Rannvá Jørmundsson on how she carved her own path and never looked back, and Julie Riffe on what should be on your checklist

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Season four of the Deeper Blue Podcast is brought to you by Sunto. Finnish engineering, pioneering adventure from mountaintop to ocean floor since 1936. Sunto.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that's happening around the world underwater. My name is Megan Lee Green. I'm a freediver, ocean explorer, and the imperfect conservation. Also of the deeper blue podcast. Every week the deeper blue podcast is everything happening in free diving travel in ocean medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Recording.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Jason, welcome back to episode two of the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Welcome back to episode two, season four of the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It is so obvious. We have nothing to do with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

But what people don't realize, Jason, is we have to spend an hour beforehand working through all the stories. Basically, I have to work through all the fluff that you you you determined that you want to have nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

He cuts the magic, is what he does. He's like the corporate overlord that takes all the fun out of this job.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

So uh sucks all the fun out of it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Well, you know, it's it's another week. The the Dima show is just wrapped up in Las Vegas. We had Tom Ingram on last week as the guest.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Very nice guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Love Tom, uh president and CEO of Dima Trade Association that runs the show. And we call up with him as part of our coverage, which, you know, go and check out all the coverage uh on deeperblue.com. Deeperblue.com. Absolutely. Bit of a bit of a corporate plug. You should see the eye rolling that goes on from Jason every time I do this. You know, interestingly, so that there was all speculation of whether the show would be any good, who would be there. And I think the general consensus was it was a lot smaller, the show, which was not surprising considering about 30-ish percent of the people come from international. I don't think there's very many international people there. And COVID is still a concern for a lot of people. But actually, you know, the show was considered pretty much a success. Everyone I spoke to seems pretty happy about it. And they thought the quality of people, you don't have you know all the people who are tie kickers coming around and you know, taking up your time and talking about stuff they want to talk about. The quality of the attendees was very, very good.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Right. You had to be pretty dedicated to the industry to go to this. So that probably distilled down to the people that really wanted to be there for specific purposes or for um industry purposes, which is great.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yeah, it's great because the start of the recovery of the industry, I think, you know, getting people together and this sort of stuff, really important. A lot of positivity from people at the show. I mean, I was getting text messages from some of my buddies because obviously we're usually at the show, you know, we usually host a big party on the Friday nights and all this stuff. And there's usually quite a bit of social activity involved as well. And the social activity wasn't quite as good as it uh it was. I can't possibly comment whether it's because I wasn't there and you weren't there, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I have been asked multiple times about the tickets to the party on the last night of the show. The deeper boo party is legendary, and even I barely get in.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Well, hopefully next year, bigger and better and back to normal. Everyone's back on planes.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

In so many ways in life right now, there's kind of these stutter steps back into where we were before. And it's nice to see that these kind of things can happen and that they are happening, particularly for this industry. So that's great to see.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

So, in case you're not able to travel though, our friends over at Bite Back. So, this is a UK-based marine and shark conservation charity. They do an annual calendar, all these beautiful, stunning images of sharks and whales and underwater wildlife from some absolutely amazing people like Alex Mustard, Amanda Cotton, Laura Storm, Sean Heinrich, Tanya Hoppermans. You know, these are all very well-known underwater photographers. And Graham, who runs it, does a fantastic job. He does a lot of lobbying around things like shark fin imports and so on. He's recently instrumental in getting the UK government to ban the personal allowance for import of shark fin product in the UK, which is fantastic. Great way.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Wouldn't you say that he he basically does this all on his own? It's he's a kind of a one-man band, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Absolutely. Uh he still pretty much does it by himself, which is I mean, amazing. The stuff he does is absolutely amazing. So I I just want to make sure we give a shout out to him.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

And you know, that's the way things really happen in this world is that there's a lot of people that talk about things, and then there's always a few dedicated individuals that are in the fight. And good, good on him for doing this. That's fantastic. So there is a link, I'm sure, at deeper blue.com.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

I'm training you well, Jason. You see, parent website of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Why would we mention that? Why would we then why why there are corporate overlords?

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Corporate overlords, absolutely. The the boss of the company is a real pain in the backside, I tell you.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

He is, he is. On to the next story. So this is an interesting organization, Adventures with Purpose. So I came across this this week. This is a group of scuba divers. I think they're based in the Midwest of the United States, and their entire thing is that they help solve cold case crimes underwater. And what's incredible is that they have now solved 16 missing person cases since 2019 because of the diving that they do. And the best part about it is they have a YouTube channel and they have these incredible cold case documentaries about each one of the cases they're working on.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

I mean, they've got like 1.5 million subscribers as well. This is this is pretty cool. Yeah. We should have these guys on the podcast, Jason. I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

That is a great idea. We'll reach out to them, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

You know, there's some really interesting stuff, and it really is. Like each episode is like cold case. You know, you go and uh you go and understand what's going on, and they go and analyze the files and go and you know, find all this like evidence that's been buried and stuff. That's amazing. I love this sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Well, what's also interesting is I believe I haven't watched all the videos, but I've watched some, I've watched pieces of some of them. And since they're based in the Midwest, there's a lot of um lake and river diving, which means that the visibility sometimes is a little less than to be desired. And I just cannot imagine what that would be like looking for a body trapped in a car underwater in murky water. That would just spook me.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Is there a lot of baked goods as well? There is.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

It's like that's the upside. That's the upside shot. They come out and have some baked biscuits. Who wants some pie? Pie. Who wants a biscuit? Very worth checking it out. There will be a link, I'm sure, on deeperblue.com to their website, Adventures with Purpose. But very interesting. Something wonderful to support, and then also just really something fun to watch.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

So very cool. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Okay, I think we now up. I'm sorry, Steven. I hate to break in here, but I I believe we have some breaking news. News. Breaking news from the dive industry.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Our in the field reporters. I'm sorry, we're gonna go cut live to our breaking.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Yeah, we've got a helicopter in the air, you know, covering covering live. Breaking news, brought to you by deeperblue.com.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

So the breaking news is so I brought I actually brought this story up, and then Steven told me that I was well behind the game as I usually am, which is about the large dive operator Blue O2, which runs live a boards around the world, I believe, and they have gone into administration. And I thought that was the extent of the story, and I thought it was relevant to bring up because the a large dive organization that probably a lot of our listeners have dived with was going into administration, or for people that speak proper English bankruptcy. But what has happened is that I've been told that there is more to the story.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

More to the story. Well, the time that uh we're actually recording this, the news item hasn't come out on deeply yet. Because basically, what I wanted to do was have a chat with the directors of the company, do a bit of investigation, because basically the news they the way the news came out was Blue O2 goes into administration, but it lives on under a name of Scuba Tours Worldwide Limited. Which seems a bit funny because how can you have a one company that suddenly exists out of the other ones? It's known as a Phoenix company, which is uh a company that rises from the ashes of the previous one. So essentially what they've done is they've taken on a load of debt and loans with regards to COVID to try and survive. They're very badly hit. And what's happened is that they've declared bankruptcy or administration to get some protection. And what they've done is they've now set up a new company to continue trading under the name, which lets some of the debts and and liabilities fall away, but still allow them to keep trading. Now, I mean, this is a little bit of a gray area. It's caused quite a lot of debate in the social media.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Controversi a little bit of controversy because of the idea that perhaps what they're doing is just trying to operate at the same level but not pay their bills.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Absolutely. But I've spoken to the administrators and so on, and they are absolutely allowed to do this. It's all within the letter of the law. They've actually, well, they keep they were very keen to stress that they've saved all the jobs of people who worked at Blue O2.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

That accounts for something.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

The only thing in the new company can't do is they can't offer package holidays with flights involved. They can they will only do stuff that is destination without flights. And there'll be more details in the Deeper Blue news article as exactly why, but essentially there were there were some restrictions on their ability to sell air tickets as part of a package holiday.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

And also we can understand at the tail end of a pandemic that basically shattered the travel industry. That's obviously one of the hardest hit areas of the world economy. We can understand why there might be people in desperate situations, particularly a company that has hard assets like boats. Plus, they also have a staff and a crew and all that. So I understand why they might be in a desperate situation. I'll be curious to see how this all plays out.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Yeah, I think there's gonna be more to the story as this continues, to be honest, and as it plays out. I'm not sure we've got to the bottom of everything just yet. But you know, maybe we can do our own little uh investigative uh journalism around it and do a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Who you want me to call them?

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Lou I too or or the uh who do I call?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

So moving on to some other story. This is I brought this one up. We've talked about this before on the show, and it's been a big part of the ocean world conversation for a while. But there's a front page article in the New York Times this week about the Vaquita, which is a small porpoise in the Gulf of Mexico, is extremely endangered and is down to the final 10 vaquitas. Um, and again, a relevant story simply it was on the front page of the New York Times, which is why it kind of came to our attention again. But the idea of like we're watching an extinction happen before our eyes, and this extinction is directly related to mismanagement of our ocean fish populations. Essentially, what it is is fishermen who are trying to make a living, spreading gill nets in the water, and the vaquitas are bycatch. And what has happened is we're down to 10 vaquitas left. And it's just a heartbreaking story because, in some ways, you can understand all players in this. It's poor fishermen trying to make a living. It's also environmentalists and people who care about the world's oceans trying to save the Vaquita. And so it's not a clean, cut and dry story.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

And you know, that this has come up a number of times. People are trying to raise the profile of uh the Vaquita um Paralens, the dive camera company, named their latest dive camera the Vaquita, to try and help raise profile. But I it's really sad, right? We it's 10 left. Yeah, we we really are on a knife's edge of you know, we are see, we as you say, we are seeing an extinction of a species happening right in front of our eyes, which is utterly appalling.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

The other aspect of this is, of course, is that it's not even cut and dry in terms of poor fishermen versus environmental degradation. But there's some fish that they're the fishermen actually try to catch that actually have a gallbladder that is very hot commodity on the Chinese market. So that's also another factor force driving in here. And this whole article in the New York Times really talks about there's not much that can be done left. I mean, we can we can raise the profile and we can take a look, but with 10 left, it becomes a dire situation.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Yeah, absolutely. Well worth going and reading that New York Times article.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Absolutely. I'm sure there will be a link on deeperblue.com.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Well, I think this one that can go straight to the New York Times website if they need to.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

What?

SPEAKER_03 12:20

What?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I don't know that. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Oh, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

DeeperBlue.com is my portal to the world, everything. But let's talk about so let's move on to something that maybe is a little more uplifting about ocean marine life. There is a really fascinating film that just came out called Planctonium, which offers a mesmerizing microscopic view of the ocean's tiniest organisms. And I watched this planctonium. There's a short version and a long version. I watched the short version. It's on Vimeo and a link on deeper blue.com. And what's amazing about it is that when you look at this plankton, it just talks about the sheer beauty that life holds, but also that it's like this modern art capsule. When you start looking at what these things are, it's it's absolutely stunning.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

This is um known as blackwater photography. So you basically it's filmed with a little bit of light onto the animal, but with like this black background type thing. And it and it's stunning. I mean, it's like watching something from an alien world. It's absolutely amazing watching these things. And they do look like something that comes out of alien. Some of these things do generally look like they're about to eat some space marines.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And that's what I think is so interesting about this, and why the reason I want to talk about it is because again, we talk about plankton. Plankton is a catch-all name for millions of tiny organisms, but this actually brings a lens to what plankton actually is. So it was just really a great, beautiful reminder, and I would encourage everyone to watch it.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

And then we should finish the episode like we usually do with one of the excellent, excellent deep stories.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

This is again, if anyone has ever listened to any of these shows, they know that I love the folly of man. That is folly of humankind to me is endlessly fascinating and brings out both compassion and humor. So this is the house we spoke about in the last season. It's in Kansas, Lake Kibera in Kansas. It is a house that was on the market for 11.8 million dollars, and the guy had built his own scuba diving tunnels in the basement. So basically, there was a room that you could go to in the house that had a cave that you could dive into and then go through, I don't know, like 35, 40 foot tunnels to get out to a giant waterfall in the pool. And it's sad to say that this house was listed at $11.8 million and sold for $2.5 million. Plus, it cost $30 million to build. So the guy took a $28 million bath on this place.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Oh, he got to dive in his own private pool late.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

How many trips around the world he could have taken to go diving, actually diving for $30 million?

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Well, you know, but he could have been an introvert, didn't like to travel to that stuff, you know. Uh I mean this property looks stunning in the pool, the the diving pool and stuff looks amazing. I mean, let's not talk about the house. The house itself is ridonculously amazing. Um, but um this is definitely filed under more money than cents, right? $28 million bath on it isn't uh $28 million bath.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, it's I feel I do feel I do have compassion for the guy. I mean, I just don't know who the people that bought it. Are they scuba divers? Or did they just say, hey, we bought this house and they're gonna fill in the tunnels? I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I can guarantee you they aren't involved in the diving industry. They won't have two point something million to spend on the uh the property.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

They don't have podcast money, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

They don't have they don't they they look if they had a multi-award-winning podcast like us, then there may be.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

It just seems to me like this house is like to the point that you're making it, it reminds me of like when I want to get this like new ceramic pan. And I get it into my mind that I have to get this $82 ceramic pan, and then I get it for this one special dish I want to make. And then like four years later, when we're moving out of the house, I find it in the back of the cover, like, oh yeah, I bought that pan that I never used. That's kind of what I would feel like about having the scuba diving tunnels in my house. I would use it like four times, maybe at a party, and then I would say, God, that's a lot of work just to go to the pool.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

Jason, having a 30-foot deep pool in your back garden, and how many, how, how big's the 17,755 square foot house. It's not quite the same as as losing a pan in a cupboard somewhere. It's uh it's a bit harder to ignore a bit harder to ignore.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I I have compassion for them for losing the money, and um again, the folly of man always I find it absolutely interesting. So all right, well, that takes us to the end of the news. Uh, thank you, everyone. Steven, always good to see you and on with the show.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Uh absolutely, Jason, on with the show.

SPEAKER_05 17:12

The world underwater every week. I'm from Jessica Truckman, and I'm the founder of Love the Oceans, and you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Hi, everyone, welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast. We have a fantastic guest on for today. We have Ranva Jormanson, a fourth element explorer, cave diver, badass female diver. And I have to say, probably the highest honor you've got is one of my drinking buddies, I would say. That's probably the highest honor. So, Ranva, thank you for joining us on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Thank you for having me, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Obviously, I know you very well, and a lot of the Deeper Blue team know you very well. But for those who don't know you, tell us a little bit about who you are. And actually, before we do that, let's start with where are you in the world right now?

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Right. So I am in Thalmouth, UK. So in the south of England, in a little place called Cornwall.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do now. Yeah, what do you do for Fourth Element? Let's start there.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Well, I work as a sales manager for Fourth Element, and my regions are the Scandinavian and the Baltic market. But other than that, I try to get my hands around a little bit everywhere. So I help develop some of the products, I help test some of them, I help with some of the photo shoots, as you know, Steven. Very good at representing fourth element in the bars, I think. Um yeah, so that's what I do at Fourth Element.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

You don't just do fourth element stuff, right? So you're a cave diver and you do lots of other things as well. So what about in the diving space? What else do you do?

SPEAKER_02 18:48

So I am a dive instructor. I'm actually Patty IBC staff instructor, and I am also an SDI and an TDI instructor and all sorts of specialities in there. And yes, I do cave diving. That's really my passion. That's what I love doing the most. And I dabble a little bit on the expedition where I manage to claw my way in too.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Any cool expeditions? Did I not see you do somewhere? Was it the Antarctic last year? Was that something you managed to sneak in?

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yes, I managed to sneak into an expedition to Antarctica. It was a private expedition, but I managed somehow to wrangle my way in as the expedition dive master going to down to Antarctica for 12 days, but unfortunately we only managed to get two dives in.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Well, you can't control the conditions.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

But what was it like diving in Antarctica? I think you see all these amazing videos and films from BBC Naturity Units and those sorts of things. What's it actually like diving there?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Oh, it's it's really cool. You know, you imagine it being super cold, like you can't handle it cold. But I didn't find that. I mean, I've been diving in Silfran, Iceland, and that's the same type of temperature. So I had tried it before, so it wasn't shocked that way. But one of the dive sites we did was this old whaling boats, and you can see like old whaling bones on the bottom, and and everything was just bigger and a lot slower growing as well. But because we were there in pretty bad conditions, like it was right in an algae bloom, the vis was what like one to two meters. But we saw loads of whales on the surface, loads of seals, loads of penguins, so still I'm a happy chappy.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Oh, amazing. It's one of my bucket list places, I have to say, Antarctica. So, what was the genesis of you getting into diving and becoming this fourth element sales manager and cave diver and exhibition leader?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

I grew up originally on the Faroe Islands, so my entire childhood I've been playing down by the fjords, down, looking at the water, looking at the kelp, thinking what is in there but standard, and always had been curious about it. Then I went backpacking in Australia when I was 20, and you know, I'd seen Finding Nemo and I was close to the Great Barrier Reef, and I thought, yeah, it's a bucketless thing that you needed to take. But once I actually got in and managed to see what was actually underwater and that feeling of weightlessness, I'd like I dreamt about that for years afterward, and still dream about it nearly every night. It's a little more technical now, it's a little bit much more about worrying that you forgot to pack your scrubber or you haven't done your checklist or you traveled without your dry suit or something ridiculous like that. But diving is still at the forefront of my mind at all times.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

I've seen you do some amazing videos around cave diving and stuff. So, how do you get from being a recreational diver to a high-end badass cave diver?

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Well, with a little help from my friends. So I had some really good friends that have kind of been encouraging me and pushing me as well. I met one of my best friends. We were washing equipment together at the basement of Kingfish after we've been diving. That's how we met. Within five minutes, she has handed me over her all her side mound equipment and said, I will be happy to lend it to me so I can do my side mound course. And then three months after. She said, Oh, we need third person for the cave diving course in Florida. Do you want to come? I like never thought about cave diving before. So I ended up thinking, why not? Let's try everything. And ended up going over there and trying cave diving and learning it in the caves of Florida. And it was just mind-blowing. It was like diving on steroids. It's everything that's awesome and cool about diving times 100.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

I have to say personally, cave diving's never really appealed to me, but I do watch some of the stuff. You know, I've seen videos today with Ewan and people like Joe Heineh, and it is a completely amazing environment to see underwater. With all this diving experience that you've got, you must have one story that is really interesting or surprising that's related to your diving career. So anything you think our listeners might be interested in hearing about?

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Well, not so much as diving related. It was just like I always knew I wanted to work with diving, somehow make diving my career, my path of life. And I'd been trying in and out and figure out what to do. So I started becoming a diving instructor in Denmark and found pretty quickly out that was maybe not how I wanted to have a career in diving. Hats off to all the instructors out there, and you do an amazing job, and it's hard work, but I didn't feel that was exactly the right path for me. So I tried working in a dive shop, and that wasn't exactly for me either. And then when I went on my cave diving course, I happened to go to the Dima show as well. And that's where I met my bosses, Jim and Strikey, in a bar.

SPEAKER_09 23:38

In a bar.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

In a bar. We had a nice chat and everything, and that was kind of it. So a year after that, I was living in Copenhagen at this point, and I was ready to move on, and I still wanted to do something with diving. And then I saw a post on Facebook, Fourth Element was the hiring. I was like, oh, that's so cool. I really want to work for Fourth Element. It's the best equipment and they have the best environmental profile. Like, if there's one company out there I want to work for, it is Fourth Element. I had no idea where Corbo was at that point. I thought, oh well, we'll see. So I sent my application in. Um, the job was for a dry suit repair technician and customer service manager. The only problem was like I had no idea how to repair dry suits. So I sent my application in anyway and hoped for the best. I then got called over for an interview. I came over, had a chat with Jim and Strikey, and well, as you can imagine, I did not get the job because obviously I don't know how to fix dry suits. But after having a chat with them, I have a bit of a background in banking, a bit of background in customer service as a flight attendant. And they had just stopped some distributor agreements with the Scandinavian markets. And they said, Oh hey, let's create a job for Ramba. So I said yes, thank you on the spot, and I've never looked back.

SPEAKER_06 25:19

I'm Autumn Blum. I'm a rebreather diver, the founder's dream to see. And this is the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

And the action.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Hey everyone. So the Deeper Blue Podcast is brought to you by Sunto, the dive watch and dive computer manufacturer.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Sunto. Sunto has an app. Sunto has an app which logs your dives and other activities with Bluetooth connection to D5, I don't know what that is, Eon Core, don't know what that is, and Eon Steel. Are those three of their dive computers?

SPEAKER_03 25:58

It is three of their dive computers. And I know that as we've mentioned before on the podcast, you're you're a bit of a novice when it comes to this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Uh you're you're a bit of flotsam in the water when it comes to uh I like a log on the surface of the ocean that gets thrown around by the waves. But I love it, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Yeah, so the D5 is uh one of their wrists. Well, in fact, all three of them, the the Eon Core, Eon Steel, and D5 are all wrist dive computers from Cinto. And one looks like a watch, and then which is a D5, and the other two look like little square rectangular computers on your wrists.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I I think the thing I like about this, so it says here the copy says it allows you to use a map to post and then share and show off. And so here's the deal. Here's something that I'm gonna say that is sacrilegious, at least for scuba divers. For the free divers out there, I don't know what they do because you're a free diver and I'm not. I don't log any of my dives ever. I've never been, I'm a big picture guy, so I don't care about the details. And people, I know this is sacrilege to say this.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

That's true from doing this podcast with you for a while, uh Jason. You're a big picture guy. Someone has to do the details though.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Someone does have to do the details. So I don't log any of my dives. I basically just remember what I just did. I mean, I've done hundreds of dives, but I still just I just kind of experience it. So the fact that this thing can actually log all the dives for me, put them on a map around the world, that's pretty cool. I do like that.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

You know, there's a little bit of a narcissist in all of us, right? So we all like to see what goes on around the world, you know, what are we doing and stuff. And uh look, it's the it's the modern day thing. You know, we've got apps we that track us doing everything, whether we want to or not. And I think, you know, I love being able to, you know, show off where I've gone diving. I don't really log dives anymore. I've done God knows how many now, 1500, 2000, somewhere like that over my career. So when I log a dive, I want to do it because I want to show off. So it's really cool in the Cinto app. You know, you go and log it, look, connects to your computer, downloads everything, puts some extra information in. You can do it on the app or you can do it on the website. It's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah, and that I actually I do like that. I don't know. I honestly still am confused why I need to have logs of my dives, because what do I need to like show people for? I mean, other than show off on Facebook, but I don't go there anymore.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

It's because we don't trust you. So how do we know you've gone diving if you uh haven't looked at?

SPEAKER_00 28:14

As a as a piece of slotsum on the surface of the ocean, you actually would be right to question if I've actually done all of those dives. Uh okay, so the Sunto app. That's pretty cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Yeah, I do very, very cool. Go go and check it out, guys.

SPEAKER_09 28:28

Sunto. Sunto.

SPEAKER_07 28:38

We are here with Julie Rife, and she has two top tips, I believe. Julie, what do you have to share for us? Well, the first top tip I would recommend for all travelers and divers is to make a thorough checklist from your essentials, lip balm to sunscreen, to all of those important deals, and a dive checklist of all of your gear so you don't forget anything. And you also want to make sure your bands, shooting line, crimps, crimping tools, all that stuff. You've got all your accessories for stirfishing. Ooh, that's a very good preparatory top tip, and one that I really appreciate being a very type A organized mermaid myself. And and I I understand that you do have a second top tip. Would you like to share that with our listeners? I have a second top tip, and that would be when traveling to any dive location, internationally, especially, check your regulations and rules for spear fishing, fish take, anything like that. And don't forget your fishing license. This is excellent advice and wisdom that I'm sure will save many headaches in the future. Julie. Definitely. And conditioner is one must bring. Oh, always conditioner. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Linda. You're the best. I love it.

SPEAKER_08 30:17

Finally, in every episode, we share a story from you, the dive community, where we ask you to tell us about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

1987, Talcott Shoals between Santa Rosa and San Miguel Island in California on a boat trip. I decided to do a solo dive to do some spear fishing. I was down at 75 feet, down amongst a whole fuss in what was a large kelp bed high above me. Large bullshark, I estimated seven to eight feet, came perpendicular right in front of me. I slowed down in about 40 foot of visibility, and he slowed down, viewed me, and gently went on his way. I sat there somewhat hyperventilating, freaking out, trying to decide what to do. I talked myself into staying. After about ten minutes of sitting motionless, I realized I was surrounded by a sheephead. I shot this large sheephead that was two and a half feet. He started to thrash around on the end of the pole spear, and I started to realize that was a bad sign. Eventually he was motionless. I was trying to get the pole spear out, and I'd put the sheep head in the bag and I was trying to pull it out using the bag to hold onto the sheep head. As I was busy doing this and thrashing around a little bit at the bottom, I glanced up and all of a sudden the ball was back. I dropped everything, but he kept coming straight for me. He circled round me three times, each time turning, facing me, at which point I thought I was a dead man. He left me alone until eventually the fish kicked in the bag and he shot over and hit the bag. I took off to the surface holding a large rock in my hand and ended up in a kelp bed. I navigated back to the boat just in time and got on the boat, still with the rock in my hand, freaked out. Quite a day.

SPEAKER_08 32:06

We'd love to hear about your best dive. So please head over to deeperblue.com/slash best dive ever to share your story about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Thanks for listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast. Find out more about all the stories you've heard today, plus connect with the world's largest dive community at deeperblue.com. If you like what you've heard, please share, like, and rate our show wherever you get your podcasts. These shares and likes really do make a difference. Thanks so much. See you next week. MHG Out