The Grey NATO- Ep 60 - Blue Planet, Green Car

Published on Tue, 29 May 2018 09:00:12 -0400

Synopsis

The episode begins with Jason and James discussing some new clothing and accessory items they've received, including a ventile cotton jacket from Fisher & Baker, adventure pants from Dewar Denim, and a line of watch-focused accessories from Analog Shift. They then dive into detailed trip reports from their recent adventures - Jason describing his experience driving the new Bentley Continental GT through the Austrian Alps and parts of Italy, and James recounting his diving trip with Blancpain to the Revillagigedo Islands off the coast of Mexico, where he encountered various marine life including mantas, whale sharks, and silky sharks, and had the opportunity to dive with rare vintage and modern Blancpain watches. The episode concludes with their usual final notes segment, recommending an audiobook, a movie, an article, and a fascinating online story.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 60 and we thank you for listening. Man, episode 60, not bad.
James Stacey Yeah, seriously, where's the time gone?
Jason Heaton No earthly way of knowing in which direction we are going. I think it's going to be a fun show. You're back from a really awesome trip diving with Blancpain and I'm back from a really awesome trip driving with, uh, with Bentley. Uh, so we have, uh, kind of a main bulk of the show is going to be kind of a trip report, chatting about those two experiences. I think there's a lot to kind of dig into there, but first up, uh, we're continuing in our format of, uh, geeking out a bit on various clothes and accessories. You've got some, uh, some new stuff from Fisher and Baker.
James Stacey Yeah. Um, yeah, it's been, it's been sort of interesting, um, As we've sort of evolved the show, we've started to incorporate a little bit more sort of clothing, sort of urban technical clothing, and it's been kind of a fun area to explore. Very. Fisher & Baker hasn't been on my radar. I hadn't even heard of them, frankly, and I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a PR rep for this company, Fisher & Baker, and they're having an event here in Minneapolis that they invited me to on June 1st. I said, sorry, you know, I'd love to come, but I don't know anything about your, your company. And, um, he said, I'd love to send you a jacket to check out. And so they sent me what they call their Kensington shell. And, um, it's, it's sort of, you know, it, it, it hits that sweet spot that, that we both like that sort of technical, but not technical looking kind of, uh, product. Um, it's a, it's a shell as the name suggests. So it's, it's made for kind of light. rain or wind wear. What's interesting about it is it's made from ventile or ventile cotton, which some people might be familiar with that because it's kind of an old material. It was developed I think in the 1930s over in England and originally it was used for RAF pilots clothes due to its sort of breathability and water resistance. And I had been kind of looking at getting a ventile jacket from a different brand a while back from a brand called Jago, J-A-G-O. Okay. But they were just really expensive, but I really loved the look of it, and I really wanted to try a ventile cotton jacket, but I sort of passed on it. So when Fisher & Baker offered to send this, I said, great, and they sent it over, and I've been wearing it for about the past week or so. Fortunately, we've had a little bit of cooler weather, so it's worked out really well. But what's nice about it is it feels like a cotton shell. It almost feels like You know, if you can picture one of those Barracuda G9 jackets, the clean style thing, but it's, it has an integrated hood that, you know, fits really nicely on the head. I could see it, you know, probably would even work over a helmet, even though I doubt you'd wear it that way. Um, it has cinchable sleeves with snaps rather than Velcro, um, a decent zipper, some sort of slash hand warmer pockets, and then an internal pocket. And it's, it's, it's very muted. The one I got is sort of a Navy blue color. And I don't know, it's, it's a very urban friendly jacket. I like, um, I'm not sure, I'm not sure I would, you know, pack it along on a, you know, as, as my only sort of rain shell, but, uh, and I haven't had a chance to try it in a downpour, but they, they do say it's, you know, nicely water resistant. So, um, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to keep kind of testing it, keep wearing it. And I'm going to go to their event on June 1st and kind of find out about them. I'm not sure. I think that might even be. based locally here in Minneapolis, which is why they're having their event here. But, uh, yeah, it's called the Kensington Shell. Um, yeah, we'll, we'll throw a link in the show notes and folks can check that out, but, uh, I'm, I'm really pleased with it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's great. You can find them on, uh, Instagram. It's just Fisher and Baker, A N D Baker.
James Stacey What's neat is that I think, you know, a shell jacket is one of those, it's one of those categories that's kind of tough to, it's tough to fit. So like if you're traveling for instance, and you want to take something that's water resistant, You know, my default is always to pop my, I've got like an outdoor research helium, you know, packable shell. I think you've got like a marmot or something. The marmot precip, yeah. You know, which are great choices and they pack tiny and they're great. But they're definitely not stylish. They're not stylish. Like at all. If you're going to say Geneva in January or London or something and you want to look halfway decent, I think this would be kind of a nice option.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And it looks like you could throw it right over the Patagonia.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And it would still, it would still work. And I honestly think you could, it looks at least from the photos, like you could throw it over a, you know, a shirt and a tie. Yeah, definitely. And it's like, it's nicely muted, like you said, and yeah, they've got nice looking stuff. And then they've got some Instagram photos with Anuri Acosta, who's the COO at Hodinkee Inc. And Anuri's great and very handsome, is a very stylish guy. And he's in a handful. Like the very first image, when I went on, I was like, I'll check out, see what their stuff looks like, go on their Instagram. And I see Anuri, it was, uh, it made me laugh. That is hilarious.
James Stacey Well, I'm a good company then. That's great.
Jason Heaton Yeah, for sure. And then along the same lines, uh, we owe a thank you to listener Chris. Chris, you know who you are. You were kind enough to connect us with the folks at, uh, Dewar Denim, which is a Vancouver based apparel brand that makes kind of performance denim and some adventure kind of street wear. And, uh, we, I had a chat with, uh, with their people and we, we, you know, really got along and, and they've, uh, they sent, uh, both Jason and I, a pair of these live free adventure pants. Very nice. Which if you, yeah, if you imagine like a really comfortable. Stylish sort of casual, not a Chino, but also not sweat pants, like somewhere between, and then cross that with, um, cross that with like the Eddie Bauer guide pro pants. So you've got a, a kind of a thigh pocket and kind of a more trim cut through the calf. I didn't really know what to expect. I went by, they have a really awesome shop in Vancouver and I went by the shop and tried on some of the denim and I tried on these adventure pants and I thought that, you know, Grey Nato being Grey Nato and the sorts of stuff we get up to, these would be a pretty good option because they're definitely nice enough looking that you would have no trouble flying in them or even doing, I would say, anything short of, say, business sort of attire. Definitely a casual pant, but the I, you know, I'm blown away. They're really great.
James Stacey I am too. I, you and I were talking before we started recording and, and, you know, I think both of us haven't, haven't taken these, these pants off since we got them.
Jason Heaton I've been wearing them all week. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. They're, they're, they're really fantastic.
Jason Heaton Um, and you got a pair in green, which is called load in green. Yeah. And, and I got a pair in the brown, which is a field khaki and they're fairly loose fitting through the thigh. And then you have these kinds of zippered thigh pockets that have like a slant cut in them that kind of looks a little bit more modern, a little bit cleaner than your normal cargo pant.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And then it has a zipper that's in the slant. So the zipper always kind of has the, has purchase. It's clever. It works really well.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And they stretch in every direction. They're designed for biking. So they have like a specific design to the leg that allows for a wide range of motion. And then they have a cinch at the cuff.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton That allows you to go from kind of a normal cuff, pant leg cuff to a jogger, which of course, if your biking is going to be helpful for me, I love to wear boots pretty much all the time. And, uh, and this just means that the pants stay right at the top of the boot, which is a good look. I'd, you know, kind of, I like the way that the, the silhouette of that and, uh, they're insanely comfortable, maybe a little bit heavy for true summer. Yeah, I'll be curious. It's a thicker sort of material. I've been wearing them around lots. It's been really warm in Vancouver. Yeah. But I don't know if you would necessarily wear them on a day to the beach. Right, right. Like I think they're just a little bit of a heavier material. Definitely would be a solid three season option. But if you have like a true summer, if where you kind of kick around is in the 90s or more, they make a lighter weight version of these pants. uh, which is probably the option. And, and the pricing I think is actually really, really good. It's a 150 bucks Canadian.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton 142 in the US. Okay. So about, about the same for, uh, for us. And I think, I think they kind of hit it. Like this is, they're better than, I think that they, they fit and wear better than, you know, I have some adventure quote unquote adventure pants from Eddie Bauer in Patagonia, which look like more of a technical option. This is not unlike what we were talking about with the Fisher and Baker stuff. Yeah. where, you know, the Eddie Bauer pants or the, the, the, uh, the Patagonia crag pants, they are great. They work really well, but you also kind of look like you're going climbing or hiking or something. And that may not be what you wanted for the day, but you wanted the same kind of flexibility.
James Stacey Yeah. I think, I think with those really techie pants, like the Eddie Bowers or the Patagonia is that the material is so thin and stretchy that if you sit down, or stretch or reach or whatever. They work great, but they also kind of hug your thighs a little more, so they almost have a hiking pant tights kind of look to them, which you don't always want.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's a yoga pants scene. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it can be for certain. And also the, I have, and I bet you do too, but I have a bit of a problem with the sizing for the Eddie Bowers. Oh yeah. Because they don't do 34. Yeah, yeah. So if you want to wear them like with boots, it's fine, but like the 32 leg isn't that long. Right. These Live Free Adventure Pants from Dewar, they have a 32 length, but they wear longer than that because they're designed to sit below your waist. Yeah. The overall cut. And yeah, I really like them. So they have, like I said, you know, lots of stretch. They have this sort of cinch at the ankle, which I really like. The pockets are useful without being like obtrusive or looking like a military sort of outfit or anything like that. And yeah, I mean, for the, for the money, I think they've done a really good job. I, you know, I have only one complaint and I know you share it and it's that the sizing is a little bit vague.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton You know, normally I would wear a 31 to a 32 typically. And that's what I, I, you know, ordered for these. And I would say in with them, I'm much more, I could probably fit a 29. Yeah. They're just sized up and it's kind of a stretchy material too. So I think the sizing's a little bit in flux. So it might be the kind of thing where, uh, you may want to size down or I would say just very carefully use their fit guide. If you're not able to, you know, if you're not in Vancouver and you can't just go into their store.
James Stacey Yeah. It's, it's unusual to sort of advise people to size down usually with, uh, a lot of clothes. It's always like, well, they fit true to size or you should size up. And I'm, I've been a 34 or 36 waist since high school days and, and, This is the first time I've gotten a pair of 36s and I probably could have done in a, it looks like they even make a 33. I probably could get away with a 33 or 34 in these, but, um, you know, I think maybe a good washing and trip through the dryer might, that's a good point. Might, uh, might shrink them down a little bit. But, uh, other than that, I, I adore them. I think they're great. And you know what else I liked? It's kind of a subtle thing, but, um, the slash pockets on the thighs get all the all the attention but I think those two rear pockets are nice because they they've got like a little bit of a flap over the top so like if you if you slip a wallet a thin wallet or something in the back you're not in danger of being pickpocketed or having it fall out yeah where you put the small wallet in a big pocket and then you get in your car yeah yeah and it's just just the right
Jason Heaton Convalescence of a few different pressure points in the wallet. Somehow you leave it on your seat. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Always. And then the other thing that they, uh, that, that I like, and I've now come to, we've talked about it in the past with the outlier stuff, they have a water, dirt and oil repellent treatment.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And it's not slick or oily. I, you actually wouldn't tell that it's there until you spilled something on them, but they have some of that protection built into it. And it's something that I've come to really appreciate when you want Again, like we talked about with the, you know, packing light for trips is like, you kind of want something that can beat away a stain or two. Yeah. Uh, so that you don't get where you're going with somebody else's coffee on your leg. Right. Could, could be anything. Right. But the, uh, I always liked that in, uh, especially in a pair of pants. And I think they did a really good job with these. And I think it was, you know, Chris, again, thanks very much for, uh, connecting us with, uh, their guy, Brayden and, uh, Brayden, I had a nice meeting with him. So hopefully it's something where we might be able to do some fun stuff with them in the future. And, uh, and certainly even if not, these are great pants and it won't be my last one. I haven't eyeballing their live light AC pants. So it's a similar idea with kind of a single zippered pocket on the thigh. That's much more, uh, much more subtle than that of the adventure pants. And then, then it's a lighter sort of fabric.
James Stacey Very nice. You know, I think like we talked about with outlier a few weeks back, um, It's really exciting times if you're kind of into this kind of clothing. I think clothing is coming into its own. And I think these smaller brands, it's kind of like what's happening in the watch space with micro brand watch companies. You're getting some really high quality, great designs and good quality products from brands that are outside the mainstream. And it's nice to support them and just great to try this stuff out and see it.
Jason Heaton For sure, yeah. And then speaking of kind of smaller brands doing interesting things and collaborations and stuff like that, did you get a chance to check out Analog Shift's new GAS line of watch-specific accessories?
James Stacey Yeah, I think it looks like a really cool line of stuff. Very classic, very Analog Shift, good fit for the vintage watches they sell, with definitely kind of a premium sort of feel to them.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I guess we can assume that most people listening know Analog Shift, But they're one of the larger and more successful retailers of kind of vintage watches. And we're pals with James and Jacob and the team there. And then you have this new line, which is it's called Gas, and it's a collaboration with this guy, Graham Fowler, who's a designer. And Jason, you mentioned he has a store in New York that you've been to.
James Stacey Yeah. So he's He's from the UK, and you might know of his name because Hodinkee did a Talking Watches several years ago with Graham, because he has a very impressive collection of military submariners, both Tudor and Rolex.
Jason Heaton Oh, right, right. Okay.
James Stacey And he runs this store in New York I visited a few years ago, and I think he has since closed it or moved it. He kind of does a lot of sort of quirky sort of, you know, British mod sort of streetwear products, and he sells a small number of watches as well, and I think It's oddly, it's kind of a nice fit for analog shift given his propensity for kind of cool old watches and sort of that British flair that he has. So, you know, one of them that, that really kind of stands out to me as, uh, a really neat, um, product is this, uh, they call it the GTG mark two satchel. I'm guessing GTG stands for get together. Um, and it looks in many ways kind of like the, um, Chapman bag that was made for Adam Morelli. um, for that, that, that camera bag that I bought a little while ago. It's a sort of a cotton duck canvas with some leather and brass hardware. And, uh, it's got kind of two bellows pockets on the outside. I mean, this is something that, you know, they're selling as kind of a watch related product and it actually comes with, you know, like a little roll inside that you could snap in or out that, that carries watches. It's sort of a quilted barber style quilted watch roll that snaps inside. But you know, you could certainly use this bag as a, camera bag or you know it's just sort of a small sort of everyday carry like with a small laptop or something or you know something like that so I don't know that's the one that kind of caught my eye.
Jason Heaton Yeah I think the Mark II looks really good and it's definitely in the same vein as that bag that you have.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Which is a great look and I think it's clever that a lot of the obviously they have rolls in a document holder and that sort of thing but The bags all have some sort of that integrated aspect of moving watches.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Which I think is kind of cool. I really like the tote bag. I've got my, I've got tote bags on the brain recently, and then they've got this really great, it's this like really rich blue color with brown. Like I would, you'd say it's vaguely in the same space as like a Filson tote.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton But a little bit less rugged in its overall design. I think it has kind of a nicer, kind of more subtle look. It doesn't look like a Filson. And then it has like a built-in snap in sort of watch carrying system, which I think is clever and nerdy at a level that seems really dialed into analog shift. Like this seems like something James would carry, which I like quite a bit. I think it's gorgeous. And if you compare it to something like the price of a Filson tote, you're well within range and you're getting the watch angle and it's much more limited. You see Filson all over when you're in any city and that sort of thing. I love the blue and the brown. It looks, uh, it looks really good. Yeah. And it's definitely the sort of thing where like, sure, I would, you could put a watch or two in it, but I would put a camera in there and maybe a laptop, just kind of loose leaf. It just looks like that right kind of size, uh, for, you know, that one, that the, the second bag on the plane, right. One overhead and this one maybe slide under, under the seat in front of you. Yeah. Um, so I think that's a definitely cool line and congrats to analog shift for a cool collaboration and, and, uh, some really highly customized sort of watch focus gear.
James Stacey Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Good on you guys and good luck with that line.
Jason Heaton And then I guess before we get into the main topic, what do you have kind of looking ahead? By the time this comes out, I'll be back from another trip and you'll be leaving for a trip, right?
James Stacey Yeah. So on June 5th, I'm going on a two week trip to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. This is a kind of a combination family visit for my wife's, my wife's family lives in Sri Lanka and we were there last August. as you might remember from a past episode, but we'll be seeing them for a bit, doing some safari in Sri Lanka. There's a population of wild leopards and elephants, so that should be kind of fun. And then we're taking a little side trip over to the Maldives, which is only like an hour flight from Sri Lanka, and despite how many times we've been there, we've never actually made that short little trip, so this time we decided that We would go and spend four days in the Maldives and see what the diving, what the hype is all about with the diving over there, which is supposed to be pretty, pretty spectacular. So, um. Very cool. Yeah. That'll be, that'll be for a couple of weeks in, um, early June.
Jason Heaton So. That's great. I, I, you know, it's funny. I think I might only know the Maldives from people talking about diving.
Unknown Yeah. Right.
Jason Heaton Like I don't, I don't know if I know it for anything else.
James Stacey Other than the rising sea levels and the fact that, uh, that, uh, Rumor has it, it'll be gone in a few years. So people always kind of joke that you should get there while it's still above water.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, I suppose so. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. So when this airs, I will be back. Uh, I will have been back for a few hours, I think, uh, from Concorso della Ganza, uh, in, on Lake Como at, uh, uh, Villa d'Este. So it's a huge car show sponsored by Lange & Söhne. Yeah. I'm not going to go into any detail now. I haven't been there yet. I'll be, uh, you know, chatting more about it on episode 61, but it sounds like a pretty good June for both of us.
James Stacey That's a dream trip. I mean, yeah, my, my trip is for sure, but like Concorso, the photos I see, they look almost, they look like paintings almost. I mean, the cars are beautiful. The location is beautiful and the people are beautiful and everyone's well-dressed and, you know, it's, it just looks really, really elegant and spectacular.
Jason Heaton Yeah, no, I fully agree. It's it's been on my list for a long time, like pretty much since I first heard about it, because it is, you know, one of the premier vintage car shows in the world. And then, of course, to be sponsored by a brand like Lange, I get to by the time anyone's listening to this, I will have had to give back a perpetual datagraph, which they're going to loan me for the three days in Italy. So, I mean, It's going to be a fun, it's going to be a fun weekend. And yeah, I'm definitely going to put the camera through its paces. And that's one of the reasons I bought the Samyang, you know, the Rokinon that I spoke about was to get, you know, kind of larger scene shots. And there's going to be some opportunities for architecture and things like that. Some old, really old, cool hotels and things like that, right, right on Como. So should be, should be an amazing event, but more to the point, and we're both back from some pretty amazing experiences. How was things, you know, in Mexico? Give us, give us a rundown.
James Stacey Yeah, my trip was truly, um, truly amazing. Uh, so as I alluded to in episode 59, um, before I left, uh, I was invited by Blancpain to accompany a small team of divers and filmmakers and photographers to, uh, this remote archipelago off the West and actually due South sort of Southwest of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. called the Revillagigetos, which is, after saying it many times, I've finally figured out how to pronounce it. It's often mispronounced, and so it goes more commonly by the name of the Socorro Islands.
Jason Heaton I always mispronounce it. Yeah, so... I would just give up and call it Revillagigetos.
James Stacey We can flip back and forth, but we'll put the spelling somewhere in the show notes so people that are better in Spanish than us can figure it out for themselves. This, uh, this archipelago, it's made up of four islands. Um, actually one of them is just kind of a tiny rock that sticks up above the, the water surface. Uh, and one fourth island that, that nobody ever dives because it's quite far from the rest. So, uh, so nobody really goes there, which would make for an interesting trip in itself. So it was, it was really amazing. So I flew into Cabo San Lucas on, um, the first day of the trip and spent the night and then the next day our fairly small team of nine boarded the boat, the Nautilus Undersea, which used to be the Nautilus Undersea Hunter. And there was some confusion about what to call it, because apparently it's really bad luck to rename a boat. And I know you were on the same boat last year when you did the Clipperton trip.
Jason Heaton It looks so different in photos.
James Stacey Well, what I learned, and we talked with kind of this marine engineer that was on board the first day, he was kind of doing some last minute checks. Um, this guy apparently single-handedly, uh, rebuilt the entire superstructure kind of over the, over the dive deck. And you could actually see like, they look like fresh welds, new metal. Um, they, they extended the hull by 20 feet. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know exactly how different the boat was. I didn't take a whole lot of photos of the boat itself, but, um, it was a really nicely laid out boat. It's one of the smaller ones in the Nautilus fleet. They make, they have a really big one called the Bellamy. And then one called the Explorer that do a lot of these Socorro trips and Guadalupe for the great white shark diving. But it was, it was an interesting history to this boat as the undersea hunter, because it was built in 1968 and it was used for Sylvia Earle's deep rover project, which was a deep sea sort of submersible that she piloted back in the eighties. And then the the Timothy Dalton Bond film License to Kill was actually filmed in some part from this boat. It wasn't in the movie. I had no idea. It was kind of a support boat for some of the underwater scenes in that movie. So, um, kind of an interesting history. You know, I kind of get off on that stuff. I like to kind of imagine, you know, all the places it's been. And so from Cabo San Lucas, it was about a 26 hour steam, uh, Southwest to get to the islands. And the first place we stopped was, uh, San Benedicto, which is a very dramatic site. um, as you probably remember, cause you, you stopped off here on your way back from, from Clipperton. We sure did. And San Benedicto is kind of a, an interesting, it's an uninhabited island, but it's, it's a big volcano basically on one end of it. And it's, it's just classic volcano. I mean, you can just see the cone and kind of the lava sort of where the lava, you know, stopped its descent into the sea. And it's just a really dramatic backdrop. And, um, we spent, two days there and kind of one at the beginning of the trip and then another day on the last day of the trip. And the premier dive site there is called the Boiler, which is a bit offshore from the island and it's a submerged pinnacle of lava, probably a leftover, you know, remnants of a lava tube from a volcano. And it comes to within about 30 feet of the surface and When the waves are particularly strong, it causes sort of an upwelling there that causes the surface of the water to boil, which gave it its name. And because of kind of the upwellings and the currents that swirl around this rock, it draws in a lot of marine life. And, you know, sure enough, first dive there, you know, we take the skiff out from the undersea and drop in and I'm underwater. taking a goofy selfie with my GoPro because I'm wearing a very rare old Blancpain 50 fathoms. And suddenly over my shoulder flies this dolphin, bottlenose dolphin within feet of me and starts swimming around among us divers. And we noticed that it's actually a pregnant female dolphin that's in the middle of giving birth. Wild. So, so if you can picture a bottlenose dolphin, big fat bottlenose dolphin with a second tail coming out from below her tail, um, kind of mid birth, Um, and this dolphin was swimming amongst us and kind of almost playfully sort of flipping around and eyeballing all of us. And, and there was kind of a second dolphin that was kind of on the periphery as well. And, uh, it was, it was, it was truly one of those, it really felt like a blue planet moment. It felt like, you know, David Attenborough's voice is going to, you know, come out of nowhere and just describe the scene because you, you know, you, you see things happen in nature. You see wild animals. But to actually see one kind of, you know, whether it's spawning or giving birth or fighting or whatever, it's, it's, it just adds that extra dimension. And this was truly a special dive. And then, so the dolphins swim off and then of course the mantas arrive and this place is known for these incredible manta encounters. For sure. These giant oceanic mantas that swoop around and play in your bubbles and pose for photos and swim under you and over you. So this was my first experience that close with mantas. I've, I've seen them before in a Galapagos, but never that close. And apparently this is one place where they truly do interact with, with divers regularly. Yeah. Um, and then suddenly I, I, uh, someone makes a noise and I look up and here's this, you know, 20 foot whale shark that just comes cruising overhead. I, I tried to sort of ascend enough to kind of get in its, you know, not get in its way, but sort of get an eyeball level with it. And I didn't quite make it, but, uh, got some footage on that, on that dive of this whale shark sort of blotting out the sun as it, as it swam just above me. And, um, it was my first whale shark experience and it was, it was addictive. I mean, I, we saw three whale sharks on the whole trip. Um, this one being the biggest and it was just, you know, you see so many videos of whale sharks swimming with that big, powerful tail, just sort of lazily going back and forth and the spots on the back and all the sort of the legions of smaller fish that swim alongside it. And it just, it had that almost surreal, like, am I even here or am I watching a video kind of feel to it? Um, so that was the first dive of the trip. And, uh, and it was, uh, it probably was the best dive of the trip. I think anybody that was there would probably agree.
Jason Heaton The mantas are something else, aren't they?
James Stacey The mantas are crazy. Uh, you know, they're, they look like aliens. They look like aliens. They look like spaceships. They look like, uh, they, They don't look like anything else you really see on earth. And then to have a creature like that interacting with you is kind of equally odd. I don't quite know what to make of it because, you know, there's been some speculation that they do it because the bubbles from scuba divers sort of feel like the cleaner fish that they go to these cleaning stations for. But yet they do more than that. They don't just hover over you for the bubbles. They go under you and they kind of hover in front of you. almost like they're posing or playing.
Jason Heaton It seemed like curiosity to me, you know, at one, at one point off of, uh, off of Socorro, we had, uh, at the UNESCO site, we had three or four circling us.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And they definitely just seemed curious, especially if someone broke off. Like I, I, my first dive with the mantas, I didn't, my tank did not last especially long.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton I was just over-breathing and really having a blast and not paying attention to, you know, keeping my heart rate down. I was just, you know, living it. I'm surrounded by these huge mantas taking pictures and there's divers. And so, you know, I had maybe a 40 minute dive or 50 minute dive, something like that. And, uh, you know, I go back up to the surface and as you sit to do your safety stop, one of them will break off and kind of come over and say like, Hey, what are you up to? What are you doing here? And then, you know, you get in the boat and they kind of follow the boat, you know, the tent, the tender. And, uh, the guys have to be real clever with like being able to see them.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton because they're around and they're not, you know, the, the, they just seem very curious to me and such a gorgeous animal. And, uh, it's one of those things where because they don't have a predator prey relationship, you really don't feel like they're afraid of you.
Unknown Right.
Jason Heaton And I think they also, and I think almost any animal in the ocean gets this, that you can't really do that much. Right. Yeah. Like nothing's afraid of the person in the ocean. Like some, a lot of animals, I'm not saying they're going to come up and they want you to pet them or something like that. Yeah. But they're all just operating on a different level in terms of speed and flexibility and all of that. And all of that is hampered for a diver.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, uh, you're really in their realm and the, the, the mantas, especially the really big ones are, I mean, like, yeah, it's, it's really hard to describe. It's a wild, wild thing to, uh, to be that close and to be in that environment.
James Stacey And these are, you know, these are the largest mantas in the world. I mean, there are reef mantas in other parts of the world and there are mobulas and some slightly smaller ones. These are, you know, one went sort of underneath me and I kind of made a point of mimicking its pose by sort of putting my arms out and hovering above it just to try to get a sense of the size. And it's a little spooky. I mean, this thing was just, you know, five, six feet underneath me and it was easily twice the width of my arm span, which is, I think they say is your height. So it's probably, At least 12 feet across, you know, the wingspan, probably bigger. And there, there were kind of two kinds. There were what they call a chevron manta and then a black manta. And the chevrons are that black and white shading. And then the black ones they say are quite rare. They're like one in every 10 is a black one. And we saw a couple of black ones on the trip and they're, they're just, they have this sort of ominous look. They almost look like a bat, like a giant bat sort of flying along.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The, the, the jet black ones, especially if you get one that doesn't have like a big ugly white remora style fish on it. I don't, I don't know if those are actually remoras that attach to them. If you get one in a photo, because the water it's so blue. Right. And you don't have to be at a lot of depth. So you still have some light. I mean, the photo, the photos that you've put up so far, and of course I'll throw a link, but if you're not following Jason's Instagram, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what's going on at this point. We're 60 episodes in, but with the photos you put up so far, just fantastic. I mean, what an animal and a whale shark for me is like a pinnacle. Yeah. I love whale sharks. Yeah. And I've never dove with one, so I think that's pretty awesome that you got a chance to have one go by as well. I saw some great stuff on my dives, but certainly not a whale shark.
James Stacey Yeah, it was special. It was almost just like a bonus.
Jason Heaton Oh, and then you did a night dive with silkies, right?
James Stacey We did, yeah. It was more of a night snorkel, so we did... I'm trying to think which day of the trip this was. I think this was the day we were at Socorro. And we were just getting ready to depart Socorro the next morning to motor back to San Benedicto on the, for our last day of diving. And the, the, the silky sharks, which are like a four to, I think I've, I read they're like a four to seven foot long shark and you see them all over. I mean, the, the, you get a silky sharks, Galapagos sharks, silver tips, the occasional hammerhead, and then these white tip sharks. Those are kind of the, the common species around, uh, the Revierjedo islands. And, but the silkies. are very prevalent. And at night when the boat was anchored, you know, just the lights from the boat attract a lot of sort of bait fish, particularly the flying fish and jacks and small stuff like that. And that night, as you know, as you're looking off the back, the dive deck there, you can just see these sharks, which look much bigger from the surface when you're kind of magnified through the water. And they're kind of cruising in and out, sort of, you know, getting into hunting mode with all of these flying fish and small bait fish that are cruising around in the light.
Jason Heaton And their eyes will reflect a flashlight too. Yeah. So like, like when you hit it, when you catch a raccoon in your flashlight. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's really easy to tell if it's a shark or something else, cause they kind of turn against the light and their eyes glow.
James Stacey Yeah. So a few, a few of us put, um, you know, put snorkels on and wetsuits and fins and, and, and jumped in the water, which seems like an ill-advised thing, but, uh, it's something that the, the dive masters assured us was safe and, um, So of course they didn't go in the water. But, uh, so we all got in or a few of us did, and I just had this, uh, dive torch and my GoPro and, and was just sort of kicking around, you know, with my, my face in the water with the snorkel and, and these, uh, these silkies, they, they're, they're kind of like, there's this intensity to them that, you know, it was, it was less frightening than I thought it would be. I thought, I thought it would be a little more creepy and I thought I'd be getting, you know, sort of bumped by, you know, a dozen of them at one time. And, and they do cruise by. at close quarters and I did get bumped once, but they're so intent on what they're doing. And certainly a diver that's bigger than them is not really on their menu. I mean, if, if anything, you might get an accidental scrape or something as they're cruising by. But, um, yeah, you could sense that as, as we had more guys in the water and more lights kind of shining, the, the bait fish were getting a little more excited and you get the flying fish end up sometimes jumping up on the deck of the boat to get away. And the sharks start to move a little faster and kind of come in a little closer. And then it gets a little more disconcerting, but it was, it was one of those experiences that, that I, uh, I'll never forget. And it was, uh, it was truly special to do that.
Jason Heaton I remember when we dove the canyon, um, which is off, uh, San Benedicto, I believe, if I remember correctly, uh, we dove a site called the canyon and, and for the canyon, you were kind of just moored in very deep water. Yeah. I guess the, the anchor is in shallower water and you're kind of hanging off of a shelf.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And so you kind of follow the anchor line down, but you get in the water with a bunch of these silkies and I don't have any, really any experience being in the water with sharks. And they do have kind of a frenetic energy. Yeah. They seem kind of spastic at times. Yeah. And so I remember I did the dive and was fine. And one of them kind of like one followed me most of the way to the mooring line and then go down and do the dive. And the dive was mostly silver tips, which are just gorgeous. Yeah. Such a beautiful animal. And there's some of them are really small, like a foot and a half.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton So they kind of look cute as well. Baby sharks always kind of have, it seems like their eyes never get bigger or smaller. So baby sharks have these big, great big eyes and look really cute. And it was a fun dive and then went back up the mooring line at the end of the dive. And I got to the point where you could see in the visibility, the dark cloud of the boat kind of above and ahead of me. Yeah. And then just like what felt like 20 or 30 silkies circling it.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And it looks like something that you would use in a movie to scare people.
Unknown Yeah. Right.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, and then once they see you coming up, then they kind of come down and start eyeballing you and they'll swim kind of next to you. And, and they're, they're, you know, they're trying to, yeah. You know, there's a group of fish that kind of sit in the shadow of the boat and they're kind of circling those fish and. Right. And I got, I got, you know, I swam along the side of the boat and got up to the end and they were running the Rover off the end of the boat. And I popped my head out. I'd already done my safety stop kind of on the, on the line at the front of the boat. And I got to the back of the boat and I said, you know, there's tons, tons of these sharks. Is this something I should be worried about? And they're like, nah, they're like entirely harmless. You would have to like literally reach out and grab one for them to respond in any way. Otherwise they just kind of, they're curious and they, they swim around, but they're no different than any other fish. Yeah.
James Stacey The energy, the only other comparison to that level of energy, um, is like if I open a can of tuna around my cats, it's, it's, you know, it's this, you can just, the energy level goes up and they just start sort of very single-mindedly sort of circling. And, and yet they're the size of these things are the size of a, of, you know, decent sized dog, I guess, you know, like if you get brushed by a St. Bernard or something, that's kind of what it feels like to get sort of brushed by a silky shark. So it was, it was really cool.
Jason Heaton But yeah, I wonder if I would have had the guts to get in the water at night. Probably not. I don't know. I think you would have. I was, I would have, I like if you were getting in, I wouldn't have, I would have too much pride to not get in, but I'd be scared.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. They would, they would hear the breathing through the snorkel like intently.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton As I hyperventilated being surrounded by all those sharks in the dark. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a, that's amazing. And how did you find life on the boat? Did you enjoy it?
James Stacey Um, I did, I, you know, there are kind of two kinds of diving. Well, I guess three kinds. You can do shore diving, you can do land-based kind of boat diving, and you can do liveaboard diving. And I, I'm not sure that I'm all that keen on doing a lot of liveaboard diving. I mean, the boat was fantastic. I had a cabin to myself cause there were so few of us and the meals, they just overfeed you. And the crew was great and the company was good, but that kind of week of sloshing and pitching around got to me a little bit by the end of the trip. I just couldn't wait to get back on land and, um, And then, you know, for an introvert like me, it's a lot of socializing. It's a lot of sort of, you know, time spent sort of talking to people and sort of interacting with folks. I mean, you eat every meal kind of around a what's amounts to like an Applebee's booth, you know, sitting at a table. And, um, but, uh, fortunately it was a really, really fun group, you know, all in all it was, it was great. Um, it, you know, the group itself was, was an interesting group because I was easily the least experienced diver of the bunch. The main kind of core of the group was this cadre of French divers led by Laurent Ballester, who I talked about on the last episode, who's just phenomenally talented French underwater photographer and marine biologist who, you know, if you haven't checked out any of his videos, you know, you can just kind of search for him on YouTube or, or check out his website for his incredible photos. But He was there. He's been supported by Blancpain for probably the past five years and has done some really amazing stuff, including a 24 hour dive and shooting 700 sharks at a feeding frenzy and finding the living fossil coelacanth off the coast of Africa and many other things. But so he was there to, um, with his small group to, to shoot some photos at, at Riviera Higedo. And then they were also filming a movie that made available by Blancpain within the next couple of weeks. Oh, very cool. So it was neat to see him work. He, um, obviously the, the amount of equipment they had was absurd. Um, much of their luggage was lost and missing. So it delayed our departure from Cabo San Lucas actually. And then we had to be met by another Nautilus boat halfway through the trip. And they handed over more, uh, of their packages, which had lots of the lighting equipment, things that they were using for the video. He's sponsored by Nikon. So he's shooting with a, he brought along two Nikon D fives, which is their top line pro camera. SLR that he uses in a CCAM housing. And then he uses, what was really interesting to me for kind of camera nerds is, you know, you're probably familiar with the Nikonos cameras that Nikon made, the underwater cameras for many years. And the last iteration of the Nikonos was called the RS. And it was an actual underwater sealed SLR, like full on SLR camera with interchangeable lenses. And those RS lenses can actually be used on modern digital cameras. with an adapter on a CCAM housing. And so all he uses are the old Nikonos RS lenses, which are water contact lenses. So you're not actually shooting through a glass dome. They're actually made for underwater use. And I don't even think you can use them outside of water because of kind of the refraction that you get shooting through water. So, you know, it was interesting to learn about that. And he and his group were diving with Uh, rebreathers exclusively, so they could do a lot more deep and longer dives than the rest of us that were diving open circuit scuba. And, uh, just really impressive to kind of see his team, um, kind of in sync and, you know, they didn't skip a single dive. I, some days I would do three dives and one day I just did one dive cause it wasn't feeling well. And, but there, there were out there four dives a day with their red wetsuits and their rebreathers and their giant cameras and, um, really, really impressive and kind of chatting with him and getting to know him. Um, kind of hearing about his war stories of exploding, uh, or imploding camera housings at 300 feet deep and helping a French, uh, scientific unit rescue a submerged tractor into Antarctica and just all sorts of nutty stories that he was telling. So, uh.
Jason Heaton It's always so fun to experience somebody who is operating at like a pinnacle of something.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. That's, uh, That's an experience all in itself, just to be able, like, you got to hang out with Sylvia Earle, now you've got to hang out with Laurent Balesta. I mean, like, pretty cool, top tier people in that field as far as the work that they produce. And, you know, to see the team kind of bustle about, that's probably a bit like seeing a modern day expression of Cousteau and his guys.
James Stacey Very much. And in talking to Balesta, you know, he was very much inspired by, you know, Cousteau's movies. In fact, the red Aqualung wetsuits that they had custom made were inspired by the red suits that the Cousteau team wore on the Antarctica movie that was made in the 70s. Awesome. And, you know, just that kind of, he doesn't quite have the charisma of a Cousteau, but he has that discipline and that ambition. And he kind of knows the power of images and kind of appearances. And I think he really capitalizes on that. So really a privilege to kind of watch someone who's truly probably at the top of the underwater kind of photography and science game. Um, and then, you know, I'll just kind of close it out by talking about the, uh, the watches, the watches. And of course this was a, this was a Blancpain underwritten trip. And, uh, so they provided, uh, a really interesting mix of, of dive watches for us to, to kind of trade around and where, uh, the one I dove with most, uh, I can't really talk about because it'll be released on June 8th and, and, uh, it's a new piece that, uh, that I, had the privilege of wearing for most of the dives, and it's a great watch, I'll just say that. Very cool. But the other one that was probably even more special to me was a 1960s Tornek Rayville that was made by Blancpain for the U.S. Navy. And I've got a story that is going to run on Hodinkee, it might even be published by the time this episode airs, about the experience of diving with this watch and kind of its history, so I won't go into it too much. Um, essentially, you know, when the Navy was looking for a watch for the, the, the new unit, the new underwater demolition team unit that became the Navy seals, they evaluated a bunch of watches and decided that Blancpain was the best of the bunch, but there was kind of a movement at the time to buy American products. And so Blancpain was kind of out of the running. So an importer named Alan Tornick, um, convinced Blancpain to change the name on the dial to Tornick Rayville and Rayville is a bit of a wordplay based on Villeray, which is where Blancpain is based in Switzerland. And so they called them Tornic Rayvilles. And these watches were made exclusively for US Navy diving use. And they had very radioactive dials. So of the 1,000 or so that were made, I guess only about 30 are still in existence. And Blancpain actually sealed one of these up for diving use and sent it along. And I was able to do four or five dives wearing a 55 plus year old That is awesome. Very rare watch.
Jason Heaton And... It looks so good too. What a beautiful watch. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. It was a real, really special. I mean, I've dived with rare and expensive watches, but this, nothing, nothing like this. I mean, this is one of those things that, you know, I was always checking for fogging under the crystal or, you know, just really, really nervous climbing onto the skiff, you know, so I wouldn't snag it on a line or on the ladder or something like that. But, and then finally, I got a chance to do a dive with, um, that X fathoms. It's a watch that doesn't get talked about a lot, but, um, I used to not really like this watch. I used to think it was kind of ridiculous and it is ridiculous, but I've got to kind of take my hat off to Blancpain for even making this watch. And it was a direct sort of, uh, trickle down from, from Mark Hayek, the CEO, who's an avid diver. And he pretty much commissioned this watch as a sort of a pet project of his. And, and it has two scales of depth gauges, one sort of a, uh, more refined scale than the other for use in shallower water where you might be doing decompression stops. So it reads at a meter by meter scale up to, I don't know, I'd say like 10 meters. And then the larger scale on the outside of the dial goes down to, I think, 90 meters on kind of a less precise scale. So you can kind of track your overall dive depth. And then it has a max depth hand as well that tracks your max depth. And then there's a little button that's behind a hinged guard that you press to reset those max depth hands. And then on the upper left of the dial, there is a five minute countdown timer that is activated by a push piece on the left side of the case so that you can track, you know, just whatever miscellaneous sort of five minute things you want to do or three minutes or whatever, using this sort of countdown chronograph. And, and then of course it has a rotating bezel, but this, this thing is massive. I mean, it's bigger than, any dive instrument I've worn from a compass to a depth gauge or anything like that, but it's, it's utterly insane. And it was, it was neat to wear. It was impressive. Um, it's just, it's not a watch that you would ever wear for anything other than diving. I mean, it's just, it's absurdly big.
Jason Heaton Well, it's like some of those, those insane, like off-road conversions of, of like already big pickup trucks or Toyota, like SUVs where, you know, they're designed to drive up to the Arctic circle. It's so highly specialized that it's almost not a product anymore. Exactly. Yeah. But that doesn't make it anything less than very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, just a bonkers thing. That's really neat that you got to dive in that kind of a spread to go from the Tourniquet Rayville to the X-Fathoms.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. That's really, that's, you know, two polar sides of Blancpain's, you know, dive watch program.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, gave me new appreciation for the brand, a brand that I hadn't paid a lot of attention to, and frankly, hadn't really thought a lot about their watches. I've dived with a 50 fathoms before. I always found it a little too big, a little too shiny, a little too expensive, but you know, their commitment to diving is really impressive. And, uh, you know, I just have to thank him for inviting me along on that very special trip and, uh, keep an eye on, on Hodinkee for a couple of articles forthcoming about the, uh, the old watch and the new watch. So looking forward to reading those. That's kind of, uh, closes the circle on my, my trip to Riviera Higedo.
Jason Heaton Well, I can fill in on my trip and entirely different. Couldn't be a whole lot more different, I suppose. Yeah. So I was on a couple day press trip with Bentley for the new Continental GT. So it's a 2019 model Continental GT. And so very briefly for people who don't care that much about cars, I won't spend a huge amount of time talking about it, but I think the trip is cool for a few different reasons. But the the Continental is the is Bentley's two door GT, so Grand Tour, you know, long distant cruiser. The GT was originally launched in 2003 and is largely, you know, credited with saving Bentley, reestablishing Bentley as a maker of this, you know, not only very luxurious vehicle, but a very sporty vehicle and a vehicle that kind of was reflective of the roots of the company where these guys love to race cars on the weekend and they wanted something that was also still fast and you could go from one part of Europe to another, with ease. So that's basically what they set up for this trip. So I had flown to Munich and then in Munich I got picked up in a Molson long wheelbase, extended wheelbase. And I think that picture's in one of my stories in one of the collections on my Instagram if you want to see it. But I had this, you know, you could close the curtains on the side and the back and just kind of sit in the back like a vampire. and massaging seats and an amazing stereo. And it's just a very fancy place to be. And so we drove from Munich to Kitzbühel, which is like a ski resort town in Austria. And in Kitzbühel, we stayed at this Kitzbühel Country Club. It's this very amazing location that's not like a hotel. It's literally a country club. So there's limited opportunities to do things like this sort of stay. And then they had a presentation and a dinner and that sort of thing. And then the next day, Got a car and a co-driver, somebody to drive with, another journalist. And we went from Kitzbühel, we drove over what's called the Grobglockner Pass, which is an Alpine pass in Austria. And then down the other side of the Alps into a place called the Lienz Airfield, which is, they had set up a plane and a spot to take some photos and a coffee stop. And then from there, we drove into Italy to Soros and had lunch. And then from Soros back across Italy and into a different part of Austria, where we then flew from Austria to back to Munich to go home.
Unknown Wow.
Jason Heaton So I don't know what the total is, probably five or 600 kilometers total that we drove in the car. Wow. A true grand tour. Yeah, for sure. And so mine was a verdant green. You can see photos on my Instagram and my story is already live on Nuvo. So I will link that as well if you'd like to get a bigger download on it. But I had a beautiful verdant green, just like a dark but highly metallic green color, lots of chrome and then kind of a tan leather interior. And I would say that the important thing that I would communicate to anyone who's still listening as they ramble on about a Bentley It's like, I've really, I've always really liked the Continental GT. I've never driven one. Um, it's just always been one of my kind of favorite rich guy things because I, I really like the aesthetic and I like that it kind of blends a very comfortable GT style car with a lot of performance. And certainly this one is no slouch. You're looking at a 626 horsepower, uh, even more torque and the torque is available, very low, huge brakes, which you definitely needed. The car is pushing 4,800 pounds. And, uh, and they don't seem to care that the, the idea here isn't to make a race car or even a sports car. It's to make a very fast GT car. And whether we were doing switchbacks or longer roads, or even on the auto strata, and I was just kind of. Boredom Lee increasing the cruise control just to see how hard the engine would work to go fairly fast.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And I cruised at 160 or 165 for like 20 straight minutes. It just sits at about 1700 RPM. Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. So like, you know, you're, you're in eighth gear. It's a, it's a, it's a PDK box that they share with the Panamera. Oh yeah. So it is a awesome transmission and you can do the paddles if you want, you can leave it in drive, it'll do all of it for you. The PDK is as good as an automatic transmission has literally ever been. That's Porsche's dual clutch transmission. And then... So this car shares with... And they share the platform with the Panamera as well. So it's really, really capable. It's fast all the time because of the mix of the transmission, the unbelievable amount of torque and how low the torque is available, and then the power. But it's just always fast. From a dynamic standpoint, I would say it's numb, but a lot of new cars are. Like it doesn't feel like a race car. You don't feel every bump on the road. It's a big, comfortable GT car. But I mean, the interior is the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Everything you touch is metal or leather.
James Stacey It looked, from that photo, it looked kind of old world, like what's missing from so many cars nowadays. It's like shiny surrounds on gauges and switches and things, and yet obviously very modern instruments, you know?
Jason Heaton Really, really remarkable because they are, and I mentioned it in my write-up, they were able to really, I think, really effectively blend the dichotomy of wanting to have all that tech. So it has the same MMI system as I've had in Panamera.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton So it's a great big touchscreen, but then you click a button and the screen rotates away and you have three gauges, three mechanical, like you have three analog gauges. I love that. That show you the temperature and a chronograph and then an always upward facing uh compass wow so the die the dial behind the compass is what rotates wow it's clever it's cool so if you don't want the screen and you have a great big screen for your gauges the gauges are all digital yeah and like i didn't like that in the aston but i didn't mind it at all in the bentley and i still can't tell tell you why it's it's it's how it was implemented huh where it still felt really good. And like the tech was there, but not in your face. And like so many of the features are still based in like a button that's either metal or wood.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I mean, obviously you've got heated and cool. You've got every feature you can imagine, a heads up display. And just it's quiet when you want it to be quiet. It's loud when you wanted it to be loud. It's so fast.
James Stacey So styling-wise, or design-wise, the Continental GT has had a very familiar sort of shape for a number of years. And I couldn't quite pick up on what was a little different with this one. It looks a little sleeker, a little less bulbous, or narrower shoulders or something. I couldn't tell.
Jason Heaton Yeah, so they've brought the front wheelbase forward.
Unknown OK.
Jason Heaton So it has a longer athlete line or elegant line. And then the back is kind of all new. And I think, personally, the way they've integrated You could see it in the kind of profile shot that I have in the post, but the way that they've integrated where the hips meet the deck lid and then goes into kind of a little duck spoiler, I think is much more successful on this one than on previous models. Where the last ones looked kind of visually, they had like a heavy look to them. Exactly. This looks much more aeronautic. Yes. It looks like the fuselage of an airplane. You know how like you don't really get a, like an airplane sitting on a runway doesn't have a lot of visual weight to it, despite its size. Right. They look kind of sleek and light and fast. And despite the fact that this is, of course, a heavy car, it is lighter than the last generation. Yeah. And I think that they've communicated that sort of old world Spitfire sort of styling into the car in a really remarkable way. And then, of course, I got lucky uh, because not only did I have a green one and I was wearing like head to toe green that day, it also had the best stereo, which is a ludicrously expensive 12,000 Canadian dollars. Wow. I think it was 11,533 bucks, something like that. And, uh, it's from name audio and it sounded unbelievable. Wow.
James Stacey Just very good. That color is so good. I mean, okay. So, so you know, the car is one thing. I mean, that car, I think you know, from the ones we've talked about that you've driven in the past six months or so. This one's just visually just so appealing to me. I mean, it's such a beautiful car, but then the... And it's a do-everything. But then the setting and the trip itself was like every time, you know, I had this, these flashes of sort of Wi-Fi availability on this trip, on this boat. And every time I'd like check in, you were in some different place, you know?
Jason Heaton It's like... Yeah, yeah. We did breakfast in Austria and lunch in Italy and dinner in Munich. That was with a plane, of course, we flew from back from Austria to Munich. But I mean, I would say that that Grobglockner Pass, it had been open for about a week. Yeah. So I'm assuming it does get fairly busy. And there were people on bikes, you couldn't just like you couldn't go buck wild, the road wasn't closed or anything. Yeah. But that Grobglockner Pass, I think you could have fun in almost any car. Wow. Nice. It's just and the scenery is incredible. You are in the Alps, you are crossing over the Alps, you're coming back down the other side. And then the roadway between, say, that pass and then all the way until Italy, to where we were in Italy. You know, you went through towns occasionally, but a lot of it was like these weird pseudo passes where you were doing a lot of switchbacks up or down and then crossing a valley and then going back up another side. Really incredible drive. And I honestly think like you could be in a stick Ford Fiesta and have been having a great time. And probably the only difference is the Fiesta, you could be flat out. a lot. Yeah. And flat out in the Bentley was fairly scary. Oh, yeah. Just because the numbers got real big, really fast. Yeah. And like, I'm obviously I'm fine. I'm fine with that. But the these are also roads that kind of feel like they're about one and a half Bentley sized. Oh, sure. Yeah. So you would be going and then another car would be there. And, you know, that's when you like having the huge brakes. Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of thing. But And an absolutely amazing, uh, amazing drive. And, uh, one of the few times that a truly expensive thing that I will never afford lived up to my expectations of it. Wow. That's really cool. I mean, it's not like it's, it's not a, it's not a nine 11 GT three. It's not a race car. It's very much like it's a Bentley. Like I think you look at it and you go like it's classic and it's kind of an old school spin. They put just enough tech and really good tech, well implemented tech to make it a modern thing. But otherwise they're sticking to their guns. It's got a big W12. It's got a lot of weight. It's kind of always comfortable and always too fast. And I think that's kind of perfect. Like it did a lot of stuff really, really well. And it's got a trunk and would be really fun to do like 3000 kilometers. Oh yeah. Across Canada. I was telling them if they could get one to the top of BC, I'll drive it to Tijuana. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I'll find a willing, you can come, you can come. We'll split the drive. We wouldn't even have to stop. It's got a huge gas tank. Well, you'd have to stop for gas, certainly. And tickets, we'd have to stop for tickets. But yeah, so I won't belabor that any longer. It was just such a cool thing. And if you have any interest in the car, my write-up is on Nuvo and it's linked in the show notes. And then of course you can go on and actually like spec and build your own Continental GT on their website, which is always fun.
James Stacey Great. Put a button on this and jump into final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think so. I think it's time.
James Stacey Cool. Well, I'll kick it off. Actually, both of mine are kind of somewhat related to the trip I was just on. One, because I spent an awful lot of time lying in my bunk listening to audio books. And the one that I'm about halfway through that I'm really enjoying, it's not a new discovery by any means. For most people, it's probably something that people are familiar with just because there's an AMC miniseries that I think is currently being aired. It's called The Terror. And The Terror is, um, it's a novel by a guy named Dan Simmons, and it's a fictionalized account of the last months and years of the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, which are two British Royal Navy ships that were lost with all hands while trying to discover the Northwest Passage in Northern Canada. And they did find these ships a few years back now. I remember listening to a presentation by one of the Parks Canada divers who found it. Wild. It's a fascinating story. I mean, these were 1840s vintage ships. They were kind of a new breed of ship that had not only sails, but also uh, powerful coal fired steam engines that, that would allow them to break ice and iron fortified bows for, for breaking through ice. Um, but they didn't make it and, um, the ships were lost. There was almost no record of what happened to the men. And, uh, as the truth came out, um, this novelist, Dan Simmons, who apparently has done a fair amount of sort of horror and suspense writing as well, decided he would fictionalize the, the story. I was listening to it on the boat intermittently as an audiobook and it's read by a guy named Craig Vance who's a very prolific audiobook reader, a British guy. And his mastery of the different accents and voices of the different characters is worth the price of admission because he's just such an engaging reader. I'm about halfway through it and I'm just enjoying it. I sort of listen to it in the evenings for, you know, a chapter at a time. And it's sort of that harkens back to that age of exploration and the fact that it's fictionalized. You know, there's a lot that's sort of filled in that may or may not be true. But if at all you're interested in sort of, I guess, what you call historical fiction based on a very fascinating story, Definitely worth checking out the Terror audiobook and we'll put it on Amazon.
Jason Heaton Sounds awesome.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool.
Jason Heaton Very cool. Yeah. Good suggestion. So my first one comes via a listener who is on Instagram at BeerNye, Beer underscore N-Y-E. And it is the weird, dangerous, isolated life of the saturation diver. And it's an Atlas Obscura post from just earlier this month. And it's a really fascinating look at you know, a supremely hazardous job and the types of people who do it. And I mean, I think you can get most of the idea of where it goes just from the title, but it's a really good sort of long to semi-long read. Some great photography, some really fun artwork is also in the piece. You know, Atlas Obscura just does an amazing job with these sorts of things. Yeah. And it's a really good write-up about saturation diving, which of course is not well understood. I would actually assume that of all the people in the world, folks that are into TGN probably have some understanding of saturation diving. Um, but it's one of those things where like, now, now you can understand the one profession that actually needs an HEV. Yeah, exactly. It's just a little bit more information. Uh, and it's, uh, it came out on the 9th of May. Uh, so it's still pretty fresh piece and I think it's worth whatever 30 minutes it takes to, uh, to read it. It's, uh, it's really good. I highly recommend it.
James Stacey Yeah, I actually read this on the boat, um, and I got it through a link that somebody put in the comments to, I wrote a Hodinkee piece a couple of weeks ago on deciphering dive watch markings. And someone actually put a link to this in the comments and then it got a bunch of responses. So I think, I think it definitely hit a nerve and, and, and you're right among the watch kind of nerd crowd. It, uh, there's definitely a link because of helium valves, but, uh, really nicely done really sort of, um, sort of a layman's sort of take on saturation, having explained in a really fascinating sort of human level. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. My second final note is, um, a movie and it's one that, that we've, we discussed a long time ago, I think when this film first came out and it's a French film that's called L'Odyssey or the Odyssey in English. And it's, it's now available on Netflix. And what's really great about this one is it's the, It's the biopic of Jacques Cousteau. So, um, a really nice look at kind of the arc of Cousteau's career from his earliest days, inventing the aqualung through his expeditions and the complicated relationships that he had with his family, his children, his wife, the affairs he had, um, just the burning ambition that he had to, to become this ambassador of the sea and the showman and kind of really gave a glimpse into the, charisma that he had. And what was really striking, for one thing, that the actors that play Jacques Cousteau and particularly his son Philippe, who tragically died in a plane crash in the mid 70s, is how much they look like these guys. I mean, the likenesses are uncanny. And the story, you know, it takes some liberties and it kind of breezes through decades. You know, because it's a two hour film, you can't cover everything about Cousteau, but, uh, really, really well done. It's, it's in French with English subtitles. And, uh, like I said, I was really excited to see that it's available on Netflix now, and I'm not sure, you know, how long it'll be available there, but, uh, definitely worth checking out. It was something that, um, I watched just before, uh, going on this, uh, very Cousteau-esque trip and, uh, uh, kind of stayed with me. So definitely worth checking out the Odyssey.
Jason Heaton Very cool. That's one I'll download to a device for my flight tomorrow. That's great. Nice. Yeah. And my last one is a strange one, definitely outside of the realm of what we normally recommend. It's actually, those of you who know the site Quora, it's a question and answer service online that generally connects vetted experts with strange or varied questions. It's a neat platform and sometimes something pretty kind of bonkers comes out of it. And somebody asked, what is the most sophisticated piece of software slash code ever written? And this guy, John Bird, who's the CEO of Gigantic Software and a director from Sega and Electronic Arts, like a very, very kind of knowledgeable guy in the space, provided an answer that like, I don't want to go into at all, because it's absolutely fantastic. And you should just read it. He basically chronicles, I'm trying to decide how much to give away, he chronicles the existence of a computer worm, a virus essentially. A worm is like a different sort of virus, but he chronicles the existence of a worm that essentially broke some really insane protocols and took an unbelievable amount of time to even discover it existed. So much so that they don't even know what year it was created by the time they understood what it was capable of. I read this aloud to my wife who was nearby when I got the link, and this is not the kind of thing my wife could care less about. And even she kind of stopped what she was doing as I got past the building blocks of what this worm was capable of, because he takes his time to explain how it proliferates and then what it was actually designed to do. Two vastly different things. One was very much a general proliferation, get on as many computers in the world as possible. But the actual purpose of the worm was so highly targeted, it borders on the completely insane. Please, please take a moment to read this. It's not really long. It's going to take you six or seven minutes maybe to smash through it. And it's not highly technical either. I think anyone who sits in front of a computer can probably get their way through it. So that'll be in the show notes. And it's the most sophisticated, what he, what this man figures is the most sophisticated piece of software ever written. Really, really cool story. And, uh, something I've now read two or three times just because I find it very enthralling. Wow.
James Stacey Yeah. Let's check it out after we hang up here. That's cool.
Jason Heaton And yeah, so I think that's, uh, that's basically a show another long one. I don't know. They've been doing this. We've been doing this lately. Like, uh, we always say like, we always say like, oh, it's going to be 40. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's not going to be 40. It's a good thing. I have a 10 hour flight to edit this. No trouble.
James Stacey Yeah, really. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Be sure to hit the show notes for more details, and you can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J E Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write to TheGraynado at gmail.com and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And before I forget, a big thank you to everyone who did review. We got a ton of reviews and Jason and I really appreciate it. And we leave you with this quote from Isaac Dennison, who says, the cure for anything is saltwater, sweat, tears, or the sea.