Speaker 1: Guess what will what's that mango?
Speaker 2: So a few years ago I got to go in
Speaker 2: this incredible experience to Kenya and we were off the coast.
Speaker 2: It was in this place called La Mu, and I
Speaker 2: had heard we could go see dolphins, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a huge animal lover, and even though
Speaker 2: I'm not a great swimmer, I just had to go.
Speaker 2: So we go out onto the open water. It's beautiful,
Speaker 2: but the water just starts getting rougher and rougher, and
Speaker 2: as we're going you can see the dolphins getting closer.
Speaker 2: So I was getting a little excited. But also the
Speaker 2: water was just getting choppier, and We're on this little
Speaker 2: boat and my stomach is turning and I'm not usually
Speaker 2: affected by seasickness, but this was just something else. So
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out how to control it, Like
Speaker 2: do I puke? Do I look at the horizon? Do
Speaker 2: I close my eyes? It was really, really miserable.
Speaker 1: That does not sound pleasant. So what did you end
Speaker 1: up doing?
Speaker 2: So I tried a little of all of it. Like
Speaker 2: I closed my eyes, I was trying to look at
Speaker 2: the horizon, but in the end, the boat captain just
Speaker 2: pushed me into the water, and he said the only
Speaker 2: way to get over it is to get into the water,
Speaker 2: and he was absolutely right, Like it was crazy. Luckily
Speaker 2: the water was so warm, and then, you know, I
Speaker 2: obviously had this life jacket on, but I'm in the
Speaker 2: middle of a school of dolphins all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: and I peer down and they're just swimming and playing,
Speaker 2: and it's this incredible experience but also totally terrifying because
Speaker 2: I don't swim well. But this week I was reading
Speaker 2: this thing on Jaques Cousto and his son was saying
Speaker 2: that even though he grew up on the calypso you know,
Speaker 2: with Jaques Custo going on these adventures, you still get
Speaker 2: seasick a little. And he said the only way you
Speaker 2: can get over it is to get into the sea
Speaker 2: like that, and so I felt a little bit calm
Speaker 2: by that, and also felt better about the sea captain
Speaker 2: just pushing me in. But yeah, you know, I was
Speaker 2: curious after reading that. I wanted to know more about
Speaker 2: Jaques Cousto's life. You know, how did he get into exploring,
Speaker 2: did he really work as a spy, and why did
Speaker 2: he and his crew always wear those red hats? So
Speaker 2: grab your Snorkels. We're about to dive in.
Speaker 1: Hey their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend Mangesh Hot Ticketter and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass sporting this red knit hat, of course,
Speaker 1: in honor of the undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. That's our
Speaker 1: friends and producer Tristan McNeil. And I feel like he
Speaker 1: finally got one spot on this time.
Speaker 2: He did, But I actually think it might be a
Speaker 2: tribute to Steve Suzu from a life aquatic, like just
Speaker 2: judging from all those Bill Murray posters behind Tristan. But
Speaker 2: you know, since they both were hats like that, why
Speaker 2: don't we just call it a dual tribute, and that
Speaker 2: why neither of them will be offended.
Speaker 1: You know, I actually read that in the original note.
Speaker 1: It's from the movie. Bill Murray's character was supposed to
Speaker 1: be named Steve Custo, and that obviously changed as the
Speaker 1: script evolved, but it still shows how big of an
Speaker 1: influenced Jacques was on the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean not to nerd out on Wes Anderson,
Speaker 2: who does happen to have my birthday. But there's a
Speaker 2: reference to Jackustou in Rushmore, where like Max tries to
Speaker 2: build out aquarium and he gets this book from Jackusteau.
Speaker 2: So obviously he's been a hero of his for some time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious, just I haven't checked on your movie
Speaker 1: rankings recently, as Rushmore still in your top five or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, after looking into Cousteau's life this past week,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see why he would be, you know,
Speaker 1: a hero to him. And you know, his inventions basically
Speaker 1: revolutionized undersea exploration in the mid twentieth century. Plus you
Speaker 1: consider the work he did in film and TV that
Speaker 1: sparked a public interest in ocean research, and it's really
Speaker 1: been difficult to match that in the decades since then.
Speaker 1: And that's before you get into all the conversation of
Speaker 1: the work that he did later in life, like you know,
Speaker 1: the time in nineteen sixty when he helped prevent the
Speaker 1: French government from dumping nuclear waste into the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's I feel like that's a pretty decent.
Speaker 2: Accomplishment, pretty incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there was a period there when you know,
Speaker 1: he was pretty much everywhere you looked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, and this was the day is when
Speaker 2: oceanographers could actually be rock stars. But you know that
Speaker 2: said Gusteau was kind of a tough guy to pin down. Like.
Speaker 2: He was an explorer, he was a conservationist, he was
Speaker 2: obviously an author, a filmmaker. He won apparently as many
Speaker 2: awards as Meryl Street. He was a scientist, a government spy,
Speaker 2: and I mean he was pretty much the greatest dinner
Speaker 2: guest in history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And obviously anybody with a resume like that is
Speaker 1: worth taking a closer look. So today we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about Jacques's background, his legacy, including a few
Speaker 1: of the advances he made during his many years at sea,
Speaker 1: and then later in the episode, we'll try to figure
Speaker 1: out if the beloved explorer is actually to blame for
Speaker 1: a toxic strain of seaweed that happened to escape into
Speaker 1: the world's oceans forty years ago. And the spoiler is, go,
Speaker 1: he totally is. But we can get to all of
Speaker 1: that in a little bit. I feel like we need
Speaker 1: to back up a little bit. Where where do you
Speaker 1: think we should start?
Speaker 2: So, at the risk of saving hat obsessed, I do
Speaker 2: kind of want to start with the origin of those
Speaker 2: red knit caps that Tristan started to show off, because
Speaker 2: one thing I was surprised to learn this week is
Speaker 2: that divers actually wore hats like that long before Jacques
Speaker 2: Cousteau came on the sea, and in fact, it was
Speaker 2: pretty standard attire among hard hat divers going all the
Speaker 2: way back to the turn of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Wait, you said hard hat diver. What's a hard hat diver?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real term. So it's the name for
Speaker 2: the old school diving helmets that you'd see something like
Speaker 2: in like twenty thousand leagues under the sea, and sometimes
Speaker 2: like you see picks of like Salvador Dolly holding them too,
Speaker 2: But it's those big, bulky spherical helmets with those little
Speaker 2: like glass viewports. But you know, when commercial or military
Speaker 2: divers were in their diving suits, they would wear knit
Speaker 2: hats under them for just a little bit of extra cushioning.
Speaker 2: And the divers wore red ones specifically because they often
Speaker 2: would rest on the docks between their dives, and obviously
Speaker 2: they'd have their helmets off at this point, and the
Speaker 2: bright hats just made it easier for crane operators to
Speaker 2: keep track of them and also to avoid smacking them
Speaker 2: in the heads with heavy machinery.
Speaker 1: So that's the reason Custo wore a hat like to
Speaker 1: avoid cranes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, eventually wearing a red beanie just kind
Speaker 2: of became like a diving symbol on its own. You know,
Speaker 2: whether that was for like practical reasons or just out
Speaker 2: of the sense of tradition. But one likely reason for
Speaker 2: why the caps endured so long is that they were
Speaker 2: away to honor this famous British diver. His name was
Speaker 2: William Walker. And I know we're talking about Jocastow today,
Speaker 2: but Walker's story is pretty great and it only takes
Speaker 2: a minute. So I'm going to go on a tangent
Speaker 2: if you're okay.
Speaker 1: With that, Yeah, sure of course.
Speaker 2: So back in the early nineteen hundreds, it was discovered
Speaker 2: that England's Winchester Cathedral, which is one of the largest
Speaker 2: in Europe, was in danger of collapsing. Apparently, when the
Speaker 2: builders laid the foundations back in the eleventh century, they
Speaker 2: unknowingly built them on top of the peat bog, and
Speaker 2: sadly no one realized this until the cathedral actually started
Speaker 2: to sink. So engineers quickly determined that the cathedral could
Speaker 2: actually be saved if someone dove in into this bog
Speaker 2: and you know, went to the cathedral's foundations, removed the
Speaker 2: bottom layer of pete and then replaced it with a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of concrete. And so this is exactly what
Speaker 2: William Walker did. He was this experienced diver. He was
Speaker 2: hired from a nearby dockyard, and over the course of
Speaker 2: the next six years, Walker spent six hours a day
Speaker 2: submerged in twenty feet of pitch black water like it
Speaker 2: was so dark he could barely even see the foundations
Speaker 2: he was supposed to be underpinning. But despite the setback,
Speaker 2: Walker actually got the job done. He had a one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty men top side support crew, and all told
Speaker 2: he managed to lay a staggering twenty five thousand bags
Speaker 2: of concrete and over a million concrete blocks and bricks.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's stunning, and because of that effort, the
Speaker 2: cathedral was not only saved, it actually still stands today.
Speaker 1: That really is impressive. And I'm guessing this whole time
Speaker 1: he was wearing the red net hat while he was.
Speaker 2: Doing this, right, that's right, and so Walker obviously got
Speaker 2: a fair amount of press during the ordeal, and it's
Speaker 2: likely that other divers knew of him and adopted to
Speaker 2: look in his honor, possibly even Jacques Cousteau himself.
Speaker 1: Wow, I like how you looped him back at the
Speaker 1: end there. That was pretty nicely done. All right, Let's
Speaker 1: dig into the real man of the hour, which of
Speaker 1: course is Jacques Eves Cousteau. And as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: Jacques was born in France near Bordeaux if you happen
Speaker 1: to be familiar with the great growing region there, and
Speaker 1: this was in nineteen ten, and his family consisted of
Speaker 1: his father, who was an international lawyer, and his mother,
Speaker 1: who was the daughter of a successful wine merchant and
Speaker 1: a landowner there, plus one older brother. So the Cousteaux
Speaker 1: family was pretty well off, but health wise, Jacques was
Speaker 1: actually far from it. So he suffered from anemia and
Speaker 1: this chronic stomach issue that he dealt with throughout his youth,
Speaker 1: and it really didn't slow him down that much though
Speaker 1: at least. And Jaques learned how to swim when he
Speaker 1: was just four years old, and he later credited his
Speaker 1: early swimming experience as the origin for the passion of
Speaker 1: his life. And here's what he said about it. I
Speaker 1: was four or five years old when I became interested
Speaker 1: in water. I loved touching water.
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds so simplistic, but I also kind
Speaker 2: of know what he's talking about, like the first time
Speaker 2: you experienced that sensation of floating, or like the effort
Speaker 2: it takes to move through something other than air, Like
Speaker 2: it's a surreal moment and it's like nothing you felt before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it actually reminds me this other quote from Custeau
Speaker 1: that I like a lot. There are so many good ones,
Speaker 1: but another one is from birth. Man carries the weight
Speaker 1: of gravity on his shoulders. He has bolted to Earth,
Speaker 1: but man has only to sink beneath the surface and
Speaker 1: he is free. Buoyed by water. He can fly in
Speaker 1: any direction, up, down, sideways by merely flipping his hand underwater.
Speaker 1: Man becomes an arc angel.
Speaker 2: So I saw this quote too, and it's from right
Speaker 2: after he learned to swim. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was four years old and he was like,
Speaker 1: finally I'm free. I'm an archangel now. And he was
Speaker 1: kind of a weird kid, I guess, but back to
Speaker 1: his childhood. Let's just fast forward to about nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: when his family lived in New York while mister Cousteau
Speaker 1: was practicing law, So they lived there for about two years,
Speaker 1: and it was during that time that Jacques learned to
Speaker 1: speak English, and he also got plenty of practice swimming
Speaker 1: and snorkeling at this summer camp that he attended in Vermont,
Speaker 1: and it's actually there that Jacques gets his very first
Speaker 1: taste of diving. So the camp had launched this effort
Speaker 1: to clean up a nearby lake, and Jock volunteered to
Speaker 1: dive to the bottom to help clear away the debris
Speaker 1: that was there. And once again, this early experience proved
Speaker 1: formative for Jacques, who quickly fell in love with being underwater,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that he didn't own any goggles at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: And I'm guessing on a plus side, there probably wasn't
Speaker 2: all that much worth seeing at the bottom of a
Speaker 2: dirty lake, so I guess he didn't need those goggles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, Jacques was completely hooked after this experience.
Speaker 1: So when his family returned to France in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: they settled in the Mediterranean city of Marseilles, which was
Speaker 1: not far from the Italian border. And so this allowed
Speaker 1: Jacques to continue snorkeling, and you know, this is right
Speaker 1: there along the city's coast. Also, not to boggy down
Speaker 1: with too many origin stories, but this is also around
Speaker 1: the time that Jacques bought a used movie camera and
Speaker 1: then he proceeded to take a part and reassemble it
Speaker 1: so he could learn how it works. So he was
Speaker 1: a very curious kid in terms of, you know, how
Speaker 1: things were built and everything. So sure, we've already got
Speaker 1: this boy who loves exploring underwater and who now has
Speaker 1: an interest in both mechanics and filmmaking. So I mean,
Speaker 1: his trajectory and life really seems to have taken shape
Speaker 1: pretty early on.
Speaker 2: Actually yeah, I mean I think it looks that way
Speaker 2: in hindsight, but at the time Jack didn't seem to
Speaker 2: have his designs on a career at sea at all,
Speaker 2: and certainly not as a researcher. He actually got pretty
Speaker 2: terrible grades in high school and he didn't show any
Speaker 2: interest in academics. He also acted out a lot as
Speaker 2: a teenager, like apparently he went on a window smashing
Speaker 2: spree at one point, and it wasn't long after that
Speaker 2: that his parents decided to send him away to this
Speaker 2: super strict boarding school in northeast France.
Speaker 1: And so did this sixth period straighten him up? Or what?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it actually did. The school it's in Alsace, and
Speaker 2: it seemed to do the trick for Jock because he
Speaker 2: did well in and out of school. From then on,
Speaker 2: you know, he finished his studies, he attended college in Paris,
Speaker 2: and then in nineteen thirty he was accepted to the
Speaker 2: French Naval Academy and that's where he trained for a
Speaker 2: couple of years before finally being commissioned as a second lieutenant.
Speaker 2: After that, things went pretty smoothly. For the next few years.
Speaker 2: Jock actually got to sail the world as a gunnery officer.
Speaker 2: He traveled to exotic ports in the Indian and South
Speaker 2: Pacific Oceans. He captured what he found there on video actually,
Speaker 2: and then in nineteen thirty five, with a little bit
Speaker 2: of perspective under his belt, Jock finally decided on what
Speaker 2: he wanted to do for his life's career. He wanted
Speaker 2: to be a naval aircraft pilot aircraft.
Speaker 1: So after all this tooling around and see, he wanted
Speaker 1: to fly and not sail. It just seems weird, but
Speaker 1: I mean that that obviously didn't happen, so what changed
Speaker 1: his mind?
Speaker 2: So he had a bit of a tragedy. Unfortunately, in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six, just before his training was finished, Jack
Speaker 2: had borrowed his dad's sports car to attend a friend's wedding,
Speaker 2: I guess, and on the way back that evening, he
Speaker 2: was going a bit too fast around one of the
Speaker 2: bends in the road and all of a sudden, his
Speaker 2: headlights shorted out, and you know, Custo had this massive accident.
Speaker 2: He did survive, but not without breaking like a dozen
Speaker 2: bones and fracturing both arms. Worse still, his right arm
Speaker 2: became so badly infected that surgeons actually thought the best
Speaker 2: option was to amputate it. And you know, Custeau insisted
Speaker 2: that his arm be left intact no matter how bad
Speaker 2: the infection got.
Speaker 1: But I mean, obviously he recovered, as we know from
Speaker 1: seeing him in later years, So why didn't he go
Speaker 1: back to piloting?
Speaker 2: So the damage to his arms was just too severe,
Speaker 2: Like there was no way he could have flown a
Speaker 2: plane in combat after that. But the accident provided Jock
Speaker 2: the opportunity to get reacquainted with the hobbies he loved
Speaker 2: as a child, So he actually spent the next several
Speaker 2: months swimming daily in the Mediterranean as a way to
Speaker 2: strengthen his arms and to make the sessions more enjoyable
Speaker 2: for himself. He borrowed this early pair of swimming goggles
Speaker 2: from a friend and this was honestly the first time
Speaker 2: he'd done this, and it literally opened Joq's eyes to
Speaker 2: the underwater mysteries all around him, and from then on
Speaker 2: he pretty much spent as much time as he could
Speaker 2: just taking in the strange and colorful plants and animals
Speaker 2: that he found on the seafloor. When it was time
Speaker 2: to return his friend's goggles, he actually decided to craft
Speaker 2: his own pair for something he just happened to have
Speaker 2: lying around, a pair of aircraft pilot goggles.
Speaker 1: Wow, I mean it sounds like he really turned things
Speaker 1: around after the crash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did, and that new outlook extended to his
Speaker 2: love life as well. So in nineteen thirty seven, just
Speaker 2: a year after the crash, Jacques married a woman he'd
Speaker 2: met at a cocktail party earlier that year. Her name
Speaker 2: was Simone Melshore, and she and Jacques stayed together for
Speaker 2: fifty three years until her death in nineteen ninety and
Speaker 2: the couple also had two sons together, Jean, Michel and Philippe.
Speaker 2: Both of them joined their parents on many expeditions when
Speaker 2: they were young.
Speaker 1: Well, that was what was so interesting, like reading about
Speaker 1: him as a kid or seeing some of the old
Speaker 1: films and things like that. I mean, his wife and
Speaker 1: kids pretty much lived with him on the trick that
Speaker 1: research ship, and that goes back to the fifties or so,
Speaker 1: doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ship was the Calypso, And it's actually a
Speaker 2: funny name, like if you think about it, Custo got
Speaker 2: the name for this sea nymph character in Homer's Odyssey.
Speaker 2: So in the story, Odysseus washes up on Calypso's island,
Speaker 2: and when she finds him, she enchants the adventure to
Speaker 2: make him forget about his wife, Penelope, the one he'd
Speaker 2: been trying to get home to, and so Calypso basically
Speaker 2: keeps him there as a prisoner for seven years, and
Speaker 2: the whole time Penelope is just waiting and hoping that
Speaker 2: he finally makes it back to her some day. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of strange to name a boat that you
Speaker 2: sail around on with your wife and kids that same name.
Speaker 1: I think you made one mistake though, I thought Calypso
Speaker 1: comes from Pirates of the Caribbean. The film series is
Speaker 1: oh right, right, yeah, we'll correct that later. But all right,
Speaker 1: we're getting ahead of ourselves here, because an awful lot
Speaker 1: happened between Custau's wedding and the time the Calypso set sail,
Speaker 1: including the invention of the aqualogue, and of course a
Speaker 1: little something we called World War two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely a lot to talk about. But let's take
Speaker 2: a quick break first and then we'll get back into it.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: French oceaneering legend and scuba pioneer Jacques Coustea. All right, Mago,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the war years and what those
Speaker 1: were like for Custo, because remember he was serving as
Speaker 1: a gunnery office in the French Navy when the fighting began,
Speaker 1: and this was of course, in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and from what I read, that was a really
Speaker 2: difficult time for a Jacques emotionally because suddenly his country
Speaker 2: was at war with the Italians right next door. Like
Speaker 2: he'd had so many friends over there and now he
Speaker 2: was on board the ships that were attacking their naval bases,
Speaker 2: and he clearly felt conflicted, you know, wiging war in
Speaker 2: the Mediterranean against all these people he'd grown up.
Speaker 1: With, right, And so then a year later France surrendered
Speaker 1: to Nazi Germany and the Italian occupation began. So it's
Speaker 1: a pretty rough going there in those early years. And thankfully,
Speaker 1: once Paris fell, Cousteau was able to flee with his
Speaker 1: family to this small town near the Swiss border, and
Speaker 1: they lived there peacefully for the next few years. And
Speaker 1: in fact, this period of relative safety was when Jacques
Speaker 1: began to focus on that underwater exploration and beginning to
Speaker 1: do some research, and you know, it was really the
Speaker 1: beginning of what would make this huge career.
Speaker 2: That's true, but we should also mention that it's not
Speaker 2: like Cousteau was just on holiday up there, because following
Speaker 2: Franci's surrender, he actually joined the French resistance movement and
Speaker 2: he began working against Italy's intelligence services, so basically spying
Speaker 2: on Italian troops, kind of keeping track of their movements,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And then after the war, Cousteau
Speaker 2: returned to work for the French Navy to help clear
Speaker 2: underwater minds. So really all the years of underwater excursions
Speaker 2: and scuba stuff that we're talking about, that's all happening
Speaker 2: in between these long running series of military operations he
Speaker 2: was involved in.
Speaker 1: So basically, if you weren't impressed enough already, keep in
Speaker 1: mind that all the ocean research and these technical breakthroughs
Speaker 1: like that was really his side gig during World War
Speaker 1: Two exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's strange to think about, but it's true. You know,
Speaker 2: Cousteau is living in the heart of occupied France during
Speaker 2: the darkest days of the war, and he somehow managed
Speaker 2: to turn them into some of the most productive years
Speaker 2: of his life. Is truly impressive. In nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: in particular, that ended up being this pivotal year for Custo. First,
Speaker 2: it was in the town where he'd fled. He'd actually
Speaker 2: met this fellow explorer named Marcelle Chak and together that
Speaker 2: year they made the first underwater film. It's called eighteen
Speaker 2: meters Deep. Sorry, it's the first French underwater film, and
Speaker 2: they shot at themselves in the waters around this group
Speaker 2: of islands in the French Mediterranean. And this was really
Speaker 2: the first step in what become this very long career
Speaker 2: of underwater film making for Custeau. That wasn't the only
Speaker 2: life changing thing he did in nineteen forty three, because
Speaker 2: that's also the year that Coustau co invented the aqua
Speaker 2: lung with this French engineer named Emil Gagna.
Speaker 1: All Right, so let's give a little bit of background
Speaker 1: on why that's important, because it's not like the aqualung
Speaker 1: was the first breathing apparatus ever made, or or of
Speaker 1: course even the first scuba gear, right m m.
Speaker 2: Like the hard hat diving suits we talked about earlier
Speaker 2: had been around for almost hundreds of years by that time,
Speaker 2: you know, And actually Leonardo da Vinci created designs for
Speaker 2: a diving suit way back in the early sixteenth century,
Speaker 2: so the idea of breathing underwater definitely was not new.
Speaker 1: That's weird. I'm curious though, Like, do you know what
Speaker 1: da Vinci had come up with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was basically this dual snorkel system, but with
Speaker 2: these really long snorkels, Like he suggested making a boy
Speaker 2: out of cork so that it would flow, and then
Speaker 2: attaching these long cane tubes to either side. So the
Speaker 2: diver below could I guess breede through the submerged ends.
Speaker 2: But you know what the best part of da Vinci's
Speaker 2: design is, and I had never realized this before. It's
Speaker 2: that Da Vinci actually came up with this bag that
Speaker 2: the diver would wear so that he wouldn't pee straight
Speaker 2: into the water.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to love the priorities there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you get it. But anyway back to Custeau,
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: No idea what you mean by that.
Speaker 2: I don't either, But you know, he's got a few
Speaker 2: years worth of diving under his belt and he absolutely
Speaker 2: loved it. But you know, over time he started to
Speaker 2: get frustrated with the limitations of the diving equipment. He
Speaker 2: couldn't travel as deep as he wanted, and he couldn't
Speaker 2: stay under for anywhere near as long as he would
Speaker 2: have liked. And at that point, the best thing on
Speaker 2: the market was a self contained underwater breathing apparatus or
Speaker 2: scuba as we call it, that had been invented about
Speaker 2: twenty years earlier by another Frenchman. So divers already had
Speaker 2: this option of wearing air tanks on their backs instead
Speaker 2: of like the heavy helmets with the air tubes that
Speaker 2: kept them kind of tethered to the surface. But the
Speaker 2: problem was that the first scuba gear it actually lacked
Speaker 2: any kind of regulator, so there was no way to
Speaker 2: control the airflow to the driver, and that meant that
Speaker 2: the air supply was used up super quickly because it
Speaker 2: was being released in this constant stream, and so dive
Speaker 2: times were just actually limited to a few minutes at
Speaker 2: the best.
Speaker 1: Huh. I could see why that would definitely put a
Speaker 1: damper on this experience for Custau, especially when he wanted
Speaker 1: to dive as deep as he possibly could, and it
Speaker 1: it's tough to go that far when he've only got
Speaker 1: ten or twenty minutes worth of air.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's ultimately what Cousteau was looking to do,
Speaker 2: Like he reached out to his friend Emil and a
Speaker 2: year earlier, I guess in nineteen forty two, Emil had
Speaker 2: invented this demand regulator to control the gas flow in engines,
Speaker 2: and Cousteau thought the valve like that he had invented
Speaker 2: might also have applications for diving, and he figured that
Speaker 2: if you could just modify the valve a little, it
Speaker 2: could supply air only when a diver was breathing in,
Speaker 2: and then it would conserve the air supply and allowed
Speaker 2: the diver to stay underwater for longer. So Cousteau took
Speaker 2: his idea to his friend and in nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: they co invented and patented the on demand diving regulator,
Speaker 2: whereas they called it aqualung. I guess this would later
Speaker 2: serve as an inspiration for a Jethro Toll song. But
Speaker 2: you know, Cousteau was clearly thrilled about this invention, and
Speaker 2: this is what he said at the time. Quote from
Speaker 2: this day forward, we would swim across miles of country
Speaker 2: no man had known, free and level with our flesh,
Speaker 2: feeling what the fish scales know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of a great and weird quote
Speaker 1: at the same time, but I mean Custo definitely put
Speaker 1: his newfound freedom to use once the war ended. So
Speaker 1: you passed forward a little bit to nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1: He joined with these fellow divers and a group of
Speaker 1: scientists to explore this Roman shipwreck that was off the
Speaker 1: coast of Tunisia. And this was actually the first underwater
Speaker 1: archaeology operation to use scuba equipment, so it was really
Speaker 1: the birth of this brand new field. And then in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen fifties, Custeau and his team decided to
Speaker 1: take the next step and they devoted their lives full
Speaker 1: time to underwater exploration. There was only one problem with
Speaker 1: this is that they would need lots of money to
Speaker 1: fund those expeditions, and unfortunately they didn't have any money. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Custau started reaching out to all kinds of
Speaker 1: French science institutions as well as like potential private donors. Well,
Speaker 1: he eventually struck gold with this wealthy British philanthropist named
Speaker 1: Thomas Lowell Guinness. Now Guinnis also happened to be a
Speaker 1: member of Parliament, so he was connected in so many
Speaker 1: different ways. But Custeau told him about his plans to
Speaker 1: make undersea documentaries and to introduce the world to the
Speaker 1: wonders of the deep, and Guinnis just love this idea,
Speaker 1: and so here's what he decided to do to help.
Speaker 1: He bought a decommissioned mind sweepership from the war, and
Speaker 1: this was one that had already been converted to use
Speaker 1: as like a car ferry or something like that, and
Speaker 1: he leased it to Custeau for a symbolic price of
Speaker 1: one franc per year, and that's how Cousteau came to
Speaker 1: own the world famous Calypso for one franc.
Speaker 2: That's amazing and it's pretty awesome, except now he had
Speaker 2: this like giant, like one hundred foot one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty foot like car ferry. But he doesn't still seem
Speaker 2: to have much money to equip or staff it, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. And so the team was was pretty
Speaker 1: much a loss for how to solve that, and they
Speaker 1: pretty much tried everything they could, Like Cousteau begged the
Speaker 1: government for grant money. He hassled manufacturers for free equipment.
Speaker 1: There was even one time when his wife Simone sold
Speaker 1: her jewels just so they could buy fuel to keep
Speaker 1: the ship at sea. And all of this worked well
Speaker 1: enough for a while, and you know, Custeau was able
Speaker 1: to gradually restructure the ship and transform it into this
Speaker 1: state of the art research vessel. You know, go back
Speaker 1: to him being so interested in the mechanics and all
Speaker 1: of this, I'm sure, but was you know, came a
Speaker 1: handy in this process. And they even had this support
Speaker 1: base for diving on the ship, a helipad and the
Speaker 1: special storage for equipment like the one and two man
Speaker 1: mini subs that he developed all by himself. But the
Speaker 1: team's biggest break after all of this, and the thing
Speaker 1: that really allowed him to keep financing their research, was
Speaker 1: Cousteau's media exposure. So throughout the fifties, he and his
Speaker 1: fellow divers began publicizing their efforts and stories for Time
Speaker 1: and National Geographic, and Coustou co authored a biographical book
Speaker 1: for their early ski uba adventures. It was called The
Speaker 1: Silent World, and it was this huge financial hit. They
Speaker 1: sold more than five million copies over the years, and
Speaker 1: it included the first ever suggestion that whales were able
Speaker 1: to communicate with each other using echolocation.
Speaker 2: And the team even knew how to build on that
Speaker 2: success because like just a few years later, Cousteau made
Speaker 2: his first color movie documentary about the ocean. It's called
Speaker 2: The Silent World, and it actually won Best Documentary OSCAR
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty seven. The movie turned out to be
Speaker 2: another big turning point for Cousteau's team and really for
Speaker 2: diving in general, because at the time very few people
Speaker 2: had seen undersea footage before, so the movie was really
Speaker 2: like this revelation for people who had no idea what
Speaker 2: the plants or the animals in the ocean even looked like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was actually fun reading about how after this
Speaker 1: film came out, scuba sales like went through the roof
Speaker 1: because you've got all these people who are suddenly interested
Speaker 1: in trying diving for themselves. And you know, once again,
Speaker 1: Cousteau knew exactly how to capitalize on this, so he
Speaker 1: channeled all that money and public interest into these new
Speaker 1: expeditions until finally he was such a well known figure
Speaker 1: that the BBC and ABC here in the US just
Speaker 1: went ahead and gave him his own primetime TV show.
Speaker 2: Oh I know about the day. It was actually called
Speaker 2: The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and it kind of
Speaker 2: followed the real life exploits of him and his crew
Speaker 2: for I want to say, like nine seasons right like that.
Speaker 2: That's pretty impressive for like a French nature series.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it was it was this series that really
Speaker 1: made Custeau a household name throughout the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: You know, in the same way that The Silent World
Speaker 1: had introduced moviegoers to the underwater world, the TV show
Speaker 1: gave viewers their first glimpse at humans interacting with ocean
Speaker 1: creatures like in a way they'd never really seen before.
Speaker 1: And you know, they got to see them swimming with
Speaker 1: dolphins or being pulled along by giant sea turtles, and
Speaker 1: so I'm sure it was just fascinating for people to
Speaker 1: be able to watch for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing. But I also do want to be
Speaker 2: careful that we don't paint too rosy a picture of Cousteau,
Speaker 2: because for all incredible achievements, he definitely made a few
Speaker 2: really weird mistakes over the years, and honestly, some of
Speaker 2: them are just too bizarre not to talk about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's that's fair to say. Well, before
Speaker 1: we get into that, let's take one more quick break,
Speaker 1: all right, Mangos, So what dodgy aspect of Jaques Coustau's
Speaker 1: life do you think people would be most surprised to learn?
Speaker 2: Well, the one I was most stunned to buy, But
Speaker 2: it was I guess, his darkest secret, which is that
Speaker 2: Custou actually had a secret second family that he hid
Speaker 2: from the public for decades. One year after his first wife,
Speaker 2: Simone died from cancer in nineteen ninety, Custau actually shocked
Speaker 2: the world by revealing that he had been having this
Speaker 2: long running affair with a French woman named Francine Triplett,
Speaker 2: and they had had two secret children together during the eighties,
Speaker 2: and once the fair was out in the open, Cousteau
Speaker 2: married triplet though they still tried to keep it as
Speaker 2: quiet as possible for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, I know when pop culture French husbands
Speaker 1: have a reputation for keeping mistresses, but having secret kids
Speaker 1: and actually getting married is it seems like it's another level.
Speaker 1: But anyway to think that Simone sold her jewels to
Speaker 1: fuel his ship, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, it's always confusing to me when people
Speaker 2: have two families too, Like one family feels like so
Speaker 2: much work. I can't imagine like trying to keep two
Speaker 2: of them going. I read this story about William Sewan
Speaker 2: who was this legendary editor of The New Yorker, and
Speaker 2: he had two families, but he kept his apartments the
Speaker 2: exact same, so that when he reached for the remote
Speaker 2: in one where he went to get a notepad in
Speaker 2: the other, like, it was basically in the same place
Speaker 2: in both settings, which is just so crafty. You know,
Speaker 2: his second family is probably the biggest scandal of Cousteau's life,
Speaker 2: So I guess at least, you know, it is good
Speaker 2: that his wife wasn't around to see the fallout from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's interesting. Well, the next thing I want
Speaker 1: to talk about is a lot less scandalous than a
Speaker 1: secret family, but it is a whole lot weirder, I
Speaker 1: actually think because in a nineteen sixty interview with Time,
Speaker 1: Jacques Coustau predicted that humans would one day be able
Speaker 1: to breathe underwater, like actually breathe underwater like fish. He
Speaker 1: apparently thought that medical science would get to a point
Speaker 1: where you could have a reversible surgery that would let
Speaker 1: you alternate between lungs for life on land and gills
Speaker 1: for life underwater.
Speaker 2: So like, in his vision slash fantasy for this, like
Speaker 2: would we have underwater colonies? Because I mean, if it
Speaker 2: requires surgery to switch back and forth, I'm guessing he
Speaker 2: was picturing something more permanent than just like a like
Speaker 2: a two week vacation or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he was actually thinking long term with this,
Speaker 1: and can you can imagine for him that would have
Speaker 1: been exciting to just be able to live underwater but
Speaker 1: in that interview, this is what he says about the
Speaker 1: cultural shift he thought would come from having guilt. He said,
Speaker 1: everything that has been done on the surface will sooner
Speaker 1: or later be done underwater. It will be the conquest
Speaker 1: of a whole new world.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like that's just a line from
Speaker 2: like Aquaman, like maybe something a bad guy would say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that had been said
Speaker 1: at some point. But you know, speaking of things that
Speaker 1: sound like they were ripped from a comic book, did
Speaker 1: you know that Jaques Cousteau may have been responsible for
Speaker 1: releasing a mutant seaweed strain that continues to smother ocean
Speaker 1: floors to this day.
Speaker 2: So I heard you mentioned this earlier, and I'm so curious.
Speaker 2: It almost sounds too ridiculous to be true, though.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let me just kind of explain what
Speaker 1: happened here, and then you can decide what you want
Speaker 1: to believe on this one. So all right, So it
Speaker 1: all started in nineteen eighty nine when this marine biologist
Speaker 1: named Alexander Mainez went diving off the southern coast of
Speaker 1: France and made this shocking discovery. So what he found
Speaker 1: was that the seabed throughout the region had become covered
Speaker 1: in this toxic tropical algae, one that was you know,
Speaker 1: really shouldn't have been able to thrive like that in
Speaker 1: the cold Mediterranean water, and it was later determined that
Speaker 1: the tropical seaweed was growing at twice the speed of
Speaker 1: the region's indigenous plants, and even worse than that. Even
Speaker 1: though the seaweed's toxin wasn't lethal the humans or the animals,
Speaker 1: it made the plant taste terrible. And so this meant
Speaker 1: that nothing in the area wanted to eat the invasive species,
Speaker 1: and as a result, it was able to spread, I
Speaker 1: mean pretty much unchecked. And so Alexander knew that like
Speaker 1: if nothing was done, the tropical seaweed would take over
Speaker 1: and the Mediterranean's wildlife would either have to move somewhere
Speaker 1: else or potentially face starvation. So he decided to bring
Speaker 1: his concerns to one of Europe's leading marine research organizations,
Speaker 1: which was the Monaco Oceanographic Museum, and he thought for
Speaker 1: sure that the museum would want to help solve the problem,
Speaker 1: but to his surprise, actually the director insisted that the
Speaker 1: seaweed had floated in naturally from the tropics and probably
Speaker 1: wasn't as dangerous as it seemed. And so here's where
Speaker 1: things get interesting, because the invasive algae that supposedly floated
Speaker 1: in from the tropics, DNA testing later showed that it
Speaker 1: was actually an artificial human bread strain that was somehow
Speaker 1: released into the Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: What, like, I don't even know what that means exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently this was man made. And you know, if
Speaker 1: that weren't suspicious enough, researchers also found that the earliest
Speaker 1: known infestation site for the seaweed happened to be directly
Speaker 1: below the Monaco Oceanographic Museum.
Speaker 2: Wow, so the plot thickens. But you know, where does
Speaker 2: Jackustou figure into all of this?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is he the one behind that strain? No?
Speaker 1: I mean that part is actually still kind of a mystery.
Speaker 1: And researchers eventually followed the trail to a zoo in Stuttgart, Germany,
Speaker 1: which had imported the strain from the Pacific and then
Speaker 1: used it to decorate their tropical fish tanks because apparently,
Speaker 1: and this is something I actually never heard before, but
Speaker 1: some zoos and aquariums used to have a really hard
Speaker 1: time getting seaweed to survive and the artificial environment of
Speaker 1: a fish tank. And so for this German zoo in
Speaker 1: the seventies, the solution turned out to be, you know,
Speaker 1: this imported tropical seaweed, which, for whatever reason flourished in
Speaker 1: the way that other plants never seemed to be able to.
Speaker 2: So then what happens exactly like the zoo eventually dumped
Speaker 2: their tanks in the ocean, and this seaweed made its
Speaker 2: way to the Mediterranean. Like didn't you say you thought
Speaker 2: this strain was man made?
Speaker 1: Though, yeah it was. And the thinking here is that maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe the chemicals and the lights that were used
Speaker 1: in the aquarium tanks caused the plant to mutate into
Speaker 1: this more invasive species than the kind that was originally
Speaker 1: found in the wild. And since aquariums all over the
Speaker 1: world began using the tropical strain once they heard about
Speaker 1: the zoo's success, there's really no way of knowing exactly
Speaker 1: where the mutant batch came from or who dumped it
Speaker 1: into the open water. But since the Monaco Museum is
Speaker 1: considered the first known infestation site, there's a good chance
Speaker 1: that it actually did come from there. And so here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Based on the evidence, the most likely time
Speaker 1: for all of us to have happened was in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. And guess who was running the museum
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: So I guess this whole ecologic disaster like it must
Speaker 2: have happened on Cousteau's watch, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I should have had that big
Speaker 1: setup and be like, Nope, it actually wasn't custou but no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. He could have even been the one to
Speaker 1: unknowingly release the algae. But yeah, of course the Monaco
Speaker 1: Museum flatly denies all of this and maintains there's no
Speaker 1: connection whatsoever. And meanwhile, the seaweed is actually still there today,
Speaker 1: and in recent years it's cropped up in the harbors
Speaker 1: and coral reefs around Australia southern California too, so it
Speaker 1: is kind of all over the place. So you know,
Speaker 1: at this point it's probably time to worry less about
Speaker 1: who started the problem and more about how to actually
Speaker 1: fix it.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean, like Custeau's done so much, it's hard
Speaker 2: to imagine it would really hurt his legacy.
Speaker 1: And probably not. I mean, his work has led to
Speaker 1: so many marine discoveries and inspired so many future explorers
Speaker 1: that he probably gets a pass on this one, I guess.
Speaker 1: And you know that's before you even consider the conservation
Speaker 1: work that's been done through his nonprofit, the Cousteau Society,
Speaker 1: which is something he formed himself back in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, he was obviously an overachiever, as we've
Speaker 2: probably shown today, but I would still say his greatest
Speaker 2: achievement was opening so many people's eyes to just how
Speaker 2: beautiful and mysterious and strange the ocean really is. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really difficult to get people to open themselves to
Speaker 2: the unknown, but that's exactly what Jacques Cousteau did through
Speaker 2: his work. He showed them reasons to care about the ocean.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. And you know, like I read
Speaker 1: this week that roughly ninety four percent of all the
Speaker 1: space on Earth where life can survive is actually underwater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've only fully explored about five percent of that. And
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about it, the number was
Speaker 1: even lower than that before Cousteau came along, and now,
Speaker 1: hopefully thanks to his example, a little only continue to
Speaker 1: go up from there. Yeah, because of Cousteau's work proved anything.
Speaker 1: It's that exploring the oceans is the way for humans
Speaker 1: to fall in love with them, and from there, the
Speaker 1: hope is that if we love them, then we'll also
Speaker 1: do our best to take care of them too. And
Speaker 1: it may sound a little bit corny, but you know,
Speaker 1: here's hoping.
Speaker 2: It does sound corny. What do you think we get
Speaker 2: to the fact off from here?
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it.
Speaker 2: So here's something kind of fun. Off the coast of Florida.
Speaker 2: There's this underwater Museum of Art and it's the first
Speaker 2: underwater museum in the US. In addition to the artwork
Speaker 2: they've got there, they've got like a deer giant skull
Speaker 2: a pineapple, which I thought was initially like a tribute
Speaker 2: to SpongeBob, but apparently it's just a beautiful pineapple. There's
Speaker 2: also this model of Jock Cousteau's scuba mask, and it
Speaker 2: is pretty cool because the sculptures are sixty feet deep
Speaker 2: and it's in this artificial reef where all types of
Speaker 2: reefish and turtles and other animals just swim through and
Speaker 2: seems really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Huh. All right, well, here's one I wasn't expecting. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro was a huge fan of Cousteau. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, when Coustou asked to come through and
Speaker 1: research Cubas system for managing their lobster population, Castro actually
Speaker 1: went aboard Cousteau's ship and ate dinner on board the
Speaker 1: Calypso and the pair I guess got along so well
Speaker 1: that mental floss reports on this Castro allowed the diver
Speaker 1: to liberate eighty political prisoners.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Also, Cousteau's team became the first non Cubans to pass
Speaker 1: through Guantanamo Bay since the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 2: That's pretty impressive. So one of the things I'm always
Speaker 2: fascinated about is how Custeau helped stop whaling. He actually
Speaker 2: called up and personally made pleas to a number of
Speaker 2: heads of states to get the International Whaling Commission to
Speaker 2: pass this moratorium on commercial whaling. This was in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six, and that's actually helped protect multiple species over
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, Cousto apparently didn't always come across as
Speaker 1: an environmentalist. In fact, in the beginning, he was more
Speaker 1: of a spear fisherman, an adventurer, and you can actually
Speaker 1: see this in some of his early films, like there's
Speaker 1: this horrific scene in the Silent World where the calypso
Speaker 1: collides with a baby sperm whale and then, thinking that
Speaker 1: it's near death, they also shoot the sharks that start
Speaker 1: circling the whale. So this obviously isn't a good look
Speaker 1: for Custo, and so when the group decided to remaster
Speaker 1: the film twenty years later, they decided to edit out
Speaker 1: those ugly scenes. But according to reports, Custo absolutely refused
Speaker 1: to let that happen. He said, it was true and
Speaker 1: it shows how far we've come and how dreadful humans
Speaker 1: can be if we don't curtail ourselves.
Speaker 2: So on one head, it's a little like Steve's Zoo
Speaker 2: from The Life Aquatic, like wanting to go out and
Speaker 2: kill a shark. And on the other hand, it really
Speaker 2: is amazing, like you'd show your warts and all in
Speaker 2: the hopes that others could learn that we can all change.
Speaker 2: You know. I just love how Jacques Cousteau's appreciation for this.
Speaker 2: He just grew more and more over the years, and
Speaker 2: I do think he get a trophy for pointing to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he led an incredible life and it's
Speaker 1: fun to try to learn from it. But all right, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's it for today's show. So from Gabe, Tristan, Mango,
Speaker 1: and me, thanks so much for listening.