Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1129: Water Adventures - Curt Linville

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Ep. 1129: Water Adventures - Curt Linville · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:20
[SPEAKER_01]: My friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Today is going to be different.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a guest today, but I had some things I wanted to share with you.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I thought I would talk about scuba diving, snorkeling, free diving, as a sport that you might enjoy.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a lot of stories about crazy exploits that I did over the years that I thought I would share.
0:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, for giving me an advance, we're just talking about my stuff, but today is a solo podcast, so I guess that's what happens.
0:50
[SPEAKER_01]: First, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about what people want out of life.
0:56
[SPEAKER_01]: In all of these years of the interviewing travelers,
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: people that have traveled all over the world and visited with folks from all sorts of cultures, different walks of life, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, something is kind of risen to the surface and I think we can all relate to this and I...
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: you don't even have to have traveled to know this, I don't think.
1:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But it seems to be apparent.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The human race generally wants the same things.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Now there are some exceptions.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems to me that most people want love.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: as a priority.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to feel love, they want to share love, they want to experience love, all the different facets of love.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about camaraderie and companionship.
1:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about someone to be there, so you're not alone.
1:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also about someone to share amazing experiences with.
1:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about someone to work hard with side by side to accomplish the goal and someone to visit
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also familiar love, like you want to have kids and a family and you want brothers and sisters to grow up with and to share your dreams with and cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and that kind of familiar love.
2:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's love that you want in terms of friendship.
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Best friends, soul mates, besties.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of think above all else that's really what humans desire, you know, there's also arrows which is sexual love.
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a gope which is divine love.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the devoted love that you know you can trust forever.
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's called pragma.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: There's flirtatious love which is called ludus but I don't even know that that's really love.
2:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean it's just almost more like a game and there's
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: and we all need to love ourselves.
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, brotherly love is called filia, store gay is familiar love.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these types of loves have been well defined at least in Greek, English struggles with this, but why am I talking about love?
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe, and I believe it's the thing that people most generally are seeking.
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what people want.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the feeling of being respected, desired.
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the feeling of feeling included, appreciated, and then sharing those feelings in reverse for the other person.
3:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that that's universal across humans all around the globe.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something else that humans want.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Humans want meaning and purpose for life.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And that means they want their work to count for something.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be able to do good work, rewarding work.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That earns them a living such that their needs are covered and they can provide for their families But they want to have purpose behind it.
3:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just like You know pushing the button over and over and over again because they have to push the button because they get paid to push the button because they push the button And they don't even know what the button does when they push the button you get the idea.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna be in a little bit Ridiculous, but
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: people want to do meaningful work and one of the best ways to find what type of work is meaningful to you is to think about the things that matter to you, understanding your values, maybe developing your values.
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Saying, hey, this is really important to me.
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can find work that relates to that or promotes that or makes a difference in a way that is fulfilling to you.
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I already mentioned friends in love, but I also want to mention friends in the sense of community.
4:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people all around the globe want community.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to feel like they're part of the tribe.
4:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something wonderful about being part of a team that works together to do something that matters and makes a difference.
4:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you find people that share common interests and values, then of course it's a lot of fun to interact and to do things together.
5:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the things I really love about Venture Sports is that people with common interest really make great friends, fantastic friends, and friendships can develop that just enrich our lives.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another thing that people want.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: People want enough.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people would say, no, I want to be rich.
5:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to have more than enough, and some people use money as a scorecard.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to have more than the other people do, because that means I'm winning.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're free to disagree with me here, but I'm convinced that there is enough.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you learn what enough looks like for you, there's great satisfaction in that.
5:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that money is a tool to be used and it's a problem to solve.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The lack of money can obviously be very, very difficult, but having enough doesn't mean you have to be rich.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It means that your needs are met and that you can do the things that you want to do if you work hard to get them done.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really believe that understanding what enough is for you is one of life's secrets.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the secrets.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: to having an enjoyable, meaningful life.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so many of the guests on the adventure sports podcast seem like the kind of sorted that out over the years.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We just have a lot of people that are doing things that they love to do, doing things with people they love to do things with, and they're not chasing after riches.
6:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, they're doing what they love, and they're getting by with whatever their enough is.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And that enough will change.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you have a family to raise, you need more.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a large family to raise, you need even more.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have more people that you're caring for and taking care of, extended family, then you need more.
6:47
[SPEAKER_01]: but there is a level which is enough and i think it's important to realize when you reach that level sure you might want a little more for this or that it may be a fancier trip or a different car or you know a bigger retirement account i mean everybody could look for things beyond their current level and say that would be nice but
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to the point where you can look at it and say, you know what, my needs are met.
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm able to do the things I love to do, not everything.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to make choices, but this is okay.
7:18
[SPEAKER_01]: This is enough.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's great satisfaction in that.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But let me kind of recap.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: People are looking for things in this world.
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And generally, they want friendship.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They want love.
7:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They want family.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They want meaning and purpose.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They want rewarding work.
7:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And they want.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: enough.
7:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even remember who it was, but sometime in the last year someone said to me, you have to ask for what you want.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I found it very fascinating, because I have worked very, very hard.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, all my life for the things that I want.
7:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But when they said you have to ask for what you want, you can take that a lot of ways.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say, I'm throwing this out to the universe.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: or it might mean no, I've got to ask my boss for what I want.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I want this opportunity, I want this level of pay, I want this education in my career, it could be that you need to ask your wife or your husband for what you want in the relationship in a loving and understanding way, of course.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be that you need to express to some of your friends what it is that you want.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: People don't always automatically know what makes us tick.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You might need to ask God for what you want, right?
8:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you have to ask others for what you want.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that's not the same thing as begging, or trying to get people to give you things that you haven't earned.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's different.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't express what your goals are, then other people that share common goals will never know, perhaps, and they won't know that the two goals connect and you could work together to accomplish great things.
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to share with you a little bit of what I want.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably know that I have a day job, and taking over the podcast again has been a huge load, and that's okay.
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a challenge that I planned for, and I accepted, and I wanted.
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have put in so many 12, 14, and 16 hour days in the last several weeks.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna be frank.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be hard to maintain that work schedule and get any adventure in my own life.
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: What I want is to be able to continue to share adventure and adventure-based ideas and opportunities with others because I believe in the power of adventure for friendships, community, for love, for health, right?
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one we should have thrown on the list of things that people want.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't think much about health until you don't have it and then believe me, you want it, because without good health, it can be tough.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does that look like for the adventure sports
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, as the podcast continues to grow, and by the way it's growing well, it's doing really well, and I'm really excited about the momentum.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have a ways to go to get to what I quote unquote want.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to be able to take more days off from my day job, so I can focus more.
10:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm bringing great content to you.
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and also sharing life experiences that I hope will be enriching for your lives.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like the idea.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the idea of sharing with others ideas that can help them.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not so egotistical as to say that I think I have the answers, but I do have some ideas that might be worth exploring and I would like to be able to do more of that.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do we get from where we are now to there?
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: probably it means more revenue from the Adventure Sports podcast.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've talked a little bit about advertising in the past.
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Forgive me as I wax a little philosophical, but advertising is a way that people promote what they have to offer to others.
11:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And if people are promoting things of value that other people think are worth paying some money for, then it's a service that helps everybody.
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Connecting people that have a product or a service that would benefit others with the people that need that product or service that's really what advertising is about and it's easy to twist that because people are constantly trying to get your money.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I know this.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: there are scams out there, there are people that are offering products that you really don't need and trying to convince you that you do and you know they they try to create this this want in this desire and this feeling of inadequacy inside of you so you have to buy what they're offering so that you can be enough you can feel like you're good enough or strong enough or sexy enough or fast enough and I'm not talking about that.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want that, but the Adventure Sports podcast has a platform that reaches thousands and thousands of people that are interested in outdoor adventure that are interested in well, just everything the outdoor industry has to offer.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am looking for advertisers who have a product that they know will really benefit others that will help people that are interested in doing more in the adventure sports arena.
12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that might be, it could be backpacking, it could be boating, it could be endurance sports, it could be adventure travel, it could be mountaineering, it could be skiing, I mean, you know all the sports that are out there.
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a platform where I can connect people that need the stuff with the people that offer the stuff, but I only want advertisers who are sincere and who also want to help others with their own products and services.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Adventure Sports podcast right now is looking for more of those types of advertisers.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think it would be fantastic.
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: When you hear an ad on the Adventure Sports podcast, that it actually is something that's meaningful or potentially meaningful for you.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm looking for those sorts of advertisers.
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to turn the Adventure Sports podcast into some sort of an infomercial or this crazy commercial
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But it needs to make enough revenue that it can well be sustainable, frankly, that's what I want.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like the Adventure Sports podcast to grow and to become more and more profitable, so I can devote more and more time to it, and we can make this thing bigger and better than it is to reach more people with the fun, the joy, the community, the health that Adventure Sports bring.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So there it is.
13:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I want.
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm asking for what I want.
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you have a product or a service out there that will benefit others, you sincerely want to make a difference, a positive difference in the world, and you would like to get the word out to the Adventure Sports podcast family than, you know, where to find me info at adventuresportspodcast.com is probably the easiest way.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Now moving on, I said that I was going to talk about water sports and scuba diving and freediving and snorkeling and I have some crazy stories that came from years of enjoying those sorts of water sports.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And the funny thing is when I moved to Colorado, it was more difficult to do those sorts of things and I took up a lot of other sports.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of these accounts came from when I was quite a bit younger.
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my first memories, and this is going to sound crazy, I don't know how old I was, probably two years old, maybe three years old, but my family was at a lake, and it was a place where there are some rock ledges who went down into the water, and my mom had put a life jacket on me of course, and I was playing on one of these rock ledges.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But I moved too far out, and my feet went out from under me, and I had nowhere to stand.
15:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know I had a life jacket on, as like called for help to my mom.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: She laughed, and she said, swim, swim.
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know I was perfectly safe.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The crazy thing is it's my, one of my first memories of water.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And you might think, oh, that was sounds traumatic.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And no one was there to help you.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, ultimately, she came and got me, of course.
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But what it did is it planted in
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: that water was big and deep and adventurous in some way.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It was mysterious and a little scary and fun and
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I always loved water.
15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: My next memory comes a few years later, I was still quite young, maybe four.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was at a swimming pool, it was probably, you know, 18 inches deep or something.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was watching the big kids, and they were swinging their arms and kicking their feet and moving through the water and staying on top of it.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kind of inspired me, and so I started trying to do the same thing, and at first it was just dog paddling, but by watching the bigger kids and trying it, suddenly I found myself swimming instead of just standing in the water, and that's how I learned to swim.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: that opened up so many doors later in life, you know, in elementary school my parents put me in my sister in this swimming lessons and we learned all the strokes and did all the things and then later like high school I finally got my life-saver certificate and I never was a lifeguard just never did choose to take the job but I did learn
16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: more about how to be really proficient in the water and how to help other people who are struggling in the water.
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That was also really cool.
16:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess the point is, I did a lot of water things as a kid and growing up in Northeastern Oklahoma.
17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so hot there in the summertime and there are so many bugs and ticks and things in the weeds that I spend a lot of time in the water.
17:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, how do you go on a hike?
17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: where you can stay cool and stay away from all the bugs.
17:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you walk down a creek and northeastern Oklahoma is in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and there are lots of clear running streams and wonderful things to see wild fish and of course when you're in these streams, you're not away from the snakes, they're there too, but they're not coming to get you, right?
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to get away from you.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was an adventurous place to hike through the water and to be wet and cool and to enjoy the outdoors by exploring these miles and miles and miles of streams and sometimes a walking became swimming and then in the wintertime it turned into, well, could I swim across the flooded creek when it's cold?
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What would it feel like to swim in the icy creek and to learn to do cold water swimming?
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these things were just a part of what I did for fun.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that I could have my own little adventures.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the first time that I saw alligator gars swimming in one of the bigger streams and these things are just, I mean, you guys know, these are prehistoric fish.
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They have teeth like you wouldn't believe.
18:19
[SPEAKER_01]: they do look like alligators almost with these needle sharp teeth sticking out the sides and they have just leathery thick thick skin with scales that are huge and like like armor.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know they're crazy.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw these fish on like wow that's
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that thing and you know these are the streams that I play in all the time and then one day I picked up a snapping turtle It was a it was a big one.
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I could just barely pick it up.
18:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I grabbed it by the tail and I picked it up and its back was toward my kneecaps
18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And snapping turtles raise their heads up to grab fish when they, you know, they're ambush predators and so they, they can raise their heads way up and out to grab fish when the fish swim by so I had position to this turtle so it could take out my kneecaps very easily and it tried made me jump and I had to hold it far away from me because it was trying to literally grab onto my my kneecaps and rip them off it was an amazing amazing animal though.
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: and it weighed probably 35 pounds.
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really hard to pick up.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I held it just for a moment and I was fascinated by this again prehistoric type animal and then I released it of course and let it swim away.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean these are my water experiences.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, my grandparents like to take me fishing, and I loved to do anything that they wanted to do, and so sitting on the side of a river or a lake, enjoying the time with them and catching a few fish, that was such a rewarding activity and such a beautiful, beautiful time that I got to spin with my grandparents.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so thankful for that.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So grateful for that time.
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I learned more about water that way.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my uncle had a bass boat, but to me it wasn't a bass boat, to me it was a ski boat.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he would take us out and I learned how to water ski and then I learned how to slalom ski.
20:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course we tried the intertubes and the different types of wake boards and all the things and my love for water just continued but I always wanted to scuba dive.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I had seen the Jacques Cousteau specials.
20:34
[SPEAKER_01]: and scuba diving just held this allure i mean to be able to go under the water and stay under i think my cousin first shared a mask with me some cheap little mask that he got somewhere and i started using that mask to go under the water and these lakes and rivers and to look at things and
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to see how long I could hold my breath.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we would have competitions.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone would go under and you would stay under until you heard everyone else go up or another game that we used to play was underwater tag.
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So one person would have to go under the water and they could only tag someone from under the water and other people.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we're trying to get away from this person who's hiding under the water and trying to sneak up behind people.
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that you could tell where people were was by listening to their feet in the gravel or a splash that they would make, and we used to play that for hours, holding our breath, sneaking up on each other, grabbing each other, throwing each other up in the air, splashing back down.
21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you get the picture, right?
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But scuba diving meant you could stay down for a long, long time, and I always wanted to scuba dive.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this next part of the story I have to give you a caveat, I'm not sure that we were following all the rules, and it's probably not even advisable, but it worked out for me.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: My advice to you if you want to become a scuba diver is to go take the scuba diving certification course.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I met a man, a friend of our family, who was older than me by, I don't know, 10 years or something, maybe 15 years, had a young family, but he was looking for a scuba diving buddy, and he was a very proficient scuba diver.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it had been his hobby, his adventure sport for a long, long time.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: He may have even been instructor-rated with scuba diving, I don't even know.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know that he wanted to go scuba diving with me, and I was all over it, so he gave me a scuba diving manual, and we lived in different cities.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in Kansas, I was in Northeastern Oklahoma, I read the scuba diving manual carefully from cover to cover, memorizing everything that seemed to be important.
22:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on a Labor Day weekend, his family came down to visit my family, and he brought to Scooby-gear.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Man was I excited, and we started by snorkeling around a little bit.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: He had the mask, the fins, the snorkel, he had the scuba tanks, he had everything, even had an inflatable avon boat with a little outward motor.
23:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, we went out around the lake and first he made sure that I could swim well and snorke a well and he saw, okay, this guy knows what he's doing.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: then he asked me all the important questions that you would need to know to be safe scuba diving and I knew the answers as I studied the manual.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was kind of a crash course in scuba diving without going to a class.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Might be the way to look at it.
23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But he had some scuba tanks, two sets of them.
23:35
[SPEAKER_01]: and instead of being one 80 cubic foot tank, which is a very common thing, he had purchased steel tanks and they were 40 cubic feet, but there were three of them together in a housing.
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So, instead of the customary 80 cubes, we were getting 120 cubic feet of air.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all bad advice, people don't do this, okay?
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't do this.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a story about things not to do.
24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Scuba divers know that with an 80 cubic foot tank, it's actually sized, so it's difficult to go too deep for too long and come up and get the bins, not that you can't, but it kind of follows the envelope, because you'll run out of air, right?
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But with 120 cubic feet, you can go too deep and you can stay down too long and you can really get yourself in trouble if you don't pay attention.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me add to the mehem a little bit.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We had depth gauge and pressure gauge to see how much air we had left.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have buoyancy compensation devices.
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So no BCD.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the idea behind a BCD is it's a vest that you're where that you can inflate with air, so you can float when you need to float.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a safety mechanism.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to have them.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason is because if you set everything up correctly, you'll be pretty much buoyancy neutral in the water, but diving without a BCD is full-hardy.
25:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of stupid.
25:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But the guy I was diving with had been trained with navy seal, style training, and he was rough and ready, and I was willing to try, and I was a strong swimmer, and I was very comfortable in the water, and so down we went.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: My first scuba dive, in Lake Tinkiller, we went down to 70 feet deep.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: and we were swimming through a submerged forest that was down there and we found a little overhang and it filled up with air and we could even take our regulators out of our mouths and talk to each other but of course we're rebreathing air that we'd already breathed, not a good idea again so we didn't stay there for more than a couple of seconds.
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we were enjoying this cold dark swim through the eerie forest below the thermocline shivering and all of that at 70 feet, I took a breath and suddenly I couldn't get air out anymore.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I looked at my dive buddy and I drew the classic, you know, slice your throat motion and I didn't even know at the time that that was the motion that you're supposed to use to tell people that you're out of there.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But he motioned to go up and I started swimming up.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even think we had octopus regulators, meaning a spare regulator so you can do buddy breathing.
26:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we would've had to have shared his regulator back and forth, but we didn't do that.
26:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I just started swimming up and you don't want to go too fast because you could get the bins.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's kind of a crazy thing to do a free ascent from the depths.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But remember, he had the navy seal style training, and at the time, they would do free a sense from 100 feet.
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to him, this was well in the range of normal, but it was my very first dive, and I'm doing a free assent from 70 feet.
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you go up,
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The back pressure on the regulator decreases, and that means that the pressure in the tank can get through the regulator just a little bit, so you get tiny little sips of air.
27:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get a full breath, but you can get tiny little sips of air as you continue to go to shallower and shallower depths, and the pressure reduces on your regulator.
27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, we got to the top surface, everything was fine.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't stay down too long.
27:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not get the bins, but I did have to skip my safety stop for those of you who don't know as safety stop is when you want to stop it about 10 feet or so.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little microscopic air bubbles that can develop in your bloodstream.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you stop there, they dissipate so you can go on up.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And even though the dive tables are set up, so you should be safe without the safety stop, the safety stop is an extra assurance to make sure that everything goes really well for you.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless, everything turned out fine, but that was my first scuba dive.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That was Labor Day, but on Christmas vacation, he wanted to go to Florida and do some real diving.
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So by this point, I'm 16.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I just barely had my license and we decided to take his van down to Florida and he wanted to drive straight through from Oklahoma to Florida.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it was 26 or 30 hours of driving.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We drove all the way to Key West.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: way down there, and he would drive while I slept, and then I would drive while he slept.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that that was why either, but we traded back and forth and made it down to Key West from Northeastern Oklahoma nonstop.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never been to Florida, I had rarely even been to an ocean, so man, what a wonderland it was for me.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we got there, we were down on one of the keys, and I think that he thought we should just do a little introductory dive before we went out and tried to do a big dive.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We had limited time, that sort of thing.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a sea wall.
29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And this seawall at the time with the tide at the level it was, it was like a four foot jump into the water and then the water was maybe 10 feet deep and he said that we should just jump in the water with all ever gear on and do a little scuba dive.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: what we didn't realize is that the tide was coming in really strongly and we jumped in on the Atlantic side of this little island and immediately it started sweeping us around the island and I tried to swim against the current but it was too strong.
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It was it was faster than I could swim and to make matters worse one of my flipers was falling off.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I remember I pulled off the flipper because I didn't want to lose it, and I threw it over the sea wall up onto the bank where I could retrieve it later.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But that meant I didn't even have two flippers to fight this strong current.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And the next thing you know, we're swept around the key, and we're going between the islands and the current is even stronger there as it kind of gets compressed.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so strong that the pylon that was holding a bridge up between these two keys had white water around it.
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we were swept between the islands, I looked up and I was really tempted at this point to panic.
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I fought my life might eventually be over because I saw nothing but the open water of the Gulf of Mexico out in front of me.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was terrified.
30:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I had read readers digest stories about survival and real life about people that were swept out to see and how they had to survive without food or water and swim for days before someone found them and how blessed they were that they were discovered out there and that was more than I had signed up for.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to try scuba diving.
30:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought we were done for, because no amount of swimming could get me back to shore.
30:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But luckily, the guy I was with, he was smart, had a lot more experience than I did, and he yelled and pointed and said, swim behind the island, and so I started swimming across the current.
31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And sure enough, when we got behind the island, the current died down, we were in and ready.
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And we could swim back to shore again.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You wouldn't believe how relieved I was to get there.
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: All I wanted to do was get out of the water.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And he looked at me and he says, okay, now we can do our scuba dive.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, are you kidding me?
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He almost got swept out to sea and he's just, he's unfazed.
31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a level of practical knowledge and experience and bravery that
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was taking notes.
31:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Just say it that way.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he noticed that I was missing a flipper and he kind of came on glued because of course that was his flipper he had paid for.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I told him, no, no, no, it's on the bank on the other side of the island and he says, well, they go get it.
31:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hiked around the island, got the flipper came back.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, he convinced me to scuba dive in these conditions in the Eddie of this island.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a nice little dive.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So then we camped in the van, and the next day was the big scuba diving day.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were in pinning camp off of Kilargo at that point, and we got out the Avon inflatable, which had been packed up, you know, under a mattress in the back of the van.
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we rolled it out, we pumped it full of air, we pulled the engine out, we mounted it, we put the wheels on it, we loaded it up with all the scuba gear, put on some wet suits, put the boat in the water and we headed out in pinning camp, coral reef state park.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: there was a dive site that was about seven miles out and there was a tower there so that people could see where this reef was.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it was a warning for ships to stay away from that area because it would have been shallower.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But first we had to go through the mangrove forest and through all that estuary that surrounds the islands often in Florida and we got through all the
33:10
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, just being in salt water was amazing to me.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so excited, so amazed.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And then going through this this maze of mangroves and we pop out of these mangroves and there's the Atlantic Ocean, just and in my mind people, some of you are more comfortable with the ocean.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had never been around water like this.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: to be able to see as far as the eye can see and know that there's nothing for hundreds and hundreds of times that distance.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Thousands of times that distance before you get to Africa or Europe.
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: To look at that vast body of water, it just blew my mind.
33:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm 16 years old.
33:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I just never really had experience to like this before.
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we're going out through the waves,
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: He had me kind of spotting to see if there was anything really shallow, so that we wouldn't hit anything, but he kept hitting the throttle and just didn't feel like the boat was going right.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He kept looking at me saying, it's not right, and we're going further and further out into the ocean because something's just not right.
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm thinking, if there's something not right, maybe we should turn around, right?
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but he was the the experienced one, and we just kept going and kept going seven miles out with something's not quite right.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: but we got to the dive spot and we put on our scuba gear, we flipped backwards into the water.
34:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course we anchored the boat.
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we saw that he had left the wheels on the back of the boat.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The wheels you used to wheel the boat to the water.
34:45
[SPEAKER_01]: They were still hanging on the back of the boat.
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why they didn't fall off.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But of course the boat didn't go well with the wheels hanging down.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started thinking to myself, did we burn too much fuel to get back?
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but he seemed confident.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So we went on our scuba dive.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have to tell you, it was amazing.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a, I think it was called the Super 8 camera.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He also had a 35 millimeter camera.
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And these were both just regular cameras, not waterproof, but he had waterproof housings for them
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like my third or four scuba dive in my life.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still not certified, which is dumb.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have been certified.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was taking pictures and movies with these submersible cameras.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that pinning camp is still as beautiful as it was then.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard that a lot of the reefs have kind of been overdive to now and that people kick the reefs by accident and break them off and other
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But the way it was then, it was pristine, every color of the rainbow in the reef, amazing fish of all kinds.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw eagle rays with 20-foot wingspan, thereabouts, and it was soaring over us.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we just kept filming things.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, he pointed under a reef.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a little opening.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought he wanted to take my picture, of course, because we're taking each other's pictures.
36:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I start back and up to the reef where he can take my picture.
36:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, keep in mind, we still don't have buoyancy compensation devices.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were a slightly positively buoyant on purpose in the salt water, and I picked up a rock to help hold myself down.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was starting to kneel on the bottom and backing up toward this reef.
36:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And he grabbed me and he thanked me away, and then he pointed again,
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't want to take my picture.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to show me the 10-foot nurse shark that was parked under the reef.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, the sharks very unlikely to bother me because it was that type of shark.
36:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just not aggressive toward humans, but I was sticking my fins in the shark's face.
36:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, whoa, you know, just blew my mind.
37:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And the shark was in this hole, just resting on the bottom.
37:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And the hole was just slightly wider than the shark.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But the shark did get spooked and it did 180 degree turn in that hole and swim out the back side.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess that's the advantage of being a cartilage fish.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You can just make super sharp corners when you don't have bones to hold your back.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was crazy.
37:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So of course, we're watching the shark swim away and it was just an amazing time.
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: One more thing that happened before we go on with the rest of the adventure and tell you, I tell you folks.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: real adventure happens when things don't go as planned and this is one of those stories.
37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the third one of those stories.
37:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We were swimming around enjoying ourselves against a reef, and we saw five Barracuda pretty close to us.
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And my friend pointed at them in motion that there were five, and it made them a little uncomfortable, you know, they're not super aggressive, but at the same time, they have really big teeth, and when they get into a feeding frenzy, you don't want to be a part of it.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Barracuda, we're eyeing us, they have huge eyes, you know, and just looks like they're staring at you.
38:13
[SPEAKER_01]: you're worried that they're starting to see dinner instead of human.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But regardless, he motion that we swim over this reef to get to the other side, just to get away from the barracuda because it would be more pleasant, right?
38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So we go swimming over the reef and I'm looking down at the reef, of course.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We swim that back down to the sandy bottom on the other side.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I look up.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It was wall to wall, Barracuda.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: A school of Barracuda, I couldn't even estimate, hundreds, hundreds of Barracuda, wall to wall.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we were running out of air finally, you know, it was a shallow dive, and we have 120 cubes, so we could be down there a long time.
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: For those of you who don't know at the surface, you're going to burn somewhere in the order of the cubic foot of air per minute.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So 120 cubes is two hours of dive time.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty crazy.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: As you dive in the air is more compressed, you go through a faster.
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So at 33 feet, you're at two atmospheres, you're going to burn twice
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, we're running out of air after this extended shallow dive with all of these amazing experiences.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We had been, you know, kind of exploring the ocean floor for a very long time.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a maze of coral and, you know, all the things.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So we needed to surface to see where the boat is.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So we went up and when we broke the surface,
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We were in about six foot, seven foot seas.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: A storm and rolled in in the waves had gotten large, and we could not see the boat.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: When a wave would lift us up, the boat was in a trough, and when we would be in the trough, all we could see was water on all sides.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So the boat...
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: as far as I could tell was gone.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're seven miles out in the Atlantic and I'm thinking I thought that I was going to be lost at sea yesterday.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I am lost at sea today.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I ready to panic again.
40:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But my friend, again, had a lot of experience.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He had been paying better
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, let's go back down and I will swim to the boat, because the waves were too big to fight at the surface.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, we don't have buoyancy compensation devices.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So swimming at the surface is very difficult.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: My idea was to swim to that tower and climb the tower to see if we could see the boat.
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That to me sounded like safety.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was convinced that he knew
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm worried I'm going to run out of there, but we went back down, not very deep, maybe 20 feet enough to get under the waves.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And sure enough, he led us directly to the boat.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing to me that he knew where the boat was.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Few times in my life have I ever been as happy to see anything, as I was to see that anchor line.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So we made it back, crawled in the boat, got all the gear, fastened down, and the waves are really rocking, really rocking.
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And the wind is coming from the shore side, which was interesting.
41:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So that meant the waves are breaking toward us as we start going back toward shore.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a big storm.
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the kind of storm where they put out the small boat advisories, you know, don't go out in your small boat.
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're in a 14-foot 12-foot.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was a 14-foot inflatable.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was very, very light in the front with the engine on the back.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And he has to be at the back hanging on to the throttle and the tiller, you know, to go back to shore.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, as we start going in, the waves are breaking.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: toward us so they're extremely steep waves and as the boat would crest the wave, the wind which was a strong wind at this point would hit the bottom of this inflatable boat and try to flip it, try to lift it off the wave and flip us upside down, which would have been horrible.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing we did is we tried to move all the heavy gear to the front of the boat up to the bow to try to help hold it down and then he learned that when he would crest the wave, he'd have to cut the throttle to try to minimize the amount of boat bow that would go up in the air.
42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: but it was going way the heck up there.
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he yells at me in the middle of this tempest, go to the front of the boat, because he wants more weight on the bow to try to hold it down.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course it had a bow line that we would use to secure the boat at a dock or something.
42:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm holding onto the bow line, standing in the front of this inflatable boat.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it would go up one of the six seven foot waves and the bow would go six seven feet in the air before it would finally start to drop.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That meant that I was dropping like 10-12 feet with every wave crashing down when the boat would hit the water.
43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I was somewhere in the air above it, and I would smack down and hit the boat.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course there's gear up there, it has planking in the flooring, but the pond tunes that were inflatable were soft.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So usually I would hit those pond tunes and be okay.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But he just kept me flying through the air over and over and over and over seven miles of fighting these waves going into shorts getting dark.
43:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful sunset that I'm not enjoying at all.
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we finally get to the mangroves, it was so dark we could just barely see the entrance to the mangrove maze that would get us back to the dock where the van was parked.
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so exhausted, emotionally exhausted.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never been through anything like that in my life.
44:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only did I think I was going to lose air, not only did I stick my feet in a shark's face, not only did I see wall the wall Barracuda.
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: not only did we get lost and didn't know where the boat was, and surface in a storm, but I got the pulp beat out of me trying to get back to shore.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a true story, folks.
44:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not exaggerate anything.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think a single thing was exaggerated.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: When we came into the dock, there was a park ranger waiting for us because, um, pinning camp closes a dark, I guess.
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And our van was the only one in the parking lot.
44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wanted to know if a rescue party needs to be sent out, goodness.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: He scolded us and read us the Riot Act for being out there when a storm came in, being out there in the dark.
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But to be honest, I could have kissed the guy.
44:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That was so happy to be back to Terra firma and so we loaded up the boat and all the gear in the van and we drove down to a secluded area where we could spend the night and we camped in the van again in the next morning we couldn't move.
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so tired, beat up so badly, the whole day we just set in the van and watched the white caps breaking out there.
45:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we didn't want to go back out into the wind and into the storm and fight those conditions in that little boat.
45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Matter of fact, they're advisory saying stay in don't go out.
45:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: but still I was so exhausted.
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just felt so beat up and it took a day just to recuperate.
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a beautiful sunny day.
45:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember we found a coconut that had floated up on the beach and we dug into it with a knife and enjoyed the coconut nut and what else did we do?
45:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We set there.
45:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say a special thank you to Gary.
45:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Gary was my friend that taught me to dive, and literally saved my life multiple times on this one trip.
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he also got us into these things.
46:04
[SPEAKER_01]: and i think he would admit that but he knew how to get himself back out again and that is one of the keys to adventure sports you shouldn't operate beyond your skill set beyond your knowledge level beyond your experience level and i think that what we did was within Gary's experience right just not mine so it blew my mind
46:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But Gary knew what to do, and we actually were safe.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing bad happened, except we had an amazing, amazing adventure.
46:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So Gary, if you hear this, I haven't heard from you in decades.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But buddy, thank you, you gave me the gift of tenacity when things get tough.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: and you gave me the gift of some amazing life experiences.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Gary and I also did a little bit of cave diving together though we weren't cave certified.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I did get certified later by the way, but there are places where you can dive into caves as long as you don't take a flashlight.
47:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't have a light, you're not going very far and you can always see the exit.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the idea.
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did some cave dives with some amazing currents.
47:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We swam with these garr, again, in a tannic river where I couldn't see them until they just drifted right up on me.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: literally you would look with your mask and six inches from you there's a car with needle sharp teeth sticking out in this big scary eye these prehistoric alligator car.
47:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, or a bunch of them swimming in this river with me.
47:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We're scuba diving through that.
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We went scuba diving down another river where the alligators, literal alligators slipped into the water as we would go by and
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: and nothing bad ever happened.
47:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Except for some scary times.
47:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I should count myself blessed, and maybe my guardian angel is swinging his head back and forcing the and yeah, you idiot.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: All I know is that it was an amazing, amazing thing.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: As a young man, 16 years old, to be able to learn how to manage yourself in an emergency, learn to dig deep, to do what needed to be done, and even in unfamiliar environments.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But to also suck the maro out of life, what amazing adventures these were to me.
48:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you may have heard these stories
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: and I apologize if that was a repeat for you.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was trying to think, you know, I've been helping with the Adventure Sports podcast on and off for 10 years.
48:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that some of these stories have come up.
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't know if I ever told the story and it's entirety, so there it is.
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You have it.
48:48
[SPEAKER_01]: A few years later, I actually went scuba diving in Kozamell with a scuba diving master guide and I found out what a rational dive trip should look like.
49:00
[SPEAKER_01]: was very, very pleasant, very relaxing, very beautiful, not nearly as adventurous, but we had a delightful time doing it.
49:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so don't think that Scooby-Diving has to be like it was in my story.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Scooby-Diving can be something completely different.
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: My story is harrowing, even just to remember it.
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can do it in a much safer, more controlled manner, and it's an amazing, amazing experience, just feeling like you can fly.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't have to walk, you're not pinned to the ground.
49:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You can just fly, seeing an underwater paradise, seeing animals that you have no context for.
49:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They look like space aliens, right?
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The experiences that you can have scuba diving in the places that you go to to do it are also delightful, just amazing places in beautiful locations all over the planet.
49:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Scuba diving is awesome.
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Since then, I've already related in previous episodes how much I've enjoyed snorkeling and free diving and snorkeling and rivers snorkeling in lakes.
50:07
[SPEAKER_01]: My son and I actually this fall.
50:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to a lake at 10,000 feet and went snorkeling for a few hours and it was cold.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But we had a delightful time searching for Pike this time instead of Gar.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was really, really unique to be diving and looking at the underwater lake world with all sorts of water grasses and things growing up.
50:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of a jungle that we were going through and then you would lift your head and just see 14,000 foot peaks all around you.
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing, but it was cold.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, it's time for me to wrap this up.
50:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to me and a reminder.
50:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Here at the Adventure Sports Podcast, we're looking for advertisers that sincerely want to provide superior products to the outdoors industry and who would like to make the Adventure Sports Podcast audience our family aware of what you're offering.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you care, because you have good gear, you have good services, so if you would like to reach the Adventure Sports Podcast audience, please do contact us.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The email address is info at AdventureSportsPodcast.com, and thanks for listening to today, everybody.
51:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you didn't find this too boring, and until the next show, get out there, and have some fun.