The Grey NATO – 318 – Exploring Pangatalan Island With Blancpain

Published on Thu, 13 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In episode 318 of The Graynado podcast, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss Jason's recent trip to the Philippines where he visited a private island called Pangolatan at the invitation of Blancpain watches. The trip centered around the opening of a new marine research center established by Frédéric Tardieu through his Sulabay Foundation, which Blancpain supports. Despite some travel mishaps with lost luggage, Jason was able to experience diving in pristine waters, seeing unique marine life, and staying at the luxurious private island facility.

The hosts also discuss exciting news about their collaboration with CWC watches - the CWN1, a titanium dive watch limited to about 350 pieces that was exclusively offered to TGN supporters. They share updates on their firefighting charity t-shirt project which has raised over $10,000 for the California Fire Foundation, and promote the upcoming Vancouver Timepiece Show in April. The episode concludes with recommendations for books and podcasts, including the novel "Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar and a true crime podcast called "Sea of Lies."

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 318, and it's proudly brought to you by the always 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. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host James Stacy up in Cold Toronto. Equally cold here, I'm guessing. James, we're threading a needle here between our trips for episode 318. How are you doing? I'm okay.
James Stacey I'm okay. I'm a little fuzzy from the weekend, but things are good. We are recording a little early because you just got back from the trip, which you'll talk about in a moment. We don't have to get into it just yet. And I leave in about... six hours to head to Geneva. I'm gonna go take some meetings and see some watches, you know, the usual stuff that somebody in my line of work would do in Geneva. Sadly, I think almost everything I'm seeing this week is for watches and wonders. It's weird because you did a trip to the Philippines between two kind of normal, we did one recording a bit late and another one a bit early, this one, and that sort of thing. So, I mean, it's funny, you've been around the world and back since I spoke to you last,
Jason Heaton Yeah, I got back last night. Um, gosh, it was a little over 14, 15 hours ago. And, um, yeah. Yeah. So a little bit jet lagged. I did have a decent night's sleep and then I went out to walk Ruby for the first time since I got home this morning and boy, it's cold here. I mean, I don't know, centigrade, maybe minus 15 or something. It's just crazy cold. Yeah. Yeah. A bit of a bit of a rude slap in the face after, you know, being in tropical heat and, you know, pretty much living in swim trunks for the better part of five or six days. But yeah, it is crazy to kind of do, it feels, you know, more than a little bit irresponsible to be flying that far for so little time these days. But regardless, it was a good trip and some good stuff came out of it and we can talk about it in a bit. Yeah, other than that, I don't have much else to report until we get into the kind of the meat of the show and I'll talk about the trip. But I feel like, yeah, somehow we managed to fit these recordings in between our travels and then off you go to Geneva. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah, it's a fairly busy schedule these days. But you know, and look, these trip recap shows don't have to be an hour and a half or an hour and 20 minutes or whatever we can. Yeah, we can make it a little bit shorter. But you know, let's get into it with with a little bit of chitchat. And the first one, the first two chitchats, everybody listening, who's been listening to last several episodes should be well prepared. But the first one is the the grenado collaboration firefighting t-shirt with the Illustrated Watch. But the whole thing is a project that's in support of the California Fire Foundation. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this t-shirt go directly to that charity. And so we originally had a goal with this t-shirt, which again was made in collaboration with a few friends of the show, John and Asha, both firefighters, and then Tony at the Illustrated Watch helped with the emblem. So Jason and I really didn't do anything other than like put it into printful so you guys could order it. But, despite it coming together pretty quickly over a weekend about a month ago. But we've raised over $10,000 for the California Fire Foundation, something that I think Jason and I are exceptionally proud of. At this point, we don't really know what the top end could possibly be, but we're recording this on February 10th, and we're going to leave it up for at least another 18 days. We'll give it until the end of the month. and we'll see where the numbers are at from there. But if you're looking for a t-shirt and a way to support those fighting the fires in California, obviously a scenario where there's a lot of kind of money and fundraising needed to support people's lives, to support the rebuilding efforts, to support the firefighting efforts, all that kind of stuff, this is one way of doing it. You can obviously donate directly to the CFF or any of the other great charities that are operating in the area, But if you also would like a t-shirt for your trouble, this is an option for doing it. And certainly, I like the t-shirt quite a bit.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I do too. Great response. Thanks to everybody who's contributed both directly and through the t-shirts. It's great. It's been really fun.
James Stacey Absolutely. So yeah, we've got a couple more weeks of that being an option. And I'm just thrilled that we were able to crack 10 grand, which feels like a meaningful sum for some t-shirts put out by some knucklehead podcast. I'm pretty happy with that. The next one is looking just ahead to the end of April, which is getting here very quickly at this point, which is terrifying because that's the other side of Watches and Wonders as well. Very busy month, April. But that's the Vancouver Timepiece Show. So if you visit timepieceshow.com, you can see all the details there. It's April 25th to 27th. I will be on site for a variety of programming. It looks like it's going to be an incredible show. It's at a really great space in North Vancouver. I would recommend, just because flights and hotels in Vancouver can be expensive, just get ahead of it. If you think you can make it, pick something up, pick up something that's cancelable if you can, that sort of thing. And then, you know, get it kind of locked in. You can get your tickets through timepeachow.com. And yeah, we're still in a holding pattern on Jason's schedule so we'll be able to let you know soon whether or not Jason will also be there and we're also working on some events as well in the running so if you can make it please be there I'll be there it's going to be a great show and I told the folks behind the show that we would continue to promote it because it's something that I really like to see here in Canada and certainly Anybody who's listened to the show for any amount of time will know I don't need much of an excuse to go to Vancouver, so I'll take it. It's just one of my favorite places. It's full of some of my favorite people. The watch crew in Vancouver is awesome. And certainly you get some great sort of footnotes like Hallios and Roald Dorf and Revolver and all these sorts of things. So it's going to be a great weekend in the city. And if you can make it, I highly recommend it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and it's sure nice to see these shows pop up in Canada, finally. I mean, I think the Toronto one was such a success, and clearly that led to moving a show also to Vancouver, and then there's another Toronto show in the fall. So yeah, it's high time that Canada gets its share of good shows as well. I mean, in the US, of course, we've got Wind Up and other good stuff going on down here, but it's nice to see these shows move up to Canada as well. So I'm optimistic I can make it, but we'll find out shortly. Excellent.
James Stacey Yeah, look other than that. I don't really have that much going on The last thing I have to charge before it goes into my bag is my desk fan. Oh Which I was just using because I was walking on On the pad for for about an hour this morning and I like having the fan when when I do that But otherwise, I believe everything is charged. Everything's ready to go. I'm actually feeling weirdly rusty, huh? I haven't I haven't gone on like a watch shooting trip in a while. Yeah, a lot of what I do is like could be done over zoom, you know, sit in a room and talk to people about stuff, right. And, and so I'm pretty pumped about this. And I even I was excited enough that I talked myself into a new lens. Oh, cool. Again, those of you who've been listening for a while now, I switched to an SL two last year, which is a DSLR from Leica, which I'm very happy with. But I was, over the last several months, kind of bumping into the limitations of the sort of macro or macro-like abilities of the 24-70. Sigma, which I bought, so I also bought a straight-up 70 macro from Sigma. which I'm looking forward to trying. They make a 105 as well for a not insignificant amount more. So I figured I'd start with the 70 and see how it worked. There's a few folks in the game that are using the 70. I think that's what Steven Pulverant uses to my knowledge for a lot of their photos. So it's definitely something I wanted to try out. And one of the brands we're visiting this week is Vacheron, which felt like a great excuse to get something that would go a little bit closer. You know, if you're just shooting, kind of Seiko dive watches. How close to that dial do I really need to be? But give me something a little more interesting, some complication and that sort of thing. So I'm looking forward to getting out there and trying it. The bag's all packed, just got to, you know, finish this recording and drop the laptop in there and head to the airport. Nice.
Jason Heaton Yeah, cool. Well, we also have some exciting news coming up here in Risk Check. We can finally unveil something we've been working on for... it's probably been close to two years now, I would say. All told, yeah.
James Stacey Would you like the honors? Oh, why don't you kick it off? Yeah, so it's a big announcement. It's one that we've kind of hinted at for a while. And if you're in the slack, you're either very excited or very tired of people mentioning this. But we, about a couple years ago, started the process of wanting to create a TGN watch. I don't think this would come as a surprise for a lot of listeners. I really had no interest in taking an existing watch and putting our logo on the dial. It's not that I don't like the TGN logo. I just don't think it's cool to put your logo on a dial and then keep going. We wanted to do something a little bit more meaningful. We are very picky when it comes to sport watches. And I think if you apply that pickiness effectively, you could make something or help create something quite interesting. And before we get into the watch and the specifics and all that kind of thing, just to be clear, if you're listening to this, you're not being sold anything. This watch was already sold. It was sold exclusively on pre-order to all of the subscribers for TGN. So that went out in an email, the better part of nine months ago at this point, with a six to eight month lead time, which we came close to, but didn't quite make. These things take the time that they're going to take. And so if you're listening to this now, please know nobody's asking you to buy anything. It's not expected. The commercial side of this process is over. We now just get to enjoy the fact that these watches are finally being delivered, which is why Jason and I decided we'd finally talk about it. But we partnered with CWC, not a big surprise, a brand that we both absolutely adore, both for what they make today and what they represent historically to watches. And the watch we made is called the CWN1. That's the crew watch number one. For those of you not on the TGN supporter side, we call the supporter side of the group the crew. And so this is the CWN1. And it's essentially, I mean, if you're just dreaming in your mind as you're listening to this, it's essentially a standard CWC Royal Navy diver. but with FXD style lugs and in titanium. It's a 12 hour bezel. It's a black, mostly sterile dial. It has the CWC logo on it, but nothing else. And then there's a tiny down where it would say like Swiss made or something like that. There's a little tag for the years that TGN has been operating. so far, and then the back has the logo and a few other tweaks, but it's a big deal for us, to be honest. I've had mine for not quite, I guess a little bit more than a week, and I haven't taken it off. I've just been wearing it constantly.
Jason Heaton Yeah, same. Well, I can't say the same because I was on this trip with Blancpain, so I got it, and then like a couple days later had to swap it out for my 50 Fathoms, which, you know, isn't such a hardship, but it's good to have it back on the wrist. You know, we'll be talking a lot more about this watch in future episodes and we're hoping to have actually a special episode with someone from CWC to kind of talk about the kind of making of this watch and the genesis of it and what went into the creation because this was an entirely new case for CWC and we feel very honored that they chose to partner with us for the release of their very first titanium watch and it was no small feat of theirs to to get this thing made and we went through prototype and Multiple kind of design rounds and the packaging and the whole thing all around this and we're oh, yeah We're you know We're suitably proud of it and we're finally really relieved and happy that people are starting to get them and they're showing up Already in the slack as of today people are starting to get their deliveries. And so we're really thrilled about that. So I stay tuned for more. Certainly, they'll start popping up on Instagram. If you're on Instagram, you know, you can follow James and me and some others, you know, you might see some some photos of this watch start popping up. And that's the story. So yeah, it's great.
James Stacey Yeah. So if you if you see a weird, not quite steel looking CWC with a 12 hour bezel and very little branding, It might be ours. There's a little less than 350 made, which is pretty great. We opted for the 12-hour bezel, which is one kind of major departure. I think it really makes the watch. We also went with an ETA F06 400 series high torque movement, so that's plus or minus 10 seconds a year on the quartz. You've heard me say it before, and this is us putting our money where our mouth is, but if you're going quartz, you might as well go with high accuracy. And I just absolutely love it. It's 41 millimeters wide. It's a little bit thicker than 12 millimeters. I think it's 47 millimeters lug-to-lug. The lume is X1C3, so there's no aged coloring. It's just white lume. I mean, to say I'm obsessed is kind of silly, because it's like, how more biased could you be than a watch that we had a hand in creating? What I really want to say is, one, a big thank you to everybody who supported the idea, because we didn't make it easy. This is not an inexpensive watch, it's about $1,200, and we put a huge lead time on it. I think we could have sold way more of them if we'd done it differently, but we wanted it to be cool, and we wanted it to feel right for TGN and for CWC. And I think we were able to nail that. I'm really proud of the watch. I think it looks great. I think it's super wearable. I can't wait to take it to its first other time zone later tonight and put some real use into it. But it's just a hyper legible, super straightforward sport watch. It weighs so little. I think I measured it at like 55 or 56 grams on the NATO. Yeah, so it's just so comfortable. I don't take it off when I sleep. I'm just absolutely thrilled by it. So well, I'm sure there'll be more information in the future and you'll see it online and I can include a photo in the show notes if folks would like. But yeah, this is the CWN1. A huge thank you to CWC for kind of never saying no when we threw out this idea. And I really hope that they're able to use this case in other watches and get a lot of use out of it. But yeah, I'm really pumped about this. I'm super thrilled to see people starting to get it. And it's just really exciting to see it happen.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and look, we wrapped up a couple of episodes ago our one-watch tournament, and I think had this watch been available to us at the time we were doing this and publicly known, I think this would have probably won for both of us, I would suspect, given all the elements of it. But here we are and it will get plenty of wrist time, if not more than a month at a time on my wrist this year. But speaking of the tournament, you have some feedback, some final statistics from the voting from the tournament, right?
James Stacey I do yeah so last week we recorded the episode early to make time for Jason's travel and we didn't want to step on the voting in the public side of the tournament so again we just did a tournament we took 16 of our favorite watches each and narrowed it down to one but then we did the exact same bracket starting bracket for public votes and had the entire whoever wanted to all of you listening if you wanted to vote you could And so those votes finished, but along the way, different sorts of decisions were made in the brackets. So it's not the same outcome because it's not even the same watches. And the interesting thing is where you and I both landed on Tudors. The public vote came down to the same two Tudors, but the Rolexes won in both cases by almost identical margin.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's it's not surprising. But it's interesting to that the two runners up were the watches that we ended up choosing.
James Stacey I also for me, it's the most interesting that, like, you know, that my Explorer 16 570 took my Pelagos 39. 59.9 to 40.1. And your 14060 took the FXD Black by 61 to 39%. So it's just very close. Yeah, I know. Yeah, crazy. Within essentially a percentage in terms of the Delta for the preference for Rolex. So look, we can read into that as you might. I don't think that's all that surprising that the Rolexes persevered to the top. They are the brand in watches and to be clear, an Explorer 2 or a 14-060 are perfect one watches. Yeah. So you guys did not pick wrong. You did a really, really good job. And I, you know, just a huge thank you to everybody who decided to come out and vote and give it a try. It was a weirdly kind of a lot of work. And you can tell from the numbers on the episode that like the core group of TGN really liked it, but like the wider audience, I think we lost them at some point. Yeah, yeah. Which I'm of course fine with. But yeah, this is fun. And I guess this essentially is the end of the One Watch tournament. So for the public vote, Rolex absolutely decimated. And for the host vote, for the show vote, if you will, Tudor absolutely decimated. So that's how it goes.
Jason Heaton All right. Well, with that, before my jet lag kicks in too much, how about we jump into the main topic? Kind of my recap of my trip last week.
James Stacey Yeah, I'm really excited to hear about this. I haven't been doing much in the way of Instagram. So whatever you posted, I kind of didn't see. And I guess in some ways that was intentional. I wanted to kind of be fresh for the show. But why don't you start off with kind of like what the, because the trip didn't necessarily go as planned. Travel can be full of setbacks and this one had a few. Why don't you start with what the original plan was, what the intent was, the goal, that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah, so this trip was kind of came up on short notice. I got an invitation from Blancpain to travel to this remote private island in the Philippines, which, you know, certainly doesn't sound like much hardship. But the kind of the reasoning behind it was they've been partnering with a French guy named Frédéric Tardieu, who kind of know, made some money in the past through real estate and was living in France and traveling the world and whatever. And he, at some point about 20 years ago, bought this small island off the coast of Palawan in the Philippines and just decided he was just going to perhaps build a house there, live there part-time, whatever. But as he got to know it more, he found that the waters around it and the island itself were in pretty rough shape. So he started to rehabilitate. He started to replant mangroves and restore the coral reefs, and then ended up building a house on the island. And one thing led to another, and he became a bit of a champion for the environment in that part of the Philippines. And when Blancpain got word of what he was doing, they supported him financially. And they've been working with him for several years. And this past week, actually last week, his foundation, which is called the Sulabay Foundation, had set up a new marine research center. They'd laid the first stone, so to speak, I think a little over a year ago, and built this small research center back on the island of Palawan. And it was the grand opening last week. So it was, that was kind of the excuse for the trip, but really it was, it was also to kind of just expose a small number of folks to, to what Fred was doing over there and, and, you know, bring a few of us over there to do some diving and kind of experience. the wonders of that part of the world. And so it was myself and Roger Ruger, who is editor-in-chief of Watch Time magazine in the U.S., and then a watch journalist named Vera from China, who came as well, and that was it. And then a few folks from Blancpain, the French ambassador showed up, the French ambassador to the Philippines, and an aid agency from And an aid agency from France was there as well to kind of experience it all. And then actually a French television station that's doing a documentary about Fred as well. So it was kind of this eclectic gathering of people. And a few of us were staying on the island at the house with Fred. Some people were more over on the mainland. But it was kind of this loose itinerary of diving and exploring and chatting with Fred and taking a lot of photos. And so the trip had a lot of kind of looseness about it that I liked, but also I had this kind of specific idea in mind of getting some good topside and underwater photos. So I packed along, of course, my full underwater camera rig and dive gear, as well as I took the Leica Q along for topside photos. And that was my intention. But as you mentioned, things didn't go quite as planned.
James Stacey best laid plans and such. Exactly.
Jason Heaton Right. So, you know, obviously Philippines, a bit of a journey to get there from here. It is 14 time zones away and a couple of long flights. So my itinerary, my plan was to fly from Minneapolis to San Francisco and then hop the long flight across the Pacific on United Airlines from San Francisco to Manila and then increasingly smaller modes of transport to get to this tiny island. So it was a small inter-island kind of commuter flight over to the island of Palawan, a little tiny airport at El Nido, a car ride across the island, and then a very small boat over to Pangolatan, which is the name of this private island. things kind of went south very quickly from the start of the trip because my, my flight from Minneapolis was over an hour delayed. And by the time I got to San Francisco, uh, my connection was very much in jeopardy, um, which was not ideal because they only have one flight a day to Manila. And that really would have put into jeopardy even going at all because, you know, it was a fairly short trip. I was actually only on the ground there for four days, I think. So, um, when I touched down in San Francisco, it was, you know, literally a mad dash. I mean, I've been doing a lot of running over the past couple of years, training for the fan dance and whatnot. And I was really grateful for that, that level of fitness because, you know, with my carry on backpack full of, you know, laptop and two cameras and a few other things, it was a dash from, from one concourse to the other to get, to get to that flight and they were holding it for me. And I was, I think the last person on the plane before they shut the door. Which was great, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking on this long 15 hour flight, I'm thinking to myself, did my bags make it on the plane? And, you know, you can track it and whatever, and it was a little bit uncertain whether they made it on the plane or not. But lo and behold, when I got to Manila, my two checked bags, which were basically my large duffel full of dive gear and all my clothes and, you know, kind of bathroom kit, et cetera, as well as my Pelican case with my underwater camera housing, uh, did not arrive. So I was there with basically, you know, two camera bodies and my laptop and one, you know, a pair of swim trunks and my dive mask. That's, that's what I landed in the Philippines with, and that's what I had to live on for five days. Um, so As they say, the best laid plans and all that quickly took a turn and I had to kind of ad lib a bit and go to a plan B and it all worked out fine. I think it was a good lesson in how little you can exist on and kind of how to adapt. I think that's so important when it comes to travel and stuff like this happens. you know, honestly, James, I don't know about you, if you've had snafus, you're more of a minimalist packer and I know that you do trips a lot of times just with carry-on only. I couldn't do that in this case, but you know, I've gone a few years without having baggage snafus and it used to happen with some regularity for me. I remember on a trip to Iceland and Portugal, I lost bags and some other uh cases in the past as well but I've had a streak of good luck and so I think I got a little bit complacent so this kind of kind of woke me up a little bit into the realities of what you should carry on and what's important and you know last last episode you mentioned oh there'd be a great substack to write for your next for your next sub stack to write about like take pictures of everything you packed and like detail like how you pack for a trip like this so i dutifully did that before i left i laid everything out on the floor took pictures of all my bags and i thought great you know this is this is this is what i'm going to do i'm going to tell people how i packed for this trip Well, that quickly changed. So if you do subscribe to my sub stack, and this is not a sales pitch, you certainly don't have to. But I wrote an entirely different story for this week about what happens when the best laid plans do go wrong. Anyway, I don't want to dwell on kind of the foibles or my problems with the baggage because it did all turn out fine because I was able to borrow dive gear. There were a couple other divers that had, you know, GoPros and kind of small point and shoot cameras that were graciously willing to share some underwater footage for screen captures for photos and that sort of thing. So it all worked out just fine. But other than that, yeah, the trip was, I would say it was a big success.
James Stacey Well, that's great, man. Definitely an interesting part of the world to travel to. And on the topic of losing things and baggage not keeping up and all that kind of thing, it's a huge pain, obviously. But I find these days it seems to happen under these scenarios, which is a tight connection and delays. And then they just physically people, I feel like they do a really good job now of not having this happen, but it's not perfect, obviously. And yeah, every now and then you end up with these scenarios where there aren't that many flights from San Francisco to Manila, I guess a day, I think we looked it was one or two. And, and so you had you had this whole issue. And that is a pain. I mean, I haven't I think the last time I checked a bag in earnest was like when I left Vancouver to move to Toronto. You know, I had like a giant, the biggest suitcase that Air Canada allowed to move clothes, because I had other stuff in storage for a few months. And they lost that bag. And, you know, I got it two days later, it showed up at my house. So, I mean, it just is what it is. But yeah, this is largely why I... why I really have become, as much as possible, a carry-on only type. Obviously, there's scenarios where you can't, and that's when you get into dive gear, good luck. That's when you get into, I would say, in the winter for more than four or five days, good luck. It depends on what you need to be doing, where you're going, obviously. going to the Philippines, you could be, you know, much lighter on things like clothing, but you still have dive gear, you still have housings that can't, that there's not room for to take on a plane and that sort of thing. So yeah, I get it. That's a bummer.
Jason Heaton The saving grace for me was that I thought ahead to pack, you know, one thing I always do when I do like a dive trip like this or this sort of scenario is I always put swim trunks and an extra shirt in my carry-on no matter what and my dive mask and computer because at the very least if you get there and your bags are delayed by a day and typically if you're going to the Caribbean or something it'll arrive the next day no problem you can get your bags and you can exist for a day But it is nice to have your swim trunks because I'm not traveling in shorts. It's very cold here and planes tend to be overcooled. So I've got kind of normal clothes on. But when you get there, you want to be able to throw swim trunks on, jump in the ocean. Worst case, you can dive in swim trunks in a rash guard or borrow a wetsuit or rent or something like that. The saving grace was that I did that, so I pretty much lived the whole week in my swim trunks. And then Fred and his team at Pangolatan Island offered to kind of wash my travel clothes in, so I had kind of a spare a pair of underwear that was being washed regularly and then a pair of pants if I needed it. And then Blancpain brought a couple of branded polo shirts along and they threw me a polo shirt and a rash guard as well. So between that, I lived very minimally. And then they gave me a toothbrush and a little thing of toothpaste. So that's pretty much all I needed for the week. And it was such a lesson in minimalism Um, even on a trip like this. And so really all I was missing, the one thing I really regret was not, you know, taking that Pelican case with the underwater housing, which I've done. I've carried that on before, but for some reason I just thought I'm going to check at this time. It's a pain to drag through airports and frankly running from one concourse to the other with that would have been a Royal pain. So. Um, you know, no regrets. You can't look back and second guess yourself. And as I said, it did all turn out just fine. And, and again, we don't need to dwell on the, the issues with, with the travel, because I think it's more interesting to talk about, um, where I was and what I was doing.
James Stacey Yeah, so talk us through your scenario, your setup. What was the boat like? What's the sort of layout?
Jason Heaton Yeah, so as I said, to get to this island, which is called Pangolatan, which is the private island off the coast of Palawan, required this flight from Manila to El Nido on Palawan, which is an island that is well known for its diving, mainly out of the small city of El Nido, which is a bit of a resort area. So, you know, this drive on rough roads through the jungle across the island to a very small not a harbor or anything, it's actually on a river. And I couldn't help but think, you know, those who have seen Apocalypse Now and seen the documentary Hearts of Darkness or, you know, that was made, it was the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, know that that movie was made, filmed in the Philippines. And all I could think of when I'm looking around this place was, where did they film it? Because this looks very familiar. You know, a lot of coconut trees, rice paddies, water buffalo, kind of muddy rivers with outrigger boats, you know, with kind of local fisher people that are, you know, out every day in the ocean fishing. So we hopped one of these boats across Shark Fin Bay, which is the bay in which Pangolatan Island sits. went across to this beautiful tiny island that you can literally swim around. I mean, it's very small. And it's interesting because On the one hand, what Fred has built there is high luxury. It is a private island and he does offer it for rent or for lodging through what I didn't know existed, but kind of a luxury version of Airbnb and advertising through, I guess, the Amman group of lodgings, kind of high-end exclusive hotels and resorts and things. It's not a regular thing that he does. This place isn't occupied weekly. But if you want to rent the island, he quoted me, it's something like $6,000 a day if you were to rent. And you get the entire island and it sleeps probably... That's for a whole island. For the whole island and it sleeps, I think there's a couple of, other than the main house, which had four rooms, you know, we're talking big beautiful rooms there. I think there were two other bungalows on the island that were available as well. So I think you could probably sleep. I think I heard 12 people, you know, so like if you went with five other couples or, you know, an extended family or friends or whatever it might be. I guess if you broke it down, it wouldn't be horrible. And that includes everything. I mean, there's a little diving hut on the island where you can borrow gear and they'll take you diving whenever you want. The meals were spectacular. There's a French chef who has a restaurant in El Nido on the other side of the island that when Fred has guests staying, this guy comes over and prepares the food. So the food was really good. A lot of fresh fish and really good salads. And one day, the chef was actually out. The first day I got there in the afternoon, I went for a dive with one of the local marine biologists. And as we were getting in the water, lo and behold, the chef walks down the dock and jumps in and he's diving for sea algae, you know, sea greens to make our salad for that evening. Oh, sure. Yeah. So yeah, it's this combination of, you know, you're traveling across developing country, very rustic, very rural, people living very simply on the mainland. And then you cross over to this luxurious private island that sits in this pristine bay, not on the tourist side of the island. And so you have the sense of remoteness there that I haven't experienced too many other places because you just don't see people. So that really lent something kind of special about the trip. And And, you know, look, I was only there for, you know, three or four days, but kind of fell into this routine of, you know, with jet lag, I was getting up at two in the morning.
James Stacey Yeah. You were sending me text messages at times that I had to like double check that I had the bezel set correctly on my watch. Isn't it too late? I'm free. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I was going to sleep at eight 30, getting up at, you know, one 32 o'clock, you know, listening to audio books and music and just kind of lying there drifting in and out of sleep. And then by six o'clock, the sun starts coming up. I'd make a coffee. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. We did a dive in the morning, kind of closer in to, to the Island. And then after lunch, we did a second dive in the morning. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. And then the next day was Thursday and we did two dives that day. on, in a pretty special place. It's actually, it was the most recently established marine protected area in the Philippines. And it was, it had just been declared a marine protected area the week before. So off limits to fishing. It's just not an area where, you know, there aren't dive resorts or people diving on that part of the island. So I think they said we were the first people to dive that site other than, you know, the folks from the Sulabay Foundation. And it was pristine. I mean, it was, you know, beautifully clear water, very warm. I was diving in swim trunks and a rash guard very comfortably, very healthy coral, lots of colorful fish. You know, we saw a turtle, we saw, if you're familiar with a fish called rabbitfish, I'm not sure if they have a different name in other parts of the world. I've seen them in other places, kind of over in Asia. I thought they're called batfish or spadefish. They're kind of these big, You can Google rabbit fish, but they're interesting species. Clownfish that's swimming around in anemone, which is something like, you know, it's the cliche is the finding Nemo fish, which you just don't see in the Caribbean. These are Asia Pacific creatures. And so that was always fun to see. Big lobsters, barracuda, which I'm finding are more rare in this hemisphere. So that was nice to see. Yeah, so it was great diving. And then on Friday last week was the day of the grand opening of the Marine Research Center. So I will tease a bit that Blancpain had brought along a brand new watch, a limited edition watch that they'll be releasing in slightly less than a month now, so you'll have to stay tuned, that I can't share details about, but that I was able to wear diving and get photos of, and I'll be writing a story for Hodinkee about the release of that watch. So, you know, had an opportunity that morning to get hands on time with that and take plenty of photos and get to know that a little bit. And then we took the little boat back across and walked up this little dirt road across a bridge that said it was unsafe for cars. walked down the road a bit to the Marine Research Center and a lot of kind of local dignitaries were there. They had some traditional Philippine food which is delicious and a series of people speaking about the opening of this Marine Research Center which is a lovely little center. It's just this little building with kind of laboratory and kind of some space for like a classroom setting and then small lodging rooms with bunk beds because the plan is that they'll be hosting students and researchers there for, you know, days at a time that can kind of live and work in that environment right there at Shark Fin Bay and be able to dive and do their work right there. So as I said, the French ambassador to the Philippines spoke, a local mayor, a local tourism leader, and then of course Fred and then Gael from Blancpain gave some speeches as well. And then you know, a bit of food and drink and a tour of the facility and then back over to the island for the evening and flew home or, you know, started the return journey the next day. Wow. So that was it. And then, you know, speaking, going back to the luggage, I finally was reunited with it on Saturday night. When I arrived back at Manila airport, I went to the United Airlines office and their They were dutifully sitting unscathed in an office there at United Airlines and checked into a hotel for a night in Manila and then finally flew back to the U.S. on Sunday. Just yesterday, actually.
James Stacey Nice. That's great. And I'm curious for the diving. Entirely different than other spots you've dove in warmer water. How different is, say, it could be a dumb question, but I'm willing to float it out there. How different is the diving in Bonaire from the diving in the Philippines?
Jason Heaton You know, other than a kind of a few creatures that look different or different fish and different animals, I think largely the corals are similar. Caribbean style diving, loosely? Yeah, definitely. And there was no current and the water was very warm. As I said, I was diving in a rash guard and just swim trunks. Um, the one, the one thing I missed was it's funny because I had to borrow all my gear, which was fine. It was all good, you know, new, you know, Cressy, um, uh, BCD and regulator. Um, but they didn't have booties and fins or, or, you know, full, full foot fins in my size. I've pretty big feet size 13 or 47, if you're going European. And, um, the, the person that was kind of handing out my gear said, Hey, can you wear. open heel fins, you know, the kind you have to wear with booties. Can you wear them barefoot? So I was, I was wearing a set of Cressy fins, you know, just barefoot and just cinched up the, the heel strap and it worked out fine. I, because I wasn't kicking into a current or anything like that, I didn't have to worry about any chafing or anything like that or cramps or anything like that. So it did work out fine. But, um, yeah, in terms of kind of what you see largely similar to, to the Caribbean in terms of kind of landscape or, you know, underwater topography, but, you know, seeing, you know, clownfish and lionfish, which are invasive in the Caribbean, they're, they're, they're everywhere in Asia Pacific and they're, they're not invasive. So, you know, you're happy to see them there. I also noticed that like some species of like butterfly fish and some of the stuff you see in the, in the Caribbean, it's, and look, I'm not a marine biologist or an expert in, in fish life or, you know, fish identification, but there are different color there, you know? So like you get these butterfly fish that in the Caribbean might be black and yellow, And over there, they're sort of this orangey tan color and white. And in other respects, they're identical to what you see in the Caribbean. So, you know, whether it's some adaptation, you know, camouflage situation, I'm not sure, but I just, I noticed that and it was, it was pretty cool. So any big like mega fauna, large animals, or is it mostly similar to the Caribbean space where you're, you're largely around smaller, mostly small stuff other than it was nice to see Barracuda, which, as I said, I just, I'm just not seeing, not seeing many of those anymore in the Caribbean. I mean, like over. You know, I've been diving close to 20 years and I remember seeing, you know, you could see a school of barracuda in Bonaire. And the past few times I've been there, I've been lucky to see one. And so it was nice to see. They're so much fun to dive with. They are. They're a bit unsettling because they have this sort of hover that they do. They'll sort of look over your shoulder and they're kind of right behind you, kind of just looking at you with their mouth slightly agape. You know, and I think back in the, 50s and 60s people were always worried that they were going to bite your hand off if you're wearing a shiny watch and whatever, which I think is largely unfounded. But yeah, they're fun to see. And then in the shallows, on the other side of the island, so there's kind of this main crescent beach next to the pier where you kind of come and go from the island. But on the opposite side of the island, they have this little cove that they call hidden beach or secret beach. where you go down a set of steps from the main house. And it's this tiny little beach. And off the shore there, you can see in the shallows, baby blacktip reef sharks. And blacktip reef sharks are, to me, they're like the most perfect looking shark. They're the most kind of crisp and beautiful. So beautiful. And they're just like perfect. The little ones are a bit like puppies. Yeah, they're small. And they're like the babies, or the pups, I guess they call them, they're like perfect little tiny replicas of the adults. And they just kind of cruise around in the shallows. So those were fun to see as well. We weren't diving with them, but you can see them in the shallows over on the secret beach. So that was fun to see. And then in terms of land fauna, it was really cool. They have behind the... kind of the kitchen hut where they do the cooking and kind of the staff quarters. There was this kind of beautiful, like little bamboo forested area. And there are these monitor lizards that are resident there. And apparently they like to hang out there because I think they you know, when they're cooking and they kind of toss the cuttings, I suppose, from vegetables and things that they're, you know, trimming and preparing for meals, they'll kind of throw them out. And then these lizards love to hang out there and kind of feast on that stuff. Raccoons with scales. And they're not as big as the monitor lizards I'd see in Sri Lanka, but they're pretty you know, they're big, they're big lizards and they're, they're really cool to see. They just look entirely like dragons or dinosaurs, like small Komodo dragons. And so I went and kind of a little hike in the woods there one day and took some photos of those. And they're, they're always fun to see with the forked tongue and the long tail sort of thing. So yeah, that was really, really neat to see.
James Stacey It's one of the joys of traveling, especially not just to different places than where you're from, but to entirely different ecological systems, is just the critters that are around. I remember much more casually than going to the Philippines when I was younger, just got out of university, started spending time in Mississippi, Central Eastern Mississippi. And they had little anoles, little lizards. And like, look, maybe the same way that we would think about a chimpmunk, you'd have a lizard running around. Right, right. I was thrilled, dude. I'd wake up in the morning and where I was staying had a pool and I'd go check the filter to see if there are any cool critters in there. And I loved it. I thought it was the best. And then, yeah, you go, you know, when Sarah and I were down in Cozumel not too long ago. Yeah. You know, they had some big iguanas and they had the Cotamundis. Yeah. And all this kind of it's just so much fun to kind of do that. And then, yeah, I couldn't tell you how thrilled I was when we were at that resort in Cozumel, which had a big pier because they were like a huge dock and you could snorkel along the dock.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey So Sarah and I, if we weren't diving, if we're killing time, if you got tired of reading by the pool or whatever other strenuous activity was on the plan for the day. you know, go splash around. And almost every time we went out there, there was a baby barracuda just hanging out. Maybe 16 inches, 17 inches, like big, but not like big, big, not like a barracuda. And again, kind of like the baby sharks, kind of like a cartoon version of the full-size one. Most of the proportions are the same, but the eyes are a little too big. The teeth aren't quite as big yet, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, baby black tips, dude. I've been in the water also with some big barracuda, but when we did that awesome dive, I've spoken about it several times on the show, to the LCU in Hawaii, in Waimanalo Bay. The LCU is full of black tips. And the little guys, the guys that are under three feet, are really quite funny. Because they do look quite cute. I'm sure they could take a bite out of one of your fingers or something, just bet. Just as much as anything else. You kind of give them the same space as a dog, you don't know. But yeah, really, really, really fun. And that's also funny. You bring up, you know, I don't know what it is, but I feel like if your feet are bigger than about a size 10, you pretty much always have to have your own fins. It doesn't matter where I've traveled. Anytime I tried to borrow a set of fins, they were either like for shack, you know, like size 16s or something. And you're just constantly trying to squeeze your feet into some hole or crevice to keep them on. And then I remember when I dove in Punta Mida a couple years back. I mean, it was a long time ago. It wasn't a couple years back, but dove out of Punta Mida, again, at an Ambaro Star that had a Dressel divers on site. And, you know, I'd filled out a form or something on the internet saying my size is, you know, 11 or 12, whatever. And I think I got there and they just had nothing. And they're like, well, we've got these open, again, kind of like your scenario, these open heel ones. And so I did a dive and almost immediately this kind of sun-faded rubber had a little edge on it that was just cutting into my heel. I ended up wrapping both heels in a bandana and then doing several dives like that. That's the fun of borrowing gear in remote places. I'm actually going on a little vacation. with Sarah in just a couple of weeks to the Dominican Republic. And we're looking into what we bring or what we take or that sort of thing. And I haven't quite decided because as soon as you start bringing fins, they don't really fit in carry-ons. But then if you don't bring the fins, and even if you just wanted to snorkel, even if we don't do any diving, but even if we just wanted to snorkel around, if you don't bring the fins, you're at the mercy of whatever they happen to have. that's the value of often of going to these ones that have the dive shop on site right you can call them talk to them those people know all the sizes and know what they have and that sort of thing the people at the front desk of the hotel like what do they know yeah of course we got fins they come in all sizes i'm sure we've got them all so it is what it is but man that sounds like a good trip i mean very fast for how far away it is it sure was i mean it's a bit jarring to go from
Jason Heaton you know, cold midwinter conditions. And, you know, I've done this before, but I'm not, I'm not the type of person that likes to escape winter for the tropics. I know a lot of people, you know, make an annual pilgrimage to the Caribbean or Arizona or Florida or whatever. I've just never been that type. I'm happy to embrace winter, kind of ride it out. try to enjoy it as best possible. But I will say that in early February to get away, even for a short time, to kind of experience that level of humidity, minimal clothing. I got a bit of a sunburn already, a couple of mosquito bites that I'm still itching. And then to just lie there in the wee hours, jet lagged and under a ceiling fan and hear the creatures of the night sort of singing outside an open door. There's just nothing like it. And it sounds so good. Yeah, it was very restorative. It was great.
James Stacey Man, I'm so glad you had a good time. It is obviously a bummer about the dive gear and that sort of thing, but that is literally just a reality of any of this kind of stuff is trouble with luggage and that sort of thing. So I guess we can sit tight for, you know, the better part of another month or so until we can talk about the watch, but I'm sure we'll have something to say about that in the future. But look, if you have any questions for Jason about his trip, about diving in the Philippines, etc., feel free to drop him in on the Slack or send us an email at TheGreyNado at gmail.com. You want to get into some final notes? Yeah, sure.
Jason Heaton I've got two. I've got one real quick one that I'll just mention because it is Blancpain related tangentially. And that is that our past guest on TGN, I think he's been on three times. He might hold the record possibly or be tied or up there. I think he's tied with a couple others with Cole maybe. Yeah. Laurent Ballesta, who is a longtime Blancpain partner, I guess, I don't even know if you call him an ambassador these days. I mean, he co-shares, you know, he shares a patent with Mark Hayek for the tech Gombeza piece that came out a couple of years ago. Anyway, you know, Laurent and his team, the Gombeza team that does these extraordinary expeditions, finally has joined Instagram in a big way. And they've kind of blown up. I mean, I was talking with Gael from Blancpain last week about it. We're like, you know, throttle back a little bit like every day there's like multiple posts and I think there's somebody that you know like a social media person that that he might have working oh it's going over the archives yeah exactly and I mean I mean look there is nobody out there and I think you'll agree that nobody out there that is doing the kind of underwater photography that Laurent is doing and and to be able to kind of see them even on your your phone the tiny little you know display of your phone um is is still great and and I'm they're just jaw-dropping so Definitely follow along. It's gombessa.expeditions on Instagram if you want to check them out. But that's the first one. I just wanted to mention it because I noticed it while I was on this trip. So really great stuff.
James Stacey And look, they've only got a couple thousand followers. Please, if you're listening to this and you spend time on Instagram, give them a follow. Yeah. Let's get them a bunch of organic traffic that these people who have to go back through their catalog and their archives to make reels will have something cool to put on their PowerPoint presentation for the end of february uh you know go ahead and give them a follow uh it's a pretty pretty low-hanging fruit um i actually had an instagram recommendation for an underwater account that i was i found like from my explore page but i'm going to save it uh for a for a future episode because it's you know too similar to the gumbessa expeditions my my final note this week is actually a book i finished probably about a month ago and then i realized that it was so good the book was i enjoyed it so much that it's actually caused me to kind of stall out on reading i got through like three books pretty pretty quickly over the break and into early january and then i read this book which is called martyr with an exclamation point and the writer's name is kava akbar uh i didn't realize this until i added it to the show notes but if you go to goodreads my guess is you know about this book it won the good choice award i believe akbar is up for a bunch of awards huh this is not necessarily a book from the tgn space this isn't about mountain climbing or cave diving or you know, attempting to cross the Arctic under, you know, problematic scenarios. This is literally a book about a guy trying to find meaning to his life, and he does that by trying to consider the idea of having his death mean something. And it's an absolutely incredible book. It's beautifully written. I mean, like, stunningly beautifully written. It's fast, but at the same time, it really takes its time on certain levels. It's hard to describe, but I understand why it's this popular. It has 53,000, almost 54,000 ratings on Goodreads, so I'm probably just well behind. But it came out in January of 2024, so I can't be that super far behind. We're about a year behind, which for me, as far as books go, is pretty good. you know it's it's about this this one man's this young man who who spent a lot of time as an addict and an alcoholic getting clean and deciding he wants to find meaning for what's been a very problematic you know, the first 25 years of his life or whatever were quite difficult. And he ends up attaching to this painter who's kind of doing like an artist in residence as she dies at the Brooklyn Museum. And so you can go and visit and talk to her each day. And the book largely gets to the point where it's about these conversations, sort of. yeah it's so good it's so good i really really like this i highly recommend it martyr by kava akbar cool uh if you love reading i think you would have seen this on everyone's list yeah so i think in the past i've talked about how i really like anthony jessalynick the stand-up comedian but probably my favorite thing of what he did was his podcast with greg rosenthal called the jrvp the jessalynick and rosenthal vanity project and they stopped doing the podcast, but on their final or second to last episode, at the end of the year, they would always do a top 10 list of their favorite books. They're both huge readers, like some reading more than 100 books in a year. And this Martyr was on Jesselnik's list for last year. So I've just been working through those. That's how I got to a previous Funnel Notes, which was Chingang All-Stars was also from his list. So I'm working my way through those and I came across this one, and it's one of those ones kind of like the Donna Tartt stuff, like Secret History and Goldfinch. I'll probably just keep it around and reread it every now and then.
Jason Heaton Yeah, nice.
James Stacey Well, I'm in need of a book, so I'll add that to my list, hopefully. get it shortly. That's great. Yeah, hopefully you enjoy it. But that's my pick for this week. And you've got, what, one more?
Jason Heaton I do have one more. So this was a podcast I listened to. As I mentioned, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts when I've walked the dog. It's a good opportunity to kind of listen. And I came across this one from, it's a series on the CBC, or from the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, called Uncover. And this particular series was called Sea of Lies. And it's, you know, look, this is true crime. So there's a certain formula you get with true crime podcasts, you know, kind of a similar delivery. They kind of hold you in suspense. They tease you to listen to the next episode, etc. But this one's good. And what might be particularly relevant or make your ears perk up a bit is it's basically there's a body is pulled up in the English Channel by some fishermen and they don't know who it is, of course, but the person was wearing a Rolex watch. And that actually leads or helps lead to the identification of who the deceased is. And then this this plays out over 10 episodes, this interesting kind of twists and turns of, you know, kind of police procedural trying to figure out who it is. There's kind of a case of identity theft and, you know, cross borders between the UK and Canada. And it turns out that one of the most wanted men in the world plays a role in this. And it's quite a tale. So it's called Sea of Lies. It's this true crime podcast series, I believe 10 episodes produced by Uncover with the CBC. And I was listening to it on Apple podcast, but I highly recommend it if you're into that sort of thing. I mean, if not only for I mean, I think the Rolex plays a significant role, but a small part that has moved on from in a couple of the early episodes. But then the story just unravels in the most bizarre way. So it's quite fascinating. And it makes me want to research this more because it happened in like the mid-90s, and I feel like I should have known about this case because it sounds like it got some publicity, but I wasn't aware of it. So yeah, check it out. Sea of Lies.
James Stacey Okay, yeah, that's uh, that's great. I I definitely need to listen to this maybe something good to have on the flight So I may go it goes Subscribe and download now. I also realized as I was thinking today I was this morning as you know walking on my walking pad I try and do an hour a day and I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to walk around Geneva So that's a good chance to also dip in. Oh, yeah podcast. So yeah, good good recommendation for sure, right? Cool. All right Yeah Fun episode, super glad you're back in one piece from the Philippines. We have some fairly exciting episodes planned in the next little while, so get excited. We have a great guest, which should take place in the next couple of episodes, at least, maybe even the next one, depending on how the timing goes for recording and such. But yeah, this has been fun. A big thank you to everybody who's supporting the firefighting t-shirt. And be sure to check out timepieceshow.com for more information about the upcoming Vancouver Timepiece Show. All right, as always, thanks so much for listening.
Jason Heaton If you want to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Roald Amundsen, who said, adventure is just bad planning.