The Grey NATO – 252 – Blancpain & Swatch Make A Dive Watch (?!), Getting Certified In Cozumel, And Manta Missed Connections In Ecuador
Published on Thu, 07 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
The episode covers James and Jason's recent diving trips - James to Cozumel, Mexico for a vacation, where he also helped certify his wife as a diver, and Jason to Ecuador with a conservation group studying manta rays, though they unfortunately did not see any mantas on that trip. They discuss the details of their diving experiences, the gear they used, and share observations from their respective trips.
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Transcript
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| Jason | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nato, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 252, and it's proudly brought to you by the 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 thegreynato.com for more details. James, has fall arrived where you are yet? It sure has here. |
| James | We're still getting weather warnings today. Yesterday was like in the 33-34s, which I guess is 101, 198, somewhere in there. I can never remember if it's double it and add 33 or 34, but I've got to be close. It's in the very high 90s, maybe even a little bit higher than that. And I think it's supposed to be the same today. I think it's supposed to break here in probably by the time this episode comes out, but by that time I'll be in New York city for like a day. Oh, and I think it's even hotter in New York right now. I literally tried to pick a hotel so that I wouldn't have to take the subway and I guess it's the fashion week is next week. Yeah. So the hotels are three times the price that I'm used to, maybe four times. Oh boy. Uh, so I'm not sadly, uh, sadly I'm, I'm on my way to midtown trying to get downtown. Um, and, uh, and so I'll, I'll have the fun of showing up to, meetings at the hooding key office, just dripping in sweat, tank top and running shorts on the, on the subway. |
| Jason | That'll have to be the move, right? |
| James | I don't know if I could show up to a hooding key meeting in shorts. |
| Jason | Oh man. Well, I think you must be, I think our weather is always like this 24 hour lag. Cause we had the scorching weather yesterday and then it's a, it's pushed, pushed East clearly and it's overcast and very cool today. Like, like unseasonably cool. So, I have to say I'm welcoming the cool weather for a number of reasons, but it also kind of bodes the arrival of something we don't want to mention just yet. But, you know, I'm trying hard this year to enjoy fall without worrying about what comes next, you know? Sure. Because I do like fall, but I just I don't want it to just be this, you know, this bearer of bad news or, you know, something. |
| James | So, yeah, no, I absolutely agree. It's still very much summer here. I think I can probably stretch summer towards the end of September. Yeah. Um, we'll see certainly, but we've got some travel to, you know, hopefully also warm places coming up in the next, I actually get to see you twice in the coming few weeks, which is going to be really fun. And you'll hear more about those trips in the, in the future. But yeah, I agree. I I'm, I'm, I would say, I don't know if looking, I'm not looking forward to fall in the manner with, in which it replaces summer, but I don't mind fall at all. I love fall. Yeah. So we, we had an incredible nice kind of weekend at the cottage, uh, for labor day. We're recording this a couple of days after labor day. And interestingly, we never get this treat. But interestingly, there is an embargo lifting just hours before this episode goes up. So we get to talk about something pretty special. It's in the title. Yeah. And it's a brand new swatch collaboration. It's no longer with Omega and the Speedmaster. It is like people have been rumoring a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Scuba in the System 51 family. This is a wild watch. Now, I kind of understand how people felt when the Speedmaster came out. The Moon Swatch. Yeah, yeah. I kind of like got a secondhand smoke on that. But with this, I feel like this is like they've made something that I kind of feel very compelled to try and get one. I think they're cool. Yeah, yeah. But this news is still quite fresh. I think the embargo lifted like six hours before this episode or 12 hours before this episode. So we never get this tree Uh, Jason on, on gut from the couple of images, that sort of thing. What, what do you think? |
| Jason | Like love disinterested? I like it. I was excited when I heard the news and I enjoyed watching all of the speculations about what people thought it was going to look like. And some people got kind of close. I mean, I guess the, you know, the 50 fathoms has a, has a certain formula that that's very distinctive. So, you know, it would have been hard to be, be far off with this one, but, uh, you know, this, this feels like the right sort of mix of Blancpain and swatch. I don't think, um, You know, a lot of sort of the more pedantic watch enthusiasts sort of poo poo. This is something that will denigrate the Blancpain brand. You know, look, a lot of people would love to have a 50 fathoms on their wrist, just like they would a Speedmaster, but can't can't necessarily afford their pricing. And it's such kind of a classic dive watch model that it feels like a good fit. And, you know, Blancpain is not, it's not Omega. So the brand, recognition from kind of more of the the swatch crowd versus the Blancpain crowd will be interesting to kind of observe and see see where people come down on it. |
| James | Yeah, I don't think like I'm saying this before the watch is officially announced. Obviously, we recorded this just before the embargo, but I don't think that this is going to have the cultural effect of moonswatch. I think it will be able to hold a mirror to moonswatch, but this is in almost every measure a more esoteric insidery watch, which I think makes it more... Again, I'm so biased because I like but don't love speedies. And if I was thinking of any luxury watch to buy right now, and there was a catalog 40 millimeter-ish 50 Fathoms, it would be so high on my list. But like your Houdinki LE, Fifty Fathoms, Bathyscaph, I absolutely adore. Yeah. And then to see these ones and look, we've got I'll probably talk too long already without giving you the specs in the event that you are brand new to this idea. You haven't checked the news. You downloaded the podcast. You were offline last night and you're driving to work and you're first hearing about the Blokpond X-Watch Scuba 50. This is a forty two point three millimeter bioceramic Dive watch from Blancpain and Swatch comes in five versions. It's 14.4 millimeters thick. It's 48 millimeters lug to lug and the lugs are drilled. All five versions come on NATO's and come with an EVA like zipper travel case. The colors are loosely blue blue. So the case is blue, the dials blue, a green green with a black bezel, a yellow kind of gradient gray with a black bezel, a it's hard to say white or gray. with a gray dial and an orangey red bezel, and then one that's kind of all white and grays. Each one takes a direct inspiration from a specific ocean. So I believe the blue-blue is the Atlantic, and it goes on from there. These are 50 fathom water resistance, so 91 meters. Very clever. And they all use the... Yeah, exactly. I like that. And they all use the system 51. So if you had trouble with the quartz in the moon swatch, This is an automatic movement. They're selling these for $400. I'm actually not sure the price will matter because unless you like lineups, I just don't know how hard these will be to get. I would love to be wrong. I would love to think that in the next year, I can pick up one of the blue ones. I do really like it. I like the idea of the blue one. I still regret not, I mean, not that the Neptune I don't think was available when I bought my Moon swatch, but I do want to be careful to buy a case that can take a NATO, like a gray NATO. I'm not going to wear the striped NATO that it comes with. Yeah. The natos are made out of recycled fishing nets. And sorry, all of the color combinations are also, they're inspired by an ocean, but apparently they're directly linked to a specific, a nudibranch from a specific ocean. Oh, okay. If you want to get that specific. So that's where you see some pretty wild colors. And the other thing that I think people who haven't seen any of the images, if this again is brand new to you, they are not repeating any of the colors used in moonswatch. These are five brand new colorways to this to the bio ceramic sort of whole thing. Otherwise, it looks a lot like a 50 fathoms. Three of them have the sort of modern dial, very similar to what's available on a 50 fathoms now. And two of them have a sort of retro inspired dial with that sub marker for water ingress, and a vintage logo and that sort of thing. |
| Jason | Do we know if this has a screw in crown? I can't tell from the images, but Do you know for a fact? |
| James | I do not know. I have not handled one, um, as of yet. No. Yeah. |
| Jason | Um, I'm just curious, like it's always when it comes to kind of affordable watches and again, you know, to, to talk about swatch in, in that realm or, or in comparison to really any other watch is a bit of a strange argument, but a lot of times fit and finish comes down to things like bezel and crown and, and with the, the moon swatch, you know, you had, pushers because it was, it was a chronograph. But beyond that, you know, there wasn't a bezel to turn or a crown to screw in. And I'm, I'm just curious how this one will feel in this bio ceramic case. I, I love how closely they mimicked the, the 50 fathoms kind of that domed Sapphire bezel. I'm not sure what the material is on this one. I'm guessing it's some sort of acrylic or plastic of some sort, but they did a nice job with that. And you know, I, I'd almost be tempted to go and see what the scene is like at the, at the mall of America, a swatch shop, which is just down the road from us here. Um, when, when these, uh, go live or, or get released for, for sale, which I believe is the Saturday, right. |
| James | For, for sale. I believe so. Yeah, it's, it's in the coming days. So it's something I guess you can plan for or start lining up now. I have such an aversion to lines and having experienced the moon swatch thing as a, like we went to the mall and covered the line. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah, it's hard to predict which which direction this will go in terms of popularity. I think that these will be very nerdy and kind of fun. I just don't think they're going to hit the same like cultural note that the moon's watch did. Yeah, being both the first time and a fairly recognizable watch. One of these watches like what's the right way to put this? I definitely don't want to offend anyone in saying this, but in my mind, the speedy is like you hit your first bonus at your your job. Things are starting to work out and there's like maybe there's about 10 or five or maybe three watches that everybody goes like, Oh, that's a great option. Yeah. Maybe it's a sub, maybe it's a speedy, you know, if you know, it depends on obviously where you work, those, some of these watches become like dress codes. And I don't think that the 50 fathoms has ever been there. Yeah, true. It's a little bit of a sleeper. You have to, it's, it's like, as much as I don't like people posting a photo of something confusing on Instagram and saying, if you know, you know, Mm hmm. There's a little bit left of the 50 fathom. That's an, if you know, you know, you watch that does the, that, that vibe doesn't exist for a sub. |
| Unknown | Yeah. True. Or, or a speedy. Yeah. |
| James | Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if that helps or hinders it, but you know, looking at the images, the blue, blue one and that whitey gray one, it would depend on how white the case is in person. If it's more gray than white, I could, I could be convinced, but I like these, I think they're fun. Um, and, and I'm, a Blancpain aspirational owner, not an actual owner and definitely not a collector. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And, and obviously Jason, you've got a couple of Blancpain's like, does this make you feel worse differently about the ones you have? |
| Jason | Oh, absolutely not. I mean, I, I don't, it doesn't affect me at all. I, in fact, I'd love to, to buy one of these just to kind of add to those other two that I have and, and to kind of, you know, enjoy holding them both in hand and seeing how closely they, you know, they, they come. I think when I look at these, um, The only twinge of disappointment I have is there isn't quite a color way that really speaks to me. Right. I think, you know, your logic of, of buying the blue one because it would match well with straps, I think is a wise, wise way to go. I don't think I could pull off that. Uh, I don't know what you call it, like a teal or aquamarine one or the. |
| James | It's like a bright, really bright emerald green, like a cloudy emerald. Yeah. It's an interesting color. And the yellow orangey one, I can't quite read from the images. That's when I think you'll have to see in person. |
| Jason | Yeah. So I think the, the, the, the, the two, the white with the kind of pale gray and then the blue would be the two that speak to me the most. I, I tend to think that, um, yeah, I mean, I guess if you went for the blue, I mean, you know, let's, let's, let's dream here. Like, let's say you, you were able to get the blue. I, I'd probably go for the white just to be a little different and see how that goes. I think that would work well with straps. It also is interesting that that one, if I'm looking at it correctly, yeah, that one's a no date version. So it's interesting that they did two, kind of versions. They did one that more closely mimics the actual kind of 50 fathoms automatic, kind of the big one that they've been selling for a number of years with that date, with the questionable placement at 4.30 that's a bit divisive with people. |
| James | The Arabic markers for 12, 3, 6, and 9. Yeah. And then, yeah, the vintage-y ones don't have a date, which is a good notice. |
| Jason | Yeah, pretty exciting. I would immediately take off the striped straps. I mean, hats off to them for using recycled nets, but just not my jam. |
| James | Yeah, these are... Yeah, it's the other thing where if you're gonna go... And I'm not saying they should have done this because they have a format and they're making an incredibly popular watch, but in my mind, if you're offering a watch with a striped NATO, go ahead for the six bucks or whatever it costs and put in a non striped one in there for everybody. Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah. What I'm most interested to dig into is once the news is live and the rest of it, I would probably reach out to a couple Pong Pong collectors I know and see what they think, like deep collectors. Yeah, right. Like if this is something kind of fun, that's like a blip, a flash in the pan, everybody gets to enjoy it. More people know about Blancpain, more people know about the 50 Fathoms. It's obviously an anniversary year for the 50 Fathoms, 70th anniversary. Pundits will, like ourselves, will land one side or another, whether this is good or bad. I think it's probably good from a business standpoint, especially as luxury watches are getting a little soft at the moment. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And more attention, especially at a price point that's pretty agreeable. $400 seems pretty fair for a System 51 with actual water resistance. Maybe you're paying, maybe that's 20% hype. But it also says Blancpain on the dial, like what do you want? |
| Jason | Right, right. Hey, this is a bit of a tangent, but it's related. How did you feel about, do you remember those There were, there've been a number of kind of car maker collaborations over the years that they don't do it so much anymore, but I can recall there was a, an Isuzu impulse back in, I think in the eighties or nineties and, and it had this, um, it had a little badge on the back that said handling by Lotus. And, and it makes me think, you know, I was trying to draw parallels to, to another industry that does these sort of collaborations across manufacturers, maybe one that is a sort of a high low sort of thing, like a swatch and Blancpain. Do you think that that in the car world, stuff like that was, was necessarily a kind of a cringe moment for like, say a Lotus enthusiast to see a Lotus badge on, on an Isuzu? |
| James | Yeah, I don't know. I think, I think the handling by Lotus is a little bit different than, than, you know, let's say a car. And I mean, this happens, right? Like, I mean, Lotus uses Toyota engines. Yeah. Right. Right? Yeah. And, and then of course, like it'd be a different, I guess it'd be a different thing if you said, you know, that, uh, BMW is making a Toyota, but of course that happens too. The new Supra is mostly a Z4. Oh, sure. I think there's a lot of that going on and a lot of it comes down to like, I think the raw appeal of the swatch X, whatever, whatever, whatever other brand is that both of the brands are represented. You're getting the aesthetic of one brand, the swatch colors and the plasticky nature and the cheap, cheerful sort of feel of it, but you're getting the like otherwise vibe and attitude of a different brand and you're getting them both together. And I think that combination anger some people and delights others. And then there's a huge group in the middle that just see something that's kind of cool or that they like because there's some heat to it or, or, you know, it's having a moment. Right. And I think all of those perspectives are probably accurate because they represent the whole spectrum of, of, how somebody could, could feel about something. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Uh, but in, in the car world, I'm trying to think of something kind of the same. |
| Jason | Well, do you remember, um, the Chrysler corporation did some Shelby stuff, especially if there was like a Dodge Omni spinoff. |
| James | Um, yeah, sure. And the G goes like hell the GLH. |
| Jason | Yeah. That's what I was thinking. |
| James | Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was just Shelby being a businessman. Yeah. Yeah. Because at least, I guess with Shelby going from say Ford to, uh, a Dodge Omni or whatever, Yeah. Like that's still in cars. It's a guy and he's still in cars. But like, what about an Eddie Bauer Explorer? Yeah. Or the Nautica, like the clothing company, they made like a Mercury villager van. Right. Right. But you could, you could go into a Ford dealer and a lot of people did and buy an Eddie Bauer, you know, Ford Explorer. My brother had one, you know, as the seventh owner. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It's an interesting thing. I, it's one of, it's one of the watches that I do think about a lot, the 50 fathoms. I'm, I'm very much excited. You know, you and I, in a few weeks we'll be in France for the announcement of the kind of final wave of the 70th anniversary Blancpain. I'm pretty excited to see what that will be. Um, at this point I get to say and talk about this stuff cause they haven't sent an embargo. I have no clue what it is. Uh, not one. |
| Unknown | Maybe this is it. |
| James | I think we'll actually find out that evening. Yeah. Maybe this is it. Can you imagine? Interesting. It'll be an interesting, thing to see how it plays out and what kind of conversations we get into kind of in the future about this once we've got some, you know, rearward view on it. Right. Yeah. Well, look, that was a nice kind of a news announcement right up at the top there. Obviously we got in the weather. You got to have the weather before you get to the real news. We only learned from the pros, but we do have a full show that we promised to carry over from two 51, which ended up just being about new watches. So before I do the same thing with this show, What do you say we get into sort of a bit of risk check and then we can start talking about our recent trips? |
| Jason | Yeah, let's jump in. But before we do, there's just a quick bit of housekeeping regarding the TGN bundles from our shop. You know, as we've been talking about in the past few shows and people have kind of seen on Slack and over email and things, we finally kind of cleared out the first go round of bundles and hopefully everybody has received them or will be or Um, you know, the international orders, I know a few are still trickling in, but, um, you know, my desktop has been cleared of all labels. Uh, everything's been shipped out with full bundles. Um, and now we have a handful leftover. So we have, uh, I, I haven't done a full inventory. I'll be doing that right after the show and we will be reopening the shop kind of as of this show going live on Thursday. Um, so we're, you know, we'll, we'll see how, how many of those we can get through. And, and like I said, there aren't many left. So if you've, if, if you've been kind of, procrastinating on ordering one of the TGN bundles with the orange baseball cap, the cantonment kerchief set, the pin, and a couple of stickers, now's your chance. We're not sure what will be remaining when the dust settles and whether we're going to sell off individual products. I know people have asked about that. But at this point, we're going to get back to bundle sales. So hit up the shop on thegranado.com. Or if you're a supporter, hit the link that you've received for the supporter shop. Um, so that you can also add, uh, additional NATOs if you want to kind of bundle things and, and buy those together. So yeah, check it out. Nice. Uh, that's our news from the top of the show. |
| James | Cool. Good, good. Uh, what have you got on risk this week? |
| Jason | I, uh, you know, in honor of, of kind of today's top news, uh, I've got my Hodinkee limited edition Blancpain bathyscaphe. So wearing it on a, uh, kind of a dark blue Artem sailcloth with a fold over nice class, Looks great. You know, I tend to wear the bigger Blancpain more often. I think I did even when we did our last show, but kind of pulled out the smaller one today. So good to have it on. Yeah, looking forward to seeing what they've got in store for us in a couple of weeks over in France. |
| James | Yeah, that should be good. How about you? For me, I went with like a similar vibe. I wanted to kind of make a nod to like a very classic, you know, sort of military derived divers. And as I don't have a Blancpain on hand, I went with the CWC. So that's the Royal Navy Diver 1983 reissue that I got from you. And I've been wearing it a bunch this summer. The loom is great. I've just like largely enjoyed wearing it on a tan NATO. It's got kind of that tan coloring to the markings. And it's just a simple straight laid back sort of watch. When I see it in like a photo from the summer, it kind of makes me smile. So that's what I've been wearing the last few days at least. quite a bit more throughout the course of the summer. |
| Jason | Very cool. It sounds like your dad gave it back to you. I know, I know he was borrowing it for a while. |
| James | He had it for a while. Yeah. I traded him out. May always keep him something fresh. Good call. Well, Hey, you want to jump into the main topic? |
| Jason | Yeah, this is a starting to get a little, uh, you know, get to be a little old news. We've been back for a couple of weeks from our respective trips, you longer than me. Um, so hopefully we can remember all the details, but uh, yeah, we just thought we'd, kind of cover our respective dive trips from, from a few weeks back. You were in Mexico. I was down in Ecuador. Um, so yeah, what do you say we dive in? Let's, let's talk about your trip first. I think, uh, okay. You know, yours was, was a full on vacation and I think you were long overdue to, to get back in the water. Um, and then Sarah, your wife, uh, got certified on this trip. So all very exciting stuff. How did it go? |
| James | Yeah, it went really well. We had a great trip. It was six nights in Cozumel, which is an Island, uh, off of the Eastern side of Mexico, uh, essentially through Cancun for me, because there'll be a bunch of caveats to the way that I did this trip. Um, and I think it's important when you do a trip or a vacation or whatever, to have a goal. What is it that you need from this time? And if it's to climb the most number of peaks, I get it set out and plan for that goal. If it's to get the most possible dives in go for that. I got it. Um, I understand totally. The goal here for me was to have an actual vacation. Yeah. Um, I know I talked about it a fair bit. It's something that I'm, I'm, you know, cognizant about dialing back in terms of commentary, but work is insane these days. And it's really easy to blink and realize I've worked the last seven days, uh, just to keep on top of everything. And then all of your little hobbies and the things you do with spare time, they go away, they go away really quickly. And so I knew that I wanted a vacation and Sarah, my wife has gone through the referral program. So she did her pool work and her book work for PADI certification, open water certification here in Toronto. And so we looked for a resort in Cozumel that could fulfill the referral and ended up finding that the Iberostar in Cozumel is not only fairly remote, it's a good 25, 30 minutes from the main kind of town city of Cozumel. And on top of that, there's a Dressel divers on site, which is, uh, you know, kind of widely known to some, at least to some extent, uh, dive outfit. That's at a lot of different resorts and operates all over the world. And I've stayed at an, a Barrow star on the other side of Mexico, uh, and dove with a Dressel. If you remember my review of the Pelagos, the blue Pelagos, which had underwater photography and all of that, that was shot on that trip back in 2015, something like that. Yeah. And so we stayed at this, a Barrow star. We had the dressel divers right on site. It was about 20 yards from our little bungalow cabin thing on the property. Uh, so the diving was very straightforward. They left from their own dock. They have their own boats. I don't like any complications. I really don't tend to really love dive boats in general. And at least in this case, obviously my dive partner, my buddy was built in. Uh, so Sarah finished her, um, her four, uh, cert dives, uh, the first two days we were there and then we, we did a further six dives over the course of the week. Um, so we dove almost every day except for one day where we, uh, ventured out on an excursion to find whale sharks. Nice. Uh, whale sharks didn't work out. So I would highly recommend the experience I had with Dressel. And I know that if you stay at a different resort, they can drop you off by a boat at Dressel's dock and you can go diving with Dressel and they'll come get you later. So there's lots of options that we don't have to stay at this one resort, but I was really happy with Dressel. One of the things that they offered along with all this diving was these excursions to see whale sharks and to jump in the water and, you know, snorkel with whale sharks, which I've always wanted to do. One of my favorite animals. Yeah. I'll try and keep this part of the chat as quick as possible, but we, so it ended up being, you get up at a, like you leave your hotel at about 6am. Yeah. and you take a cab to Cozumel. And in Cozumel, you get on a ferry and you take a ferry back to the mainland. And from the mainland, you get picked up by a car. You drive an hour and a half to Cancun. In Cancun, you sit around and wait for a little while where they get the boat ready. Then you get on a boat and it's about another hour and a half until they're like, Oh, we should see whale sharks. Drove in circles for another hour. We saw some dolphins, no whale sharks. Apparently, they saw like you know, five the day before and the next day they saw five. After that point, the backup plan is snorkeling. The snorkeling environment, like wasn't even as good as snorkeling off the dock at the resort, which was actually pretty good. The dock was rad. Uh, lots of little fish, lots of stingray Barracuda. Pretty good. And, and so we did that by the time, like by the time we got back, it was like a 14 hour outing to not see a whale shark. Um, so that was a kind of a tough lesson to learn. Um, obviously there's a chance that you wouldn't see a wild, uh, like a wild animal and that's fine. I would recommend most of what I did on this trip. Um, but probably wouldn't recommend that not so much that we didn't see the animal, but that there was like six hours of travel on either side. Right. Um, which like if I had known that, you know, there are several other excursions that we could have stayed on the island. Yeah. Uh, you know, you can go like dune buggies and off-roading and you could do all sorts of other water activities, parasailing, like, you know, there's a bunch of other options, um, on the Island, even just like rent a scooter and put around for a day, but this burned a day and it was a really long day. Like the next day I was exhausted and, um, and the rest of it. Um, and then I'm just trying to think of what else, I guess if we start from the top, now that we've got the whale shark boondoggle out of the way, well, I'm curious, I've got a question for you. |
| Jason | So you, um, I remember before the trip you were sort of debating whether or not to bring your own, dive gear or rent it there, given that it's a vacation and all the, um, the pros and cons of bringing your own gear. Um, you, you kind of came down in the middle, right? You brought some of your own stuff, but then rented some others. |
| James | Yep. So we, we decided that we would try and figure out how much gear we could bring without checking a bag. We ended up having an hour and five minutes to connect in Charlotte. Ooh. Yeah. And then you factor for a delay that hour and five minutes turned into like 35 minutes. Mm. Yeah. If we had checked a bag with my BC and other stuff in it, we wouldn't have had it anyways. Yeah. Yeah. At least not immediately. Right. Uh, so again, sticking to the goal, despite the pressure from certain entities within the TGN crew, I took my mask. We took mass snorkel fins and computers. Um, fins was kind of a weird choice because we, there was a big delay in And getting a reply from the dive shop, I wanted to make sure that if we wanted fins, I could just have fins for the six days. So if I wanted to go snorkeling or whatever, I didn't have to like sign them out or worry if they were open or all that kind of stuff. And there was this big delay in them answering that question. So we just decided, well, you're no matter what diving, we're always going to need fins. So the goal was to go out and each get a, um, a pair of these scuba pro goes, um, which are kind of the conventionally very common nice dive fin. Nothing crazy expensive, nothing crazy fancy, just right in the middle, good solid fin from a good producer. They had one that fit my wife, so that's what she bought, and it was great. Under duress, because I didn't know if we would have fins, like easily to use fins, I bought what they had at the dive shop, which ended up being a very high-end set of fins called Apex RK3 HDs. And RK3s had been on my list of fins to look into, I bought the HDs because that's all they had in and I didn't do my time to do my research. So I did the dumb thing that I'm now recommending none of you do. Um, because the, those HDs are probably, well, they're not probably because they're negatively buoyant. Um, if you're weird, I was diving in a bathing suit and a rash guard. So I was just constantly fighting these fins. And then for the last four dives, I just used fins from the resort and it was so much easier. My air went 20% longer, all that kind of stuff. Um, so I think In a wetsuit and in other environments, those RK3 HDs would be fine. I can't return them. I wish I could just swap them out for the standard. The standard RK3 is neutral. I, you know, I wasn't thinking as clearly as I should have and just bought them. |
| Jason | Does HD stand for like heavy duty? Is that kind of? I think it's heavy duty. Yeah. |
| James | So they're supposed to be more durable or, or I suppose, you know, I think it's a slightly harder blade in the fin and then otherwise it's that they're slightly negative. |
| Jason | Yeah. And I guess if you're, if you're like a tech diver, you've got a dry suit or wetsuit, thick wetsuit, maybe then |
| James | that would be probably an ideal fin for my Vancouver diving days. But at this point, what I probably need with those like a nice medium size scuba pro that fits in a carry on. Yeah, right, right. So that's probably what I'll end up buying again. If you happen to be in the market for a set of RK three RK three HDS, let me know. I can't decide if I keep them. They are really nice fans. I mean like they're very powerful. If I was being active, we're drift diving, so you're not actively fitting almost ever. |
| Jason | Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'd love to hear about the dives. You know you mentioned drift dives and I'd been to Cozumel a few times, but it's been a number of years. |
| James | Drift diving is fun, isn't it? Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Drift diving is fantastic. It really, I would say one, one caveat I would say, and this comes down to with all diving essentially is it really comes down to the quality of your dive master, the leader. Yeah. Yeah. Because drift diving there's, there's less control. If you're 40 feet away from your, from the person and they're telling you to come back against the current, like I'm probably going to flip you the bird and do whatever I want. I'm not fighting the current for 40 feet. |
| Jason | Yeah. Yeah. And we should explain what, what drift diving is. |
| James | Yeah. So drift diving is, is you're getting in a, in a current. You typically start on one end of the current. They, the boat almost always won't be moored or connected in any way. They'll pick a spot, they'll drop you on the reef into the current. And then at the end of your dive, someone, everyone, it's different on every dive or dive boat, the rest of it, someone, everyone will run a sausage, which is like a balloon, a long tube. Um, that goes up to the surface, the boat will see that and come and pick up your team. |
| Jason | Yeah. And in Cozumel it's, it's, it's known for its current and it's drift diving. And that's one of the reasons it gets such good marine life. And it's also another reason why, or another reason why it's, um, the visibility is pretty reliably good there, but it is a, it is, um, a very specific kind of diving. It's, um, it's not the kind of thing necessarily that you, you just go down and you kind of cruise around one patch of reef because the current is simply too strong to to kind of swim against. So, um, and then these boats, they're very well, well conditioned to, or, or very observant and they follow the bubbles of the divers. And that's kind of how they know how to follow you. So it's, uh, it's a very Cozumel style of diving and it can be a lot of fun, but like you said, you need a good, a good guide for it. |
| James | Yep. I, I, it, the, the difference between the dives where we had a guide who was very much relaxed and had clearly been doing this for a long time versus someone who was attempting to assert control in a current. Yeah. One is very frustrating. One is very easy and simple and they're very relaxed, ideally relaxed, laid back dives. You don't do much at all. You just kind of look around. It's a little bit like slow motion flying. It's great. Yeah. And I would say the dives were between 45 and 60 minutes. So they had a kind of a hard limit at 60, regardless of what you had in your tank. That's pretty common. I would say, you know, the, the normal depth was probably in the range of, you know, keep it in feed, I guess, you know, between 60 and 80 feet would have been the bottom out. And then a lot of the average would have been somewhat less than that, as you would imagine. Super clear water, no visibility issues, obviously upwards of 100 feet at times. Yeah. So very easy to manage. And then a lot of very... It's a ton of coral. It's the second largest coral reef in the world. So it's a lot of coral. You're not seeing a lot of big animals and you're also not seeing a lot of mass. The diversity is high. There's a lot of different animals there. Yeah. But we saw a baby, baby black tip reef sharks, which is apparently a pretty big highlight, something they only see for a few days a year. And we had it on, on, on a couple of dives. Nice. The biggest Moray eel I've ever seen had to have been my size. Just massive. Yeah. And Eagle rays or we saw a couple Eagle rays. You saw a lot of like yellow spotted rays. Didn't, didn't get a turtle on most of our dives. Somebody saw a turtle, but we didn't catch one. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Uh, which would have been great. You know, one of the, one of the great animals to see underwater, but some huge lobsters, some giant crab, lots of like really like fairly large for, you know, quote unquote coral fish, huge parrots, big triggers, uh, stuff like that. So yeah, no, no complaints on that one. I dove with the Garmin descent mark too. And I just like, I couldn't be happier with how good that is as a dive computer. Oh, it's so good. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | Like the, the app afterwards. The experience underwater, it's super easy to read. It's really easy to mess around with the controls. |
| Jason | If you want the heart rates kind of freaky, isn't it? |
| James | The heart rates. I'm glad they don't show it to me while I was diving. |
| Jason | You can see it while you're diving. |
| James | I mean, I didn't, I didn't have that data screen enabled, I guess. I just saw it after it's pretty wild. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, the only one I was interested in was with, we had the one, we had two dives with a different instructor who I, you know, to be clear, I wasn't crazy about who was just constantly trying to get people closer to him in a current. Oh, but he was also like diving very, very like a gate. He was crashing into the coral at times, like very low. So he's moving a little bit slower than the rest of us. Yeah. And so that one I went back and yeah, like my heart rate peaked at like 150 at one point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason | Yeah. Well, I got to say congratulations to Sarah. I mean, maybe we should have had her on as a little guest for 10 minutes here. |
| James | I asked her yesterday if she'd be keen and she said she'd be interested. She'd be happy to come on and talk about what it was like to go through the process. So, I mean, if, if folks listening, if we have some people listening who are like, I'd like to consider diving, but it'll probably be warm water, like vacation style diving. And you'd like to hear from someone who just went through that process. We can definitely make that happen for sure. |
| Jason | I spoke to her about it last night, but she must've been thrilled. I mean, what a great place to start diving. I mean, the Cozumel is like so much life and good visibility and Beautiful place. She had a blast. |
| James | She also like, you know, took to it like a natural. I mean, if you, if you know my wife, she's good at everything she does. So it's not really surprising that she might even be a better diver than me after five or six dives. |
| Jason | I did my, my first, very first dive was in Cozumel. Now that I think about it, it was a discover scuba and it was a shallow dive in Cozumel. Yeah. I, you know, obviously it set the hook in me and what a great place to start. I think, I think that makes such a difference where you, where you get your first experience. I think, you know, a lot of people, you know, they learn to dive in a quarry and then they do some of their early stuff in lakes and things. And it's just, it's not always the most pleasant experience. And, uh, totally. Yeah, definitely. Cozumel is a good place to start. So that's great. And what about the top side? What, what were you doing when, um, when you weren't diving? Did you just kind of chill out, read books in the shade? Yeah. |
| James | Read books by the pool. I don't do mixed drinks. You know me pretty well. Like I, you know, I can't do like a sweet drink. I, you know, did you get some tequila at least? Or Mezcal? I like, you know, Mezcal, I don't mind. Yeah. Tequila and soda was keeping me, you know, 20% hydrated. But yeah, read a book, read a couple of books. I finished that rich energy book and I read Breathe, the Rick Bettaway one that you recommended, which I just adored it. And then I started Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. So I'm only a few chapters into that. And my reading slowed considerably when I came back to real life. But the resort, the resort was nice. I mean, it's like any resort, kind of, I guess this one was a little bit less like a hotel because it was kind of these bungalows that had two or three units in them. Yeah. So you weren't in like a big building. You just had like a, a floor entry and, and there were Cotamundi, which is like a Mexican raccoon running around giant Iguana, um, all manner of birds, a couple of huge peacocks just roaming the, uh, the grounds and, you know, making their funny noises. Food was fine. Not great. Not bad. Fine. Uh, weather was incredibly hot, like you'd expect, which was very nice. And I guess the only other thing I didn't talk about was like, if you decide to go, Oh, James and his wife had a good time here. I should go down. I do want to be clear. Like you'll want to decide pretty much from the get go how you get there. I don't understand. And I never will. It's like a major, I don't know, missing part in my brain. Why when people go on vacation, they're willing to take the worst flights, the hardest transfers, like just make the whole experience as bad as possible. Like I don't, I'm not that picky about how I fly. When I fly for work, I just have to get there to get the job done and get home. Yeah. It's more about the timing of everything than it is the experience. But for vacation, like you have to, if you're coming, let's say you're coming from Toronto or most of the States, you're going to have two options. You can fly directly to Cozumel, which is a small airport on the Island. Not every airport in your area is going to go to Cozumel. So you might have to make a connection. Your other option is to fly to Cancun. You can fly direct from Toronto to Cancun or lots of places to Cancun, but then you're in Cancun and you need to take something like an hour plus cab ride to get to the ferry, then wait and get on a ferry and then get off of a ferry and get back in a cab and go to your resort. For me, I would rather stay home than do all those transfers. And I know that it was a very long journey for you to get to Ecuador, and we'll get to that in just a moment here. but I just like, I can't fathom making the day that difficult just to get to the resort and you're already blown out. And then to know at the end of the six days or whatever, you get to reverse that whole process. So for me, I don't even remember what the price was. The price differential was between going through Cancun or going to Cosmo. There's no question. Like if it's a vacation, I'm going to go to Cosmo to make it as easy as possible. And it was, you know, fairly simple, small airport, uh, ran on time, got in, got out the kind of one where you, you know, walk down onto the pavement when the plane lands and go in for very simple, you know, screening, passport screening, that sort of thing. And then it was a very short cab to, you know, 20, 25 minutes to the resort. And then, you know, we, we had some plans to go out and do some stuff and then just ended up relaxing, you know, and also two dives a day for several days back to back. Like that's not, you know, I'm not saying it's hard work, but it's not, it's not the same as sitting around or, you know, going for a walk. |
| Jason | Yeah. Diving is deceivingly, uh, tiring. Yeah. Even, even drift diving, even warm weather diving. It's, uh, it's, uh, there's something about being underwater and I suppose your body has to ramp up a bit to maintain its body temperature. And then, yeah, climbing ladders and hefting tanks and that sort of stuff. |
| James | So, yeah. But yeah, it was, it was a great, it was a great week. I enjoyed the, the, pretty much the whole vacation. I wouldn't necessarily say unless you're closer to the whale sharks that it's worth taking the chance. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but otherwise, uh, a solid vacation and some great diving. And and yeah, I'm just I'm thrilled to have a dive buddy. Yeah. And my wife, you know, someone who enjoys this and it gives us something to do for things like vacations. And and our eldest daughter can get, you know, the Patty Junior certification next year. So we'll have to look into that as well. She's quite keen. I'm not sure. Yeah, that that's the route that will go immediately. But she is keen to give it a try. So nice, nice little developing, you know, something we can do with the fam. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Right. |
| James | Rather back in the day. I just, it was just me. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason | You're going to have to start calling the Jeep, the Calypso. If you start to everybody gets certified, get everybody some matching hats and handguns. |
| James | Yeah. That sounds like a great trip. Yeah. We had a good time. I mean, it was a vacation. Um, I could have done it at the cottage. We wanted a different, different speed. And, uh, and now maybe we do a little bit of diving around here, but otherwise I think, you know, vacation divers for the most part, looking forward. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. Um, amazing. Now you had an entirely different sort of trip, both from the intent and the rest of it. Like maybe we start with what was the goal for your trip? Similar to, you know, mine was a vacation as yours really wasn't. |
| Jason | Yeah. I was contacted several months ago by the Swiss watch company, Carl F. Bucherer that some people might know. They, they make a line of diving watches called the Petravi Scuba Tech. And I, you know, I hadn't really, you know, Carl F. Bucherer, I'd never actually handled one. I hadn't worn one, anything like that. they reached out to me and I knew that they, um, were an underwriter of the expeditions for, um, Manta trust, which is a UK based conservation organization that is sort of an umbrella organization that, um, brings together various, um, Manta ray science, uh, researchers from around the world, um, to kind of share, uh, data and best practices. And they meet every other year in a different part of the world where mantas are known to congregate. Um, and they bring all of these people together and they do kind of a two week expedition. And since Bucherer is, is they underwrite a hundred percent of these expeditions, um, they wanted some kind of, you know, uh, content or collateral, what, what have you out of, out of the trip. And so they were looking for someone to go and dive with the team, the Manta trust team, and kind of learn about what they're doing there and then write some content for Bucherer's website and social media and things like that. So obviously I agreed. What a great opportunity. And this year's trip was to Ecuador. So the Pacific coast of Ecuador is a known kind of hotspot for manta rays to pass through due to the Humboldt current that flows past. |
| Unknown | Okay. |
| Jason | And there's a small uninhabited Island off the coast called Isla de la Plata, which means the silver Island. Um, and that's kind of the known spot. There's some kind of rock pinnacles that are known cleaning stations for these mantas where they, as they're passing by feeding on the nutrients in the water, they'll kind of hover over these pinnacles. And then the smaller fish that live on these, on these rocks will kind of come up, um, when they see a manta and they'll clean parasites and things out of its mouth and gills. And it's this very symbiotic relationship. And so it's a great place to, to research mantas and observe their behavior and tag them and take samples, tissue samples, et cetera. So, um, that's where I headed. And I, and I, I, I went down there, Um, you know, a fairly long journey and, and, you know, strangely, you know, you talk about travel and travel watches. Uh, I didn't need that sort of thing because, uh, Ecuador happens to be in the central time zone, same as Minnesota. Um, but it was a long journey. Yeah. Um, yeah, due South basically, um, by about 45 degrees of latitude. But I had to fly through Miami and, and, you know, pleasant enough, all flights were great. Um, but I had a very long layover in Miami and then. Onto Guayaquil, which is the largest city in Ecuador. It's not the capital, which is Quito, but it's a large city kind of near the coast. And because it was kind of a long day of travel, I spent the night in a hotel and then the next morning got up and then kind of the rest of the Manta trust team had been filtering and flying in from all over the world and met kind of back at the, at the airport, at the arrivals area where we, we had a, a van that took us and all of our gear. About three hours to the coast, to this small fishing village called Puerto Lopez, which is where we were based for. I was based for a week. They were there for, for two weeks. |
| James | Okay. |
| Jason | The team itself, the Manta trust team, it was, it was founded in the UK, um, by a guy named Guy Stevens. And, uh, and he was on the trip as well. You know, as I said, they, they, they really try to bring together researchers from all over the world. So on this trip, because it was largely, you know, South America based Pacific, Eastern Pacific based. Um, there were people from Costa Rica, uh, Peru, uh, Mexico. Um, and there was a woman who does a genetic research at a kind of a research satellite facility for an Ecuadorian university. She lives in, uh, actually lives in the Galapagos and she joined for the trip. Um, there was one American, a couple of Brits. Um, I might be forgetting one or two people, but there were 16 researchers in total, um, that were there. And, and it was really interesting to kind of, hear their stories and talk to them over meals and learn about the different sort of nuances of their research and in the different parts of the world that they are. And I think that was kind of the point of this expedition was to bring these people together so that they can share with each other because, you know, as, as collaborative as a lot of science is, it can also be very, you know, siloed. People kind of get their heads down on their specific project. And so I think it was really valuable for them and really interesting for me to, uh, to, uh, to listen in on. Um, so that, that was kind of part of the, the storytelling that, that I was there to, to gather. Very cool. I guess I'll cut to the chase. Um, you know, we, we actually did not see any mantas during the week that I was there, man, I've, I've tried not to ask that question and they, uh, believe it or not, they did not see any mantas for the entire two weeks of the expedition, which, um, was, was obviously quite disappointing. Um, you know, for me, I mean, I love to see mantas, but, um, more so for them because they all came to, to research them. The, the sad irony is that, um, that the day after we all kind of departed, there were a few kind of local Ecuadorian researchers that stayed on. And literally the day after we all flew home, I was kind of the part of this WhatsApp group chat, um, from everybody that was there. And they started, they started seeing them the day after we all left and they've, they've managed to get like 25 unique photo IDs and new mantas and take tissue samples. And, tag like, you know, 10, 10 mantas and things like that. So I'm happy for them, you know, glad they're still coming through there, but you know, it was, it was too bad that we didn't see any given the kind of focus of the trip. And the reason that they weren't showing up, the kind of the predominant theory that it was being kind of tossed around was if anybody's been paying attention to the news, you might have seen that this is an extreme El Nino year. And El Nino is this sort of weather phenomenon, this, this trade wind, oscillation that kind of switches between what's called the La Nina and the El Nino years. And this happens to be a very extreme El Nino year, which means that the trade winds shift to a certain degree that it keeps the surface water quite warm. And the Humboldt current which flows past Isla de la Plata is what brings the nutrients up from the cold, deep water. And if the top layer of the ocean is too warm, Um, it keeps that cold water deep and then the mantas don't come. That was kind of the theory behind their, their late arrival. And of course now they're showing up. But when we were diving, um, you know, a couple of times a day that the water temp was, gosh, um, it was, uh, somebody said 25 centigrade. And I think, you know, my computer was in Fahrenheit and it was like upper seventies, which, you know, they were hoping for mid sixties and lower. Um, so, so, you know, I packed along a hooded seven mil, a wetsuit and then gloves and booties and the whole bit anticipating some, some fairly chilly diving. And I was pleasantly warm if not too warm on, on the dives that we did. But you know, the diving itself was it was great. You know, I've, I've, I've done a bit of diving in the Pacific and every time I do, it's, it's, it's similar, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a big ocean and there's a lot of current. The water tends to be a colder, although in this one it wasn't chilly as I said, but, and a little murkier, you know, this isn't, this isn't like the Caribbean or the red sea where you get, you know, just, you know, hundreds and hundreds of meters of visibility. It has kind of a greenish cast to it. Just kind of a lot of particulate, lots of big schools of fish, lots of life. So, you know, despite not seeing mantas, we, we saw a lot of other stuff. There were just loads of sea turtles, big mores. So, you know, I was hanging out with an octopus for a while. Um, just, you know, big schools of, of, of kind of bait fish, uh, reef fish, um, lots of stingrays on the bottom. Um, so, you know, there was plenty to see, but you know, it, it, it's interesting that this kind of diving, uh, with a research group is, it's very different from sport kind of the diving that you were doing. Yeah. In that, in that they're there for such a specific purpose that they generally don't like pause to take a picture of a nudibranch or, you know, play with the octopus there. They're focused on, okay, we're going to jump in. swim to this route rock outcrop, which is the cleaning station and then like wait and watch for, for the mantas to come. And so that's what we did. They, they knew of these very specific places where mantas had been seen in the past. Um, and, and so the, the boat, which was taking us from the mainland, which was like an hour and a half boat ride, um, one way would take us to the far side of, of this Island. And then we would suit up, jump in and then kind of swim across to this rock outcrop and wait there. Yeah, it was, uh, it was a fair bit of current. Um, you know, we were talking earlier about drift diving and, and, um, we weren't drift diving and there were some cases where, you know, I had to, you know, hand over hand down the anchor line to get to the bottom against the current. And at one point it kind of took, took the hood off my, off my head, you know, from the force of the, of the current, um, and swimming with a camera was a little challenging. So, you know, that's, that's kind of what I expected when I went. So it was a bit of challenging diving. And then once we got to that rock outcrop, it was kind of hang on with one hand and, and, you know, just sort of, uh, you know, just wait. And so that's what we did. |
| James | And any special encounters that stand out underwater? |
| Jason | Well, you know, so when you're looking for mantas, of course, you know, you're, you're hanging onto this rock and looking up to the surface, looking all over. And then at one point I just kind of glanced down and like right in front of me, I see movement and there was a, it was an octopus and it was this little octopus that had come out of this little hole in the rock. And it was just kind of looking up at me and, and I, you know, I kind of wiggled my finger a little bit and it unfurled a tentacle and you know, so it was one of those kind of sort of special, you know, bonds that you, you develop on a dive or in nature, you know, where, where you kind of have this little encounter with an animal. That was fun. And then it was really amazing because this area of Ecuador, which, you know, I was not familiar with Puerto Lopez or that part of the coast, um, at all, but it's, it's kind of big tourist draw is actually whale watching. And they get a lot of, especially this time of year, a lot of humpback whales that migrate through. And boy, did we see a lot of humpbacks? I mean, they are, and they're close to the boat and they're breaching and doing, you know, fin flaps on the surface and, and, you know, waving their tails, mothers and calves swimming by. Um, but was what was really special was, was being on the dives and hearing the whale song just throughout the entire hour long dive, just like being down there and just hearing that song, that kind of haunting vocalization that they do for, for a full hour. Um, it's just really something. And then when you're underwater and sound travels in such a weird, different way when you're underwater that you're not sure where it's coming from. And it's just sort of like almost, it's, it's like one with the, with the medium, it's like one with the water. You feel like you're being, you're like swimming in. in sound, you know, that's kind of a weird way to kind of explain it, but that's, that's all I can think of. But that was a, that was really cool, man. |
| James | That would be an absolute dream come true for me in terms of like, obviously whale sharks were way up there. Yeah. Yeah. Humpbacks humpbacks are on the list for sure. That's so cool. |
| Jason | So aside from the, the Manta trust team, which was all, you know, PhD students and scientists and researchers and, and, you know, university lecturers and things, Manta trust being, you know, a nonprofit conservation organization, they're always looking for funding and, and Carl F. Bucherer obviously underwrites the expeditions, but there's a lot more that, that goes into their budget. And, um, so they, they launched this arm of their business called Manta expeditions, which is for kind of citizen scientists or, you know, anybody that, that might be taking a dive trip. So let's say, you know, you and Sarah decide that your next trip, you want to go dive with mantas. You could book it through Manta expeditions and then they will you know, arrange all of the, the, the diving end of things. So you get to where you're going and then, you know, they arrange the hotel and the meals and the excursions. Um, and, and so in this case there was a team of, I would say seven or eight divers that, that came from different parts of the world, but they all worked for the company Salesforce. If you're familiar with salesforce.com, yeah, of course. Um, big tech company, but I think they're based in San Francisco. Um, but they, they had this group of people that all worked for Salesforce that were there to dive Um, and what's interesting is that Salesforce, and this is a bit of an aside, but I found it fascinating. Salesforce as a company offers and other companies do this as well. Something called volunteer time off or VTO, where you take the time off, you know, you want to take a dive trip. You're going to spend three grand to go. Salesforce as part of this program will match your donation or expense in this case to Manta Expeditions. Um, for the cost of the trip, they will match that, um, with the organization, um, an approved organization, of course. Um, and then you don't get dinged for the time off that you take. And I was like, that seems like a really good deal. Like if you're going to, if you're going to take vacation and take your PTO and spend your $3,000 to go diving, what if your company just didn't charge you for the time off? And then they also donated money to the cause that you're going to support. And so, um, I found that really interesting. And then, you know, this team of people, there were, there were, uh, there was a, a father who brought his 14 year old son from Hong Kong and just charming people, just lovely people. And the kid did his discover scuba while he was there. His first time diving. Oh man, that's awesome. Um, which was really fun. And he was a great kid. And, and his dad has done a number of these expeditions. His name is Ken. Um, Ken, uh, Ken Chu from Hong Kong. And Ken is, is an engineer and a bit of a tinkerer. And he's done enough of these things with man to trust now that, um, he actually helped them develop an underwater camera system. that takes time-lapse photos every minute. Um, for, and then he, he built on this little battery pack and encased it in a, in a underwater housing that he 3d printed and brought to Ecuador with him. Um, and then they set it up down in the reef so that it's kind of like a trail cam, you know, where it just, you know, you're just taking time-lapse photos so you can see what's happening when you're not in the water diving. And so then totally every couple of days the batteries need to be in the battery packs need to be recharged. And so a diver will have to go down and fetch it and bring it back. download the footage and then go and return it or put it wherever you want. You know, he, he helped develop that. He brought it, they let him go on the dive and put it on the reef. And so that was kind of fun. And then just all the other gear that the researchers use was fascinating to see. I was, I was sad to not be able to see it in action. Um, but you know, aside from spear guns that they were using to, to tag the mantas and that they did manage to tag, um, or take tissue samples, sorry, from some stingrays. But aside from that stuff, you know, they're, they have a sort of a stereo photogrammetry, uh, apparatus that has two cameras that are kind of set at a, at a set distance that they swim around with, that they can measure the wingspan of the mantas. They actually had an underwater sonogram or ultrasound device that you can, they were using on, uh, they use on pregnant mantas. So they swim up to it and you have to be 10 centimeters above the Manta and then you hold it out just above, And it will actually do an ultrasound and display it on a screen. And then you can download it and check if there's a fetus inside. So. Well, baby mantis. Interesting to see all of the technology that, that goes into the research that they're doing. And of course, um, that's what the, that's what, that's what, that's why they need funding, um, to buy this stuff. Cause a lot of it is very specific one-off kind of customer. |
| James | Yeah. I'm interested. It's funny. You, you imagine mantas feel like one of those animals where the, the babies are exactly the same. They're just proportionally smaller. Yeah. And they just keep getting bigger. |
| Jason | Yeah. And, and apparently mantas, they, um, it's, it's some sort of a hybrid pregnancy where the, the, the baby starts out inside of an egg in the womb and then hatches inside and then is born live. And once they're born, there's no nurturing at all. They're on their own. You know, they swim off and grow and eat and do their thing. Like a lot of other fish, you know, they're kind of, you know, kind of baptism by fire. Um, but yeah, sadly we didn't see any of the babies, but I did manage to see some, some archival, uh, uh, ultrasound footage, which was, uh, just fascinating to me. So that's so cool. |
| James | I had no idea that was the kind of stuff being done. That's a, that's super fun. |
| Jason | You know, one little side note on this trip was, uh, I got to try out a new camera system. So, you know, I brought my Sony a seven with an auto cam housing on a couple of the dives and, and got some, some good, good photos, but people might've seen the news. And I put up a review on my sub stack about this Oceanic plus dive housing that, that Oceanic has made for the iPhone. And you know, it was just released like the week before I went on this trip and I had written to them and said, Hey, I've got this, this trip to Ecuador and I'd love to take one and try it out. And so they sent me a loaner and I still have it and I'll, I'll probably bring it, um, to Florida when we go do our, our trip down there, um, in a couple of weeks. But it is a really clever piece of gear. Um, it's, you know, I've seen other housings that are made for smartphones. Um, and I haven't tried them. I've always, you know, used kind of a mirrorless, whether a Nikon or Sony. Um, but I really wanted to try this because, you know, Oceanic had developed that app, um, and kind of the, collaboration with the Apple watch, the Apple watch ultra, um, to turn it into a dive computer. And what they've done is they've, they've taken that app and then they've built that, um, capability, that functionality into this housing along with the camera capabilities. So this housing is, it's a fair bit bigger than, than the phone itself. Um, and it's, it's got some heft to it, but it feels really well made. It's, you know, kind of a thick molded plastic with a big grip for your hand and, um, There's a spot you can tie a lanyard to the bottom. Um, there's mounting plates, so you could put a tray with lights if you wanted to use lights, video lights. Um, but inside the housing is actually this controller that you recharge and it lasts for like a week of diving. And then you put your camera, sorry, you put your phone in airplane mode, um, and, and turn the Bluetooth on and then you load it in and shut the housing. And it has a, an automatic vacuum pump that evacuates the air from the housing, does a seal check. you're using the, the oceanic app on the phone, um, to do all the photography and it'll take in raw and compressed formats. It does auto white balancing underwater, which is as people know, who've done underwater photography is a very tricky endeavor. And the coolest part about it is that it actually also is a dive computer built in. So when you've got the app on the screen of your phone and you're looking at it through the housing, as you're swimming along, taking pictures in the upper right corner is a little display that shows your, you know, no deco limit your dive time, your depth, and then you can expand that and it'll give you all the other parameters that you might want to see on a dive computer, like temperature and max depth and nitrogen tissue loading and that sort of thing. And then, you know, when you get back and you take it out of the case, you know, all of your photos are right there on the phone. You can edit them in the app and do some tweaking or you can take them out and use Lightroom or whatever you want. Um, but I, you know, I was really impressed with, with this and you know, it's about, I believe they're selling it for like 490 bucks, you know, it's a little less than 500 and you know, I, they certainly didn't pay me for this review and I'm, I'm not, uh, uh, I'm not keeping this housing. I'm, I would consider buying one. I'll have to send it back at some point, but, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I was just really impressed. And if you're interested in kind of my review of that, we'll, we'll throw a link in the show notes because, uh, kind of go into some detail about the use, but, Yeah, really, really clever, clever device. So, you know, hats off to Oceanic for that. |
| James | Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. I was in contact with them as well. And it looks like they'll loan me one for the Florida trip you mentioned, which will be, uh, you know, the, probably the topic of maybe next week's episode. I'm not quite sure yet, or the one, definitely the one after that, uh, two, five, four. Um, but, uh, they weren't able to get me one in time for Mexico just with the release of the, of the product and the rest of it. I've actually done, I've not used any of these, the like iPhone, smartphone dive housings, but I have looked into them quite extensively and I was going to buy the Kraken one. And then this one came out and it looks like a very complete solution from a brand that I know better than this Kraken company. And so I'm pretty excited to also give it a try. I wouldn't balk at the $500 price tag. There'd be a little bit more in Canada, Um, if it's, if it's something that's good, I can't imagine with the camera system I have now, I can't imagine going to a full underwater housing. Yeah. Maybe if I made the jump to a Q2 or Q3 and could see my way into making some money out of the endeavor. Um, but otherwise it's so expensive to think about doing both upgrading a camera to a more modern option that would have a more modern housing and then also doing the housing. And then it adds, you know, like you mentioned, depending on the diving conditions, it can be quite a bit of work to manage said camera. Right. Um, I tend to just want to dive when I dive, but I love the idea of having something just kind of clipped on that you could pull out and get it, you know, a photo of you and a friend diving a photo of a cool animal, like nothing crazy. Um, and being an iPhone, it means you get a wrist shot pretty easily. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, I could see that being good. I'm excited to get a chance to try it out. Hopefully they're able to send me one before we head out next week for, for that trip. But, um, That sounds like a pretty, pretty like fun, special, interesting trip with, with kind of different, different parameters than your normal diving. |
| Jason | Yeah, it was, uh, it was a really good experience. And I think, you know, the disappointment of not seeing mantas aside, you know, just traveling to Ecuador, I mean, you know, beautiful part of the world, beautiful little town. Um, fun to meet all these people and, um, you know, to be able to spend kind of a full week of, you know, eating with them and diving with them and, And just chatting and meeting all these new people was, uh, was really inspiring. You know, I, I really admire what Matt to trust is doing and kind of the whole ethos of the, of the company is, uh, um, is really cool. So, yeah, it was really appreciative of the opportunity and, uh, you know, we'll throw a link in the notes. I, um, writing something up for substack, kind of a complete sort of trip report. And then I, I did these dispatches for the, the Carl F Bucherer websites. We'll put a link to those two, if you're interested in seeing what I, what I had to talk about. So. |
| James | Absolutely. Hit the show notes for all that and more. And obviously, if you have any specific questions for us about either of these trips, feel free to either hit us up on the TGN Slack. If you're part of the crew, either of the support levels will get you into the Slack. It's a great group of people and certainly things like diving and photography gear and all these sorts of things are well within the wheelhouse. If you're not on the Slack, you can always send us an email at TheGreatNadoAtGmail.com and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Uh, look, we're, we're pushing well over an hour in this episode, which is good. Last, last one was a little bit on the short side. So I like to see that balance out. Uh, how about some final notes? |
| Jason | Yeah, let's do it. Uh, why don't you go first? I'll rest my voice a bit after my Ecuador trip report. |
| James | So mine this week is actually a pair of YouTube videos, but I'll just recommend part one. You'll get to serve part two by YouTube. I'm sure. Uh, it's from August of 2021. So it's a couple of years old at this point, but I I've kind of been going slowly. Jason, you're aware of this, but slowly down the rabbit hole of like, I would like a inexpensive fun car at some point in the next few years. Yeah, maybe sooner than that, maybe not. But I enjoy the research process. It's a bit like getting into a watch you didn't really know that much about and just going deeper and deeper. So in looking at these, obviously car prices were different in 2021, arguably worse depending on the car. But in looking for this, I did come across a great video from Everyday Driver, which I've been a subscriber to for a really long time. Um, and for whatever reason, I, I must've just missed these videos when they first came out. Um, but they look in, it's called eight under $8,000, the cheap sports car showdown. And so they compare, uh, two cars that they actually bought for a previous challenge. So that's a Zed four and a Mercedes SLK. Oh, yeah. Um, alongside a Mazda Miata and NB, uh, Pontiac Solstice, a BMW Z3, a Nissan 350Z. a Porsche Boxster, the 986 generation, a Toyota MR2 Spyder. And then they do this in kind of two very long episodes. These guys make like TV quality so that they have a television show. And a lot of their YouTube content is also pushed into various television markets. They have a great podcast. And I think this is a really realistic look at a series of cars that had to fit a very specific set of parameters that had to be two-seaters, rear-wheel drive, manual only. and less than 25 years old and also actively available for less than eight grand USD again, two years ago. So the numbers will have moved since then. Probably not all of them up, but I would say, you know, the stuff that's desirable will kind of continue to be solid along the lines of inflation. But I really enjoyed this. I've got a real, real interest in a Z4. So they have an earlier three liter, Uh, in this one, you know, the, the Clive Owen hire car for me is, is a big thing. And they do seem to hit a nice kind of zone of having a big enthusiast base, which is a prerequisite for any vehicle I own. I love cars that are a little bit nerdy, even with something like the Jeep where the nerdiness can be quite contentious alongside it not being a great vehicle. Uh, I do really like my Jeep, but lots of people don't like them. I don't really have a brand affiliation one way or another. Uh, I love the idea of a BMW with a straight six and that sort of thing, but this was a great video. And if you're also possibly considering, I don't know, I might, I'm maybe I'm just walking my way into a midlife crisis joke or something like that. But, um, I'm, I'm largely fine with it. I've, you know, I've won, I feel like I've wanted a sports car of some sort since I was three or four years old. So maybe, maybe I'll get there before I'm 40. |
| Jason | Yeah, this is great. I'm going to watch this because, you know, I know you and I have talked at length over the years about, you know, kind of dream options in this kind of category. And I think these are, this is pretty much the list of cars that I would, uh, I would recommend or I would, I would look at myself. I mean, maybe with the exception of the MR2, which I think is a cool car, but it's just not my, my, my thing. |
| James | And I would add in, although it's more than 25 years, I don't think I would look into all these options without at least driving a couple tidy alpha spiders. Oh yeah. They made them for so long. Again, super well known, understood. Are they problematic? Sure. But It's a sports car. Right. Right. Right. And we got to run really well every now and then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I'm, uh, I thought this was a fun one and, uh, definitely a good video and like the first one's 40 minutes long. So you've got, you've got a good, a good look into these cars and what they're thinking about and how they're kind of comparing them on, on different bases is. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my pick for this week. Uh, Jason, what have you got? It looks like another automotive themed video. I think I know this one. |
| Jason | Exactly. Yeah. This one was one that, uh, Um, a number of listeners sent people on Instagram, you know, knowing my, my love of Land Rovers, this was a no brainer for me. And it's, uh, it's made the rounds certainly since it came out in early August. Um, it's called Richard Hammond on the greatest barn find of all time. And, um, you know, maybe a bit of clickbait and certainly a contentious title because there's a lot of good barn finds, of course. Um, but this is about the discovery and restoration of the very first production Land Rover. So it was, uh, It had the registration J U E 4 7 7. So they've been calling it sort of a Jewy or J U E. Um, and it's, it's just a great video, you know, it's, it's Richard Hammond and, um, you, you can kind of tell that this was made possible by Ineos and the new Grenadier, um, because there's kind of a lot of reference to the Grenadier and kind of lovingly talked about. Um, but of course, you know, J U E 4 7 7 was bought and restored by the prodigious budget of, Um, the owner of Ineos, uh, Sir Jim Radcliffe. So, um, you know, he, he was kind of inspired by the purchase and restoration of this and kind of his love of Land Rovers to launch Ineos and his frustration that the defender was not being continued. But it's just a great video about how, you know, kind of the twists and turns of the history of this series one, you know, very early, uh, Land Rover, um, came to be and how it was pulled out of a barn. literally falling in half, you know, like the chassis had completely rusted through just, you know, cobwebbed old heap that had certainly seen its adventures and a good hard life, um, to be, you know, winched out and then restored meticulously to the point where, you know, they even talk about, you know, in most cases you would replace the chassis and kind of rebuild everything and recreate parts, but they did everything they could to actually use as much of it as they could, you know, cleaning up individual bolts and nuts and, and putting this thing back together. And then astonishingly enough, uh, towards the end of the video, they, um, they take it on, on this epic adventure in Mongolia, driving it across the desert, which is such a testament to, to the vehicle. And, uh, so yeah, it's a good one. And, and, you know, thanks to everyone that, that thought of me when they saw this and sent it over. Um, but, uh, I've watched it several times and it's a, it's a good one. |
| James | I saved it. I, you know, we saw this pop up in the slack and I saved it into my, into my pocket account and, uh, just haven't gotten to it, but It does look like a good one. Always nice to have a Richard Hammond kind of presentation as well, which is good. Yeah. Well, look, that was a fun episode. We got to take a peek at possibly the only Blancpain I'll ever afford, which is fun. And then some pretty, two very different trips, but both got us back in the water. And for me, back after a really long time. I mean, aside from a spare diver here, that was the most diving, kind of back-to-back diving I'd done four or five years, maybe a little longer. |
| Jason | Yeah, that's great. Really was a treat. I hope it's the start of something, uh, something new for you and, and glad to hear that, that Sarah got certified congrats to her again. And, uh, you know, it's always so nice to have a partner who's, who's as into it as, as you are. So it looks like a bright future. |
| James | Yeah. Hopefully we can get out for some diving every year and, uh, and maybe even explore some of the diving here around Toronto. I'd still like to get back up to Tobermory. I didn't get to dive when we were up there years ago. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Um, so I think that could be fun, but, uh, there's always lots of options and it's just a question of picking a spot and going and trying to make the best of it, which, uh, I think we both did pretty well last month. So yeah, with that, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, you can get into the comments for each episode, or you can even consider supporting the show directly and maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO or jump into the slack. Please visit thegraynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason | And we leave you with this very fitting quote from the great Sylvia Earle, who said, diving is like stepping into a painting where every stroke is a new wonder. And every color is more vibrant than the last. |