The Grey NATO – 329 – A Deep Dive With Brock Stevens & Chris Sohl
Published on Thu, 15 May 2025 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode, host James Stacey interviews guests Chris Soule and Brock Stevens while regular co-host Jason Heaton is away in Scotland. Chris is a moderator for the TGN Slack community and deep diving enthusiast, while Brock is a former Navy diver who worked on submarines and now works with watch brands Marathon and Tornek-Rayville.
The conversation covers Brock's experience as a Navy diver maintaining submarines, his work with Project Recover searching for MIA service members in Palau, and his recent acquisition of a Land Rover Series 2A. Chris discusses the "Wind Up in a Lake/Bay" diving events he helps organize in conjunction with watch brands, including recent dives in Monterey Bay with Marathon watches and Prometheus Design Works gear.
The episode also features discussion of the guests' current watches, including Chris's new Zenith Defy Revival Diver and various Marathon dive watches used during their recent California diving expedition. The hosts and guests share their passion for both watches and diving while emphasizing the importance of real-world community building beyond social media connections.
Links
Transcript
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| James Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Greynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This episode 329 is 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 thegreynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacey, and normally I'd be joined by my friend and co-host Jason Heaton, but he's on some special business in Scotland and actually sent in a voicemail to kick off the show and to invite many of you to come out for a special hangout. Let's get to that tape. |
| Jason Heaton | Hey, TGN crew. It's Jason checking in from the island of Skalpe in the Outer Hebrides here in Scotland. Sorry I can't join James on this week's episode. I'll be back next week to regale you with stories from this week's adventures. We rescued a sheep from a crevasse, went freediving in some very frigid water, and hiked to an eagle observatory, but I'll tell you more about that. Next week, in the meantime, if you're in Glasgow this Saturday night, the 17th, and would like to meet up, I'll be hanging out at the West Brewing Beer Hall in the Templeton building from about 6.30 p.m., and I'll be there for a couple of hours. You can hit West Beer's website, and we'll throw that link in the show notes so you can find it or learn more about it. I'm not really planning on reserving a space or a table or anything like that. It's just an informal meetup. I'll just be there. Just be there, and if you feel like coming by for a couple of beers, I'd love to meet some Scotland-based TGNers. And I brought along a little swag giveaway, and I will also be doing a drawing for one of our coveted blue TGN caps. I hope to see some of you there. And for the rest of you, enjoy this week's episode, and I'll catch up with you next week. |
| James Stacey | All right. Great message from Jason there. And if you're in the area and can make the event for a beer, please do so. I'm sure it's going to be a great time. For today's episode, let's dive right in. I get to introduce two very special guests. The first is a name many of you will recognize, especially if you're an active user of the TGN Slack or if you listened to episode 279. He's the deep diving man, my source for all things C-Lab and one of our amazing team of moderators. If you love the Slack, then you probably love him. It's Chris Soule. How are we doing, Chris? Hey, James. I'm doing awesome, man. Thanks so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure. And now we get to get to the other great pleasure of this show, which is next up, you might recognize him as a model for a recent marathon release, but there's so much more under the surface for this guest. He's a Navy diver, the co-founder of the MARMC Dive Locker ROV team, and a whole lot more. We'll get into all of that in the next few minutes, but it's my pleasure to introduce Brock Stevens. Brock, how are we doing? Good. |
| Brock Stevens | How are you doing, James? Thanks for having me. |
| James Stacey | I'm honored to be here. This is like a nice little reunion of a portion of the Chicago submarine crew. Yes. You know, we didn't have quite enough sailors to take that ship back to the water, but we got down into the basement of that amazing museum and had a good time. feel like we could have managed it yeah that was an awesome trip and i'm looking forward to being back in a couple months so it should be fun yeah sadly uh i mean it's a it's hard for me to say sadly because the reason i won't be there is because uh uh you know my wife is due with our with our third um in just a few weeks uh so sadly i won't be able to make it but i'm okay with the reason why i won't be able to make it and i hope you guys have an amazing time and and find some incredible little activity and adventure and certainly Those weekends also include some diving, which we're going to get into in just a few minutes. But look, this is a special treat because I don't have to do almost any of the normal show format if I don't want to. Let's just jump into some wrist check and then we can get into kind of the main topic. And I've had a little peek at the final notes. We're going to have a good time there as well. So Brock, you go first. What have you got on today for the show? |
| Brock Stevens | So today I have on my Mark II Paradive, but it's a special Prometheus Designworks collaboration. And it's one of my favorite watches in my collection. Actually, one of my most dove watches in my collection. And it's a special one for me. So love wearing it. And yeah, it's a good one. |
| James Stacey | Those are such cool watches. And Prometheus is such an interesting brand in general. And it makes if you know Bill, it makes a lot of sense that that sort of collaborative element, that that sort of, you know, trading of inspiration between the two. I think it works. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, well said. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, it's great to see Patrick and Bill working together. They they both make amazing gear. And Patrick makes my favorite clothing and Bill makes my favorite watches. |
| James Stacey | So that's fantastic. Yeah. All right, Chris, how about you? What do you got on for the show? |
| Chris Soule | So this is a new one for me. Just posted it fresh in the Slack a couple days ago. So this is the Zenith Defy Revival Diver. |
| James Stacey | Dude, so that's the 37 in orange? |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, this is the 37 in the orangest of oranges. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, so the first time I saw that was at Watches and Wonders with Zenith last year. And it was funny because it was only... one season earlier in chicago where jim worth from giant mouse had his bright orange zenith diver and like they did a good job of actually capturing an orange that i feel hasn't really existed since the 70s totally agree like it's it's an orange that must use some chemicals that aren't allowed anymore it really does yeah |
| Chris Soule | I got to give props where they're due because Fortis has managed to get it onto their second hand. It is incredible. But I don't know how they haven't gone wide with this orange because it is truly day glow. And I love it to pieces. We were just in California, which we're going to. talk about in a little bit here, but Brock and I and our buddy John made it down to Topper, which is like watch nerd Mecca. You got to go to Topper if you're in the area. |
| James Stacey | Also just the nicest people. Shout out to the whole Topper team. Rob's been a supporter and fan of mine into the blog to watch years. Just a really, really lovely guy. |
| Chris Soule | They really, they truly are. And like the nicest buying experience of any product I've ever had in my life. Let me just say that. I mean, it was, it was absolutely awesome, but yeah, there's no like Zenith dealer within like a hundred miles of me. And so I, I was really thrilled to see that they had this in the case, had to try it on and there was no way I was not leaving with that, man. |
| James Stacey | Dude, congrats. That's such a cool watch. Thank you. And it was, is this for any, any special, uh, engagement, special event or, uh, something to Mark? Are you, are we getting an engraving or anything like that? Cause that's like a, that's a real, that's a real like collectors. You're going to have like one of your kids is going to have that watch. |
| Chris Soule | Totally agree. Yeah. I'm glad you asked that question. So, uh, it, it is technically like my 40th birthday watch. This is, I was born in 85. So number 40 here. Uh, and you know, I had been on the fence about what I was going to do, uh, about 40th birthday for a long time. I was kind of, you know, thinking, well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to do the Rolex thing. That's what you do when you turn 40. Uh, but man, like this kicked me straight off the fence. Uh, I was, I was on the fence, frankly, because of land dweller and, and that name, I'm sorry. Like. TGN isn't always the place for spicy takes and I won't go too hard, but I'm just saying that name, like it's... I'm not sure it's even considered spicy. |
| James Stacey | I haven't heard anyone say they love it. It's not okay with me. I'm kind of lukewarm on it. I'm indifferent, I guess. |
| Chris Soule | You start with sea dweller and the incredible audacity of man to dwell beneath the sea and you go sky dweller. It's like, okay, like if you're that level of important that you dwell in the skies, you're a jet setter, that's great. Land dwelling, man, that's like doing laundry. That's eating Fritos. That's commuting. Like... There's nothing wrong with any of those things. Yeah. Like those are all fine things, but they're not aspirational. Like, and, and to me that just said Rolex isn't about like the story behind the object anymore. It's about the object. And I'm like, that's not me. I'm about the story. And this revival diver, man, like. pure 1969 golden age of underwater exploration. So that's what I had to do. |
| Brock Stevens | You should have seen the photos that I have of Chris buying this watch because it first starts off with Chris like just being flustered about the whole Rolex thing that we just went into. I'm just like, you know, arms are flailing like heads down, just like just whatever. And then all of a sudden this watch just comes out and his, you know, his whole face just lights up. And it's just it was such a great experience there. |
| Chris Soule | So yeah, Brock was there to document the whole thing. I was very privileged for that. |
| James Stacey | I love it, man. And I do think it is one of those watches where you bought the best thing that brand, like one of the more compelling things that brand makes in their entire catalog right now. |
| Chris Soule | Thanks man. And it just wears so well. Like I've never had a watch and it makes zero sense on paper. The actual dimensions are 37 by like 15 and a half. Like it makes no sense, but it's perfect. |
| James Stacey | It wears like a weirdly small, but chunky. vintage dive watch yes the only thing i've come across that's even close would be some older aqua star stuff with those because the case shape is strange yep but it's it is a watch on paper where you go like oh how does that wear and then you put it on and you're like oh i get it all right cool yeah especially once that bracelet is sized oh yeah completely true and it does the thing with layers where they get the mid case just right nice and thin and just kind of stacks up it's ideal That's killer, man. Well, congrats. That's an awesome... I didn't even know that was coming. Heaton had mentioned that you had gotten something special for a major milestone, which is great. I have a new watch coming, but I don't know if this is the time to talk about it or not. It's not here yet. You tease. It comes in June. You know what? Actually, why not? We're having a great night. Let's do it. I haven't shared this. I think I've only told Heaton. I bought that Nomos Club Sport World Timer. Nice, man. So I got the one in the glacier. I saw it in person and I was like, I've waited, like it feels like I've waited a decade to figure out what Nomos I should have. Yeah. And I'm really in a mode, and I'm not bringing this up because you bought a watch for your 40th, but it does line up. I'm in a mode where I'm trying not to spend, quote unquote, like into four figures, unless it's a watch I intend. to keep, make it my own, the rest of it. Otherwise, I'm privileged enough I can just borrow just about anything, and I hope I never have to be in a scenario where I don't have a never-ending churn of sub-thousand-dollar dive watches. Just keep them coming, in and out. It's all good. But for the bigger stuff, you have to have some level of restraint sometimes. It's nice to go every decade. I got my Explorer II at 30, and I guess I got this Nomos for 39. We'll call it that. |
| Chris Soule | Nice, man. Congrats. |
| James Stacey | I'm really excited. I won't get it until June, so I had, what, 30 minutes with them at Watches and Wonders. A little on the expensive side, but I think the sticker, there's some sticker shock with the price of any... complicated nomos because everybody knows the price point that most of their you know time time and date options sit at i'm comfortable with like kind of like with the zenith you're paying for a specific experience 100 and and that kind of makes sense for me and uh i got lucky because they they when i i went through the process they had the ability to still allocate one of the glacier models so it's like light blue with tan accents yeah And it was kind of between that and there's one called Volcano, which has, I don't know why it doesn't look like anything to do with a volcano. It's like a dark gray dial. And Sarah felt the Volcano one was too similar to like the color of most of my watches. Yeah, that's fair. I'm super pumped. I haven't talked a ton about it. I don't mind buying a watch and waiting months for it. I just don't want to think about it during those months. So another colleague from Hodinkee bought a different colorway of the same watch, and we've told each other we're not allowed to text each other about it because it just reminds you that you have another six weeks or whatever. So theoretically, this watch will come roughly around the same time as the new kid. So that's a nice little timing as well. |
| Chris Soule | That's fantastic. Tantalizing. |
| James Stacey | Congratulations. Thank you so much. I had to buy a travel watch and then immediately stop traveling for a while. But no, I'm super excited. And it's really nice to finally kind of check that box on the Nomos. I've been so interested in the club for so long. And I really had held out. Weirdly, it was for the most inexpensive one, the other side of the range. But when they first brought out the Cali dial one in silver with all that loom, I was like, man, the minute that they make one where the case is brushed, I'm in. And they just don't do that. It's not really their code. Yeah. So I finally gave in and went with this more wild sort of... It's like a flight master met a weird gnomos and then they added in a dual time. It's great. I'm excited. |
| Chris Soule | That's the perfect way to put that. Yeah, I love it. |
| James Stacey | But for today's episode, I knew I had to wear a real dive watch. We can't mess around. Not with you guys on. Got to take this seriously. And then on top of that, it's the first genuine summer day in Toronto here. So I knew I was going to be in a T-shirt. I can wear the biggest, most fun watch. So we're going full Aqualand with the 2007 loom dial. I've got it on that $8 Amazon strap. I'll put it in the show notes if you don't remember what that is. And I was embarrassed because I had to change the time. I haven't worn it since the spring forward. Happens to the best of us, buddy. Yeah, so it had just been sitting, but this is really its era. And man, I've got on like a green jacket and I just absolutely, every time I look at it, I go like, yeah, that's all right. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, it's such a good combo. |
| Chris Soule | That does what I need. There's the zone. Also turns 40 this year, FYI. |
| James Stacey | It does. That's true. So many great things turning 40. So many good things. Couldn't agree more. Is it your 40th as well there, Brock? |
| Brock Stevens | No, but... Brock's a baby. I've got about eight years, but yeah, we're working on it. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, you're doing well. I love it. Now, Brock, I included only a few of your superlatives in the intro. And to be honest, I didn't even check with you. Would you say M-A-R-M-C? Or do you compress that into a word? What's the comfort zone? |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah. So it would be a Marmac dive locker. Yeah. So yeah, it's just the, it's the Norfolk dive locker. So yeah. |
| James Stacey | And I, why don't you give people, uh, you know, the elevator pitch or the, the, the C the quick CV, if you will, you've got a lot of superlatives on, on the, on the list. So maybe pick a couple, but, uh, obviously us Navy diver. Um, and you did, uh, I read online, I think it was in a thing with worn around over 9,000 minutes of bottom time. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of time. But, you know, what happens with us is like so my job in the Navy was to work on submarines and aircraft carriers and other surface ships like destroyers and stuff. But for the most part, I would be working on submarines. And we actually dive under the submarine, go inside the ballast tank of the submarine, and we actually take off our dive gear. So we're just climbing around in there like a jungle gym. But the thing is, is that you're still technically under pressure in there. So you're at about a 35 foot depth. And so it, at that time that you're in there working, like, even though it's like working on a car in the air, just not, you know, whatever, um, it ends up adding up over time. So, you know, to a scuba diver that doesn't do what I was doing, any commercial stuff, it's, it's a lot of time, but, uh, to Navy divers, I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty, it's still high, um, for the amount of time that I've been in. Yes, but it's not it's not outside of the norm. |
| James Stacey | So so I think a lot of the a lot of the audience and we've got so many things to get into. But just very quickly, I think a lot of the audience, their footnote, at least if they if they tie into the things that we talk about, would be like Rick Bedwa's book, Breathe. Yes. Yeah. Is that similar the sort of work that you were doing or do or a different scope? |
| Brock Stevens | So as a Navy diver, you can do a couple of different things. You can do ships husbandry, which is ships repair, which is what I did. And then you can do salvage, which is the other big one, essentially, for Navy divers. That's what we expert or an expert in is salvaging ships off from different places if they go aground or whatever. And then we can also go to the SDV team so we can be at the seal delivery vehicle teams. And we can also then besides that is training. So we can be at the like the dive school down in Panama City as, you know, training other people to become divers and stuff like that. |
| James Stacey | So let's start nice and early. What got you into diving? What was your introduction to it? |
| Brock Stevens | Well, so growing up, I just love the water. I mean, it wasn't for me. It was purely like if I'm going to join the Navy, I want to do something. Do you grow up in the Northeast? I guess if you consider Virginia the Northeast, sort of. I was in D.C., so like we're right on the edge. But yeah, I mean, I just I was always in the pool every summer for hours on end, just in the deep end, just sitting at the bottom in my Zen mode, you know, legs crossed floating there. and so and so yeah so i just when i joined the navy i was like well what what can i do when i join the navy that'll be interesting to you know for me and something that i will be proud of doing um and so navy diving was really right at the top of that list for me and then uh In terms of diving and stuff, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or anything. I just kind of went into it and found out that I really, really enjoyed it. |
| James Stacey | If you two will allow me a dumb question, you're servicing a submarine that's in the water, and you're going to get into the water, swim under it, go inside it. Is that just with fairly conventional scuba-style gear? Or is it something more specific than that? |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, so we're diving. I mean, you can do it in scuba, but it's not recommended just because we prefer. So when you go in there, we do pretty much everything in surface supplied. So we have an umbilical going from our hat to surface. And so if we're diving on a submarine, usually we don't wear hard hats. The KM-37s, the yellow ones that you see. like kind of the iconic Navy diving helmet. We don't wear those generally on submarines just because when we get up into the ballast tank, we want to be able to take everything off. So we wear kind of like a soft shell face mask called a Mark 20. Okay. And so you can just basically, it's attached to a harness and you have it go into your billicle, but you can just take it off and we will carry it with us to places we go in the ballast tank because in case there's bad gas in there, some reason we need to, we want to be able to breathe the air that we have coming from the surface. But yeah, that's pretty much what we use. |
| Chris Soule | My heart rate is increasing with all this dive gear talk. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, it's great. So how many years active duty then and any kind of like highlights that kind of stand out? Like if a family member is like, oh, tell me a story, like, you know, this sort of a setting, anything you remember really, really making you feel like you had either gotten there or knew you had more to do or something like that? |
| Brock Stevens | So total years of active duty were six years active duty. One of those years was spent in training. It's a pretty long pipeline plus boot camp and all that. And then, yes. So basically five years is the Navy diver active duty. Now I'm in the reserves, which is still great. I still get to go dive with my friends and it's at the same dive locker. So I still know everyone there. Oh, nice. Which is awesome. So I enjoy that. But I guess standout highlights for me. are some of the bigger jobs that we've done um that have been like more emergent jobs for example like i don't know how much detail i can really get into but sometimes there's you know submarines that are out to sea and they come back because they have a problem and we'll be the dive team that gets called in immediately and essentially gets to fix that problem and then we get to see them leave to go back for a deployment to protect you know, citizens of the U S and it's a great feeling to be able to be kind of knowing that you're the only reason that the ship's going to get fixed and then actually fixing it and then sending it back out to sea. So that's, that's a huge thing for me. And that was kind of the highlights of my Navy diving career overall were just kind of moments like that where. Big, big ship that you would see on the news like the Harry S. Truman or something comes in with an issue and getting out there knowing I'm the guy going to be diving on that immediately. It's pretty cool. |
| James Stacey | You get a call from Marco Ramius that he's defecting and you've got to go check out the Caterpillar Drive. Sure, I get it. That's how it goes for sure. Yeah. Well, that's very cool. And then so we've got the start in diving. We've got this, you know, the training and the history with the Navy and some of the sort of more rewarding things that you experience there. The other side of this, and certainly it's how you and I would know each other, is watches. Mm-hmm. How does that all kind of fit in? Does that extend pre-Navy? Is that from when you're a kid like some of it is? Or did you come to it later? |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, so watches for me were a big deal growing up in my family. Pretty much everyone had a watch on, including my mother, actually. And it turned into sort of a I just, you know, I looked around and everyone had watches on. And I was like, how do I get one of those? Like, I want to be cool like my grandpa. Don't we all? And so it sort of just turned into a obsession for me. Like my grandpa told me, you know, you should always have a sharp knife and a sharp watch. That was one of his famous quotes, which I, you know, kind of live by for the rest of my life. And yeah, so he, you know, bought me my first I think it was it was some sort of Casio. Honestly, I can't remember the reference. I should as a watch nerd remember what the reference was, but I don't. And that kind of kicked it all off for me. Yeah, I just started collecting from there. |
| James Stacey | What was kind of like the first dive watch that called you? Like if you started with a Casio, when did you land on the 007 or the NY0040 or something like that? |
| Brock Stevens | So my first actual dive watch was not a Seiko, which is, I know, kind of mind-blowing. It was actually an ocean crawler, which kind of brought me in. Yeah. Back in the day, they focused a lot more on the diving with their watches and stuff. And so it really appealed to me wanting to... you know be a diver in the military killer micro brand yeah they make great stuff christian champion the the owner of the micro brand is a fantastic guy if you ever get a chance to meet him like it like you started with like a core diver or something like that yep the core diver yep that was my first watch or first dive watch at least from from a bigger brand that i would say um and then you know i started getting into seiko's and it just kind of the whole micro brand space blew up for me but seiko was always kind of there for along for the ride and Actually, my first watch that I ever dove with in dive school was a Seiko Samurai orange dial that my wife got for me. |
| Unknown | Oh, yeah. |
| Brock Stevens | And there's a pretty crazy story associated with that, too, if you want to hear it. But yeah, what do you think? |
| Jason Heaton | That's right. Come on, man. |
| Brock Stevens | So it was my first dive in dive school that was outside of the pool. So after we did our pool hits and everything, we were just kind of like we have to we have to go dive on a shipwreck out in Panama City. |
| Chris Soule | So, Brock, I'm sorry, you have to describe what a pool hit is for our audience. |
| Brock Stevens | All right, well, let me back up a little bit. So when you first get to dive school, your first couple of weeks lead up to an event called Pool Week, which is you first learning how to scuba dive. But then also you start taking these things called pool hits, which are where they essentially come down, punch you in the face, rip your regulator out of your mouth, tie a regulator in a knot and say, all right, fix yourself. And so you have to hold your breath. And the first thing you obviously always want to do is get your regulator in your mouth. Um, once you do that, then you can kind of go through all the knots and stuff that you have on your, your system there. And, uh, yeah, it's a great time there and, you know, they were definitely challenging, but, uh, that was a big relief to get through that. Like fast forward a week or so after I made it through pool week, we did our first open ocean dive. You know, I have my Garmin on my, my right wrist and then my Seiko on my left wrist. And I just basically got in the water. There was a barracuda swimming around. I was like, oh, boy, this is going to be fun. And, you know, we start descending. And I didn't notice it at the time, but my Seiko actually popped off my wrist. And I was recording this the whole time. I still have a video of it on my GoPro. But my Seiko falls off my wrist and just sinks down into the abyss down below. And so I'm like, I had no idea, but I get down to the wreck. It was actually an old hovercraft that we were diving on. It might have been. I don't know if Tudor dove the hovercraft today for the FXD. Yeah. So it was the same one. |
| James Stacey | We've both been on that boat. There's no way I would have found a watch. |
| Brock Stevens | There were too many fish. Yeah, it was crazy. Yes. But so like, you know, I'm diving, swimming around with all my buddies. We're all looking at each other like, yeah, this is our first dive. It's awesome. Like we're going to be Navy divers. Great. And I looked down at my wrist and my wash is missing. And I'm like, oh, no, my wife's going to kill me. Like this was her big like you're going to join the Navy. Here you go. Here's your gift. so you know i was obviously scared for a second and then i look over and i have my buddies over there and he's going like this and i just see my my seiko in his in his hand he's just dangling it dangling it and he's like this is your watch i'm like yeah that's my watch and it sure enough somehow just magically floated perfectly onto the shipwreck and landed right there or the hovercraft and so yeah got it back i still have it um and i love that thing Was it a spring bar, a buckle? What happened? No, I just I don't know if I must have hit it. Nothing broke on the actual watch itself. It was just I think it just came undone. I don't know. Might have been my nervousness getting in the water, just shook it off for the first time, you know. But yeah, so it but, you know, I'm really glad I still have it because that's a big memento for me. |
| James Stacey | Absolutely. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't necessarily exactly the same back in the day when when the 777 first came out, the turtle. the remake of the turtle. I dove a ton with that in Vancouver. And I definitely had it when I switched, when I would go back to a wetsuit that the rubber would like hold the wetsuit. So you would think that it was tight and on, but the tang wasn't through the hole. And then you'd go to reach for something and the watch would just flop off and you go, Oh, I gotta be more careful than that. Yeah. That's, that's probably what happened. |
| Brock Stevens | Cause I had the rubber strap on it. This is actually it right here, but there it is. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. |
| Brock Stevens | I had the rubber strap on it just like it is now. And, uh, I actually have some pictures I'll send you if you want to see my first dive ever, but, uh, but yeah, it was definitely, that's probably exactly what happened. |
| Chris Soule | I think it's perfect, man. That watch went diving just as much as you did. Chris, have you ever lost a watch in the water? I haven't lost one in the water yet, knock on wood. But I have popped a spring bar on a dive boat a couple times, and that's a very stressful situation too. That's not fun. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. There's so much errant metal on a dive boat that it can bounce off of. |
| Chris Soule | Believe it or not, though, we actually found the spring bars. It was me and my buddy Tim and my buddy Michael. We all had gone with NATOs and all the spring bars went flying. I know Tom Place has something to say about that. |
| James Stacey | If I drop a spring bar right where I'm sitting right now, I probably won't look for it. I'll just take another one from my collection. That's the voice of experience right there. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, I think if you're a watcher long enough, you learn to just buy extra spring bars and just have them sitting around because you're just going to lose them. |
| James Stacey | Or like get a magnet wand or something and get them all out of the carpet at once. Yeah, on the next level. |
| Brock Stevens | Oh, yeah. Hey, here's $100 worth of spring bars right here. |
| James Stacey | Here's my $40 tool to find $4 worth. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's great. So you're into watches, you're into diving, and you get out of active duty. What's kind of the next phase? I think that brings us closer to today, right? |
| Brock Stevens | So nowadays, I work for Mark II and Tornik Ravel. I work with Bill very closely, helping with marketing and watch design, among other things. I also do photography as a side hobby as well. So other brands. Some modeling. Yeah, that is relatively new in my life. And my wife loves to make fun of all my modeling photos. She's like, was that one staged? Was that one staged? I'm like, no, they were not. It's modeling. They're all staged. You look great in all of them. Thank you. It's been a fun time. |
| James Stacey | It was really fun when Heaton linked me the first photos that came out. He's like, look at the guy. I love that stuff. It just makes me happy. Especially that crew of guys that we had in Chicago last year. That was just such a good day. I think about it pretty frequently. I recently rebuilt the desk and of course this guy's got to be on there. Let's go. course right here holding up holding up the little vacuum formed plastic submarine uh yeah it's it's it's a that was such a fun day and such a cool exhibit and to be able to do the bond thing and go on a submarine like within an hour i was like i was five years old again if something there had glowed in the dark it would have been perfect |
| Brock Stevens | That was the only thing we were missing. I don't see how that day could have gotten any better, to be honest. Like, all of us together hanging out, talking about watches, but then James Bond, I mean, that was, for me, a huge highlight. Dude, that exhibit was awesome. Like, so good. Yeah, we were just, we were like, oh my gosh, there's an Omega right there. There's a... There's actually even had a cam or an old, older, a Kirby Morgan hard hat from one of the movies. And I was like, I was, I remember looking at you guys and I was like, Oh, look at this. So that was really cool. |
| James Stacey | But you're into the hard hats. I was there for the cars. It was great. |
| Brock Stevens | All for all of it, man. The cars were sweet too. Checked all the boxes. |
| James Stacey | So we've got Mark two Tornick Rayville. I feel like you've made concerted efforts over the last couple of years to really invest yourself into this end of the watch industry and watch enthusiasm and the sort of all the people and the great personalities and that sort of thing. What else have you been up to? I know that you do some work with Project Recover. I think the audience would probably love to learn about that as well. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, so I was in dive school and I was sitting in my barracks room on a Friday night just scrolling through YouTube and I came across the trailer for a movie called To What Remains, which is essentially a video or I guess it's a film that kind of goes through a bunch of missions that Project Recover does and what they do. And so... What they do exactly is they go overseas to locations all around the world and they look for the remains of missing service members. So MIAs. And they do everything they can to repatriate them and bring them home. And for me, it was just like, if there's anything that I can use my U.S. Navy diving skills from, it would be for this mission. So it just kind of took me into a whole other... realm of motivation to get through dive school and become a diver to do this. Years on, I finally become a member this past October, and I get to go on my first mission overseas to Palau. And Palau is one of their main places where they focus on searching, just because there is a lot of MIAs that are documented there. And that's where Pat Scannon or Dr. Pat Scannon, who founded, which before Project Recover was called Project Recover, it was called the Bent Prop Organization. um and so he basically found a b-24 wing just sitting in the water and was like how did this wing get here and where's the rest of the plane And then so from that point forward, he started doing some research and talking to local Palauans. And they were like, oh, well, we saw a plane without a wing spinning over the island and crashing on the other side. And so he ended up repatriating the remains of the service members that were on that B-24. Wow. Yeah. And so, you know, 20, 30 years later, we're at the point now where it's product recover. And Pat's taken a little bit of a step back and Derek is running it as the CEO, Derek Abbey. And then, yeah, they invited me on my first mission to Palau. how you know at first i was kind of like wow i'm gonna fly all the way around the world and be on my first mission with project recover which was to me It was very just kind of surreal in the sense of like, I've waited this long to get to a point and I've put in this much effort to get to a point where I can actually do this and I'm finally going. |
| James Stacey | And just to quickly drop in, for those who have to check in on their geography, Palau is in the middle of nowhere. It's significantly north of Australia, north of Papua New Guinea, and kind of just... The tip of a mountain that's rooted mostly in the ocean would be the easiest way of explaining Palau. But that's not a light trip. That's not flying to Geneva from Toronto or something like that. |
| Chris Soule | That's a bucket list dive trip if you're looking for fish, much less the remains of distinguished service members. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, it was, to be honest, I mean, I don't think I've actually ever spent that much time on an airplane in my life at all. I mean, it was 21 hours of traveling, three separate flights, one to Hawaii from Dulles, one from Hawaii to Guam, and then one from Guam to Palau. And so, you know, I was... Kind of cool to say you've been to Guam, though. Yeah, no, it's cool. Yeah, Guam's also a beautiful place, too. I mean, I didn't get to spend that much time there, but it's awesome. And so, yeah, so I mean, you know, I'm all of a sudden on a plane and I'm just like, man, this is really happening. And when you start really thinking about what you're there for, it's a surreal feeling, but it's also, it's until you're really in the field doing it and you realize that you're like on this site where, you know, we think these missing UDTs are or on this Corsair crash site. This is an old World War II plane. The things that I used to grow up watching movies about, you know, Black Sheep Squadron, et cetera, all that stuff. It's just... What kind of plane was it, Brock? It was an F... You said Corsair? Yes, F4U Corsair, which is one of my favorite planes ever. There's two that are really at the top of the list, and it's the Spitfire and then the Corsair. They're both... Yeah. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Corsair was the one with the hinged wings, right? Yes, yes. Yeah, so they have a gorgeous one at the Hamilton Warplane Heritage Museum that I was obsessed with as a kid because it had folding wings. It's a jaw-droppingly beautiful piece of plane. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, I think most American pilots will tell you it is at the top of their list of favorite World War II airplanes. It's just a spectacular thing. But yeah, so you get there and you're doing this and you're out in the jungle and out in the ocean diving. And it's truly kind of it changes your whole perspective on life. I mean, I think I actually talk about it in the Will article that I just wrote about the mission. But, you know, you're diving on this airplane and the guy who died there was younger than me, had a kid, which I don't. I mean, my wife and I don't have any kids yet. But he sacrificed all of that, left the United States to become a pilot, is now flying through the mountains of Palau from Peleliu and this, you know, super high speed, what would be the fighter jet at the time or the F-35 at the time, you know, through the mountains getting shot at. It's just crazy to think about what he had to go through and the sacrifice he had to make. And so for me, it gives me a little bit of, you know, it made me sit back and kind of think about like not only like my life choices, but also just like what I can do to better the world around me and also myself. |
| James Stacey | Just the gratitude. Like every time that I had a chance to interview someone, you know, Moki Martin or the two incredible guys for a long return, you just walk away with like, and I'm not even American, like, but, you know, Canadians and Americans up until a few months ago were largely on. very happily on the same side with these sorts of things. But I just walk away and just go like, wow, I'm not sure that most people would have done what any of these guys did back then. |
| Chris Soule | They don't call them the greatest generation for nothing. |
| James Stacey | The lack of selfishness. When you're 20, you don't really understand the sacrifice that you are making by being part of that. You just know it's important. And the level of bravery that makes those dots connect in your mind, that's not like a modern thing, I don't think. At least I don't see it commonly in my generation. |
| Brock Stevens | yeah it's well said yeah it's it's it's very you know far and few between in terms of people that you meet that i think would meet the standard of of those what they call the greatest generation i mean it's it's it's truly spectacular what they were able to do and and just deal with i mean especially after the war too just the guys that made it home but but yeah yeah terrifying yeah for sure so so yeah so that was a a very surreal experience um What did you guys find? Well, I mean, there's only so much that I can talk about. But the site that we were diving had not been dove for the past 15 years, and they had done an archaeological dig on it before. And they essentially didn't find anything there. And so it was kind of deemed closed by the DPAA, which is the Defense Palmia Accounting Association. And then they kind of have a list of all the MIAs from all of World War II. And wars after that. So we were going back to essentially look at the site, see what we could find, if there's anything new that we could find and document, and see what the odds of doing a recovery were. Any cockpit parts we were looking for, and we were just trying to do a thorough documentation, really spend time down there just to kind of look at the parts, take photos, identify things that we didn't identify before, and then just kind of get an overall... |
| James Stacey | perspective on uh what we thought the odds of doing a recovery were and so that that was the main job that we were doing at the um horsehair site maybe this is stuff you're not able to talk about and by all means that's okay um but it like is the plane partially intact it's not intact at all it's a debris field what kind of depth are we are like is any of this is this classified to a certain extent or withheld for privacy reasons and respect Yes, so there are definitely things that I can't say. And that would be more for the privacy and respect for the family and the sanctity of the site, or it's a military secret thing? |
| Brock Stevens | I mean, both reasons. I mean, I don't want to go into names or anything. It's kind of like don't name the site and don't name the location are the two big things, right? Okay. There are people that look for World War II airplane parts that just want to steal them. They don't care who died there, right? So there's certain things like that that are bad. And that's why we don't talk about it. Sure. But the site itself, and if you go, so the Woe article that I just put out has a lot of photos in there that actually show the span or the size of the site. And it's a very, it's about over 100 meters wide probably, if not longer. Oh, wow. Of just spread out debris. The impact zone was very violent. or the impact was very violent and destructive in terms of what was left from the airplane. |
| James Stacey | And is it fair to say that like from a salvage standpoint, a hundred meter debris field is like having a five kilometer search area in the woods. Like that's a huge amount of space for a diver to cover. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, usually you see most of these planes that go down, especially water crashes, and I haven't really experienced too much yet. So being a new member and from what I've heard from other members is that they are generally a lot more intact than what this was. I mean, you can kind of tell it was a crashed airplane. This one, I mean, you could tell it was something terrible happened there, but I mean, unless you really know airplane parts or you can identify things, it's pretty destroyed to the point of... little pieces of aluminum floating not floating around but just all over the place so it's true yes sure yeah and uh definitely it was definitely crazy to dive down and find these just start seeing these parts like there's propeller parts all over the there's you know each blade of the propeller there you could that was the first thing that i saw was a propeller blade and uh I don't know. It's just it's hard to put into words until you're really there and you're like, this is this is World War Two. This is what you learned about in high school and middle school and I guess elementary school, too. But yeah. |
| James Stacey | And what sort of for a dive like this, assuming you're able to say how deep it is, what sort of gear are you using? Again, are we now more conventional? Are you still surface fed? What's the the way that that would operate? |
| Brock Stevens | Um, so for recovery, which if we were to do one, that would be surface supplied just because it allows you to essentially work down there for longer periods of time without having to come up for bottles. Um, for this specific dive, because we were just, or these dives, because we were just doing a survey, we were just diving scuba. Um, and we were about, about 35 to 40 feet in there. So we could still be down there for a while, but it's a good long day. Yeah. yeah, we, you know, we, most of the dives are over an hour. If not, I mean, we could still go longer than that. Um, but yeah, we were, uh, you know, it, it was, uh, relatively shallow, which made it nice. And the, and the water is so clear there that like coming from Norfolk where I normally work, which is six inches of visibility versus now I have 45, 50, even a hundred feet of viz. I mean, it's just like the most insane thing. |
| Chris Soule | I remember after the first time we got you in the Great Lakes, you were like, guys, this is amazing. And we were like, I mean, I guess. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, it was a big shock for me to be able to see anything, like I said, more than six inches away. You just start running into things when you first check into Marmac. You're diving on an aircraft carrier, and you're like, oh, that's the prop. Oh, that's the rudder. It's just like, boing, just bouncing off stuff. Yeah. Yeah, dark and cloudy is a fun mix. For sure. It definitely freaked me out as a new guy when I checked in tomorrow, Mac, that's for sure. I was like, the only way you can tell how you are is your orientation is by your bubbles and where they're going. |
| Chris Soule | Let's go dive in some chocolate milk, guys. It's going to be great. |
| James Stacey | Pea soup is what we used to call the first 15 or 20 feet for that part. And then it would be like a ceiling above you and it would get clear, but it was super dark. It was great. How long was the sort of recon or survey mission? |
| Brock Stevens | So we were there for 10 days. So the first part was actually the UDT site, which I didn't talk about yet. And so the UDT site is where... There's supposedly three UDTs, which is the underwater demolition team guys that are now SEALs in the U.S. Navy that are missing. And that's where we believe them to be buried. And it's been a site that's been worked on for a long time. And were those guys POWs? I mean, technically, I guess for a short period of time, yes, but they were executed and then buried. So, yeah. And so, yeah, so that's that is a heavy it's a heavy subject to talk about. But that case has been open for such a long time. And, you know, as this Navy SEALs and their ethos is never leave a man behind. I mean, I think it's most for most military, but for them, they're very, very hardcore about it in the best way possible. And so that's something that we would really love to come to a resolution for the families. For sure. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, it's a big... Again, just trying to tie into things we've talked about on the show in the past. This is a fairly sizable element as far as a side story to Shadow Divers, a book we've been talking about for 300-plus episodes, including mentions of actually going and confronting people in other parts of the world about what they were doing during the war and that sort of thing. But the sort of lesson that Curson gets in the book through... uh chatterton and kohler and and a few other guys about the sort of ethics of approaching a wreck of of it's i find it very it's very fascinating because you can tell that there's a lot of heart that goes into the consideration but there's also this like i still want to go on the wreck and it's i think it's it's one of these things that probably even since that book was written that concept has probably matured and that's probably in in some way informed by things like project recover |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, I definitely think so. I mean, it's our biggest thing is to be as respectful as possible to the people that are there. And you definitely you get that sense when you're there that. you're around the best people that could possibly be, um, working this site and that are there for the truly the best reasons. |
| Chris Soule | So it's a great call out, James. I, a lot of my ethos, you know, is, is formed by that like Jersey wreck diving scene in the way that they handle the, the classic, you know, find artifacts mentality of wreck divers versus this is a war grave. This was a sacrifice for family, for country. Um, totally different level. And Brock, man, I'm so just stoked for you that you got to participate in that and grateful that, you know, we have people like you that step up and provide that closure for the families. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a wonderful service, man. Thanks. |
| Brock Stevens | Thank you. I mean, it's a. truly an honor. Like I said, it's, it was a dream for me to be able to do this. And I feel like I actually, not that I didn't have purpose in life before, but I feel like if there's ever been something fulfilling, more fulfilling than this, I don't know what it is for me. I think, you know, just to be able to help everyone else out. So. |
| James Stacey | I imagine that's the right perspective to approach this sort of thing, because it's, of course, hugely time consuming. Talk about like from an expense standpoint, this isn't light on any whoever's paying for it is paying dearly to to field, you know, essentially expedition style work. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah. |
| James Stacey | In the middle of nowhere. That's also underwater. And I have to assume there's a lot of regulatory loopholes. Or not loopholes, but, you know... Red tape. Red tape that you either have to properly move through or know how to navigate, both due to the locale and to the nature of the work. So to me, it sounds probably very complicated and probably takes these people who have, you know, devoted so much time and effort to become experts in how to deal with that. Because it's not treasure hunting at all. But, you know, it serves such a sort of crucial purpose. And imagine being able to go back to those families. and provide some closure to that. I think as far as the outcome of something as fun as going underwater, this is probably on the spectrum of something actually worth doing versus looking at fish or taking a picture of a dive watch or something like that. And then when you get a chance, I know, Chris, you do a lot of recreational diving, as much as you can. As much as I can. As much as you can. And Brock, same for you. You'll jump in whenever you can. Because you guys have both done the wind-up in the lake in Chicago. And then, of course, we were on the Tudor trip that we spoke about briefly there. What's the name of that wreck again? |
| Chris Soule | Oh, gosh. |
| James Stacey | 812 Hovercraft? I don't have to feel bad for forgetting it. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, I just call it the Navy Hovercraft because that's what Panama City Diamond calls it. But I feel like it has another name and Cole's going to be mad at us for forgetting it. |
| James Stacey | I'll put the link in there and we'll certainly have a link to your Watch of Espionage story, Brock, which is great and can fill people in on some further points of stuff like the Palau mission and Project Recover. But we'll include all of that stuff in the show notes for sure. Is Project Recover a charity? Can people donate to the cause? |
| Brock Stevens | Yes. So, yeah, they are a nonprofit charity. And so anyone can go and donate and we can I assume we can put the link to their donation. Absolutely. Donation site. But but, yeah, anyone can donate. And honestly, there's so many sites that we're looking into now that we could really use the help in terms of being able to get out there and get the right people on the sites. |
| James Stacey | I mean, if you want to talk t-shirts, let me know. We can do a cool dive t-shirt of some sort or something and put to all the proceeds to Project Recover. I think it worked out very well for the firefighting t-shirt. We had a blast doing that and being able to support that very terrifying work that they're doing. I don't know if you watched any of the videos. Every now and then when I need perspective, I'll watch people fighting fires for a real job. That's what my grandfather did. Nice. And I just go, you know what? I'll be okay to reply to some more emails. It'll be all right. |
| Brock Stevens | Shout out to Asha. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Oh my goodness. The best. Yeah, she's the best. Big shout out to Asha. Yeah. A few people I know, I was receiving texts from Wind Up Chicago and we can jump into Wind Up and wind up in a bay and all that kind of stuff but i was receiving sorry not from wind up chicago from sf that was uh last weekend yeah and uh and people were having a good time and i was you know you should wish you were here and i am me too yeah next year i just love that people are out there oh absolutely for sure yeah we definitely missed you this year it would be it would be really fun but next year i'll get in the water and we'll do all that once uh once we've got the the kids squared away and a little bigger and you know doing is eating eating on his or her own that sort of thing But yeah, but let's jump into a wind up in, in, in a bay. So Chris, were you kind of instrumental in creating this program a couple of years ago? |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, it was. So basically the wind up watch fair, you know, great place to go and see watches that you can only see in a rare opportunity. Otherwise, you know, these brands are online. They're not in eighties was happening in New York and San Francisco for many years. And then in 22, I believe they finally brought it to Chicago. And so all of us good friends, Midwestern watch nerds were thrilled at this prospect. So, Hey, let's all go to Chicago. And a lot of us had already kind of known each other on Instagram and being in Lake Michigan. I hadn't done a great lakes dive before, but it's not that far from where I'm. at in louisville kentucky it's five hour drive to chicago and so i said hey you know if anybody's coming out to wind up chicago for the first time let's do a dive in lake michigan it'll be great we'll call it wind up in a lake we'll be real cute about it and so it was me and uh our buddy ben lowry And Heaton, and we had a good old time. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Heaton's okay. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah. He's all right. I mean, it was a perfect combination of all of the passions in one little ball of greatness. That was a stupid way to say that. |
| James Stacey | No, but I think it gets the point across. Like, it takes all these things and the right people and the rest of it and puts them in the right place, and you get to do a cool thing. |
| Chris Soule | So we did the wind up in a lake. Um, and then lo and behold, our man who makes things happen, Kyle Snar gave me a call the next February and he was kind of like, yeah, shout out Kyle. Um, Hey, we heard that you did this wind up in a lake thing. We think that's great. What would you think about like a watch brand partnering with you guys to be able to tell stories about actually taking watches diving, you know, and doing a whole thing? And I said, not terrible idea. Hate it. You know, no, obviously. I mean, like, what a privilege. I mean, I was floored and I am still continually floored by this and what we've been able to do. Uh, so the next year we, uh, did our dive with Benris. I'm still super proud of video that worn and wound produced over all that. You guys should definitely go check it out if you haven't seen it. Um, and then since then, yep, totally. Since then we've done with citizen, uh, last year, uh, Tom Chapin on a dive boat. Like I, I don't even have words, man. Like. Pretty wild, right? It's not going to get better than that. I'm sorry. I'm just going to tell you guys now. But we've been able to craft some incredible experiences where we are legitimately using these things for what they're made for, which is not just the diving. It's the community, right? My whole thing has been to redeem the social aspect in a true way out of... social media like that's where we all kind of started and found each other is you know this world of watch instagram but unless you take it a level further into like the slack and then a level further beyond that and like a group text or whatever and then actually meet in person and form real relationships that's where it's at for me and that's a big part of what wind up in a body of water is and so yeah last year we got to expand the concept to san francisco wind up in a bay now of course so It's a bay, not the bay. You can't really dive in San Francisco Bay unless you want to get run over by like four different boats and then eaten by like two different great whites. So we drive south to Monterey Bay, which is absolutely beautiful. Incredible places in the entire world. Oh, dude, man. So we went with Marathon last year, and they wanted to stick with us this year as well. But with the tariff situation, and I know people are tired of hearing about that, so I won't linger on it, but it was a pretty touching go for a little while. We didn't know if we were going to get to go diving and tell a story and have an expedition this year. But Kyle, you know, kind of... worked his creative magic and we came up with a situation where we could have co-sponsors. And so we ended up, um, doing a sort of a two part expedition camping with Prometheus design works and diving with marathon and both were involved in the other. Right. So, uh, it was fantastic, man. We, we rolled down. So where, where do you even start how this story begins? Brock and I flew into San Francisco with my lovely wife, Elizabeth, as well. I've got a couple of sisters-in-law in San Francisco. So she went up to the city and stayed with them. And then Brock and I went into the city and found a Land Rover Defender with a rooftop tent. Doesn't get better than that. It does not get better than that. This is great. |
| Brock Stevens | What year Defender? |
| Chris Soule | What year was that, Brock? |
| Brock Stevens | I guess it can get better than that because it wasn't a vintage Defender. It was a newer one, which people have their... It was like a current modern, like a modern gen. Pretty nice vehicle, though. It was the P400 engine. It was extremely... It was awesome. It was super fun to drive. But anyway, yeah, we found that and Chris can tell the rest of the story. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, Turo for the win. That's all I'm saying. And Brock as well. |
| James Stacey | I've toured some wild stuff in California. It's amazing. Yeah. |
| Chris Soule | So we're bombing down the coast in this Land Rover. We're getting lost. We're missing turns. You know, it doesn't matter. We're going through Redwood forest. Just like our eyes are the size of saucers. It's such a beautiful area. Highway one, et cetera. Love to be able to visit there. So we went down to Elkhorn, California, which is just outside of Monterey proper. And we camped on Elkhorn ranch. If you want to look it up, it's a, it's a goat farm. uh which made for a really kind of wacky and awesome camping experience um they have roosters bring earplugs other than that it was amazing uh oh yeah it looks beautiful it is beautiful it's absolutely gorgeous rolling hills in view of the sea yeah i i truly can't recommend it enough and roberta uh the host was just incredible so basically our dive guide aaron potash who is a diver extraordinaire, original Oaktown divers. Shout out to Aaron. He comes down there. He basically lives on that goat farm in the summer while he's teaching all of his diving in Monterey. And so he knew of that as a fantastic spot to camp. So we rolled the Defender down there. We met up with Aaron and also our other partner in crime, Asha. And that was our expedition team. Yeah, so... We're there. Um, we're in, then we're in the experience. So we're, you know, setting up the rooftop tent. We're unloading all of our gear. We're, you know, checking out all this PDW insanity. I cannot say enough good things about how well designed and like every piece of gear is so well designed into an inch of its life, especially for that environment. I mean, Patrick takes everything that he does so seriously. And I didn't really fully grasp that before this trip. We camped. We had some amazing carne asada by the fire. That's the best kind of carne asada that there is, I think. |
| Brock Stevens | What was the diving like? What was the dive site? Yeah, so the dive site was this place. It was called the Butterfly House, if I'm not mistaken. What was the name of the town, Chris? Carmel. |
| Chris Soule | Carmel. And like, dude, I've never been somewhere so nice in my life, I don't think. I mean. |
| Brock Stevens | It has to hands down be one of the most beautiful places in the United States, if not the world, in terms of a place to live. I mean, it's like, yeah, every place just is these beautiful, unique houses that are super modern. |
| James Stacey | I know exactly where this is. Yeah, so this is the other side of the bay from where I attempted to dive with Asha. |
| Chris Soule | Yes, yeah. You were probably in breakwater. |
| James Stacey | At Monastery. Oh, you were at Monastery. |
| Chris Soule | Okay, yeah. I can understand how that was difficult. |
| James Stacey | I think the diving would have been fine. I just didn't have a mask that would stay on my face because of the rental. |
| Chris Soule | not what you want to mask yeah not really and a very friendly seal hung out with me for the entire swim back just holding the mask on like this we were so yeah we were in carmel diving off of a semi architecturally famous house called the butterfly house kind of has this roof that like sweeps up into the side on both sides uh it's out on this spit of rock i mean it's it's unbelievably scenic it's Yeah, the thing about Carmel that you were describing earlier, Brock, how nice it is. I've never seen a place where the flex is not how big your house is, but how much it looks like a storybook cottage. Yeah. The dive, you had to descend a good 40-foot cliff via a winding path over these gorgeous succulents. Always the start of a good dive. Oh, yeah. That's how you know it's going to be good. We were thrilled to have our buddy Gavin shooting the event too. I mean, like... Just the whole thing was a fantastic outing. The dive itself was excellent. It's not every day you get to do a kelp dive. |
| James Stacey | It's so good to be down there. Once you get at the kelp's level, like down where it starts, and you're able to look up, it's a different feeling than most. It's great. I really wish that dive we had attempted a couple years ago worked out. I owe Asha a dive. She's listening to this. I know, Asha. I know. We'll get back. |
| Chris Soule | All right. We'll get you for Chicago and the Bay next year, man. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, let's just get in the water for sure. So was there a specific outcome for the dive or it was just to go for a dive? |
| Chris Soule | It was to go for a dive, to put everything to the test. So marathon watches, PDW compasses, what have you, all the bags, all the gear, put it to use, like use it the way it's meant to be, which is something that we all think about doing. just have to seize that opportunity to do as much as we can. |
| James Stacey | You know, the content created around the dive that comes out shortly or it's already out and I managed to miss it. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, should be. So if this, uh, we're recording on a Monday night, I guess if the episode comes out the following Thursday, then yes, that's when everything should go live on. |
| James Stacey | Okay. |
| Chris Soule | So yeah. |
| James Stacey | What watches you're wearing, that sort of stuff, a bit of it, like we'll save that for the video to come out or you guys want to talk about that? |
| Chris Soule | No, happy to talk about it. So everybody's in Marathon SAR watches. So we had a few O-SARs, like original SARs. We had a G-SAR. like the government SAR. And then we actually had an MSAR, which is their midsize, which, um, so I was rocking the midsize. I was the smallest wristed of the group and man, 36 millimeters, not necessarily my go-to size, but I lived in this thing through the weekend and I was absolutely in love by the end of it. It's absolutely great. Yeah. Yeah. It's an unusually proportioned watch in that it's tall because the tritium tubes and the like super grippy bezel. But man, if that thing isn't fit for purpose, whether it's reading it at 2.30 AM when the rooster started crying. Yes, I said that right. 2.30 a.m. I'm not sure that's a time. Something was wrong with that rooster, man. He was in a different time zone. Yeah, exactly. But legibility underwater, obviously fantastic. Marathon is great at what they do. They make incredibly sound tool watches. I mean, true mil-spec watches. |
| James Stacey | And so it's just really easy to work with on stuff like this. Absolutely. Like they get it. They're fun. They don't have a ton of like, there's not a lot of like bureaucracy at that company. They still operate like a small company. Obviously we've gotten to know a few of their sort of leadership and we, I was with them in Vancouver, big fans, obviously. Oh yeah. Those guys are the best. |
| Brock Stevens | and uh brock what did uh what did you have on an osar yeah so i had the new arctic osar and 41 millimeters which honestly like i like the original osar but this just blows out of the water in terms of the it looks so good especially in person like it's just hard to explain how much i really enjoyed it and especially underwater like there's some watches that really come alive underwater and it's it's kind of until you really dive it you just don't know but that thing underwater is so legible it's so easy to use obviously the bezel is amazing uh so for me it was yeah it was a pleasure to have on wrist yeah you gotta like it when your dive buddy is wearing a watch where you can just look at their wrist without having to like you know depending if you're in a weird position or something it's like yeah well aaron was wearing the 46 millimeter jdd version and so i could see him from like half a mile away you're just like oh there's aaron over there So yeah, it was, it was a great time. Great watches. |
| Chris Soule | Fantastic. Yeah. And those compasses too are, uh, from, from PDW. They're good on land, but man, they shine underwater. Like I've never really been able to trust a dive computer compass, like a digital compass. That's just me. Uh, and you can have like your console compass, but then you got to like reach all the way around for it. Unclip it, like hold it up, hold it level. But if you've got that wrist compass, man, like. Back in the C-Lab days, they had that right. Every diver rocking a wrist compass. It's perfect. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, the only thing for me that I saw that was more popular than the wrist, for people who actually used their compass, lots were just in their console and they never looked at it, were like the wraps for your hand. Yeah, those are decent too. Where they kind of sat mid-hand. And I think it's to encourage the... the sort of like steepled approach to using your compass, which if you're depending on your level of experience, greatly increases its accuracy. If you're not measuring from off axis, if that makes sense. But yeah, I also have messed around because the garments will work underwater and add an incline. Yeah. And even then I'll go like, is this going to get, and it gets me where I need to go. It does. Like it does the thing, but it is weird to do that in a digital fashion. |
| Chris Soule | You have to think about it more. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, those PDW compasses I've been diving with for years because, believe it or not, on surface-supplied diving, a diver's watch is not necessarily a needed thing because you just don't really need it. They're tracking your bottom time on surface, but it's still cool, right? But the wrist compass, to have that, like if I was lost underwater, like I was telling you about earlier with the six inches of vis or whatever, to have that to be, I could just essentially mark which direction I would know I wanted to go later. And then be able to just navigate that way and use the compass underwater was awesome. And so they've been a tool of the trade for me for quite a while. |
| James Stacey | I use mine most commonly in airports. I have it lashed to my bag. Really? And I'll use the, when I'm trying to make a connection, I'll do that based on north, south, east, west. So like it can either go on a strap, which is great, of course, but I have it in the little rubber keeper. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yep. That makes it kind of like a keychain sort of thing. And I just loop it over one of the, and it kind of looks tactical and fun and it's green. So I like a green accent for sure. But they are actually useful and for something that's actually useful and for how well they're made, not that expensive. It was 75 bucks, I think, if I remember correctly. It was a gift from Heaton. |
| Chris Soule | And the boot is like nothing. You can get those for very, very little. And I believe they do have one that glows in the dark just for you. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, I think now the new ones come with multiple color rubber or silicone holders when you buy them. So it's not just one color. Pretty cool stuff. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, but so the dive was great overall. No charismatic megafauna, unfortunately. No sea lions hanging out. No seals? No, unfortunately. A lot of urchins. Well, none of those. We did see one large fish. I can't remember what Aaron said it was, but he was very stoked. And I was pretty stoked, too. It was a big fish. A cod of some sort, maybe. Yeah, maybe. It had a weird name. California, you know, fauna. I don't, I don't know him as well, but we did see a nudibranch. That was cool. So a little, little tiny free swimming too. That's even weirder. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| Chris Soule | It's just like hanging out in the water column. And Aaron was excitedly pointing at something and I'm like looking over my shoulder expecting to see a great white. And he's like pointing at this, you know, pinpoint of white and orange light just dancing in the water. |
| Brock Stevens | I had no idea. Like, I totally thought it was a great white or something because of how excited he was. Like, I was like, this is going to be epic. Like, oh, my gosh. And then it was also epic, but just a lot smaller. |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, it's they're a very special creation, man. They are their own thing. And I was surprised by how small they are when I tend to find them, which is very rarely because you do kind of think, oh, that's like, you know, palm sized creature. No, it's like a like. First metacarpal creature. It's tiny. Tip of your finger. Oh, yeah. They're not big. Yeah. And so we got out. We got dry. We got lunch at an amazing sandwich shack. And they had a lot of military tribute going on in there. So Brock gave them a patch. And that was a beautiful moment. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, the guy, he paid for my sandwich, which was not what I expected. I just wanted to kind of give him a patch to say thank you for... |
| James Stacey | honoring the military in here and he was you know very very nice about it and uh we got a photo together so there's a photo of me on the wall in there with him so well like it's it's my understanding that uh like carmel and monterey have a really strong uh military footing i think there's there's quite a bit of activity there And I'm sure if you like golf, it's great. I'm a car guy. So they have some great car events every year and that sort of thing. But that does kind of give us a chance to bridge because Brock, you have some car news that's quite relevant to the show. Unfortunately, Heaton's not here to give you some emotional support. But do you want to share, you know, Chris has a brand new, really cool watch and you've got something as well, right? Something more recent. |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah. So the other day, for some reason, after when I got back from my trip to Palau, my wife took a look at me and said, I think we can get a Land Rover now. And, you know, my heart was palpitating. I was freaking out. I went down the rabbit hole of just searching stuff that was in our budget. And I found a pretty awesome Series 2A down in Georgia. Went down with my brother on a little down the coast airstream trip and went camping and took a look at this series and decided, hey, this is the one for me. And yeah, so I picked it up and it should be here this Friday or Saturday, depending on how shipping goes. I'm supremely stoked, needless to say. Oh, man. Congrats on that. |
| James Stacey | Thank you very much. And you'd said it's like a dark gray on black wheels. |
| Brock Stevens | Yes, it's it looks very James Bond specter. I mean, it's as, you know, kind of evil looking. My wife wanted a green one with a white roof so we could. They're so friendly and green. Yeah, they're so friendly. But in gray, it looks a little menacing. So I kind of love it. It has a solid bad guy backstory too, Brock. Yes. Well, I mean, we can go into that. But basically, it was used by – it's from Colombia. So it's actually a Santana. So it was – originally from Columbia and it was used from, well, the backstory that I was given, um, was that it was a Colombian drug hauling machine. And, uh, so yeah, so hopefully if I drive onto base, I don't get the dogs out there and, uh, they find something that's not supposed to be in there. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. So, um, you know, but anyway. It's okay, it's a Land Rover. Whatever was concealed in there, it's falling away. It's gone now. |
| Brock Stevens | It's probably through a rust hole somewhere, so rust spot. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, yeah. That's exciting, man. And I assume that won't be like your daily, that's more the weekend fun sort of thing? |
| Brock Stevens | No, I mean, I made sure that I had a reliable daily first before I went into any... Land Rover project. Look at this responsible guy. Yeah, I know. But, you know, I got it's the steps with the wife that I have to take because, you know, I have a responsible daily because you have to be a complete human. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So anyway, it'll be my daily will be outside and Land Rover will be in the garage. And that's, I think, the way it's supposed to be. So. |
| James Stacey | That's super fun, man. I can't wait to see it. Be sure to be sure to throw up some some pics on the Slack or on Instagram. I will for sure. All right. You guys want to jump into some final notes? Absolutely. Chris, you want to go first? So what is it that you say about specificity, James? |
| Chris Soule | I need you to repeat this. |
| James Stacey | The soul of narrative. To be clear, I didn't say that. I think it might have been like a legitimately exceedingly famous person. It might have been a playwright or something like that. We can maybe find out. I should attribute. But yeah, the specificity is the soul of narrative. |
| Chris Soule | All right. Then I'm going to give you something super specific. So I recently traveled with my darling bride, Elizabeth, to St. Louis for a weekend of traditional Irish music. It's called a chanel, which is sort of my understanding is it's Irish for like gathering. And so I've recently taken up the Irish bagpipes. If you want some, you know, some other nerdery. uh whatever flavor you got i'm here for it and um so we went for this gathering and uh got to learn a great deal of uh irish traditional music scene and people and players i mean there were a legit heavy hitters in this genre and space of traditional folk music, flying in from Ireland directly, teaching workshops, all the learning was happening. And I feel inspired to, you know, kind of share some of this music with the audience. So I'm going to call out a favorite Piper of mine. His name is Chris McMullen. And so I'm going to drop a link to a video. And I think the top YouTube comment really captures what's going on in this video. It just says, a man being extraordinary in his kitchen. He's playing a lark in the morning, and it's incredible. The Irish bagpipes are a lot different than the Great Highland bagpipe that you're probably envisioning, and I'm not going to spoil it too much. Watch, turn it way up, and enjoy. |
| James Stacey | All right, amazing. It'll be in the show notes. We recently got a copyright strike on Spotify, so I probably won't just take the music like I normally would. |
| Chris Soule | Oh, man. |
| James Stacey | And Spotify, thank you so much for doing exactly nothing. I appreciate that. That was super nice of you. Shout out, Spotify. But I will put that in the show notes. Yeah, shout out, Spotify. Anti-shout out. You can kick rock, Spotify. But I will put that in the show notes, and that sounds fascinating. Also, it sounds like something right up Heaton's alley, so I'm sure he'll be quite excited. Yes, for sure. Brock, how about you? What have you got for us? |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, so I briefly mentioned it a little bit when we were talking about Project Recover, but they have a film called To What Remains, and it basically goes through some of the missions of past that they have accomplished, or actually some of them that we're still doing, including the UDT mission that I was just on, is featured in this film. And it's the movie that got me to fall in love with Product Recover and want to be a member. And I just wanted to share it with you guys. I think it's a great introduction to what they do. And it meant a lot to me. So hopefully you guys enjoyed. And it can be found on YouTube for free. So hopefully we'll post a link down there. And then you guys can watch it at your leisure. |
| James Stacey | Absolutely. Yeah, we will have that in in the show notes and a good suggestion for sure. And a good I think a good starting point for people to get to take the audio and now add in some more visual storytelling. So that's a great ad. I have two very quick ones this week. The first one is actually a shout out to a great YouTube channel that I'm sure we've talked about before. You're terrific. He was at a Red Bar event recently and did a pretty solid video where he just took a look at a handful of watches. He was kind enough to include the CWN1. But honestly, the list of watches, that's just one. And obviously, we're very biased and we like that watch and that sort of thing. But he's also got like a 5164A in there, Vacheron Overseas Dual Time, a couple of really good Speedmasters, an exceptionally rare... modified Tudor 54, which I believe it's the one I've seen in person or I've seen their friends. It's pretty cool. So I just wanted to give a quick shout out because Evan from You're Terrific said some very kind things about TGN. He also does a lovely job with his YouTube channel. I would have thought he has more subscribers than this. So if you're listening and you don't know who he is, he has a lot of subscribers to be fair, but I feel like that number could be higher. Go in there and subscribe. Check him out. I really like the way that he approaches watches and the video quality, especially as a guy who used to make a similar format of video. where you're behind the camera and you're holding the watch in front of the lens i might have been one of the first few guys to attempt to do that very poorly he has mastered it uh so by all means uh give him a scan and check this out it was very kind of him to include the cwn one in that one and he has some nice advice and sort of context for what it is to start to go to watch events if you haven't before or meetups red bars things like that nice the world needs more of that Absolutely. Yeah. And now more than ever, I'm really hoping that Red Bar kind of supercharges because I feel like, Chris, not so different than what you were saying. It's like there's something not that social about social media. And we almost have to like re-socialize it. And, you know, there's only so much you can do on Slack, which is, to be fair, only a slightly different version of social media. It's friendlier. But that's why, you know, I think events are crucial, whether it's wind up in the lake or, you know, a hangout at a brewery in New Hope with a with some of the guys or whatever we can put together, Vancouver Hangouts and Toronto ones and the rest of it. So yeah, I thought this was a fun video. I really liked the way that he approaches the quality and the audio and the rest of it. So check that out and give it a scan. You're terrific. And it'll be in the show notes. And the second one is actually a call out. This wasn't planned, but it worked out nicely in terms of timing. On the previous episode we did, which was a Slack crew in A, we had a question about kind of dream weekend cars. And I, of course, couldn't pick one. I picked like 10. And of that list, it included an Ariel Atom and a Caterham. And then just today, Throttle House. put out their Ariel Adam video where James Engelman also drives a Caterham 620. Both cars that I absolutely adore. I prefer the look of the Caterham quite a bit. The Adam's quite a crazy thing. But I think that probably the driving dynamics of the Adam would be hard to give up. So I just wanted to throw that in there because we just talked about these cars and they're definitely cars that there's lots of videos and certainly perhaps one of the most famous moments of Top Gear. was Clarkson driving the first Adam with his face kind of deforming in the wind. Just very early, great car YouTube was a big moment for them. But I think the, you know, the Throttle House guys and we've had Thomas on a couple of times. He wasn't in this video. He just had a kid. So this was just James Engelman and a special guest who was really great. And I've now started to track down more of his videos. So check that out. It's in the show notes. And I think it was an absolute blast as far as those videos go. Both very easy watching sort of scenarios, not too long. All right, guys, I think we've got a whole episode. But of course, we need to know where can people follow along if they'd like to see more than maybe the TGN Slack or something like that. So Brock, where could people kind of keep in touch with you and make sure that they're aware of all the cool things you're going to do to the Land Rover and all that kind of stuff? |
| Brock Stevens | Yeah, so the main place everyone can follow me is my Instagram, which is at deep CEDC. And that's pretty much where I'll post everything from diving with watches to my product recover missions to my Land Rover. So please follow me if you if you'd like to check it out. And Chris, how about you? |
| Chris Soule | Yeah, man, I have been off Instagram really since like last October, but I'm sort of being like half grudgingly dragged back in by all the FOMO and wonderful things that still do happen, like Brock's account and all the rest. Whoa, Ben Lowry, all the good stuff is still happening there. So I'm on Instagram just at my last name, Sol, S-O-H-L. But of course, as always. Oh yeah, yeah, early adoption, man. I left that out with TikTok though. I wasn't going to go there. The best place to hit me up as always is the TGN Slack. It is incredible honor, privilege, joy to be a shepherd for that space. |
| James Stacey | So, you know, thanks for, I mean, there's no way for me to thank you enough for the work on TGN and, and, you know, obviously Jake as well. Jake, if you're listening, a huge thank you. We're going to have Jake on in the next, probably two months, excellent, which should be great. I'm going to start banking episodes for the, you know, the reason we've now explained several times why I might not be available to record and uh, come late June. So hopefully we'll have one from, uh, from Jake as well, but, uh, love it. Yeah. Thank you so much for, for everything you do for, for that community and, and kind of keeping people on track and also safe and, and, you know, best practices and all that kind of stuff. It's, it's meant the world to Jason and I, for sure. |
| Chris Soule | Wow, man, man, truly it's a privilege and a pleasure. |
| James Stacey | I'm glad to hear it. Brock, you've got a quote for us, right? If I do the pre-outro, you can do the final quote? Yep, I can do the final quote. All right. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes or get into the comments for each episode or even consider supporting the show directly, maybe even snag yourself a TGN-signed NATO, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazar via the Free Music Archive. |
| Brock Stevens | Until next time, we'll leave you with this quote by Jacques Cousteau. The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in a net of wonder forever. |