John Stella on the magic of ancient shipwrecks at the bottom of the blue Aegean, and Ernst Van Der Pol on why The Band was wrong and you don't need to carry the weight

Jason Elias:
Season three of the DeeperBlue Podcast is brought to you by Suunto. Finish engineering, pioneering adventure from mountaintop to ocean floor since 1936. Suunto.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Welcome to the DeeperBlue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that's happening around the world, underwater. My name is Mehgan Heany-Grear. I'm a free diver ocean explorer and the imperfect conservationist. Also, cohost of the DeeperBlue Podcast. The podcast for deeperblue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the DeeperBlue Podcast covers everything that is happening in the scuba, freediving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy world. So join us as we explore the deeper blue.

Jason Elias:
Hello everyone, welcome back to the DeeperBlue Podcast. This is Jason Elias, producer of the podcast. And today, Stephan Whelan, Grand fromage and founder of DeeperBlue, is not here. So instead, we have a way better cohost, Mehgan Heany-Grier.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Wow, that's an introduction. Hopefully Stephan doesn't listen to this one, right?

Jason Elias:
I'm not sure he listens to any of it.

Jason Elias:
Megan, thank you for being part of the show and doing the news with me today, so let's get to it.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Absolutely, I love being here.

Jason Elias:
Okay. So first off, a news story for scuba divers, and this is about Green Fins. Scuba divers can now become environmentally certified through Green Fins. And I think you have a little bit of knowledge about Green Fins, right?

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I do, yes. As the imperfect conservationist, I'm a big fan of Green Fins. So I have elaborated some at our dive trade show at DEMA, with the folks running Green Fins. They're really doing some amazing things, and I love this in particular, because this diver eCourse is super inexpensive. It looks like it's around 25 U.S. dollars or so, and this is really cool because the certification is going to help raise awareness with the divers. And they have different modules, so you get kind of the introduction to coral reef biology and some of the threats to the marine environments, and then you can advance onto module two and three, and really gives you some information on how to be a more eco-friendly diver and what... We all get that, to some extent, when we learn to dive and we know we shouldn't touch the coral and we pick up plastic when you're diving and bring it back to the boat. And there's so many different ways that are kind of built into many of the certification agencies anyway, but this takes it a step further.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
And it's important because some of the numbers, these stats about the damage that, us, divers are doing to the reef, are kind of staggering. I was really surprised to see this, honestly. I mean, were you to, Jason?

Jason Elias:
Absolutely. So, first of, I think this is a great thing as well. Divers are at the forefront of engaging with the ocean environment because we're actually in it, both free divers at scuba divers. And so the Reef-World Foundation created this course to address this specific thing. Now, the stats that you were talking about that I think are crazy, is that 70% of divers contact the reef while diving, and most divers contact the reef an average of 5.79 times per dive. That's an incredible amount of contact on the reef.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
And 36% of the time, we're not even aware of it. It says that the divers hitting the reef are not aware of it. And raising awareness is key for taking better care of the ocean, because knowledge is always power. And this is a way that it really puts that control and that management in our hands, because now we're more aware. You can't un-know things Jason, once you know them, you can't un-know them.

Jason Elias:
Even me, having been on dives around the world and even with people onboard who seemed to be very with it and kind of understanding, and focused on the environmental aspects of what we're doing and how amazing it is, I've seen people grab onto coral if they are being swept away by a current. We understand the cumulative effect of all of those kinds of things all around the world, particularly in these very fragile and endangered environments. So it's actually good to have this knowledge.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Absolutely. And that kind of thing is always going to be operator error and I think with this awareness, that you can get through a course like this, that you can just... When you know better, you can do better.

Jason Elias:
That's exactly right. Okay. So again, you can find it through the Reef-World Foundation, it's called the Green Fins course.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Love it.

Jason Elias:
Next. Right, so the world is opening up with the vaccines. Delta variant is going around. I'm in Los Angeles, we may be going into lockdown, but I'm going to pretend like that is not happening and talk about how the world is continuing to open up.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Day by day, man.

Jason Elias:
That's exactly right. So there is some dive travel news. Mehgan, do you want to tell us a little about what you've heard?

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Sure, let me jump in on, one of the top places on my diving bucket life list, is the Galapagos. So if you're going to the Galapagos, there's really good news. So from July 1st, starting July 1st, the PCR tests are no longer mandatory for fully vaccinated visitors who can prove their final dose was at least 14 days before their arrival on the island. So that is good news, and travelers who do not meet this criteria can still enter the Galapagos, provided that they can show proof of a negative PCR test or rapid antigen tests within 72 hours of traveling. So, that's good news. You can cut out some of the extra hoops you got to jump through these days.

Jason Elias:
Right. Anytime we can reduce some of the friction around traveling, particularly with COVID, it's great to hear. On the other hand, right now, Raja Ampat, a place that is on a lot of people's dive lists as well. That is closed due to the Delta variant. It has been confirmed. Indonesia is a poor province and they've decided to prohibit access to restrict the spread of this more infectious and dangerous virus.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
That's tough.

Jason Elias:
So no ships or flights. So I think this is kind of indicative of where we're going to be over the next couple of years, is that places are going to open and then shut down again, open and then shut down again.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Kind of like a bounce dive.

Jason Elias:
Right, exactly. So that means then, you have to pay attention to where you're going. And as you plan your trips, because a lot of times people plan dive trips well in advance, you have to know what the cancellation policies are. You have to know what your dive insurance will cover and what your travel insurance will cover, you've got to know this.

Jason Elias:
Additionally, we've got to check your passport because the state department is saying it is taking at least 10 weeks, right now, to renew passports. So again, all kinds of stuff.

Jason Elias:
So every week, of course, we will be giving you more travel news because things are opening and closing, like the bounce dive that Mehgan was just talking about.

Jason Elias:
So moving on to another place that, actually, I have been. This was on my bucket list. So I was shooting in Australia a couple of years ago and my wonderful wife at the end of my shoot, I said, "Can I take a few extra days and fly up to Cairns in Northern Australia?" And I went out to dive the Great Barrier Reef, which was fantastic. So Great Barrier Reef has just been not listed from UNESCO World Heritage sites as not in danger, but there was a huge controversy around this. Do you want to speak a little bit about that, Mehgan?

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Yeah. I mean, this is a tricky one. So the controversy is going to come from the big issue of why the parties involved, the stakeholders, did not want it listed as endangered, is because then it can give the impression that the Reef's are not in good shape and that they're suffering from climate change and that they're, in many cases, dying and declining down to just a percentage of what they were even 30 years ago. But that can negatively impact tourism, which, obviously, is a big deal in many places around the world where we have barrier reefs like Australia and the Florida keys, things like that.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
The problem with this is that when we're giving the impression that, "Oh, don't look. Nothing's wrong, it's totally fine. Come and visit here." It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. If all of us tourists are going there to see the reef, then a healthy reef is going to draw that many more people. And Jason, the way I look at it, in this day and age with all of the news that we're getting, all of the impacts of climate change that we're feeling and these massive storms and the bad news we're constantly pummeled with, I'm personally really disappointed that it was not listed as endangered because I'm hoping it doesn't fool anybody.

Jason Elias:
The interesting thing about this was that at first blush, you would think the idea of listing as endangered would be beneficial for all stakeholders. You would think because that would raise awareness around it, probably unlock funding for helping get it back into shape. And yet, the primary stakeholder that was arguing against it being listed as endangered, was Australia itself. Basically committed something, like $3 billion, to improving the reef health. But a lot of conservation groups, and some Hollywood heavy-hitters waiting on the other side, said they argued what you're saying, which is that we need to actually list it so that people know. We need to deal directly with how things actually are, as opposed to the way that we want to perceive them. And so it's been controversial because UNESCO sided with Australia. Basically what UNESCO said is we are going to give you more time. So we will see what happens, this is definitely a story to watch, but we'll see how this one plays out.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I think it's a missed opportunity because with ecotourism, why not bring in tourists to come help save the barrier reef? We're going to have the tourism anyway, let's take this seriously. Let's address it, set up some different projects that people can do with Citizen Science. I think is a missed opportunity and hopefully that time that they're giving them is short.

Jason Elias:
Well, I agree with you. And I think that conversations like this are what help continue to raise that profile and turn this boat in that direction.

Jason Elias:
Okay, great. So next, this is Megan's favorite story. It's about the Ocean Awards. So a couple of things about this. So first off, there's a thing called the Ocean Awards, that introduced and rewarded a wealth of extraordinary personnel and collective efforts to save RC's, from local heroes to renowned scientists and pioneering innovators, and Mehgan has some thoughts on this.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I do. So first I want to say, that I think that the categories they have are really awesome and it's super important to bring recognition and awareness to this. I mean, they have the local hero, science, innovation, public awareness, young initiative. We're always talking about that stuff in the dive industry and ask divers to bring in young people and how we can be, and are, stewards of the ocean, as divers, because we see what's happening under there. And then lifetime achievement. But I also have to say, as a very long time diver and freediver, that aside from gin-clear water and smooth surface, there is little that divers love more than giving each other awards. We have so many awards ceremonies. Anybody who's been to the trade show, DEMA, you know we love getting dressed up. We love having the free drink coupon tickets and giving each other awards.

Jason Elias:
I will say, this is sponsored by Boat International, whose tagline is the global authority in super yachting. I don't know how big that demographic is. I mean, Mehgan, I know you have a super yacht, so I'm sure...

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Oh yes, I do.

Jason Elias:
...you're an avid reader of the Boat International.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
It's dry docked out here in my yard in Colorado.

Jason Elias:
And as much as there are a lot of awards out there, there is something to be said about raising awareness and bringing attention to people that are doing things, so we just wanted to mention that.

Jason Elias:
Coming up in this episode, we actually have an interview with John Stella, who is very into rec-diving. And this brings us to our next story, which is, Greece has opened its underwater museum of the ancient world to dive into a super cool story.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I love this story.

Jason Elias:
So in the AGN, off of the island of Alonissos on the rocky outcrop of Peristera. I don't know where this is, you can look it up. We all have Google Maps. But they have opened a new underwater dive park that is focused on a 2,500 year old ancient shipwreck that still has amphora, or wine pots, down there.

Jason Elias:
So this dive park opened at the beginning of COVID. Now that COVID restrictions are lifting in Greece, you can actually dive an ancient shipwreck. How cool is that?

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
So amazing. Yeah, they have actually over 4,000 of the amphora. It's so interesting that John shares with us, coming up, about these amphora and really what they were used for, which is just fascinating. How these things are, the whole shipwreck, but even then these vessels too, they're just like time capsules.

Jason Elias:
One of the things is, you can go dive this area and you can see this ancient ship wreck, and this is just, basically, the first part of a multi-layered openings that they will have, because there are apparently a lot more wrecks in the area that they want to open to this dive park. The idea of diving an archeological find and seeing unopened amphora on the bottom of the ocean, that, for me, combines every nerdy aspect of the entire life that I've led.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I mean, it's kind of like you get to go down there and experience can underwater safari. You can go down there and be Indiana Jones or Laura Croft. Just don't take anything, just leave it there.

Jason Elias:
I think one of the things that people outside the dive world don't understand, is they think when you're a diver, that you put on some goggles and you go down and you look at a fish, right? That is what they think the entirety of the experience is. And what I think we celebrate on this show and what this story talks about, is the rich diversity of the entirety of the world that you can experience once you get in the ocean.

Jason Elias:
All right, last story. I love this story. A woman named Jennifer Docker, who lives in Michigan and runs a dive company on the Great Lakes, actually found this dive bottle not too long ago. She posted on, I think Instagram, and it went viral immediately. Mehgan, do you want to lead us in this story?

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
So there was a bottle with a note found in it, this message in a bottle, from 1926. And not only that, but she was able to reunite the note with the late writer's daughter. So all these years later, they show a picture of the note here, and it just says, "Will the person who finds this bottle return this paper to George Morrow?" And it has an address and it is dated November 1926. So, you think about the journey that this bottle had.

Jason Elias:
Who, as a child, didn't at least once do something like this? To actually have it found, and roughly a hundred years later, is absolutely incredible. I will say, seeing the note itself, it does feel like it's out of a video game. It's like this is one of those things that you would find and it would give you a clue to the next stage, and how cool is that? And then to be reunited with the family, just a really cool story.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
You just think of how touching and sentimental that is, too, for the daughter to see that after all these years from her dad.

Jason Elias:
Yeah, right. Mehgan, thank you for doing the news with us.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Yes, thank you so much. Happy to be here and have a great and watery week.

Jason Elias:
Thanks everyone, have a great week.

Annie Crawley:
You're listening to the world's only weekly podcast for scuba diving, freediving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Annie Crawley, multimedia producer, and a voice for the ocean. And this is the DeeperBlue Podcast.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
I'm Mehgan Heany-Grear, co-host here of the DeeperBlue Podcast. Today, I'm joined by John Stella. John is a dive industry pro of more than 30 years, and a member of the Explorer's Club. Today, john shares about a dive he calls his baptism by fire. With a Greek archeological dive team, searching for ancient treasure, one sunny day in the crystal blue waters of the Aegean Sea.

John Stella:
Hi, my name is John Stella. I'm in Boston today and I've been in the diving industry, on the supply side, for a number of years. Started right out of college, and then an opportunity came along to join a wetsuit company back in the seventies, believe it or not. So I've been in the business ever since. I really cut my diving teas in the Northeast, diving recs. I turned my lifestyle into a business for the past 30 plus years.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
What was your first introduction to diving?

John Stella:
I'm a United States Navy veteran and served in Vietnam in '67 and '68. And on my way home, I ended up in Subic Bay in the Philippines, and two Navy divers took me diving for the first time. And I just fell in love with what I was experiencing, although I had no real experience diving. They had to literally hold on to me. But I came back to the states and that summer, my first real job was a lifeguard in Massachusetts. And the assistant head lifeguard was a serious diver. His instructor was Buster Crabbe, the former Olympian. And Buster Crabbe had a little summer camp in Salem, Massachusetts. So in conversation, he said, "John, do you dive?" I said, "Absolutely." Well, we went diving that weekend and I went over the side, bounced off the bottom at about 40 feet, then came shooting to the surface. So he took me by the hand, literally, and we completed the dive. But again, I fell in love with the underwater world. Once I learned to slow down and take a look at the beauty and experience that, I've just enjoyed it ever since.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
What is it that you love about diving? What keeps you coming back?

John Stella:
Every dive is different, no matter where you go, and we've been diving a lot of the same locations. But day after day, it's changing and every day is a different experience, a different visual. It tests oneself. You can really go to the portal, if you know what I mean. Really test yourself to see who you are and what you're made of.

John Stella:
There's a couple of experiences that I've had where I swim off the wall, by myself, out into the blue. So there's no up, there's no down, there's no left or right. There's just blue. And I've always thought, well someday, I'm going to see something. And sure enough, off of Little Cayman, I had an oceanic whitetip come up to me and say hello. And he didn't come very close, but he circled me a number of times. I saw him coming up and then I saw him go back down. And that was quite an experience for me to see such a beautiful animal in the blue.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
From all of your time under water, do you have any one, particular dive that really stands out from the rest?

John Stella:
Well, there was a dive that changed in my life and I will never forget that dive. I've always been fascinated by ancient treasure. On a trip to Greece in 2013, I was invited to join a famous Marine archeologist who works for the Ephorate for underwater antiquities in Athens, to dive on an ancient Roman wreck that he had just I discovered. I said, "Absolutely." And I just remember hitting the water and coming down through the water column. The visibility in Greece is spectacular. Many days, you can have 150 or 200 feet of visual, just beautiful. And there before me, at about 125 feet, was this Roman wreck laying in the sand, with hundreds, literally hundreds, of amphoras laying in the shape of a wreck. All of this came into view at about 50 feet, and that's when my heart really started pumping. So what we are seeing was the top deck of an ancient merchant ship.

John Stella:
These amphoras are clay pots and everything that was traded in those days was put in these pots, whether it be olive oil, wine. They actually had an ancient fish sauce that they would market to spice up their food. What really intrigued me, as well, was what was underneath this wreck. You could still see that it was in the shape of the ship. So the excitement was that there may be some intact amphoras filled with their contents underneath. I realized that this was a special place, a special dive. No one outside the Greek archeological community had seen this wreck. So being invited was like striking gold in the Yukon for me. Then we started our ascent, and I remember just looking back, on occasion, just to make sure that wreck was still there.

John Stella:
Well, that ignited a fire in me. As we talked about the wreck and what we saw, sensing that, he said, "John, would you like to join another ongoing excavation site, excavating Mycenaean wreck, dated 1250 BC. Three days later, I was headed to the island of Modi, and I joined the team there and we were excavating Mycenaean wreck that had been discovered about 10 years earlier. It was the baptism of fire for me, was just a new chapter to my diving career. And we've been back five times, we now have 58 ancient shipwrecks. In fact, what we found, represented about 10% of all known wrecks in the Mediterranean.

Speaker 6:
You're listening to the world's only weekly podcast for scuba diving, freediving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Alex Finden, a co-founder of Mammalz, and an underwater cinematographer. And this is a DeeperBlue Podcast.

Speaker 8:
And action.

Speaker 7:
This season of the DeeperBlue Podcast is brought to you by Suunto. Jason, did you know that? Did you know it's brought to you by Suunto?

Jason Elias:
I did know that, particularly because I've got copyright in front of me telling me that. So, yes.

Speaker 7:
Today, I want to have a quick chat about something that's really useful, which is, especially in this day and age, nothing bugs me more than some of these computers having integrated batteries that you can't change. We talked on one of the previous things about AirPods and Apple products, which notoriously, once the battery runs down, you're stuffed. And you've just got to throw it away and get a new one. Where you need to, if you want to change your Suunto battery. Well, since I've done this, they've invested in this service network. So all these trained professionals, there's a trained professional with a shiny, crisp uniform that will service and replace things like your battery, look at O-rings, make sure it's serviced, and so on. Which I mean, I'll be honest, it's not the most interesting of the topics to be talking about, but it's damn useful. Especially when you're traveling and you want to get something serviced.

Intro:
Oh yes, it's very interesting. It's super cool to own a Tesla. That's a badass car, but you have to be able to go when you're ready, you have to have charging stations along the way. They have to be strategically located charging stations. So maybe thinking about charging stations is not the reason you got into a Tesla, you really got into it because you like the gullwing doors. But the truth is, you actually have to have charging stations along the way. And so, I will respect the fact that Suunto makes it easy to kind of walk in, I don't know if they're dressed specifically the way that you say, I think that seems slightly dystopian, but I do think that you walk in there and the fact that they make it easy to get this stuff serviced is fantastic. I think that must be some part of their finished side.

Speaker 7:
I can guarantee you, having traveled a lot and jumped in puddles and ponds in all different parts of the world, if your computer is going to fail, it's going to fail at the most inconvenient time. Which is, you're far away from home and you want something, you want to know that you've got the backup to be able to get something serviced pretty prompt-ish from a local dive center, right?

Jason Elias:
Yeah.

Speaker 7:
And I think if you go to suunto.com, you can actually check out. You can type in where you are and it will tell you where the nearest [crosstalk 00:25:52] in England.

Jason Elias:
Thank you, Suunto.

Speaker 7:
Thanks, Suunto.

Speaker 9 - Woman:
We're here with Ernst Van Der Pol, who is going to share his top tip for new divers today.

Ernst Van Der Pol:
So Linden and I see too many divers that are being weighed down too much with weights. Very often, instructors, or even dive guides, we'd look at a diver and overweight them. Through my experience and teaching, one of the key things that we work towards when we teach adaptive techniques is to make sure that a diver is properly weighted. Because what you want to feel is that freedom of not being weighted down by the world, and feeling that essence of being able to kind of glide effortlessly through the water. So if you are too heavily weighted, what's going to happen is you are, first of all, going to drop like a bag of potatoes once you descent, and that's never good for equalizing. A gradual descent is very, very important. And you've got to think about the underwater marine life, the delicate marine life and everything like that. To make minimal impact, not to land on top of it.

Ernst Van Der Pol:
And then of course, if you are too heavily weighted, you are going to be counteracting that by putting a lot of air inside of your BCD. So therefore, your air consumption is going to be affected. So there is a lot of benefits in making sure that you are neutrally buoyant. Not too light, not too heavy. That is basically my top to improve your diving is work on your buoyancy.

Speaker 9 - Woman:
I think that is an excellent top tip. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, and here's to neutrality.

Speaker 12:
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.

Steve Lewis:
Hi, my name is Steve Lewis. The best dive ever is a huge ask because there are so many that could qualify. But the one I've chosen is the first dive I ever did in a system called Diepolder, which is in north Florida. And this is one of those systems where you need a guide, and my guide on this occasion was a good friend of mine called Larry Green. The entrance to this cave, and it's deep. The dive is about 95 meters, but the entrance is this little, narrow fissure that you have to enter head down. And once you start going down, you are committed until you get to about 40 meters from where the cave starts to open up. And I was apprehensive. I had spoken to Larry the day before on how I felt about it, and he was very supportive and helped me calm down as it were and get ready for the dive.

Steve Lewis:
Anyway, [inaudible 00:28:39] to dive. The entrance was not that restrictive, it wasn't that difficult to do. And when we got into the cave, proper, it opened up, and it's the size of the Royal Albert Hall. It's just huge, magnificent, fantastic dive. But what made it special was during the decompression on the way up, back up this fissure, head up this time, Larry handed me his wet notes and he'd written on it, "You will never see the planets wonders, you will never experience the joys of discovery, until you face your fears." I read it a couple of times and handed it back to him. And for the next, however many minutes the decompression was, I thought a lot about what he'd written and how appropriate that is. That, my friends, is why this is the best dive ever.

Speaker 12:
We'd love to hear about your best dive. So, please head over to deeperblue.com/bestdiveever, to share your story about your best dive ever.

Mehgan Heany-Grier:
Thanks for listening to the DeeperBlue 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, we'll see you next week.