WEBVTT - Cave Diving: Totally Nuts 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.480 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and there's Chuck over there, 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:05.480 and we just wanted to drop in to tell you 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.040 we're going on tour and you should come see us. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.200 That's right. We are going to be in Seattle. I 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.360 think that show is close to sold out, so you 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.000 can always poke around for tickets. Sometimes they become available, 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.840 why not? And uh, what date is that? That is Thursday, January, 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.520 that's right. And then we're taking a ticket Friday after relax, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.000 that's what we do. And then we're going to San 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.960 Francisco Sketch Fest on Saturday. That's right. We're going to 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.839 be there on January tenth of the Castro Theater. And 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.120 if you want to see us, well, then go to 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.000 s Y s K live dot com or the s 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.160 F Sketch Fest dot com website and you can get 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.919 tickets to come see us on Saturday January, that's right. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.000 And if you're still around on Sunday the nineteenth, then 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.159 you want to come see Movie Crush live, you can 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.560 do that as well. It will be intimate and fun. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:57.880 Nice get intimate with Chuck. Everybody. We'll see in January. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:00.880 Welcome to Steff. You should know a production of I 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:10.120 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.160 I'm Josh Clark, Nurse Charles W. Danger is his middle name, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:19.160 even though it begins with W. Bryant. And there's Jerry 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:25.679 Jerome Roll. We're gonna stick with Jerome, Okay, it's a 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.399 good cave diver's name. Yeah, I have just my regular 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.560 name because I would never in a million years cave dive. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.480 But I never even scuba dived. Fat I have. Yeah, 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:41.280 I believe that open water stuff. I got really um 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.200 like I guess csick right afterwards two and I was 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.440 convinced that it had to do with the arrows breathing. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.040 I was like, I'm done, which sticks because it was 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:54.280 really cool. Breathing underwater is one of the neatest experiences 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.520 you will ever have. It's really cool, but not not 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.520 snorkel like you're totally you're under water and you're breathing, 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.480 even as it's pool. It doesn't matter. Just take like 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.360 a scuba lesson once and you'll you'll there, you go, 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.799 You're done. I have dreams where I can breathe underwater 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.520 a lot, but it's not like, hey, I'm aquaman and 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.040 I'm just breathing like a fish or something. It's that 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:22.840 I figured out how to very slowly draw in air, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.720 very carefully from the water around me. It's it's really 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:29.320 a strange dream, but I have it a lot. It's 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.920 pretty cool. Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.679 don't either. I can't even begin to guess. But what's 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.160 more boring than talking about someone's dreams? They say that 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.120 nothing is more boring than that. Yeah, I thought that 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.239 was a pretty interesting one though. If you're going to 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.280 talk about your dream, that's a good one to go with. Um, 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.560 we're not talking about your dreams today though, Chuck. No, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.880 we're talking about cave diving, right, which is not a dream. Again, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.080 I'm with you. I don't think it's not for me. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.359 Like I couldn't even go like regular cavings so lunking, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.960 which I did the one time, right, I can't remember. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.720 Did you enjoy it? I did? It was a butt 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.240 kicker physically, very hard work. But I remember describing the 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:14.240 pancake thing that I went through where the you know, 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.600 I was laying on my back squirming through in the 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.560 in the rock face was three inches above my body 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.560 and face and you could you're getting nervous now I 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.080 don't even like hearing about it. Yeah, that was a 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:29.320 little weird, and I'm not even a claustrophobic guy, but 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.160 I was like, this is you know, you could die 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:37.000 in here. I've read about a poor guy, maybe the 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.080 poorest of all time, well one of them, who was 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.960 caving with his family, friends and family and got stuck 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.000 and ended up dying. His his like, they could get 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:49.960 to him, they could move his foot, they could touch 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.880 his leg legs, but he was just so stuck that 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.280 they just couldn't do anything for him, and so they 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.840 decided to go home. He died. No, they were there 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.360 the whole time, but he over like I think the 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.760 course of twenty four hours. He he just died the 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.200 slow she's terrifying death. So they couldn't They could reach 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.920 his foot, but not his mouth, clearly, yes, to give him, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.520 you know, nutrients. They tried to give him stuff through 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:15.040 an ivy. I think they tried to give him a 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.800 sedative and it kept falling out of his leg, so 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.680 they couldn't even do that. Oh gosh, it was bad. 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.279 It's hard to even here about. I know, man, but 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.760 this is cave diving, which is even more dangerous than caving. Yeah, 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.159 and there's a couple of a few types of diving. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.479 There's the open water diving that you were talking about, 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.880 there's cavern diving. An open water diving just means, if 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:41.880 you know, if you get in trouble, go up and 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.440 you'll reach the surface. You're not gonna get hit in 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:49.599 the head by a cave ceiling or pinned down through crevasse. No. 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.240 Cavern diving is a little different in that you're in 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.640 a cavern, but you should be able to see sunlight 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.240 above you and if you go up you can get 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.719 your head out. Eventually you're from what I saw, the 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.200 definition is your no more than seventy ft deep and 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.960 you're within a hundred and thirty linear feet of the 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.679 cave mouth or more specifically, your surroundings are illuminated by daylight. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.520 That's that's really what separates cavern diving from cave diving. 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.200 It's kind of like remember a bio speleology episode, So 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.039 this would be the twilight zone between the dark zone 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:27.839 and the light zone. That that would be kind of 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.640 cavern diving diving in the twilight zone. Right. Then you 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.560 get to cave diving, and that is serious business. This 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:40.920 is not. Uh, what's considered recreational diving? Uh, this is 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:46.080 going deep and dark? Yeah with David re going deep 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.760 with David Rees, I haven't spoken to recent a while. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.400 I love that guy. Oh, he's a great guy. So 0:05:55.000 --> 0:06:00.320 this is a technical diving. Can give another definition of deep. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.440 Wasn't on that Reefe joke, going deep wasn't good enough. 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:09.000 Cave diving is diving with an overhead environment, so that 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.400 separates it from open water environment. If you goes and 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.000 panic and swim straight up, you're gonna bonk your head. Yeah, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.080 you might have gone to under foot um there and 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.240 you have no direct vertical access to open air surface 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:29.720 or light. Yeah, this is extremely important. Bas horror, a nightmare, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.200 a living nightmare that you're doing on purpose that you've 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.839 paid it a lot of money to equip yourself for. Um. 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.880 The light thing is a really big one too. Like, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.480 here's the thing. It's really easy because you're thinking that 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.920 this is cave diving and the word caves in there 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.719 and we're talking about caves, but it's scuba diving really, 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.760 but it's scuba diving inside a cave. This is a 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.960 really important thing to not lose sight of. It's a cave. 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.719 It's deep in the bowels of the earth. Yes, there 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.520 are there's no light. There's only light is the light 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.800 that you have and you're moving through it underwater. This 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.680 is cave diving. I'm in awe of people who do this, 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.720 and I could watch videos of it all day long. Yeah, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.080 it's very cool to see. Um, it's like scuba plus 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.240 as far as the creep factor goes. I read one 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.360 article about a guy who is a cave diving researcher. 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.400 And as we'll see, you know, there's scientific discoveries that 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.760 have been made in these caves because just like the 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.080 the deep dry caves, the things that live in there 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.360 are remarkable. Um. And this guy was sixty nine years 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.120 old and still going strong and said his family, you know, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.280 always worries about him, but he super experience, knows what 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.040 he's doing. But it's still fraught with danger. I do 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:49.960 have a few death stats if you want. I read 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:54.880 a scientific presentation called thirty years of American cave diving Fatalities. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.160 Two thou you got the same one? Huh. This is 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.920 by the divers A Network. A hundred and sixty one 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.120 divers had died over that. Uh. What how long was 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.560 that thirty year period. Uh, sixty seven of them were trained, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.000 eighty seven were untrained, which is crazy, Like, I don't 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:15.640 know what they're doing down there to beginner with a 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.840 fool Yeah, if you just take up cave diving for 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.560 the first time, but like, yeah, exactly, because sixty seven 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.440 trained cave divers perished. Yeah, and how chuck? How what 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.480 was the vast majority? Most common cause was aphixia due 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:34.480 to drowning preceded by running out of breathing gas, usually 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.400 after getting lost because of a loss of visibility caused 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.080 by suspended silt. And that's where most of these are 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.040 in Florida, And that's where I learned about the silt 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.000 out also from the article you sent about the um 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.720 the cave rescue in Thailand in Thailand, which was apparently 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.120 very silty. And a silt out is when so much 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.720 silt gets kicked up that it just blacks out even 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.960 with your light source. Yeah. The guy that was in that, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.160 I think it was an article in Atlantic um with 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.320 a guy and it was named Robert Layard. I think 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.640 he's a cave diving expert. And he said, you can 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.720 put your light up to your mask and you can 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.360 kind of see your light, but that's it, and you're 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.199 in a cave, so you don't know where to go. 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.920 Even feeling your way around is not going to help you. Um. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.480 And the problem with a silt out is they can 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.480 last for so long in a bad a bad case 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.120 of a silt out, that you will run out of 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.120 air before the silt settles enough for you to see through, 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.640 So it's a bad jam. Well. And then this that 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.240 you probably read the same interviews, but there's a panic 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.000 is what this guy said is what usually happens even 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.880 with an experienced diver, because there's no escape, there's no 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.959 quick way out, and things tend to have a domino effect. 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:51.320 So if you're in a silt out, like you said, 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.760 it's you try and stay as still as possible, and 0:09:54.840 --> 0:10:00.080 it's still maybe not gonna work. You're getting nervous, the 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.920 kind of fidgety now that you've pointed out it's panic 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.640 inducing just to think about it, Like you have to 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.880 remain perfectly still in the total darkness, and that might 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.160 not even be good enough to let that salt stuttle 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.560 settle I I saw um and even a bigger estimate 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.720 of the number of deaths from cave diving. From the 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:27.080 National Speleological Society's cave Diving section, they estimated more than 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.760 four deaths in the history of cave diving, but they 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.040 said in the world, okay, that the other one is 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.040 just o was it just America? Okay. They placed a 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.920 lot of them towards the beginning of cave diving, which 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.599 took which started in the fifties or sixties. Hey, I 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.880 wonder what's in their stage? Yeah, which is crazy because 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.160 scuba diving started in about the fifties. So within a 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.319 little while of somebody inventing scuba diving, some people were like, oh, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.720 let's go into caves with this stuff. And they started dying. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.679 And so they pointed out like these people didn't give 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.400 their lives in vain. Each day was a lesson learned 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.240 for everyone else who who um, you know, was yet 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.840 to come. But a lot of people died early on, 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.959 and it's gotten much. They are far fewer deaths from 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.440 cave diving. But it's like you said, there there typically 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.680 are cave diving experts who are dying because they're pushing 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.679 themselves further and further. If you have you know, no 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.240 one's cave died before every cave you dive into is 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.240 a new exploration and this is a huge driver for 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.679 people who cave died. This is why they do it. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.200 They're seeing something that no other human on Earth in 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.080 most cases, has ever seen in the history of humanity. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.800 They're the first human to be in this place. Um, 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:43.040 there's lots of stuff to discover for when humans were there, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.680 but now it's flooded. Um, there's there's just a lot 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.559 of discovery. But as it's been going on for decades now, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.320 every time somebody discovers a new thing, that's one thing 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.760 that that is not left to be discovered by everybody else. 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.000 So they're pushing themselves further and further. When you cave dive, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.080 you might be a hundred feet under sea level, but 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.920 you might be scuba diving for miles down through a 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:15.360 cave system downward necessarily, yeah, horizontal miles. Um, you know, 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.640 round trip for this this cave dive, which is nuts, 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.560 but that's that's what they do. Yeah. I don't even 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:24.120 remember where I was going with that. I started to 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.880 get panicked again. Have you seen Once upon a Time 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.600 in Hollywood? Yeah, you know the scene with Brad Pitt 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.480 on the boat in his in that sixty scuba gear. 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.439 It's just so cool looking at Before we say this, 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.280 I come from the future to warn us in the 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.120 past that we should add spoiler alert here. That was that. Uh, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.480 it's like when they used to call him skin divers. Yes, 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.320 do you think he killed his wife? Uh? Well, I 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.280 think that's what you were led to believe. Whether I 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.280 felt like it was up in the air well a 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.440 little bit. Uh. Also could have been an accident because 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.160 he was clearly had that spear gun resting on his 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.880 knee pointing at her right. Um. Yeah, The question is 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.679 did his neurons fire and make his finger move right? Okay, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.400 so he took care of the spoiler that was like 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.440 five minutes ago, I know. And now we're back to 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:18.079 cave diving and we should talk a little bit about equipment. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.160 This A lot of this came from one of our 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.640 old House Stuff Works colleagues from the website, our old 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.480 buddy John Fuller, who looks like mc estro. Like he's 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.839 been mentioned twice. Then he's the tie that binds the 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.760 Estra episode and the cave diving episode. Yeah, and some 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.360 of this equipment thing isn't the most exciting stuff in 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.160 the world. But we should talk about it anyway. I 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.840 found it frankly arousing. You got your mask, uh, and 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:44.880 this is something I didn't know. Um. They used sort 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.280 of simple black masks because it absorbs light. Yeah, um, 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.360 which makes sense. Yeah, because you're using your own light source, 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.679 so it can get pretty bright. I saw a flashlight 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:05.520 from under water kinetics. Maybe it's like fifteen thousand lumens 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:10.240 some ridiculous amount of lumens, a lot of lumens um. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.480 And yeah, if you have that stuff bouncing all over 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.160 the place, you don't want your light, your your you know, 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.600 gold glitter, diamond dusted mask, reflecting it in your eyes 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.640 cuts down invisibility. But I take issue with Fuller saying 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.600 that they favorite simple masks because these guys do like 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.480 the full face like be a mask. Yeah, not the 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.640 bread pitt skin diver sixties mask, which I loved. Yeah, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:37.720 I think I think some of them might. But I 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.440 also saw plenty of them have like you know, I'm 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.280 trying to think of what to call it, but just 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.480 a really cool full face mask. Yeah. It looks like 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.560 something that you could dive in a cave in or 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.360 go to outer space in. Basically. Yeah. So then you've 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.920 got your fins again, black rubber fins. But the difference 0:14:57.960 --> 0:14:59.960 here and uh that I gather from this and open 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.200 water because you don't want those super long, super bindy 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.600 fins because you're trying to not kick up silt, so 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.840 you want those shorter, stiffer fins. Uh. And when you're 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.560 down there swimming around, you're using little, short, controlled kicks. Yeah, no, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.520 big sweeping leg movements. No, it's a huge, huge difference 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.640 between cave diving and open water diving. Open witer diving, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.680 your legs are extended out behind you and you're fluttering 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.640 those um, those fins up and down and you're propelling 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:33.720 yourself forward. In In cave diving, you're bent. Your legs 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.720 are bent at the knees, so your feet are up 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:40.800 slightly above you, and mostly you're making frog kicks, which 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.840 are all in the ankle, and you're just kind of 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.960 waddling yourself along with these little kicks. You see what 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.040 I'm saying. I love for twelve years you've been doing 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.520 little physical gestures of me like anyone else in the 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.200 world could see them. Well, who am I talking to? 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.920 But you know that's the whole point. So the frog 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.800 look chuck like this is what they do little frog kicks. 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.240 But in doing that that you cut down on the 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.600 potential of um coming in contact with the rest of 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.800 the cave. There's a couple of reasons why you want 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.840 to do that. One, you want to preserve the cave. 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.520 If you break off a stalactite, stalactite coming from the 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.520 ceiling um, that's a that's nature's work that you just 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.480 messed with. You don't want to do that, bro. And 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.800 then secondly, a lot of caves, pretty much all of 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.760 them have that silt sediment on the bottom. If you 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:30.800 kick it up, you've got a silt out, So you 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.760 you want to really be careful what kind of um 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.120 movement you're making with your fins, and then just how 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.640 big your fins are and how flexible they are. And 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.160 then one other thing about that too. You also want 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:48.720 to maintain basically perfect buoyancy where you're completely neutrally buoyant 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.080 relative to the top and the bottom of the cave. Yeah, 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:58.440 what do they call the movement dragon float, pulling, glide 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.120 glide float. Yeah, it's sort of the same you do 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.439 when you recover a body. Well, a lot of this 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.080 is body recovery very sadly. Um, well, not a lot 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.160 of it, but part of search and rescue can very 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:14.719 much involve going deep and getting very swollen, water logged bodies. 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.800 But yeah, you pull yourself along with your hand, like 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.320 in a little groove by the rock and then just 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.840 let yourself glide. It seems very relaxing considering you're doing 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.359 the most horrifying thing on the planet. Yeah, so you 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.440 might do that even instead of kicking, depending on where 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.680 the space is, how tight it is that kind of thing. Also, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:37.560 it depends on how um uh solid the surroundings are, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.840 like you wouldn't do that or anything like that. Um 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:42.840 And then also apparently you only do that when you 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.320 have a current. There's one thing we should say, there's 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:50.320 two kinds of cave diving, spring diving and sump diving. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.600 And in spring diving that's where you see like the 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.560 pictures in like National Geographic magazine where it's just this 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.400 beautiful cave and there's just two people in scooba gear 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.359 floating in the middle of it. That's a spring fed 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.080 cave where you've got water moving through it keeping it 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.840 very clear because there's no way for sediment to settle 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.280 because the currents moving to to um quickly and you 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.040 use that current to pull and glide. That looks like 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.000 something has a little bit more appeal. Yeah, but I 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.720 mean it's just as dangerous as anything else. Like you said, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:25.880 most of the people who die in cave diving die 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.960 in Florida, And that's what they're doing, is diving in 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.520 those springs U And the other time the sump kind 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.439 those are a little more scary to me. That's a 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.960 cave system where if you imagine like kind of like 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.960 a zigzag like Charlie Brown's shirt, say, that's the cave system. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.000 The inside of the cave, half of the bottom half 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.600 is covered with water that you have to scooba through, 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.479 but you also have to climb over through dry parts 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.399 in air and then get down to the to the water. Again. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.119 That's the sump kind of that's super sediment and you 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:00.840 really got to know what you're are doing there. That's 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.320 the most dangerous kind by far. Uh. You have your 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.280 suit that you're wearing, and you can wear a wet suit, 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.440 standard wet suit or a dry suit. These are not cheap. 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.440 They cost, you know, several thousand dollars per a good one. 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.119 All this equipment is not cheap. Uh, So it's not 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.000 the kind of thing that you just sort of decided 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.560 to try out, right, So you have to be wealthy 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.200 and totally out of your mind to cave die. Dry 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.399 suits are sealed off, so you know, if you've ever 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.040 put on a wet suit, part of the process is 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.919 getting in that cold water and letting it fill up 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.040 your wet suit, which will warm it up. That's the 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.920 idea eventually, is that water warms. But that process isn't fun. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.000 Getting in and out of a wet suit isn't fun neither, 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.040 to be honest. And it's not that flouttering. No gotuits 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.159 to it, you know. Uh, we had to wear them 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.800 when we scoop it up with the whales, the whale sharks. 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.520 It seems like a hundred years ago. It was easily 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.720 a hundred years ago. The dry suits seal off that water, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:00.760 so you are dry. That's why they call it a 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.080 dry suit. Your body doesn't get wet um. And the 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.040 cool thing here is that you can layer up some clothing, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:09.520 uh and then put on this suit because you can 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.880 stay warmer. It's a much more pleasant imaging silkies or something. Yeah. 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.359 I love the silkies. Uh. And then John makes a 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.479 good point. You want to you want to have like 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.440 extras of just about everything. Like you don't go down 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.760 there with a flashlight. I'd have eight flashlights strapped to 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.000 every single lamb on my body, like I'm sure they 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.639 carry like an extra. I would have a bunch of 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.879 extra light. Yeah, you get your little knife if you 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.200 get snagged, you cut things. I would have nine knives, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:44.040 eight flashlights. Well, you do want a redundant amount of stuff, 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.280 like you were saying, like you just because if something 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.720 goes wrong down there, you are toast unless you can 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.600 slowly and deliberately get yourself back to the surface of 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.040 the ocean. That's right, that's so yeah. But the other 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:00.480 thing you want to do too is you're in very 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.560 cramp quarters here, so everything has to be strapped down 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.800 pretty closely to your body or in like a pocket, 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.320 because you can't have any stuff hanging down because you'll 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.399 get tangled up. I don't want to get tangled up 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.600 down there. But I know this is kind of amateur 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.560 hour stuff because we're not a good breaking point. But 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.000 we should probably take a nab break right here. No, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.159 I think it's a great time and we'll talk about 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:34.520 how you breathe down there right after this sk that's 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:47.000 what SKO you should know. Sorry, everyone, I'm so sorry. 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.760 So you need to breathe down there. Everyone has seen 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:55.439 a scuba tank, um, but it's a little bit different. 0:21:56.200 --> 0:22:00.560 It's quite a bit different in fact than open water diving. Um. 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.800 You're going to need uh, different things to go that deep, 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.159 different kinds of air mixtures. Uh. And there are a 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.600 few different kinds that you can use. But we should 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.639 probably talk a little bit about the bins and what 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.280 happens to your body. I know we covered the bens 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.960 in uh the which one was it the what was 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.080 the old time diving suit called diving bell? Was it 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.439 diving bell? I think we covered the bens. We must have, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.160 probably so, yeah, because we've never done a scuba episode. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.360 So John from his original House of Works article makes 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.399 a very great point about pressure and talks about soda 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.520 bottles and obviously if you shake up a soda bottle 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:42.920 and then open it really quick, it's going to go everywhere. 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:45.560 Or if you're Josh and you've never in your life 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.000