the show notes, but they've done such incredible projects over the years and it's so inspiring to see and, and, you know, I don't, I don't have any specific detail or behind the scenes access. Um, but you know, Blancpain was there from the beginning with them and are there Blancpain is their primary kind of backer. And I think that partnership is really quite something special. And it was fun to, to, you know, revisit with, with Laurent was, it was a privilege to have him on the show the first time around, especially in the unique circumstances he was in. And it was especially fun to kind of catch up with him in person and record this interview.
James Heaton	Yeah, absolutely. I think the last footnote that I would like to make is, you know, I believe, unless I have my math way off, I believe this is Mark Hayek's 20th year running Blancpain. You're right. Yeah. Talk about a guy who has made Blancpain into a watch brand that like understands divers to a certain, like to a specific extent because of his love of diving. Yeah. Yeah. The CEO effect is sometimes lost where you go like, well, unless you really follow the business ins and outs and read every interview, it's one thing, but when you see Blancpain and where they stand and the kind of stuff they support, whether it's the... Is it Macoran or Macoran? Macoran, yeah. Macoran. Yeah, he co-founded that. So the Macoran... Yeah. Right, and then they made the green, the beautiful green bathyscaphe chronograph for that, and I do think that it's cool to be able to see, even in a big brand, Blancpain's obviously part of the swatch world and makes a variety of watches, but it definitely seems like they they like the idea of what dive watches were in the fifties and sixties and are kind of doing the same thing, uh, to a certain extent now. Yeah. Yeah. Which I, which I think is kind of cool and a Testament to what, uh, I should say, Mr. Hayek, I don't know him that well, um, has, has, you know, kind of achieved in the last 20 years.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And, and, and just as a bit of foreshadowing, I mean, we we've gotten a interest from, uh, from Mark Hayek about possibly coming on TGN and talking to us. And I think that would be a thrill to do a future interview, maybe, uh, sometime this year, which would be fitting because it's the 70th anniversary of the, of the 50 fathoms. So no promises, but, uh, but keep an eye out for that. If, if we can make it happen.
James Heaton	Also, if that's something that you'd like to see, this is one of those times where like comments could make a difference.
Unknown	Yeah.
James Heaton	Let us know. We have a comment on sub stack. Let us know if that's something you'd like to listen to and dig deeper into. I mean, with enough warning, we could field questions. I'm sure he'd be happy to take questions from divers and TGN folks and the rest of it. So Let us know in the comments if you think that's worth leaning into, and I think we'd be happy to do so. But, you know, man, if we don't get to an episode next week, I'm not sure that anybody will be out any minutes of TGN. This is going to be a long one, as we're the better part of an hour in currently, or three quarters of an hour in, and we still have the interview with Laurent. Do you think now best to jump into that, or you got a few more things to cover before we get there?
Jason Heaton	No, I think, uh, I think it's a good time, um, to jump in with, uh, Laurent Ballesta. I'm not sure he even needs any, any further introduction, you know, leader of the Gombeza expeditions, a longtime Blancpain wearer, just a spectacularly talented underwater photographer, marine biologist, um, adventurer. A hero.
James Heaton	A true TGN hero, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And a really sweet guy who's been very generous with his time in the past and continues to do so. Um, I'll, I'll let Jason say his thanks after we play the interview, but I'll say a thank you upfront, both from Blancpain and from Laurent for, uh, you know, giving our plucky little show a bit of access, uh, to things like this, uh, obviously an incredible trip, but, uh, I'm, I'm really pumped for this chat. So why don't we jump right into the tape?
Jason Heaton	All right. So Laurent Balesta, welcome back to the gray NATO. Thanks for joining me here.
Laurent Ballesta	Thank you.
Jason Heaton	We're here in, uh, in Rangaroa and, uh, you know, I've, I've spent about a week here. You, you've got a really long connection with, Polynesia, French Polynesia, and kind of this area of the world. And what is it about the Polynesian culture that appeals to you? I mean, there's something magical about this place, I think.
Laurent Ballesta	Yes. And according to me, it's very simple. It's the link with nature. This link with nature is deep inside the Polynesian culture. And that's something that we forgot in our societies. They are really connected to the sea, to the ocean, and to the animals. So it's easy to, maybe not to talk about science, but to talk about wildlife. They're really aware. Yeah, so there is a lot to learn just talking with the people from the place. When I was living here 25 years ago, I realized, just for example, After one year, the fish name I knew, I knew them also in Polynesian. I knew the name, of course, the scientific name, the Latin name, the French name, the English name, and the local name. And the local names are so sharp, I mean, with a huge accuracy. Because sometimes there is different word for the male and the female, for the juvenile, And something much more interesting is that they understood also the fish family, that it could look like a very scientific point of view, but it's not only a scientific point of view. And the proof of that is that in the Polynesian name, they keep a kind of first name, and that's linked to the fish family. So they are really naturalist people. Yeah.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of the native American cultures. There's a lot of the indigenous cultures around the world that there's this wisdom that isn't related to school or science. It's related to their direct experience for centuries. Right. Yeah. You've always struck me as someone who's a nomad. Every time I hear about you or see something about you, you're somewhere else. You're somewhere around the world, Antarctica or the Mediterranean, you know, living in a saturation chamber or here. Tell me about your life when you're not underwater, like home. Do you have a normal home?
Laurent Ballesta	Of course, of course. And I think mainly now that I have a family, we have two kids. So mainly now I spend more time at home than anywhere else. Even if sometimes I heard that even when I'm home, I'm not home. Yeah. Because your mind is, of course, regarding the future and working on the next project or this kind of, but no, no, I spend, I live in a home, in a remote place. close to a little village, but into the wild, into the swamp area. This on side of a very famous region, La Camargue. It's the biggest estuary of the, one of the main river of Europe, Le Rhone. And so it's full of birds, of white horses, black bulls. And that's the place I come from and that's the place I live. So we are in a kind of cabins, quite remote, without electricity. I mean, we have to make our own electricity with solar panels. We don't have even drinkable waters. We have to, I have a kind of station to change the water in drinkable water. So, yeah. But in the same time, in five minutes, we are in the middle of a nice village with everything we need and school and et cetera. So, and that's a good transition. You know, when you are traveling a bit, when you spend amazing time in amazing place with amazing people, that's really important. When you're back, you're suddenly not in a flat in the middle of a big and dirty town.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	So it's a good transition, my cabins. We are still in a wide place. The family is not too far, but it's not just the next door. And the same for the people. We are not alone, but no neighbor. So that's a very good transition when you're back from an expedition.
Jason Heaton	And when you are on an expedition, like here for a long period of time, Do you miss home or do you bring a piece of it with you or do you miss certain routines or creature comforts, maybe mementos that you have at home? Or are you comfortable living out of a suitcase? I guess you must be.
Laurent Ballesta	No, I hate make my baggages. Yeah. I hate for the way back for the, I mean both to go or to be back. I hate preparing my baggages. I think I'm not this kind of people who think only about traveling, traveling, traveling. It's really not my cup of tea. The thing that make me travel is the wildlife curiosity. That's it. No matter where it is, I need this wildlife mysteries, no matter if it's 10 kilometers from home in Mediterranean Sea or in Antarctica or here in Polynesia. But as soon as I am focused on the mystery, a mystery that we have good chance to solve, to illustrate, so that starts to excite me and then I'm ready to go away and to travel. But yeah, I don't travel just to see. I travel to see what I will find. I need to be really attracted by something. shop.
Unknown	Yeah. Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. This last year, of course, I miss home because I have two kids and most of the time, uh, they don't travel with me.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Yeah. Having two kids now, has it changed your, your perspective or the way you view your diving? What you're doing is on fairly the extreme end of... Yeah, but you know, um... Do you think about the risks?
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah, I understand. I don't consider that I take extreme risk. Extreme risk is when you have no idea of the risk. My team and I, we have a quite good idea of the risk we take. And so we have some safety plan. A big part of the preparation is just to say, okay, so if this thing happens, what can we do? We can have this solution. Okay. If this solution doesn't work, what can I do? A second solution. Okay. That's safe. There is two solutions for one problem, foreign safety problem. And we try to figure out every little possible accident and try to have a solution. Of course, if you want to have zero risk, you stay home and even home is not completely safe. Yeah, right. We are not this kind of extreme, like a best jumper or this kind of extreme sport. We try to figure out all the safety solution in case of problem. And so far, nothing happened during my expedition and I hope it will be the same for the next 20 years.
Unknown	Yeah.
Jason Heaton	Reminds me of another question I wanted to ask, and that is, And you've spent hours, probably years underwater. And do you have any, have you, have you had any real scares or close calls or mishaps that, that you can remember that stand out?
Laurent Ballesta	I did some big mistake, much younger, much before I start to, to lead expedition or this kind of thing. So the, this last 10 years during the Gombeza expedition, during the expedition, nothing happened. Unfortunately, I have also some very bad memory, but that happened out of expedition with people that I didn't know really, not people from my team. And so, yeah, I can tell you a lot of little incidents. Some of them can be even funny. The point is that The one that are not funny, I don't like to talk about.
Unknown	Yeah.
Jason Heaton	Right. Right. And the other thing is, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you?
Laurent Ballesta	I am 48. 48. And I will, yeah, I mean, I will turn 49 in a couple of months.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. I'm 52. And I, I, every time I see these dive guides, dive masters, humping gear, helping the clients and things, I think, you It is, it is increasingly like a young man's game, right? I mean, diving is a really strenuous activity, climbing on boats and hauling the equipment and the diving itself. And have you, has it changed for you? Do you see a time in the future where you think I'm going to have to scale back a little bit or?
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. I have already this feeling here because here in this project about the hammerhead shark, it's really the project of one of my guys, one member of the team who worked with me for the last 15 years. And he's nearly the first time he completely lead and organized the project, Antonin Gilbert. And it's a kind of, so we did the same dive still. But you know, the most tiring, the most exhausting, the thing that I hope one day to to not do again is mainly to organize, to lead, to be the boss, to have to regulate the conflict between two people, to push the dream at the limit, something else to find the money. Yeah, yeah. All these things. But just the moment you jump from the boat and the moment you go out of the water, as long as I can, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Of course, when you're getting older, physically, you cannot be as strong as you were 20 years ago. But diving is something special that you can compensate by techniques a lot, much more in any other kind of nature activity.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	And also I train nearly every day. So it's an activity that you can continue even as a professional, as a job, I mean, quite old.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Yeah. It strikes me that this team has been together for at least, what, 10 years since Gombesa started, but maybe further ago than that, right?
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. Yeah. The concept of the Gombesa expedition is 10 years old now, but actually my society, Andromeda Oceanology, is 23 years old, and it's more or less mainly the same guy, the same divers. I would say it's around 20 people that work really frequently for us. So sometimes it's less people. Here we are just six of us.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	But sometimes it can be 40 people. So there is a group we know each other better and better each year. You know, Xtreme Expedition or Remote Trip and dive challenge, that accelerates the time you normally need to be a friend. Yeah. Yeah. When you live such big experience together, that create link forever. Yeah. When you spend 28 days, four of us in five square meter.
Unknown	Yeah. Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	You kill each other or you fall in love, but there's no other choice.
Jason Heaton	And when you go back home, does everybody scatter or do you see each other?
Laurent Ballesta	More or less. We are not this kind of people who call each other all the time and WhatsApp all the time and where are you and what are you doing.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	But during a year, there is at least four or five expeditions. It's not always very far. Sometimes it's close to home. Yeah. But well, it's two, three weeks of deep dives or.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	So we see each other quite often, quite often on film.
Jason Heaton	When you're, you know, you mentioned your dislike of the planning phase and the organizing and the leading the team and as opposed to the actual work, right?
Laurent Ballesta	And it's the main part of the adventure, actually. Sometimes I'll leave adventure. The adventure is not to make the deep dive. The adventure is not to be in front of the Amore chart. That's not the true adventure. The true adventure is when you decide that In two years, I will be in front of the Red Shark with a scientific project. I will tag it. That's the adventure. Because during the two years before to be in this situation, you have to figure out so many things. You have to kill so many dudes. You have to convince so many people. And you go step by step without knowing if it's going to work. And if it doesn't work, it's a two year waste. So that's the adventure.
Unknown	Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. I was talking to Jean-Marc, your, I guess your sort of diving guru, Mr. Gas, they call him.
Unknown	Yeah.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Um, about the Mediterranean project that when we spoke last time, the saturation diving mixed with the rebreather diving and the logistics and the expense of that, that I can't, we talked about it in, in Socorro. I remember you were telling me about it and it seems crazy, but I, it must be nice to have, I was going to ask whether doing things like this, these events gets in the way, or if it's a bit of a necessary evil or a nuisance. But on the other hand, Blancpain's been with Gombesa since a long time. Yeah, from the beginning. And it must be nice to have a partner that believes in what you're doing.
Unknown	Yeah.
Jason Heaton	And is willing to kind of go along with these crazy schemes that you come up with, right?
Laurent Ballesta	That's a very important point. Yeah. When you are looking for partners, Or when you have to convince your friends. Or when I have to push Jean-Marc to work with me on a crazy decompression protocol. All these things. You have to make people dream. That's very important. In front of you, he can be a sponsor, a partner, a friend of you. Anyway, you have to make him dream. Your dream has to become his dream. But on the other hand, you have to look serious. And sometimes making dream people, it's easy. You just have to be a bit crazy, to be a crazy artist, and you make dreams. But you cannot find any partners like that. There is a point that you have to look very serious, at least. And you know, it's a bit, I don't know if we can make this comparison, but it's also the same for a love story. To fall in love, it's easy. to decide to live with someone you love forever. Yeah. That's another. And you need both. You need this girl or this man make you dream so much. But in the other hand, you can trust him. Yeah. Yeah. It's not crazy. Yeah. And of course, it's not always compatible. It's not working together. I want to dream, but I want you back home at 6 p.m. But it's a bit the same to organize a big project. I have to make you dream, but I have to prove that it's true. And dream and reality sometimes is not the same. So I understood step by step this last year that that's something you have to keep in mind when you talk to someone that you have to convince. What is the part of the dream? What is the part of reality? And a good project is when the balance is perfect between the dream and the reality.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And fortunately, Mark Hayek seems to be as crazy about diving and he's as enthusiastic about this stuff as you are. He must love the stuff you do.
Laurent Ballesta	Well, I hope. That's what he told me. Yeah. And I think he can understand this thing because he's working in a field that you have to make dream the buyer of the watch. But at the same time, a watch is a watch. I mean, it has to be something that works, something you see. So I think he can really understand this part of A good project or a good watch, it's something that makes you dream and that's something that you can trust in the other end.
Jason Heaton	We were talking, I guess it was during the Q&A session that we recorded the other day, about whether you were into watches when you were younger and you talked about kind of the romance of seeing Cousteau wearing watches and the Fifty Fathoms and things. But you strike me as someone who, every time I've seen you, you're wearing a watch doing all of this, which is great. But you always struck me as someone who the watch is more of a part of the gear, part of the equipment, right? It's not just a nice thing to wear, you strap on to make your sponsor happy. It's a tool. Yeah, it became a tool. And then now you've developed this one that is a legitimate tool, right?
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah, exactly. At the beginning, for me, a watch, it was something more symbolic. But even when I was a kid, that's a paradox. When I was a kid, I was dreaming to have my diving watch. And I knew that it was not the first thing you need, mainly in the modern time with computers. But there is a meaning with the dive watch. There is a symbolic way, a legendary way, I don't know, that if you wear a diving watch, you can be a diver. And then when I started to work with Blancpain, it was a bit the same. There is something symbolic that this dive watch reminds me that I can continue my expedition thanks to this partnership, etc. But in the last year, I discovered that I really use it. As a backup, because when you know enough about diving, even if all electronics fail, no matter. If you have a good, sharp idea of duration of time, you can save your life in any condition. You spend one third of your time at 12 meter, two third of your time at six meter and you should be alive at the end. So you don't need anything else actually than time. Yeah. So it's, it's a good backup for me in case of the computer doesn't work. And then during the saturation dive, I discovered that that was the only tool that give me the right time of my dive because When you dive in saturation, you live in a press reset chamber.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	And all your equipment are outside. Okay. And the rebreather, et cetera. And when you decide to go for a dive, to go out of the chamber, you say the, the surface team, okay, we are ready to dive. So they prepare your gear, your rebreather, your cameras, everything. because inside the chamber you have only your suit, your dry suit, that's it, and a mask, not even your fins. And then everybody goes down, but separately. My rebreather, my cameras, my fins, everything goes down by itself on a big basket. So the computer of the rebreather starts to dive, and the time starts to run. But when I go out of the bell and wear my rebreather, It means that on the computer there is already 15 minutes, 25 minutes, I don't know, it depends on the day. And so I realized that for this very particular dive, the only thing that gave me the right time of my dive was my three hours bezel watch, the new watch. So it became from symbolic, it became something that I really use during these deep dives.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Do you have a taste for, for developing watches now or did this come out of a very specific need?
Laurent Ballesta	I have some few more ideas. I don't know if they will love it. I've created a monster with you now.
Jason Heaton	Maybe that's your next career. What's the best place you've ever dived? Is French Polynesia your kind of favorite place in the world to dive?
Laurent Ballesta	French Polynesia has been a huge and very important corner in my career. I was a student. I come from a family that never traveled. And suddenly, after my studies, I was here for one year and a half. I met so many people here. That's weird because it's a remote place in the middle of the Pacific, but so many great photographers, videographers, scientists. came here for a project, for curiosity. And at this time, 25 years ago, there were only two diving centers. The main one was the Raymonta Club, led by the famous Yves Lefebvre, one of the best underwater guides I ever knew. And so he knew my young passion, So he told me every time, Hey, you know what? There is David Dubide that came. Oh, that's true. Yeah. David Dubide from National Geographic. Okay. I put one week holiday on my job to be just for him. Look, if you need some, an assistant, something to hold your cameras, to help you to run, I'm here. And I did that for Bob Cranston, for a lot of great photographer or cameraman during this trip. So I learned a lot also about, uh, photo and video and all this thing on side of my scientific job here in Rangiro. And then when I was back in France, I have this little background, a huge amount of slides. At this time it was film cameras. That opened me an incredible door in France for the most famous nature program ever in Europe, maybe, Usuaya Nature, presented by a very famous guy that became my friend. And I was lucky enough to meet him just after my studies and my stay in Rangiroa. I showed him what I did here. And two months after, I started to travel with him all over the world, from Arctic to Antarctica, from lake in Mongolia to an oasis in Chad, in the middle of Sahara. We were in so many places and it was supposed to be a very short job because, as he told me, this guy, you know, we work for TV. It's not serious. Continue to be a scientist. But he just didn't know what was working for a university in France. It was not safer than working for the TV anyway. So it was supposed to be a short job, but actually it works very well. And it was a 12 years, a 12 years job that asked me only three, four months a year. So that gives me so many free time on side to continue to develop my own ideas, my own projects. And so when this program stopped, I have my own team already, some experiences, and I was able to start the Gombeza expedition right just after the end of this work. So that's why it starts very strong, the Silacant, a first world, then the Grouper Mystery, Wildlife First as well with a 24-hour dive. Then Antarctica, the deepest dive I've ever done there. Then 700 sharks, then 28 days. Because I have this big experience made with this TV, this French TV program. And so sometimes young guys tell me, so what was your studies or what did you do? And I realized that I was very lucky to meet the good people at the right time. to to be at the right place. Yeah. So yeah, I've been very lucky.
Jason Heaton	I'm curious, this balance between the two sides of your brain between the science side and the and the art side because I mean, you've won so many awards for photography and the photographs are so beautifully composed and exposed and composed. And I think you can't just be shooting for documenting.
Laurent Ballesta	No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a completely it's an obsession.
Jason Heaton	Like on an expedition like this, you're you're you talk about your work with the the Mocharon Protection Society and observing the the great hammerhead shark. But when you're down there, are you more focused on the tagging and the measuring and things or do you want to get good photos? Do you leave the science to others then?
Laurent Ballesta	That's my personal stuff. It would be ridiculous to talk about that before. Imagine if I make a talk about what I want to do in this photo is to compose with light and colors and to give the feeling that this amaretto is bigger than anything else. prove it, do it, and don't talk. If we have to talk about something, it's about science, it's about conservation, it's how to work together, how to figure out efficient protocols, that's it. The rest is the artistic works, is personal, is in my mind, and I try my best. And to be honest, I'm really not satisfied yet. It's very hard here. It's so hard. When you were the first somewhere.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Even if the dive are the hardest, like in Antarctica, like, I don't know, but the photos are the easiest.
Unknown	You're the first. Yeah. Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Right. Right. You switch on. The dive can be very hard and tough and dangerous. And I don't know, but the photo that will be here. Yeah. So many great photographer came before us. Oh, I see. So many, so many. So to figure out something new, something unique, that's, you have to sing before, you have to be lucky, you have to, but we have another two years in front of us. So maybe I will find something.
Jason Heaton	But it is interesting. That's a good point. You can tell, you talk about Duvalier or some of the other greats, and I feel like I can identify a Ballesta photo. versus a double life.
Laurent Ballesta	Thank you. I'm proud of that.
Jason Heaton	I think the great photographers really have their style. Jimmy Chin, you know, in mountaineering photography or whatever, you can just tell, right?
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. Maybe it's the opposite is when you find a style that you became a great photographer. Yeah, that could be. Yeah, of course. I'm sure that everybody potentially is a great photographer in our modern day. Yeah. Because now photo is so easy to do. The camera is so working well. So the only thing that can make a difference is if you find a new idea. So that's what we call the style. If you find a personal style, suddenly you become a great photographer. You know, everybody is focused on sharpness, on being close to. So every time it's close up of the biggest animal, they want to be inside the mouth of the shark. But the pleasure of diving, the pleasure to be underwater, watching the underwater world, it's not to be in the mouth of the shark. It's not to have something so sharp, so contrast, so colorful. When you dive underwater, everything is blue. Everything is out of focus. So I try to find a middle way about that to give more the feeling of this kind of huge seascape. And in the same time, in the middle of this big seascape, you can have something sharp here.
Jason Heaton	There's a photo from the Coelacanth collection as well as the Antarctica photos. And I think this is a style that is very uniquely yours that shows this. You're so far back. It's this tremendous scale and then you You have the diver, or a light, or the fish, or whatever you're taking a picture of.
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah, that's something I really like, because the thing I enjoy the most in the water is the universe. It's not just the aliens. It's the space around, this feeling.
Jason Heaton	Do you dive for fun much? It feels like it's work.
Laurent Ballesta	There is a place in my home that I use open circuitry very often. It's a very small lagoon, very shallow water. I love to go when it's very cold during winter. And when I go, I don't put a big dry suit. So I'm frozen very quick. So I don't need four hours. It's impossible to sustain four hours with just a small suit. So I don't need the autonomy of the rebuser. There is no shy animals in this lagoon, so I don't need also to not make bubbles. Right. But I need to have the best balance possible because it's mud bottom. Oh, sure. So, and with a rebuser, the balance is not the best you can have if you compare with open circuit. So, that's a place where I continue to dive open circuit. That's the only place I would say. Yeah. And then when you talk about diving for fun, Of course. Now, one year ago, my three years and a half daughter started to snorkel. And so I go with her just for fun. It's incredible. Even if she looks very serious, because now every time she saw something on the watch, she said, take the photo, take the photo. So she looks more professional than me.
Jason Heaton	She'll take over the Gombeza projects when you get too old.
Unknown	Yeah.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. All right. One more question. Then I want to do some kind of quick questions. If money were no barrier, what would your dream project be? If you could do anything?
Laurent Ballesta	I really know. It starts with equipment that's not very romantic, but to have our own saturation station on the board of a boat. And on this boat, also what we call a submarine that can spit out divers. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Jason Heaton	They call it like a lockout.
Laurent Ballesta	So it's a submarine with one part of the submarine is one atmosphere like all the submarines. So you can go up, go down. No problem. Yeah. And one part of the submarine is a saturation station.
Unknown	Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Imagine a boat with such a submarine. So it's not a bell anymore. It's a submarine that can bring you at the right place. Okay, guys, you ready? We open the door. You go one hour to five hours, no matter.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	You go back or there is a storm on surface, no matter with the submarine, we go back to the harbour, connected to the chamber on board and voila.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	A boat with on board. I don't need an helicopter. I don't need all this thing, even if maybe it's fun, but no, just a saturation station and this submarine that can take saturated divers to bring them down. and bring them up. Yeah. That will be the, yeah. So that's mean quite a lot of money, but it's not impossible. There is a lot of youth that goes much more for nearly nothing on board.
Jason Heaton	Right. Well, hopefully Mark Hayek's listening to this and has some interest. All right. Kind of some quick questions here. Uh, what, what's your, uh, do you have a favorite beer from anywhere, everywhere, anywhere in the world?
Laurent Ballesta	Favorite beer?
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	I know, mainly because I nearly don't drink. You don't drink? Oh, OK. But here we are. Favorite beverage?
Jason Heaton	Favorite food, maybe? I don't know. Anything that you miss or that you look forward to going to a certain place?
Laurent Ballesta	My favorite dish when I'm back home is La Brandade de Mourue. It's a specialty of South of France, from my little place, La Camargue, the estuary of the Rhône. In the old time they were make exchange salt between code, code from North Sea. Okay. But they came here to change. Yeah. And so they were with excess of this code.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	And so they develop a kind of, um, you hit that just with potatoes, cold, hot, warm, on bread with nothing. That's the best thing. Yeah. Okay.
Jason Heaton	If you could be any animal, land or sea, what would it be?
Laurent Ballesta	Uh, maybe orcas.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Orcas, they, they live everywhere.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	From polar place to tropical place.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	They have no predators. Yeah. And, and I think they can die any deaths they want. Yeah. It's just that maybe they just don't want. Yeah. But look what a human can do with training more than 100 meters with one breeze. Right. So imagine an Orca train, it can reach 3,000 without any problems. Yeah. So that could be the no predators and you can live everywhere. Yeah. Visit everywhere.
Jason Heaton	Favorite movie?
Laurent Ballesta	I really love cinema, so it's not easy. There is a French one, but nobody knows it. Recently, I saw It's quite old, it's already a few years ago, and it came from a book, The Zed World, The City of Zed.
Jason Heaton	Oh, Lost City of Zed, yes.
Laurent Ballesta	I didn't know the book, shame on me. I saw the movie, and it looks to me to be the pure essence of adventure. When it reaches the goal, it's nearly nothing. And that's what we said, the adventurers before, is to decide to do it, the biggest Part of the adventure is just to decide the sacrifice, to convince people, all this thing. And then to go really on unknown. Yeah. I really love the way that the trade adventure and there is no gold cities or kind of, but yeah, I really love it.
Jason Heaton	And there's something about that movie does a good job of depicting the jungle and the jungle has always, To me, it's always a very attractive idea, but also terrifying. Yeah, of course. You know? Yeah. Do you drink coffee or tea? Hot chocolate. No caffeine?
Laurent Ballesta	Well, chocolate. I start coffee at 40 years old. Oh, okay. And I decide to end coffee at 50. So I have only nearly two years, not even two years.
Jason Heaton	If you were stuck on some island offshore here that you couldn't get away from for years, what would you If you had one book you could take, what would it be? One book that you had to read over and over.
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. I don't know the title in English. Les travailleurs de la mer, the sea, the walker of the sea from Victor Hugo. Okay. Okay. That's an unbelievable novel. Yeah. And yeah, could be this one, Belle du Seigneur by Albert Cohen. It's not about sea, it's just about relationships. Interesting.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Some people say that is the greatest book about love. So maybe this one. Yeah. And it's a huge one. So you have plenty of pages to read. And it's fun.
Jason Heaton	And you could burn the pages as you finish to start your fire.
Laurent Ballesta	That will be.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. Yeah. And then finally, what one luxury item would you take? And consider your answer carefully.
Laurent Ballesta	Of course, my watch, my dive watch. Definitely. It's what I would have done even at 14 years old, just to, because naively I saw that if I have a true dive watch, I will be a diver.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	With the experience, I see that there is people that have very, very good watch, but they are not divers.
Unknown	Yeah.
Laurent Ballesta	Yeah. But the good divers have watch.
Jason Heaton	Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, Laurent, for joining me again here. And maybe we'll talk again in another couple of years from somewhere else. Sorry for my English. No, it was great. Very good. Thank you. All right. All right, well, I hope everyone enjoyed that interview with Laurent Balesta. Apologies for any boat noise or water lapping in the background. I think it kind of added to the ambiance and certainly, you know, right on scene there with Laurent Balesta there in Rangiroa. Quite a memory for me and just a great chat with him. So thanks again, Laurent and to Blancpain for making that possible.
James Heaton	Absolutely, that was super cool that it worked out and we were able to have Laurent on the show again. He's getting up there in numbers. You know, there's only a few people who have been on multiple times. I like that one of them is a guy like Laurent Balesta, so that's super fun. What do you say we get into some final notes? Yeah, let's do it. Why don't you go first? What do you have? Yeah, so mine's actually a post I've now been working my way through. I've probably read it one and a half times. It's a beginner's guide. This is from Outside Online, and it's a beginner's guide to hiking the Tour de Mont Blanc. And I've become like a little bit obsessed in the last like since this came out. For those that don't know, this is a non-permitted hike, 103 mile hiking route. Wow. That basically starts in Chamonix and ends in Chamonix and goes around Mont Blanc. Oh man. I don't even know how to like contextualize how beautiful this part of the world is. I have not spent more than minutes within the view of Mont Blanc, but being able to do it from altitude, I think would be something special. And the cool thing about this hike is you'll learn if you read this, It goes through three countries. Like I said, it's about 100, 103 miles, um, 33,000 feet of elevation gain up, you know, so there's a downside to that number, but it's a lot of climbing. It's non-technical if you pick the right time of year. Um, but they do obviously recommend shoes that you're very much prepared to put a hundred plus miles on and walking sticks and that kind of stuff. And then being that it's in the Alps, the route brings you from basically from one town to another. and where there aren't towns where you can book places to stay overnight, there's huts. It sounds like there are scenarios in which people will camp, but it's not a scenario in which you're tied directly to camping. Outside is recommended between like seven and 12 days to do the hike, depending on your pace and where you stay and how much time you want for rest days and acclimation after travel, jet lag, all that kind of stuff. So this story is really, really in depth. It's a genuine beginner's guide. Everything from notes on the actual travel experience. So some stuff that feels more like outsides travel logs or stories about travel, but then specifics on difficulty, the time involved, the best time of year to do it, lodging, what you should pack, trail etiquette. It's very extensive. It's a really interesting read. And I just, I really would like to get it, get there someday, maybe in the next few years. uh, plan ahead and, and, and make a bid, whether you do the whole thing, who knows. But I think that would be the fun of it would be trying to do the whole lap, right?
Jason Heaton	Yeah. And you know, I, I remember when I was traveling to Switzerland more often, it was always this kind of temptation to tag on extra days. And I did that a couple of times, but like, this seems like a great opportunity if you plan far enough ahead that you're going there for some other reason. Like, Hey, you know, Hodinke or whoever, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm tagging on a week, so you're not going to hear from me while I go hike around Mont Blanc. It'd be a really cool way to do it. Yeah. I wonder if any of our listeners have done this. I know we have a few, few folks that are based over there. I'd love to hear in the comments if anybody's done some or most of this.
James Heaton	Yeah. I know, I know for a fact that we've received emails from people who have done parts of this or what, at least in that exact area, whether it's the exact route, I don't know, but we've seen stuff and we've seen some stuff on, on the Slack as well. People sharing, you know, travel notes and stuff like that. So it, I mean, if you have any specifics, let us know on the Slack, you know, send an email, whatever you like, But I would say if you even if you just want a little bit of daydreaming, you know, we were talking recently about wanting a new objective, right? You know, like like we treated Rainier and Baker. Yeah, I think this could be it. You'd have to train for it. You have to have the right gear and you'd have to obviously commit to the cost and the time and the rest of it and all of that makes sense. Yeah. So yeah, I think I think that could be could be pretty interesting, but I highly recommend kind of digging into the specificity of this post from outside. Nobody writes stuff like this, like maybe you'd find a blog where somebody did the experience and wrote it all down. But this is so kind of polished and nicely presented and very readable. Obviously, it is designed where you can kind of go to the section that you want to learn about, or you can just read it from top to bottom. And obviously, there's incredible photos. I'm not sure how you take a bad photo in this part of the world, maybe in a snowstorm, which can happen, of course. But this just got me really excited, and it looks like just an incredible hike. Oh, very cool.
Jason Heaton	I mean, Chamonix itself has always been a place that kind of exists since I was a little kid.
James Heaton	Yeah. Yeah. I've been interested, you know, um, Warren Miller, ski movies and stuff like that. He would, he would do ones out of, out of Chamonix and La Grave. And we just grew up drooling over spots like that. So yeah, for sure. I'm uh, yeah, check it out. So that's the, uh, hiking the tour to Mont Blanc, a beginner's guide from outside online. Nice. And what have you got Jason?
Jason Heaton	Well, mine is a little more, um, aquatic, different part of the world as well. Uh, this is a video that's been posted on Vimeo from a TGN listener named Simon who, you know, got in touch with me or us. I don't even remember this was, this was a couple of years ago I think. And he, he had asked us a question about a good kind of swimming or water watch, uh, to use for, for training to swim the English channel. And Simon ended up buying a black Bay 58 blue, Uh, that he trained, um, swimming the English channel. Great watch. And, um, yeah. And, uh, and so he did the swim and he did it in memory of a friend of his, uh, who was battling some mental health issues, uh, as well as to kind of raise awareness for this. And he produced this, um, lovely kind of six and a half minute documentary piece called crossing for a friend, uh, about the actual crossing. And, you know, the English channels, like one of those, it's, it's like diving the Doria climbing Everest. Um, you know, huge undertaking, a lot of logistics, a lot of training. I mean, incredibly difficult. And, uh, and Simon did it. So big congrats to him. Um, he did mention to me when he sent me this link a while back that I believe it's one of the, the channel swimming official rules that you can't wear. I think you can't wear a watch or something. So he, he did not wear his watch on the official swim. He had it, he gave it to his coach who was on the deck of the support boat who wore it while he was swimming, which is kind of equally, um, Equally meaningful. And then he had it engraved after he was done. So, um, cool watch tie in cool story. And, uh, and the documentary is really well done, um, for, for a short little film about a very specific activity. Uh, it really gives a glimpse into what it's like to, to swim the channel, you know, overnight. I mean, it's just, just epic, uh, epic undertaking. So Simon, thanks for sending that. Sorry. We're late posting this. It came in, uh, quite a while ago, but I just wanted to, uh, to feature this on a final notes. So check it out.
James Heaton	Yeah, that's super cool. And I will double apologize as I'm way, way behind on TGN email. We're getting them. We do look at them, uh, for sure. But, but I'm, I'm behind these days on, uh, on that kind of stuff. So, uh, thank you so much for sending that in and what an impressive feed, eh? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Did you ever think about doing that? Like when you did the Alcatraz swim, were you like, Oh, I need another one. Oh man.
Jason Heaton	Uh, no way. I mean, Alcatraz was like a little over a mile or a mile and a half. And, uh, with, with current and it was difficult, but The English Channel is like 22 or 23 miles with current in the cold. I mean, swimming, dodging ships. And I mean, no way I'm not set up for that.
James Heaton	So it's so, it's so gnarly that anyone can do that for sure. And what a nice way to go about it. And then to have the video to, to remember it and integrate watch. Yeah.
Unknown	Yeah.
James Heaton	Right. Good, good move, Simon. We like it. And thanks so much for sharing. Well, Hey, I think that's a full show. Uh, we've, we got, we got the whole spectrum in there. New watches, diving and awesome interview. Some travel and and yeah, we'll do our best for next week. But if if you check on Thursday morning, there's not an episode It's just because the timing didn't work out But we tried to pack as much as we could into this one And then of course, we'll have the January Q&A before the end of February So that'll be a little a little additional episode for anyone who's on the supporter side of the math as always Thank you so much for listening If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes get into the comments for each episode And we leave you with this quote from Mark Twain who said, Necessity is the mother of taking chances.