Latest / Lightning Strikes Twice / Coral reefs with Kramer Wimberley

Transcript

Coral reefs with Kramer Wimberley · Lightning Strikes Twice

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Lightning Strikes Twice, the Seattle Aquarium's podcast where we get to spend a little extra time with the experts who appear during our Lightning Talks broadcasts.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Amy Olson, and I'll be your host today.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I use shear pronouns and I'm a research scientist at the Seattle Aquarium.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Our guest today is Kramer Wimberley.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's a lead instructor at Diving with a Purpose.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Kramer.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Amy.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me back.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm excited to dive a little bit deeper.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Last time we heard from Kramer during our Lightning Talks, Ocean Ancients, he spoke about his program Diving with a Purpose.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you can check out that episode along with all of our other past Lightning Talks on our Seattle Aquarium YouTube channel.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: But to sum it up, Kramer talked about a collective approach to restoring our ecosystem and the importance of corals to that ecosystem.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Kramer, I was watching the lightning talk and unfortunately you did receive the lightning bolt.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: I know five minutes can go by so quickly.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything that you wanted to follow up with that you didn't get to during your five-minute talk?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know there were a host of questions that came up as a result of the talk that I really wanted to have an opportunity to answer, but with the brief period of time, yes, I did get struck by lightning.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm happy to have an opportunity to come and hopefully go through some of those questions to give voice to or answers to some of the people who had questions.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we have a list of those questions here.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: One of our questions from our audience members was what does it mean for our global oxygen level if the coral dies off?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that there is going to be substantially a change in our global oxygen levels in the event that what we focus on is hard corals die off, right?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because the ocean uh generates the oxygen, right?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're even if the coral dies off, you're still going to have algae engaged in photosynthesis.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The greater challenge with respect to, in my opinion, the greater challenge with respect to coral dying off is that coral protects over 90,000 miles of coastline from the ravages of storm energy.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It diffuses the force of all of that energy coming on to shore.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the loss of coral means the collapse of the coral reef, and now what used to be less than 5 or 10% of storm energy coming on shore, now you're getting 100% of that storm energy coming on shore, which is going to be catastrophic.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing with respect to coral die-off is coral is a nursery for over 7,000 species of fish and invertebrates that protects them from predators.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So absent that the structure, the rugosity of the reef that protects those fish and invertebrates, now you're losing fish and invertebrates that are protected in those coral nurseries also.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: A significant loss would happen as a result of the loss of all coral reefs.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I agree 100%.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it could even trickle down to the fish that feed on the corals, the coralivores, you know, if they lose their food source, are they going to be able to transition to another type of food, or are they so specialized that that's all they they have?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: If it were the one thing, the ocean as an ecosystem is extremely adaptable, I've learned, right?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the loss of one thing, I don't think would cause a collapse or a loss of everything else.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we're poisoning the ocean with trash and garbage.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we're heating the ocean.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we're dredging the ocean.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the layered approach of all of the damage that we're doing is making it impossible for the ocean to heal itself.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the loss of one thing, I think the ocean and the ocean organisms would adapt to, but we're losing a myriad of species as a result of human impact.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for that, I think we run the risk of collapsing the entire ecosystem.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like you said, this layered amount of stress from different angles that are causing all of these problems.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: We have another question about coral.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: If coral goes through bleaching cycles every 10 to 12 years, is that reflective of their life cycle?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm sorry, the short answer is no.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe what the person asking the question was doing was potentially misinterpreting what it was that I was speaking about with respect to corals and bleaching.
• 5:14
  unknown: Right.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let's set them straight.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Coral bleaching is is a naturally occurring event.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past, that naturally occurring event occurred between 10 and 12 year cycles.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Every 10 or 12 years, you'd have a bleaching event, and then the corals and the coral reef will have time to recover from that bleaching event and regrow.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But now, because we are human-impacted, climate change is warming the ocean so much that bleaching events are happening now instead of on 10 to 12 year cycles, sometimes between two and five-year cycles.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no opportunity for the coral reef ecosystem to heal itself or restore from the devastation of the bleaching event, which is natural, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a bleaching event and you don't give the ecosystem time to restore or regenerate before another one comes on top of it, then it's catastrophic.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you for clarifying.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Another question we have from an audience member was how much diversity is there in the life cycles of different coral species?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is an excellent question, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it requires a lot to dig down into because all coral species aren't built the same, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So one, you have soft corals and you have hard corals.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have branching corals and you have boulder corals, and all of them grow at at different rates, which means some end up growing faster than others, which is part of the reason why in coral nursery work, right, we tend to work with branching corals because uh they grow faster, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can take a coral fragment from a branching coral, and inside of nine months to a year, you can if if all of the conditions are perfect, you can have a huge coral thicket that came from that one coral branch.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because of how rapidly branching corals can grow, we spend a lot of time using those in coral nurseries.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: However, we also need to grow older corals and plate corals also, but now we've been working on, we, the dive community, right, uh working in coral restoration, started working on bolder corals over the course of the last 10, 15 years to try to grow them because they take a longer time to grow.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to state a time period, but over the course of the maybe the last 10, 12 years, right, the community has been working on coral fragmentation.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: You want to explain what that is for our listeners who have never heard of that before?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is taking a large coral colony and cutting it into small pieces, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And research, and you would would know, has shown that the coral has a tendency to heal itself quickly when a piece of it has been cut off.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: By microfragging or fragmenting small pieces of coral, you're kind of forcing the coral to heal itself and grow even quicker.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can use those little pieces to grow their own coral colonies and then outplant those.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's also a technique we use here at the Seattle Aquarium.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: When we need to fill one of our habitats with more corals, they do fragmentation behind the scenes so that we can have more corals available and growing.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, our fish and invertebrate team are excellent and actually have grown too many corals that we've had to give them to other institutions because they kind of take over a little bit.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're just that's a great problem to have.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: So switching gears a tiny bit, you did talk a little bit about marine debris and oceanic trash.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so we had someone who was interested in asking, are you optimistic that the growing Pacific Ocean plastic wear of trash will be effectively addressed in the next decade?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always optimistic, right?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: In spite of all of the challenges that we see and all of the negative human impact that is affecting our ecosystem.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a a Native American quote I think it's attributed to the Iroquois that says, and I'm gonna do a bad job at paraphrasing this, but the the work that we do today will not be manifest for seven generations.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a a Greek quote also that says, You know, a great society when uh old men plant trees out of the shade of which they they recognize that they will never be able to sit under.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So us looking forward and planning for the future is what my mission is as an ocean advocate.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I get challenged or frustrated when I continue to see what it is that we are doing to the ocean, what it is that we're doing to the planet.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what's clear is that we can't just stop.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can't look at what it is that's happening and throw my hands up and say, this is just something that's happening.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: We we have to do the work.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there are times when there are some dark days when you see the ocean on fire from an oil well, but then I work a lot with youth.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So having an opportunity, knowing that I'm actually working for them to make sure that they're able to see, see, and appreciate the love that I have for the ocean is why I keep pushing and moving forward.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are times when I hear them not regurgitating something that I've taught them, but hear them impassioned about fixing the problems that we have created for them.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: It says, okay, right, I see a path forward.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to fix what it is that that we've broken.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I also see a bunch of organizations like the WER trying to grow uh or remove debris from the ocean and say, that's one thing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I see coral nursery work going on, so that's one thing.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I see people work trying to get rid of single-use plastics, that's one thing.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: My hope is that at some point we're we're all able to come together, right, and create a unified vision for restoring our coral ecosystem, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Reversing global warming.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because as a human species, and we haven't been on the planet that long, but as a species, we are changing the chemistry of the ocean.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't been here that long.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The ocean covers over 70% of the planet.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's unfathomable to me.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But do you put your hands up in the air and say, I can't believe we're doing this?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you lock in and do the work?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Keep working.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to just dive a little bit deeper into working with youth because I always get so inspired by how young people can get so passionate and excited.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like, and maybe it's just me, but I feel like the generations are getting smarter, younger.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that I keep thinking about is all of the technological innovations that and youth and the general population have been able to invent and come up with, you know, all of the new ways that maybe someone will come up with this idea that will have the impact of cleaning the oceans in a big way.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard about little robotics teams have designed that you can set it on a beach and it'll kind of comb through the sand and pull out bits of trash that might come across.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm just curious, you know, what is gonna be invented in the next 10, 20 years that will help us move forward in that process.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I am as well.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: My challenge there is the technology does not prevent us from continuing to do the damage.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we've created this thing that can take all of the garbage that we're dumping in the ocean, so we can keep on dumping in the ocean.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, dumping in the ocean is a bad thing, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get people to realize that that is a horrible idea every time I get anywhere close to the water?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is out of sheer ignorance, the vast majority of the time, seeing people with the aerosol can spraying sun tan or sunscreen on themselves and watching the mist of it wash right across the ocean, and then watching them dive into the ocean with all of that chemical.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you're killing the thing, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: That you're trying to get in the water with a mask on to go and see.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So just getting people to switch from chemical sunscreens to zinc oxide, which is mineral-based, as an educational exercise, teaching people just to do that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Massive.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think awareness is a huge part of it as well.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, teaching the public about little things that they can do in their personal lives to have big impacts, like you just said.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: In Hawaii, where I was born and raised, it's against the law now to use chemical-based sunscreens.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so the only ones you can actually purchase are reef safe brands.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one way of also having influence is changing the the policy and the laws in certain places to help protect the corals.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Diaper rash cream is almost pure zinc oxide.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I can use that as sunscreen instead of uh in my bags just to give it away, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And people recognize it as diaper ash cream, but they don't recognize it's the same as sunscreen.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's hilarious.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: I have a two-year-old and I didn't even put that together.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, and you don't have to worry about putting it on with cuts or scratches because it's minimal, it's it's healing.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: The only knock that I've ever had on a one, it's it's a lot less expensive than most uh sunscreens.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It offers more protection than most sunscreens.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: People tend to shy away from it because they say it makes me look white, right?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't get it off.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't need to get it off, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of not using it because of the white film, I said, embrace the white film with my kids and adults.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have a ghost diver protocol.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll smear a bunch of zinc oxide on so that everybody has this white film on and says we are ghost divers for the ocean.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a ghost ghost diver protocol.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of embrace it.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing something to help the coral ecosystem.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, in thinking about education and outreach and awareness, this was asked during the episode, but I wonder if we can maybe repeat it for folks that maybe didn't get a chance to hear the answer to this question.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: What tips would you suggest for diving tourists to encourage responsible diving?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: We've already talked about using zinc-based sunscreens.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything else that you'd like to recommend for divers?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't have an opportunity to preach right enough.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing that people can do is to become neutral, buoyancy proficient as divers, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is the bane of my existence to see people getting in the water and then dropping all the way down to the bottom and stepping on or bumping into or crashing into the coral reef and damaging that fragile ecosystem.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So by becoming more competent as divers so that you perfect your buoyancy.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're getting close to the reef, you can just raise yourself up without damaging it.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely the first easy, easy enough.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: We are dumping seven million tons of plastics in the ocean on an annual basis.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Plastics right now are a way of life.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way, I'm virtually no way to get around using plastics, but we can reduce the amount of plastics that we use, hence going to recyclable bottles and recyclable bags.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Another bane of my existence is single-use plastics.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the supermarket and you see an apple wrapped up in a plastic holder.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: An apple comes in its own protective holder, it's the skin.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you take it out, and then that goes immediately into the garbage and then into a landfill and then into the ocean.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So single-use plastics and balloons.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Balloons aren't magic, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: When you're done with them, they end up in the ocean, killing marine life.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So to all of my family and friends, I think you want to take a picture of a balloon, that's fine.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But taking those helium-filled balloons and removing them from the ocean is is is like a never-ending exercise.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing them inside of the guts of marine animals because they end up eating them is horrifying.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Buoyancy controlled, single-use plastics, sunscreen.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, small, small things and changes in behavior that can have huge impacts.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we have a couple more questions, but before we get into those, we're going to take a really quick break and we'll be back in just a few minutes.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like what you hear?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: You'll love it even more in person.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Visit the Seattle Aquarium to connect with the ocean and the amazing creatures who live there.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Come face to face with thousands of animals, including local favorites like sea otters and harbor seals, plus sharks, stingrays, and other animals found in the tropical coral triangle.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Get your tickets today at SeattleAquarium.org.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now back to the show.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we're back.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Kramer, we have a couple more questions for you before the end of our episode.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: And one of them is very general.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really curious to hear how you answer it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Is how do we make people care about the ocean or science?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And challenge.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am actually working right now with a research team on trying to explore people's fear of the ocean or fear of the water.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you either have a positive or a negative view of the ocean.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Positive view, you're already my people.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Negative view is typically from some incident that occurred, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or something that you've seen on television or in the movies that is unrealistic.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most damaging things that have been done to the coral reef and the ocean was Jaws.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Great movie, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But people are terrified of sharks as a result of it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that has given human beings license to kill hundreds of millions of sharks a year, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just from a movie.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're still attempting to recover from that.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So people have a fear of what is basically the unknown.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So educating people about their connection to the ocean.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And every living, breathing person on the planet has a connection to the ocean.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they've seen one or not, they could live on a mountain or in a valley somewhere hundreds of miles away from the ocean.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are still connected to it because the ocean provides every one of us with over 80%, well close to 80% of our oxygen, oxygen that we breathe.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You owe to the ocean.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all connected to it.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It provides us with our food.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're all connected to it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have to educate and dispel the myth of the unknown associated with the ocean.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Many of my dive students are afraid of encounters with sharks and afraid of deep sea diving.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what deep sea diving is.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had an opportunity to dive with sharks for the last 40 years, and they can't process that I'm still here and I haven't been eaten.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the movie, but the movie, the movie, but I'm just moving what real life is.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So even my students say, Well, I'm I'm afraid of sharks and will be in the in the waters, and they'll see a shark and say, I have you.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to worry about the shark.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they see the shark and they look and say, You know, there's a shark over there.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they, oh, okay, it's not, it's teeth aren't coming at me, and it's it's not attacking me.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they eventually start to settle down.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that is firsthand knowledge and experience.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't do it by myself one-on-one for eight billion people.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: If only we could just clone you, you know, and just have an army of cramers.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the mission to keep on going.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, shameless plug for the institutions like the Seattle Aquarium, you know, we try to bring this unknown up to the surface for people who don't know how to swim, don't live next to the ocean, you can use the bar habitats to see what's actually down below and understand how you are connected with it and how it's not scary and how to get excited about it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're just looking at the ocean from the top, you know, you don't know what's under there.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: But looking going to an aquarium or another facility that you can see the colors and all the diversity and all the little critters and get excited about at that is one way to kind of inspire folks to make little changes in their behavior as well.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this is a side note or or not, but in teaching students, they also have a fear of the water, even dive support.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've had people in the pool and they could see the bottom and they could see the edges of it, and they're okay.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you put them on a boat in the ocean, it's like that's a lot of water.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I teach, if you're not afraid of the air, right, then there's no need to be afraid of the ocean, right?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone experiences the the massive amount of water in the beginning, and then when you jump in to the ocean from a boat, the water kind of goes away.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you're in the water, you're connected to it.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's the medium that you exist in, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone to a person, once they get, you can see their brain going, wait a minute, where'd the water go?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're in it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So getting people to understand that is is a challenge and a joy.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, is there any last things that you wanted to address before we end our episode today?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Anything, any you know, advice for young folks who want to get into the field or anything like that before we sign off?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Advice to young people is yes, call me.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to be a part of bringing you into my home.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: My joy is teaching young people.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, I teach seasoned people also, right?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: But to connect or reconnect with the with the ocean.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Work well, you know, I work with Diving with a Purpose, which is a nonprofit organization based out of the East Coast.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And much of the work that I do is with young people.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we're always looking for donations and support to support our mission of training and educating young people in ocean conservation and diving.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So divingwithapurpose.org backslash cares will take you to our donation page.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So please, please, please help support one of our young people or some of our young people support them in and providing airline tickets in order to get them to the program, supporting them in and getting a dive certification or working in program or or engaging in some coral outplanting activity.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every every little bit helps.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's it for this episode of Lightning Strikes Twice.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Kramer, thank you so much for being here.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a joy to talk to you today.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: If people want to learn more, is there somewhere they can find you?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, www.divingwithapurpose.org.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: And thanks so much to you, the listener, for joining us today.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Keep an eye out for our next regular lightning talks.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, stay curious.