Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1221: Raising Environmental Awareness Through Epic Adventures with Rémi Camus

Transcript

Ep. 1221: Raising Environmental Awareness Through Epic Adventures with Rémi Camus · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_01]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast again today.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Our guest is Aimee Kamu, and my friend is horrible, but I think I got close.
0:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.
0:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a French explorer who has done such amazing massive projects, and here are just some of them.
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: He crossed Australia on foot, self-supported.
0:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not easy to do, 5,400 kilometers.
0:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He descended the Macong River, and that was 4,400 kilometers.
0:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And he did that on a riverboard?
0:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, riverboard, yep.
0:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he swam all the coastline of France, and it was, I cannot speak the French, but it's called the Tour de France al-Anat.
1:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, perfect.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: He also was on a television program wild, and he won that contest, which is really, really fun.
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: He also swam 180 kilometers open water from Corsica, Tamanico, and he did that self-supported, which we're going to have to talk about, because that cannot be easy to do.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: His most recent adventure was going from a glacier and Switzerland all the way down to the Mediterranean on the Rhone River and he did that with a pack raft, but he does these things to raise awareness about environmental concerns and we're going to dive into some of that today as well.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But wow, honey, what a resume.
1:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That's impressive.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a program.
1:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite, it's short,
1:51
[SPEAKER_02]: These are not short, these are not short expeditions, but I think it's an amazing thing that you're doing here.
1:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's start with a little backstory.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, right now you said you're north of Leo in France, is that where you grew up or whatever?
2:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Not at home.
2:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been living in the right in the middle of France, in the small countryside, the small town.
2:14
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning, I started to work at school and I wanted to work in hospitality business.
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've done degrees about it.
2:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I turned 1920, I started to travel around the world, working in a hospitality business restaurant.
2:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just traveling and I did
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: eight years and I handed up in one Michelin star close to Geneva in Switzerland and that was just most of it that was just working in restaurant and traveling at the same time and I always had this kind of thing living on the countryside for me it felt like safe sleeping in the forest when I was a kid then going in the town center because it was too crowded too many people because just going crazy
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: and I was like, I'm safe in the forest to make a little fire and I grew up like this I've been catch up by my life, to make money so I work in restaurant business and I did that for eight years and in 2010 my mom just invited me for all the days and went to Brittany.
3:25
[SPEAKER_00]: and they were a huge garage cell in one little town.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was fun because I said to her, you made me just cross the whole France 700 kilometers just for a garage cell and she was like, yeah, but it would be a good one.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, yeah, for sure.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had that so much.
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went with her and I left my mum, she was just trying to bug in for you stuff, try to get a nice thing to bring it back home and me, I went to the bar to check if the beer and Brittany was better than in England when I was travelling there.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And after a couple of pint of beer was like, okay, let's find my mom.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So I woke around and I bumped into a lady and she was sitting all of the books that she had a home.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just checking, but I was looking for something in particular, just checking.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look at one book and it was a French guy who ran across America, it started in Alaska and he ran all the way to Ushwaia, 24,000 km in one year.
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: enough 24,000 kilometers with just a backpack and that's all.
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, if this guy did that, why I can do the same.
4:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went back to see my mum, we just came back home and after the dinner I said to her, well, I'm going to bed and she was lucky and I didn't sleep, I read the whole book, the online long.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: and the morning I just went down she was just drinking a coffee and with a messy hair a nice dress because she just woke up and she was like this and I was like hey mom was like just lip oil and yes didn't slip yet I just read the book all night long and it's so interesting this guy ran across America the whole way down from the north to the south she was like wow and I said to her I got an idea
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to run across the country as well.
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, nice, but first finish your coffee, and we will see.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, and I had that in my mind, and usually I went back to the restaurant business where I was working close to Geneva and kept that in my mind and took me eight months to set up my project to get ready because I was a waiter, I was not a runner, so I had to just move a bit faster than just working around, I had to run because my project was to run across
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to learn how to run, which was extremely difficult, but I had to work at the same time.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was running 20 kilometers the morning, working during the lunch shift.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I was going to the gym to get fit because I had to pull this little car, the 40 kilo with all my gears and stuff.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I was doing the night shift.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I was going to run again at night, 20 kilometers, so I could just get home and go to sleep.
6:22
[SPEAKER_00]: every day.
6:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Good grief.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to ask about that because you must have been strong to start with.
6:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Doing that kind of distance is, well, I visited with another runner who said train don't strain and doing that kind of distance consistently like that sounds like a strain to me.
6:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you have any injuries or how long did it take you to say, no, I can do this.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really lucky because I didn't have a personal trainer at this time, so I trained by myself and doing 2 times 20 kilometers every day to get ready for this run was probably not the best idea, but I had no idea, so I did it like this, and I was so lucky because nothing happened.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I was 26 years old, so I was in a good shape.
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not say that I'm not in a good shape right now, but I was in a good shape in when I was 26.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing happened.
7:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I started my journey in Australia to run across the country.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I was confident.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got like a few injured when I was in Australia, but nothing really, really bad.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I got injured because I had only two pay of shoes to run 5,400 kilometers to visit the opportunity.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was not enough, obviously, I was supposed to take like five and I got like a really, really pain on my, on my hips.
7:46
[SPEAKER_00]: that was terrible and I had to change just my pay off shoes and it was fine but if I would say about my physique everything was fine I got beaten by a red back spider it's kind of thing when I was in Australia but nothing nothing bad just happened about my physique I was really lucky that
8:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I could cover this distance without injury, without being injured.
8:10
[SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was 5,400 kilometers.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And you pulled a gear in a cart.
8:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
8:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You went from Melbourne to Darwin on the Stewart Highway and the Great Ocean Road.
8:21
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of desert.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, like, when you just stick to the greater shan road, just most of the time close to the road, it's rainforest next to the ocean, so it's quite nice.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got like a small city down every 50 kilometers, so you just can get water and food easily.
8:42
[SPEAKER_00]: When you reach Adelaide and then the last pointed sport I guess that before the deserts So then it's just like you open the door and it's just the empty desert in front of you are like My gosh In front of me that there's no town.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing so I got to be ready
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a massive like smash on my face.
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I would, I'm sure that if I were to start my journey in the different way, if I would start in Darwin and it up in Melbourne, that would have been extremely difficult because when you start in Darwin, after just a few hundred kilometers, you just end up to try to win the desert.
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: which could be difficult.
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other way, I made like nine almost 1,000 kilometers before the rich that is it.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got used to it to run every day, pulling my little trader to get to the desert and then to the Aboriginal communities.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like I got a I've been trained and I got another training before to get the desert.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was good.
9:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be harder to turn around to knowing that you had covered so much distance already.
9:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but if you start in the desert, boy, I could be discouraging.
9:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You had to take a lot of water in your cart.
10:01
[SPEAKER_02]: How heavy was that?
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very different, when I was on the Great Ocean Road, completely the thout.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I was carrying like between five, six liters a day.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That was enough because I could just get water easily.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: When I reached the desert,
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I discovered that I couldn't get easily this kind of water.
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just running with 30, sometimes 35 liters of water, and I was drinking between 15 and 20 liters a day.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was tough.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hoping 35 kilograms.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, just what we're not going to do here could just get red off It was just like going on my sweat and nothing else like I was just stepping to pee and it was like that's home
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That was crazy, sweating that much and I was just hoping that people were just passing by and it was just stopping every single car just like, please guys, do have some bit of water, I was like, yes, most of the people that were helping me.
11:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And you get some resting area, sometimes in the middle of nowhere in Australia.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, it's not drinkable water.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You shouldn't drink it because it's borrower.
11:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And me, I didn't get it at the beginning, because I thought it was boy water.
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: B-O-I-L, and they said, no, it's not boy, it's borrower.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we just take it from underground.
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, really strong one.
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, ah, I didn't get it.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But they said, don't drink it, but I had nothing else.
11:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to drink that.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still here, so I'm safe, it seems to be that I just pass the whole my whole journey.
11:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a strange thing to run across the country and under 50 degrees temperature.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: People that were driving their car with the air cone and everything, passing by, driving
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: making a huge turn, just making another huge turn, stopping next to me, just like, I was driving and I just passed you and we got aircon and it's hot and we are complaining because we are driving in the car with the aircon and it's still hot and then I'm just passing a guy running in a middle of nowhere in Australia and I was just like talking to my wife, did we see someone running?
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like,
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so.
12:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wait, no a minute.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to make a return to make a return just to confirm that.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there was someone running in the middle of nowhere in Australia.
12:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Just asking, are you fine?
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just like, yes, I was obviously I'm fine and I was talking to them.
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: making this kind of step all the time they were like what do you just all the other time step like this because I was like because it's if I stop the temperature is too hot on the road and that just melt my shoes so after just move all the time because it's too hot and it was like wow they were looking me like okay do you need anything or just like water was that okay I was safe trip that was nice
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: that's that's remarkable they was fun just can't even imagine it i i'm blown away by that it to be your first big challenge as well did you at some point wonder if you'd
13:30
[SPEAKER_00]: and I explain all the time to the people that come to my survival camp, I said to them, if you decide to go on adventure, you have to know that people leave you to go on adventure and you have to respect them.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really important.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: In communication it's just
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: basic things that you need to have all the time.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I was 26 I didn't really care about it for me it was just like yeah well I'm fine and that's all.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes I was just like maybe think about it after it was like maybe I went too far because when I decided to do this adventure my mom she said you can go on this adventure but the only thing I want you to have it's a
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're in 2026, just with your iPhone or whatever smartphone, you can just have a device and you can just reach the satellite easily.
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But in 1011, you had to have the special satellite phone to just make this kind of call.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, but mommy, do you know how much it cost?
14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: The price of just the connection just to call you.
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really expensive, she was like, I don't care.
14:39
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have that, you don't go.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to find the sponsors to help me and I got a set of iPhone and when I was in the middle of the dead earth running My mom she was like I'm gonna call you every three days.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like wow He's gonna bother me all the time.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know everything is fine.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay
14:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was running in a desert and it's really fun because you get your phone just like on with the antenna and suddenly when you're in like do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do you just someone calling you in a minute of nowhere It's really funny.
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I was picking up the phone was that hi.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like yeah, I know it's you What about it's calling me?
15:19
[SPEAKER_02]: No one else could call.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's you.
15:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was talking to my mom and she was like where are you like I'm in a desert
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, how it is, how do you feel?
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel well, I'm okay, I have a bit of pain or whatever.
15:34
[SPEAKER_00]: How it looks like, it's very sandy, we got a denim on somewhere because it's smell really bad, and you get some bushes and that's all.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, okay.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just hanging because it was costing a lot of money.
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And my mother was like, okay.
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And after three days she called me again.
15:51
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, where are you?
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I'm in a desert.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, where are you?
15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, it's very sandy and there's a dead animal somewhere, and because it's not good and bushes.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I didn't move.
16:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You're still in the same place.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, come on, it's just Australia, 4,000 kilometers from the south to north.
16:09
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just run into straight lines.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, I'm not wearing that fast.
16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And everything just like, it's just a desert.
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was really funny to just consider that that I was probably supposed to give her more details because the human brain is really good to just think about too much and that's why I think I went a bit too far.
16:33
[SPEAKER_00]: on this journey regarding my family, people that really care about me.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, really important that if you go on adventure, please consider the one that you stay at home.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really important.
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that is important in Wells' head.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, yes, I wouldn't say I went too far,
16:55
[SPEAKER_00]: When you do an adventure, you have to first prepare your adventure and you could take like a couple of months or a year or whatever.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you leave your adventure and then you have to just explain what you've done.
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this is what we are doing right now.
17:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing I didn't, I wasn't ready but there weren't one thing I was not sure if I could get water all the time in a binner for Australia.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously I didn't have water all the time.
17:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had to drink my hearing not to die in the middle of nowhere after four days without drinking water.
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the tricky things that just got to my mind.
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, wow, if I had to drink this yellow orange brand disgusting smell, it's like a strong beer, but too warm and disgusting.
17:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, it's awful.
17:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had to drink it to make sure that I wasn't going to die in Australia.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, if that happened to me, probably people around the world, they have to fight to get access to water.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is how I decide just to carry on all my journey after all my adventure about water to raise awareness and try to find solution for this kind of people.
18:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Water.
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: is the lifeblood of the planet.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew it when I was 20, I mean I discovered that when I was 26 and I'm more into it right now and I can see that it's a trick of things around the world, around different countries that some of them they try to get the older order for them.
18:38
[SPEAKER_00]: when you just look what happened in Asia or in Latin America, in Africa, it's really, really difficult and you can see that the pressure, some companies are government are making on people just with single things that is called water, which is supposed to be for everyone like this and it's not.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard so many stories about water and we could spend the rest of our time just talking about water, you know, but I mean, there are issues in places, for instance, this is a general anecdote, but you know, someone decides to plan a vineyard and they use up all the water in the river and then the river is supposed to flow over a international boundary and it is the life blood of the people downstream, but there's no water because it was used for a vineyard
19:28
[SPEAKER_02]: these sorts of issues happen around the world, you have droughts, you know, you have people that are drinking water that is very, very unhealthy, causing color and dysentery and all sorts of diseases.
19:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You also have people that might spend hours every day just retrieving water from a muddy stream because they have to walk for miles and carry it back again.
19:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And we sure take water for granted in the West.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's grow.
19:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We really, really do.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
19:56
[SPEAKER_02]: and I am a huge proponent if people want to get involved in helping communities have reliable clean water.
20:03
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the the best ways to help people around the globe.
20:07
[SPEAKER_02]: What have you done for me?
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: In
20:10
[SPEAKER_02]: in that endeavor.
20:12
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you build awareness for people about water challenges?
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what I've done my thing in Australia, I did a couple of adventure that the one that you said at the beginning.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I riverboarded the Macong River from Tibet to Vietnam, and the goal was to understand how people living nearby the river that was just
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: getting this kind of access to the Macon River, which is extremely interesting because I didn't know that, but you got like 17 million people living nearby the Macon River, 17 million.
20:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's massive, it's huge.
20:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of them, they live with this river, they need it for transportation, for agriculture, for fishing, for living, for they need the water all the time.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can see that since the first dams have been built on the Macon River, so it's like 30, 40 years ago, things have changed completely.
21:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You have some places that the water is not like flowing naturally.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They know how to control the people living downstream.
21:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They can just open the water or they can close it easily.
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just like trying to understand how people they were living nearby this river.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've riverboarded the Macon for five months, completely six months because I've been stopped by the immigration in the capital of Flau for drug trafficking, weapon, like common guys.
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Just give me everything that would be fun.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It happened to me like this.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But I managed to just finish my journey.
21:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you reach the Chinese Sea, completely at the bottom nearby Vietnam, you can see that 70 million living nearby the Macang River in 2014, just dumping into the river or their trash because they didn't have facilities there.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing just to collect all the trash that we can have in our developed country.
22:12
[SPEAKER_00]: and all of that just moves slowly all the way downstream to Vietnam and then to the open open water.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just like my goodness, it's a lot of things going into the into the sea, like how many kilograms of trash are just hanging up in the ocean.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I did know at this time when I discovered that it's like more than 600 tons every second ended up in the ocean and from
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we said that there is like 10 big rivers around the world that just help to have this kind of 50% of trash that you can find in the in the water and I was like, wow, if that happened.
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: people they need to know about it, I decided to finish this journey to get back to France and to set up a new project swimming along the French coast from Dunkirk, which is north of France and all the way to Monaco.
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just swimming six, sorry, 2,650 kilometers in three months enough, 30 kilometers a day.
23:24
[SPEAKER_00]: 12 hours a day, and I was just talking to people, trying to raise awareness, and to explain that our country, France, is what exposed to what happened, and what's coming from the ocean, because we are really well exposed to all the water.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And the change to talk with more than
23:44
[SPEAKER_00]: 23,000 people like not like some of them say or I I reached two million people on social network or whatever.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, like really I had the chance to talk to 23,000 people in front of me just to explain to them why it's so important to preserve our environment, why it's so important
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to preserve our water, our coastline.
24:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Why we are just to heat it like nature, environment, ecosystem, everything.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We are just all part of it and we need to care about it.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had to move on on my journey and I wanted to just talk about something like it's the more and more invisible.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I reached the Mediterranean Sea after the French swim along the French coast,
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just like, this is the, I don't know, it's the right word paradox between what we can see when we are living.
24:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You go to the Mediterranean Sea during some time.
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all blue, nice and perfect at the surface.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you put your water under the water, it's covered by trash, you can find rec cars, bicycle, motorbike tires, bottle of plastic and everything.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this is disgusting.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But still,
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's some thing that you can collect easily because it's just huge pieces.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, but what happened when all of that just became so tiny that our eyes just can't see it?
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So in 2023, when I decided to swim from Corsica to Monaco, we started to work with the labs, because I was like,
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Raising a one is about this kind of thing.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good until you can't see it.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can see the trash just having on the beach or in the water, you can just like point to that.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And the media, they can come and cover it because you can say, look, it's just right here.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you can't see it,
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: The media just see the blue water and just like, well, it's clear and blue and like, yeah, but it's polluted.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can't say it because you don't have the evidence that it's highly polluted.
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to work with the labs and this is how we just start to move on with labs and to turn just a simple sport adventure to scientific sport adventure.
26:02
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something about doing big athletic feats like this.
26:06
[SPEAKER_02]: People notice and people want to write news articles or they want to interview you.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to find out more information.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are you doing it all that kind of stuff?
26:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But it creates a platform where you can use that to build awareness.
26:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really cool.
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Has that become the primary motivator?
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you do the adventure because you love the adventure?
26:26
[SPEAKER_02]: and you can help the environment or has it kind of become a matter of I want to help the environment so I'm going to keep doing this.
26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really tricky question because I love adventure and I love to put myself in the situation that to say I'm in trouble and I love it and I love this kind of situation but my adventure is not just to say I'm going I'm going to break the world
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: but I was like, I can use the adventure that I'm trying to make happen with a purpose with something really important for me and I decided to turn everything into for the safe drinking water, for the
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: to attract people about it, to raise the water, so it's always the goal, it's the boat water, and I use the adventure and the media covering and everything to just point at this problem to say, look guys, this will happen right here and we need to highlight this problem.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that we are working with the laps since like four years,
27:33
[SPEAKER_00]: is just like make our adventure even better because now we just bring back some information with like proper numbers to say this is what we found in this river in this ocean because we got like we got to recall the body and that's really important.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So what did you find what were some of the results?
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Well we work on the adventure in September 2005 just using a
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: 55 places to collect samples about PFAS, which is molecular that we use in a lot of different technology.
28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find that in paints and cars, all the closes, you can really find it in a
28:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why we decided to just make a huge mapping about these four letters, PFAS, and everything I've been done, we just sent all the resin to another lab, and now we're just waiting for the result to be published.
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: and hopefully that would just help politician, whatever, to just move on and try to stop some of this molecular because obviously it just affects our ecosystem and if it's our ecosystem at the end it's for us as well.
29:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really interesting to work on this kind of thing and last time I did
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There were big, big show in Paris in our capital and I took the Jaguar border and they were the glass and I filled up and I was like, do you see this water?
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's clear and perfect.
29:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But you imagine this one is full of pollutant inside and I took the other glass with another Jaguar border and I filled up and this one is just clear and there is no single pollutant
29:41
[SPEAKER_00]: With your eyes, with your naked eyes, you can see if this one is polluted or not.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really important that people don't need to understand that, it's not because you can't see it, that is not polluted.
29:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when it comes to microplastics, and these forever chemicals, the PFAS, they don't see them.
30:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're there.
30:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you test for them, then you find out they're there.
30:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States sets what they consider to be safe limits for exposure to different chemicals and things like that.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the PFAS chemicals,
30:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That the limit is not like one part per thousand or one part per million or one part per billion some of these chemicals that are in the water everywhere the safe limit is none no parts, but the the chemicals are there and it a lot of the PFAS chemicals actually come from outdoor.
30:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Key results a lot.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: they use it as well in the following, the form that they use to fire fires, but they say airport as well, you can find it in all the chemical using for the agriculture as well.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We used that since 1938, he used to be, for me, I call it this, it's a magical molecule, it's really interesting, but he had this dark side on the opposite side.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: we need to really explain to people how it works, what it is, and like I said, it's not because you don't see it, that is not polluted, and that's really difficult to explain to people when you just give them a glass of water, which is perfectly clear to say, don't drink it, and say, why?
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's clear?
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but...
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done some tests and it really is not good.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what happened like in the thought of Lyon.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the people they were just living in Lyon and they were like, we want to get rid of this town and want to go on the countryside.
31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you want to get rid of some pollution like the noise, because you can feel it, it's noisy.
31:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You could like many cars, just other ones that they need more.
32:03
[SPEAKER_00]: the smell because you get like all the Because the line and everything so you're like I don't want that anymore So they decide to move on the countryside and they to buy in small house with a small garden you got trees You got like all the birds and everything is just green.
32:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like it's green.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's perfect.
32:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it looks nice And obviously with your eyes you're like yes, it looks beautiful
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And recently, like a couple of years ago, they collect some samples in the earth, and they were like, please don't eat things coming from the ground, fruit, veggie, if you have eggs, you don't eat that rabbit, nothing.
32:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't eat that at all.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly people are like, you just, you break something into their mind to say, well, I was living in the city, and I wanted to get rid of that to, to be in the countryside, because I could feel much better.
32:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly you explain to them that you can't use, you can't drink, you can't eat what you produce because it's highly polluted.
33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, well, it's better to live in the middle of the city and to eat fast food and drink whatever.
33:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could feel an healthier in the middle of the city than to be on the countryside.
33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really difficult because people don't understand because you don't see it, right?
33:22
[SPEAKER_02]: that's really disturbing.
33:24
[SPEAKER_00]: What can we do?
33:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's plenty of things first to raise awareness to explain to people how it works, why it's so important to get information like when you buy clauses, you have no idea it's written 100% cotton and that's all.
33:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But they don't say how it's produced, the color that you, that they're using, what it's made, we have no idea.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to have more trustability about the product that's really important.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So people, I don't know how you send English like in French, like, stop to be just a consumer, you should start to be a co-consumer because you have the right and the choice to buy things.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody just put your knife under the knife to say, well, buy this kind of thing.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to just inform people how it works, where you can find good products, easy product for the future.
34:18
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's not for you, think about your kids, think about what's coming after.
34:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really important.
34:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what we are trying to do.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And besides that, we try to explain that.
34:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like we're on the tunnel and the end of the tunnel just dark and there's nothing.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to show them that, yes, the future is going to be tough, but we got solution.
34:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got solution to get better water when you just open the tap water.
34:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You can use a filter, there's plenty of things.
34:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, it won't change the word, but if you can just think about it to just offer to your whole family, a good quality water, that's really important.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just like to people.
34:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't mind to spend 2,000 euro to buy a new iPhone.
35:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But you care about the same amount of money to buy a filter for your home health.
35:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And your kids so think well because it's really important because drinking water highly predicted won't kill you today.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you drink the same water every day.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: In 20 years, you might get something really bad to come.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's extremely important for people.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to understand that.
35:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you've made a lot of really good points there, including it's the things we don't see that might be the most dangerous.
35:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have to build awareness.
35:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think when you run to an outdoor store and you're going to buy a new tent or you're going to buy a new jacket or whatever it is, there are lots of things you don't see.
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can inject it.
35:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: We can learn how these things are produced and what the side effects are.
35:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to buy some new rain pants for my climb up Kilimanjaro in January, and I was really really pleased because I went to a outdoor store and Black Diamond made a pair of rain pants and right there on the tag it said, P-fast free, no P-fasts.
36:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought okay, the industry is waking up.
36:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Who knows what else they put in those pants?
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no idea about the... And that's something I need to learn more about.
36:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How is the regulation in U.S.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But here, for example, you say PFAS-3, but you need to understand that it's not only one thing.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: PFAS is a huge family of like more than 15,000 different type of molecular.
36:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you can just change one thing.
36:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And this one is good because the load just doesn't say anything about this one like the PFOS, which is one which is banned in France, you just change one thing and then you can say PFS free because look regarding the load we are fine.
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very tricky that's why I say we need to it that's you're right we need to educate people and you need to get right information and that's why it's important and understand
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: well, I mean the front have a huge ocean and I just got so many information.
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you admit to deal with all of that?
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that sometimes it's really difficult, but if they care about their health and for their kids as well, they need to just dig.
37:14
[SPEAKER_00]: to get the right information and to feel that if I'm buying that it's because I know it's perfect and I trust this company because they do the right things for my health and for the planets and that's important.
37:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think each of us can do better.
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's impossible sometimes to move everything.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't.
37:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But we can all do better by building awareness and making some decisions and sharing what we know with others.
37:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Just saying, okay, let's move in a better way.
37:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And over time, maybe that will add up.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Just try to make it different.
37:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So, wow.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's been wonderful to visit with you.
37:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I would like to be able to have a show where we only talk about your swimwear.
37:55
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to, we can really talk about it.
37:58
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure, it's fine.
38:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about it.
38:01
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
38:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think we need to.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It was delightful though to hear kind of the overview of your adventures.
38:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And your concerns about water in the environment, and I want to both congratulate you and applaud you.
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here.
38:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, sir.
38:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
38:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm thankful for your time.
38:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's have you back on.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: For me.
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's have you back on so we can dive into the details on how you actually pulled this kind of stuff off.
38:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, just the idea we talked about running across Australia, there are so many details that make that a successful venture, and we didn't even get to get into those except for water a little bit.
38:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll have you back on, we'll learn more, and I'm just going to say for everyone out there, wow, we can all do what we can, and they not be that you're going to run across Australia or swim across a Mediterranean, but you can build your own awareness and you can share that information with others.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: and whatever you do, make sure that you get out there.
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome fun.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Kurt.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much.