Speaking to the United Nations from Fourth Element Co-Founder Paul Strike, and Covid Dive Insurance

SPEAKER_06 0:03

The Deeper Blue Podcast is brought to you by Sunto, Finnish Engineering Pioneering Adventure from Mountaintop to Ocean Floor since 1936. Sunto. Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that is happening around the world underwater. My name is Stephen Whelan. I'm the founder of Deeperblue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the Deeper Blue Podcast covers everything that's happening in the scuba diving, freediving, diving travel, and ocean advocates world. So join us as we explore the Deeper Blue. Hi everyone, welcome to episode 23 of the Deeper Blue Podcast. Come up today, we've got all the latest news in the last week from around the world underwater. Then I talk to Paul Strike, one of the co-founders of the diving equipment manufacturer Fourth Element. He talks to me about the genesis and history of Fourth Element and how his incredible journey culminated with an invite to talk at the United Nations. We then hear again from Paddy exec Mark Caney, as he shares another one of his top tips, this time around hilarious safety. And then finally, we hear from Menno Verscher on his best dive ever. Let's dive into this week's diving and ocean news. Let's kick off with some fantastic freediving news. Croatian freedivers Vanya Pelez and Murela Kardasovic each set new world records this past weekend during their country's national pool free diving competition in Zagreb. Competing in the dynamic no-fin discipline under sea mass rules, Peles set a new men's world record with a 215 metre that 705 foot swim, while Kardasevic set a new women's world record with a 200 metre that 656-foot swim. Morela commented on Facebook that COVID restrictions had made the journey to the competition rather hard, that she was very pleased to be back competing again, and now they are waiting on the record being validated and are going to head back to do some more training at their base camp. You can check out some pictures and more details on the news post on deeperblue.com. Next we've got the 2020 Ocean Photography Awards. The awards in partnership with a non-profit Sea Legacy are a celebration of our Blue Planet. Both organizations have a mission to shine a light on the threats facing the oceans and to raise money for its protection whilst showcasing the work of some of the finest photographers in the world. They whittle down from more than 3,000 submissions from across the world to a final hundred images that were selected across six categories, with an overall winner as Ocean Photographer of the Year 2020 that was crowned with a virtual ceremony on the nineteenth of November. The images of the fine lists showcase the astounding snapshots of her wild blue spaces. From devastating photographs detailing the horrors of plastic pollution on the ocean and its inhabitants, to the inspiring images of wildlife thriving in their natural habitat. Discover the beauty and the very raw threats to our oceans. Photos capture the magnificence of the underwater perspective with images of the ocean's most dazzling flora and fauna, whilst captivating shots of how our own species interact with the blue planet. This includes diving in vast underwater cave systems and surfing enormous remote waves, and each of these photos is surely going to catch your eye. The winners themselves are crowned across six categories, including Ocean Conservation Photographer of the Year, Ocean Explorer Photographer of the Year, Ocean Adventure Photographer of the Year, Young Ocean Photographer, and Collective Portfolio Awards, as well as a community choice award. The overall Ocean Photographer of the Year was also announced, and I was so pleased to hear that Nadia Ali, the founder of one of the other diving media sites out there, Scuba Diverlife, was crowned as the overall winner on the night. Talking about stunning imagery, there's a new film out there called Meraki, which is now available to watch on YouTube. It's a documentary that was shot on Amorgos Island, which to those in the freediving world, it's better known as a location for Luc Besson's classic freediving film, The Big Blue. The Meraki film was directed by Gustavo Neves, and the film follows the journey of four people as they try to reconnect with the ocean and the environment around them. The film reminds us that we do not live alone and are all interconnected and coexist. The movie is the first of a series of aquatic-based films that aim to educate, inspire, and motivate people to take active steps to care for our oceans and the marine environment. Maraki is the work of We Are Oceans and Flow. It's a Portuguese production company that focuses on the water and aquatic worlds. And I really, really do think you should go and take a look at this stunning movie on YouTube. Or if you head to the news section on deeperblue.com and check out the news post, it's embedded in there. In a year where there's been so much focus on conservation, it's great to hear that non-profit Oceana is urging the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, as most of us know, to intervene and save the North Atlantic right whales from extinction. The move comes after a search from NOAA fisheries found that the North Atlantic right whale population had been decimated. Currently, there's only an estimated 360 individuals remaining, which just underscores the need for immediate action to protect this critically endangered species. Sadly, the whales are slow swimming and haven't suffered badly from interactions with humans. The two leading causes of these whale fatalities are collisions with watercraft and drowning due to entanglements with fishing gear. I urge you to go and find out more about this campaign from Oceana at oceana.org. Some more awards news now, this time from Liverboard Company Aggressor Adventures, as they've been picked for two silver awards at the 2020 Milegan Awards by Travel Weekly. The awards recognise the companies and professionals in the travel industry across eight different categories, and are judged by an international panel of top travel professionals. And pleased to hear that Aggressor Adventures won both the overall river cruising category with the Aggressor Nile Queen and the overall destinations category with the Aggressor Safari Lodge in Sri Lanka. Huge congrats to the team there. Always great to hear some good news from the diving travel side of things, which obviously has been hit disproportionately hard by COVID. Talking of COVID, although a lot of us are stuck at home or enjoying local diving, the folks over at Diver Shore are prepared for all types of diver and diving near and far, as they have now added several COVID-related benefits to their diving insurance coverage after conducting research with many of their stakeholders. You can now get trip cancellation cover if unfortunately you contract COVID-19 prior to the start of a trip, as well as any medical expenses coverage for COVID-19 while you're on your trip. Coverage for quarantine expenses are also included if you have to quarantine during your trip. This additional coverage by Divershore is a positive change that aims to inspire a little more confidence in the dive travel market. They are also offering a 15% discount to those signing up in November. If you head to deeperblue.com, check out the news item around it, there's some detail around the coupon code you can use to get that discount. Finally, I'm incredibly proud that we're working with a company called TMill that helped produce our official clothing line and use a print-on-demand technology behind it. This last weekend, we teamed up for a campaign called 1T1k. Behind this catchy tagline, the idea was for every order made over the weekends on the Deeper Blue official clothing store, one kilogram of ocean-bound plastic is going to be recovered and recycled. This plastic waste is removed from coastal communities across our planet, with every order stopping the equivalent of 50 plastic bottles entering our oceans. This was done in collaboration and being funded through the non-profit Plastic Bank. And it's a small thing, and for now it was only active over the weekends. However, we're talking to T Mill and Plastic Bank and hoping that we can make this a regular feature on the store, if not something that we can do permanently. For those of you who don't know what the store is, if you go and take a look at deeperblue.com slash clothing, you'll find that we have 11 unique designs available on 100% organic cotton t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, and tote bags, as well as some cool accessories such as beach towels, notebooks, and those big comfy poncho style surf towels that allow you to get changed on the beach or dive site without showing your private bits to everyone. Every single item that you buy in the shop supports keeping our team and this podcast working on a mission to keep you informed of everything going on in the diving world, give you a safe place to chat with your fellow divers in the forums and on social media, and keep you inspired around all the content that we put out, both on the web, under the app, and on social media. And of course, now it is helping remove plastic from our oceans. As a reminder, head to deeperblue.com slash clothing to find out more. That's it for the news this week. Remember, you can catch up on all the latest news and happenings around the world underwater by heading to deeperblue.com or checking us out on social media. And finally, if you like what you've heard, please take a moment and tell one friend who loves diving about this podcast. We really do rely on you, our passionate listeners, to help spread the word about this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

You're listening to the world's only weekly podcast for scuba diving, free diving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Don Carnegus, Dive Medicine Researcher and Nemo21 Aquinaut. And this is the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Today on the podcast, Steven speaks with Paul Strike, co-founder of Fourth Element, a manufacturer of dive gear and thermal protection for divers. Paul shares a bit about how Fourth Element came about and his incredible journey as a manufacturer that culminated with him speaking at the UN.

SPEAKER_06 11:12

Today we have Paul Strike, or Strikey as we know him, who's one of the co-founders of Fourth Elements. Paul, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Steven. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about Fourth Elements and how it came into being and what you guys do?

SPEAKER_05 11:25

Fourth Element came into being back in 1999 when Jim and I had spent a day diving in the Red Sea, having a fabulous time, and then reflecting upon that over a beer in Sharm al Sheikh, in the camel bar to be precise. And we were talking about what we felt was, I guess, missing from diving at that point. I had just done my IDC in a very cold quarry in the UK and thinking that I obviously didn't have the right kit, then realizing that nobody seemed to have the right kit because everybody was freezing cold. And Jim was saying, yeah, you know, he felt that there was a lack of a lifestyle brand that kind of engendered the sort of feeling that he had about diving, and that there wasn't a brand like you'd get in like in the surf market. So yeah, that was back in 1999, and uh that conversation was the inspiration for starting Fourth Element and having a look at what we could do uh with the intention of trying to do better and trying to create high-performance thermal protection for scuba diving, and said lifestyle brand to go along with it.

SPEAKER_06 12:31

Sounds like you were a diver, obviously, before you started getting involved with Fourth Element. So, what about prior to Fourth Element? Yeah, how'd you get into diving and what were you doing?

SPEAKER_05 12:40

Well, I grew up in a little fishing village, Forth Levin, down in Cornwall, and was literally living a couple of hundred yards from the edge of the sea. So I spent an awful lot of my early childhood in the water, and I learned to swim in a little rock pool just not very far from my house, and uh was pretty successful swimming underwater for quite a few weeks before managing to stay on top of the water. So I think from an early age I was pretty happy underwater. My first uh experience of scuba was when we had some guests staying with us who had scuba gear. He was obviously pretty laid back about the whole training aspect of things. Said, you know, I could borrow his scuba kit, and he said, Don't stay down too long and breathe when you come up. So that was the extent of my Oprah Water training. I had the opportunity to go to Australia, and having been inspired by the films of Jacques Cousteau from an early age, I knew that I just had to get qualified to dive on the barrier reef. So that's what prompted my dive training when I was in my 20s. And my next qualifying dive after being under Swanage Pier was on the barrier reef.

SPEAKER_06 13:40

And I've loved diving ever since. Fourth Element itself, thermal protection is obviously primarily what you do, but you've also got a very big sort of ocean protection conservation thread to what you do. So tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_05 13:55

For a long time, Jim and I have been very focused on the potential for recycled materials. Yeah, back in the early 2000s, we started having a look at using recycled polyesters in some of our undersuits. But unfortunately, back in that time, they they just weren't technically advanced enough, they weren't durable enough, and so we kind of moved away, or we didn't really go down that route, but kept an eye on that kind of technology. So about six, seven years ago now, we became aware that volunteer divers were taking ghost fishing net from wrecks and reefs, helping to clean up the ocean, make the wreck a safer place to dive, but also get rid of tons of plastic and netting that can kill a huge variety of marine life. So we were aware that this nylon could actually be recycled and could actually then be used in creating high enough performance fabric. And one of the fabrics that we were able to create was a nylon lycra, and we had to really work at getting that together in terms of a supply chain from sourcing the recycled nylon yarn to encouraging knitters, mills to actually use the yarn to create a fabric that we could then actually use ourselves, which we would then obviously cut into swimwear, rash cards, and so on. So we've worked pretty hard at trying to find alternatives to plastic. And one of the exciting products that we're launching this year is also a neoprene or a non-neoprene suit using a naturally grown rubber as opposed to a petrochemically based manufactured one. Definitely very much in the mindset and ethos of a more sustainable approach to product development and to running the business as a whole.

SPEAKER_06 15:39

That's an amazing mission. I know you guys have not only been leading the way, but also been helping the rest of the diving industry think about it as well through mission 2020. But I think also it went beyond that. It's not just the diving industry that you're helping inspire, but you went to the UN.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

Yes, absolutely. I mean, quite an experience and felt very honored to actually have that opportunity. As part of our involvement with recycling fishing net, I got very involved in the Global Ghost Gear Initiative and ended up chairing the Solutions Working Group for a number of years. And I was asked to talk at the UN to give a business perspective on a more sustainable approach to the recycling of ghost fishing nets. Yeah, wow, what a what an exciting experience that was. It was obviously a trip to New York, having to go get all of my security clearance done, you know, the day before going down into the you know to the actual UN building, and then going into the hall, which was pretty sizable and pretty well populated. I'd like to say it was tens of thousands, but no, that would be exaggerated. It was it was a few hundred, but it's mainly the kind of delegations from various countries, but it felt like quite a high-powered crowd, should we say, and looking at where I was going to be perched with a little sort of pulse right fulfilment name in lights. And the proceedings were opened by the Secretary General of the UN, and then an address given by Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium on sustainability, followed by various presidents of quite a few South Pacific islands, uh, Fiji and Palau, and obviously their direct experience of ocean pollution and plastics and debris, and that quite often ended up on their shores, but actually came from somewhere quite different. Then it was my turn, and once I was there and made a start, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt quite pleased with how things uh came across. Um yeah, overall just an amazing, an amazing weekend, and obviously something that I will definitely never forget.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Three, two, one. Hi, this is Lyndon Walbert, professional entrepreneur maid and ocean edutainer. And you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

End action.

SPEAKER_06 18:13

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

SPEAKER_02 18:21

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_06 18:36

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_02 18:42

Uh 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_06 18:51

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. Um one looks like a watch, which is a D5, and the other two look like little square rectangular computers on your wrists.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. 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_06 19:34

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

SPEAKER_02 19:40

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_06 19:57

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, 1,500, 2,000, something 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_02 20:36

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_06 20:47

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

SPEAKER_02 20:52

As a as a piece of flotsam 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 Cunto app. That's pretty cool. I like that. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_06 21:03

Very, very cool. Go go and check it out, guys.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

This is Mr. Mark Caney's top tip. Mark, do you have a top tip to share with our listeners today?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Uh uh I do. This is more of a safety tip.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Amazing. I'm all fins in ears.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

So if you ever start descending on a dive and find it seems really dark and you have trouble holding your regulator in, you probably put your hood on backwards.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Are these top tips or stand-up? Thank you, Mr. Katie. We appreciate your top tips and uh safe diving to you in waters cold enough to wear a hood.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Try and avoid that if I can.

SPEAKER_06 22:08

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

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Hi, this is Manuel Vaschuer for the Deep Blue Podcast about the best dive ever. Having worked in diving for quite a few years, I've recognized my fair share of what I call great dives. But if you ask about my best dive ever, I kind of always go back to one specific dive. This happened a few years ago. I was running a dive shop on Expedition Sailing Vessel in the South Pacific. Did our fair share of exploration diving, just looking at the sea charts, looking at promising walls and jumping in and see what the look of a draw of water is a day. This specific dive happened while we're cruising from Vanuatu to PNG. The specific day I was doing the officer of the watch on the sunrise shift. While doing my duties as officer of the watch, hooked the sea charts, and noticed we're gonna pass a little island with some really nice drop-offs on it. So I woke up the captain and said, This is what's gonna happen. Hesitantly, he agreed, and I woke up some fellow crew members who also dive instructors. We descended along this beautiful reef. It was just mind-blowingly beautiful. The coral quality, the coral quantity, this was something I never saw have seen before in my 25 years of diving. As we descended, we saw a big school of bumper parrot fish coming up the wall from the deep towards the shallows. The quantity was just incredible, it was just a really massive school, and the size of these guys, these are like one half times bigger than I have seen before in my life. Beautiful. It was a great start to the dive. We followed the reef for a good portion of time, slowly shadowing up, and just along the whole reef, just the quality of the coral, the quantity, the colorfulness, it was just so pristine, so beautiful. It's like what you'd expect diving to be. If you look at the old Jacques Cousteau movies, along the dive, was followed by a little black tape shark who kind of scooted along and was just very curious. Imagine we were probably the first guys diving the reef. These fish, marine life, have probably never seen people in the water before. As we ascended and surfaced, I looked at my fellow divers. Again, these were seasoned professionals been diving all over the world, between us with probably over 10,000 dives in the whole world. And we just looked at other and he started laughing. And we said, This is probably the best dive we've done in our life. We were just silent while waiting for the boat to pick us up and just enjoyed this great dive we've done. And it's the tillest day, still the best dive I've ever done in my life. Although as any diver, I'm kind of in the house of search to find an even better one. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the little story and keep on diving.

SPEAKER_06 24:37

We'd love to hear your story about diving. So at the end of the show, you'll find out all the info you need to submit your best dive ever. Thanks for listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast. Find out more on all the stories you've heard this week, plus connect to the world's largest online dive community at deeperblue.com. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe, like, and comment wherever you hear your podcasts. These comments and subscribes really make a difference. Before we go, I want to give a big shout out to Jason Elias, our producer. In case you didn't know, he has an amazing podcast about people who have a deep connection to our world's oceans. Connections strong enough that they have dedicated some part of their lives to being and or working on behalf of the water. Take a listen when you get a moment to Jason Show, the Big Deep Podcast. Every week, we want to hear your stories and share them with the world. So please record and send in your short story of your best dive ever. Keep it brief, no longer than two minutes, please. And in it, tell us your name and location, where you were on the dive, what happened that make it so great, and why it's meant so much to you. You can get that over to us at bestdive ever at deeper blue dot com or head to our website podcast.deeperblue dot com forward slash best dive ever. Join us again next week and explore much more of the deeper blue.