I think there’s been a big trend in
expeditions that are geared towards
science that’s also geared towards
conservation I can rationalize you know
why take risk for scientific reasons for
conservation reasons but I would be
lying to you it’s just amazing to get
into these places I’d regularly get
asked or some of these trips what why do
you keep going on these sorts of
expeditions why you keep going on them
and it’s cliche but this is why are we
going and we go to these amazing places
from a aesthetic and cultural standpoint
and I got to go all around the world I
used to work as in commercial diving so
I was sent to remote areas it’s sort of
my specialty it’s just you realize that
we’re living in a different kind of
world and you’re just drawn in to them
and then all of a sudden you’re jerked
out of that world and you end up you
know like this and the iron give this
this particular accident which is I had
been diving all day and one of the
deepest known caves in the world 663
feet deep and we were doing what
objectively is pretty risky diving and
after three days of working in this hole
in the Bahamas I climbed up on the roof
of a three-story building to take a
picture of a rare tree that was blooming
and I fell off the roof so you know our
objective versus subjective risk
assessment is not you know not so great
in the beginning I was motivated by
adventure I wasn’t motivated by these
more rational excuses and I was never
kind of analytically motivated as a
child you can see I think that’s my high
school report card yeah so my analytical
skills were somewhat under
underdeveloped to put it nicely
it’s today alright there’s some kids in
the audience hey come talk to me after
but I was motivated by other things and
actually that’s that’s the real cover
from 2015 issue that I just found out
before the show that was one of the
top-selling off-the-shelf covers my only
explanation is I think the stoners must
have kept buying it over oh I didn’t
remember that they bought it but anyway
but I was I was very much motivated by
the ocean and surfing and I actually
tried to get into the Navy and the Coast
Guard and I kept doing the psychological
test and it’s a unfit for a vertical
chain of command it’s like kind of stuck
in my head but I did end up going to
school in California on an off fit and
UC Santa Barbara mostly motivated by the
surfing but I was really into the ocean
and anything to do with adventure I
ended up getting jobs in the film
industry doing stunts and coordinating
stunts and and that you know I found out
oh wow you can make a living off of
adventure but it was once I started
getting into the diving that’s what
opened up really the world of science to
me you go into this insignificant tiny
little muddy hole and you realize
beneath my feet is this whole other
world that’s unexplored and kind of my
realization of this and the increase in
some of my diving skills coincided with
me with meeting West Skiles and he
really guided me as a mentor as a friend
when I was 19 years old into what the
the world of professional diving was
like and he was the photographer on our
expedition to the blue holes of the
Bahamas that was a cover story in August
of 2010 and that’s a shot you can see
there’s four divers in that picture
actually and Wes in this tragic irony he
died just a few days before the magazine
with his cover shot came out and it was
devastating to all of us but it’s to me
being up here is very much also telling
my friends stories and it’s not just Wes
who passed away in expedition related
activities it hits
the home as well this was from one of my
little boys names Lincoln and this was
in kindergarten that’s not his
handwriting it’s like a free association
I guess so when he came up with sad it
kind of rubs your nose in it you know it
hits home and it’s just this battle in
my own brain of what’s worth it what’s
not and every once in a while it just
gets too much and at some point you know
20 years ago I went back to school
because I felt like okay I need
something a more substantial career I’m
very interested in the science this mix
of ecology along with with human
behavior and that’s how I ended up in an
environmental anthropology and I was I
was only in school for less than two
semesters when I get this letter in the
mail from some of you may know dr. bill
stone he’s an explorer and an innovator
inviting me to join the United States
deep caving team and this is where we
went
so with southern Mexico in Oaxaca in the
what’s called the WA plateau and we all
drove there independently and we’re set
to meet at a certain date it was pre GPS
so actually that’s the map that we were
given and saying where to go you know
don’t be late
bring your money but you know we’re
driving through the lowland jungle and
you come around the corner and this is
what you see this massively this
uplifted limestone plateau and the cave
entrance we were going to work on was at
the top of this plateau and that’s the
view from the cave entrance in the mouth
of the cave is quite small but it
creates a giant microclimate because of
different temperatures and pressures
this is the entrance so you drop down I
don’t think you can see the person and
so here’s the the cave system so you
have the jungle drop I just mentioned
you start doing day trips where you’re
dropping all the equipment you’re
dragging everything by rope it’s a very
vertical cave and when you have enough
equipment at the depot you stop making
day trips and you start living
underground so camp 3 was our main base
camp Camp fives where we would start the
diving but you could only send two
people at a time to camp five because
the area is really small and you’re
hanging over the water so most of the
activity was at Camp three and you’re
going down and down and you know some of
these drops are a few hundred meters
really you’re can
I into the dark and you’re stuck with
people some of whom you really love and
some of whom well you know and then from
there you really keep going down and
keep going down and you go through these
canyons that are just amazing of
crystal-clear water you get to roaring
waterfalls and you can’t even hear
yourself think
and in fact camp five was at one of
these roaring waterfalls and so we used
to wear balaclavas and earplugs and I
ended up down at camp five with my very
good friend Ian Roland and he he and I
were kind of the team pranksters so Ian
and I really teamed up and we were the
two youngest and we really got along
very well so when we were down there was
our turn we were lower on the totem pole
to to get a chance to dive and the other
team the other team members hadn’t had
luck at cracking the sump cracking this
underwater passageway is full of some
tight restrictions and you can’t see
more than about really about what’s in
front of your hand and so I got to die
first and I went on this is this gives
you a good sense of the machine it’s too
redundant rebreathers that you’re
wearing on your back there’s about ten
valves that you’re constantly changing
there’s two computers that you’re
constantly monitoring and changing so
it’s a it was a complex very
experimental system at the time and then
you’re also doing all the cave diving
which is running a constant guideline
tons of other caving related equipment
so Ian and I were down there and it was
really the probably at that time was the
most fun I’d ever had in my life
everything was going like clockwork we’d
been working together for two or three
months we traded jokes we didn’t even
have to finish each other’s sentences I
mean we were quite close and I made it
pretty far on the first dive I got
through what had been apparently
stopping people and made it far came
back excited we fixed up the rebreather
because we were sharing one rebreather
and then Ian took off and he made it a
little bit further and he said I think
it might be sloping up and then came
back and then I went and I actually made
it all the way through the something
came up into a big air bail with a big
giant sandbar
and I literally felt like I was on
another planet it had this otherworldly
feeling this otherworldly silence
and I was so excited and Ian was a
better driver than me so I wanted to get
back it was a little less than a half a
mile swim back so I made it back to camp
five and this is it we did it
and Ian took off on the next dive and he
took off I remember he had his helmet he
had his kids teddy bear taped onto his
helmet or tie wrapped onto his helmet
and you know we had it said if he’s not
back in six hours you know the literally
the words were called the cavalry and
two hours go by I was expecting him at
about three or four hours five hours six
hours and no Ian so I you know I left
the pot of hot pot of tea alight a
pulley system so you could get yourself
out of the water and I headed back a few
hours up to Camp three I got there at
about 1:00 in the morning and woke
everyone up and said we have to go on a
rescue and Ian was probably one of the
most experienced with this machine and
but he also was a diabetic so there was
a question in my mind was he having some
kind of diabetic incident and I got into
quite a fight with a team but to make a
very very long horrific story short I
ended up going back down making the dive
and found Ian on the other side of the
sandbar back in the water where he had
started diving again with a cave diving
real with a line in his hand and I found
him at the bottom with just the reel
right out of his hand very peacefully so
it was you know all of a sudden to go
from the highest high to the lowest low
you can imagine in about the lowest
point you can ever imagine literally was
was devastating and you have to block
that out of your mind and I made the my
way back to camp five where Bill was
waiting for me and it took six days to
get Ian’s back out to the surface and it
ended up I was ended up being
underground for 21 days and that’s what
it looks like after 21 days underground
but when we came out and we came out
with Ian’s
the Mazatec village and I’ll never
forget this and I’m still forever
grateful
they had carved out steps in the
cornfields and the whole village came in
accompanied us out and we went right
into the local small Cathedral where we
it was a really a combination of an
indigenous religion along with
Catholicism and had an extremely moving
ceremony right there and it was bottom
out to tell you how it was get the idea
but for me I was I don’t even know I
hadn’t slept for days and days and ended
up the National Geographic film team
with my friend Wes had just gotten down
there a couple days before and somehow
we decided to go back into the cave for
a few days and just kind of try to get a
grip on things we got caught in a flash
flood and ended up getting trapped for
four days it ripped all of our rigging
out we ended up having to ration food
and lighting stuff by the way if you
ever are short on things and after rash
and don’t tell anyone you’re rationing
it just it’s like creates instant
hoarders but you know we got out of
there and at the end of that I was
really I was done and I left the
expedition and Bill was very gracious
and in that in fact most of the
expedition was gone but bill and Barbara
Hammond who was one of the leaders on
the expedition she and Bill decided to
go on and they did what was in my
opinion one of the most audacious
exploration feats so Ian and I had
stopped at that deepest point they went
by themselves all the way to that
furthest point which at the time was the
deepest point known and there was no
chance of anyone ever rescuing them and
that’s them at the the deepest point
right there and this was in the 1995
issue in National Geographic and here’s
a picture of my friend Ian and you know
I kept in touch with his family over the
years and his wife remarried someone
from the same Mountain Rescue team but
this is that his two-year-old Connor now
who’s become a British cave or a very
well known British cave ER and we hadn’t
met
for he’s now 24 years old and he came to
Florida two weeks ago so we spent 10
days together traveling around Florida
diving together so I mean it’s hard is
for me to tell this story it’s kind of
in a strange way it’s come full circle
and it was we had a really great great
time together we’re heading down to
explore an underwater cave and then all
of a sudden it just started raining down
on top of me my initial reaction was to
just scream in my own head
expeditions that are geared towards
science that’s also geared towards
conservation I can rationalize you know
why take risk for scientific reasons for
conservation reasons but I would be
lying to you it’s just amazing to get
into these places I’d regularly get
asked or some of these trips what why do
you keep going on these sorts of
expeditions why you keep going on them
and it’s cliche but this is why are we
going and we go to these amazing places
from a aesthetic and cultural standpoint
and I got to go all around the world I
used to work as in commercial diving so
I was sent to remote areas it’s sort of
my specialty it’s just you realize that
we’re living in a different kind of
world and you’re just drawn in to them
and then all of a sudden you’re jerked
out of that world and you end up you
know like this and the iron give this
this particular accident which is I had
been diving all day and one of the
deepest known caves in the world 663
feet deep and we were doing what
objectively is pretty risky diving and
after three days of working in this hole
in the Bahamas I climbed up on the roof
of a three-story building to take a
picture of a rare tree that was blooming
and I fell off the roof so you know our
objective versus subjective risk
assessment is not you know not so great
in the beginning I was motivated by
adventure I wasn’t motivated by these
more rational excuses and I was never
kind of analytically motivated as a
child you can see I think that’s my high
school report card yeah so my analytical
skills were somewhat under
underdeveloped to put it nicely
it’s today alright there’s some kids in
the audience hey come talk to me after
but I was motivated by other things and
actually that’s that’s the real cover
from 2015 issue that I just found out
before the show that was one of the
top-selling off-the-shelf covers my only
explanation is I think the stoners must
have kept buying it over oh I didn’t
remember that they bought it but anyway
but I was I was very much motivated by
the ocean and surfing and I actually
tried to get into the Navy and the Coast
Guard and I kept doing the psychological
test and it’s a unfit for a vertical
chain of command it’s like kind of stuck
in my head but I did end up going to
school in California on an off fit and
UC Santa Barbara mostly motivated by the
surfing but I was really into the ocean
and anything to do with adventure I
ended up getting jobs in the film
industry doing stunts and coordinating
stunts and and that you know I found out
oh wow you can make a living off of
adventure but it was once I started
getting into the diving that’s what
opened up really the world of science to
me you go into this insignificant tiny
little muddy hole and you realize
beneath my feet is this whole other
world that’s unexplored and kind of my
realization of this and the increase in
some of my diving skills coincided with
me with meeting West Skiles and he
really guided me as a mentor as a friend
when I was 19 years old into what the
the world of professional diving was
like and he was the photographer on our
expedition to the blue holes of the
Bahamas that was a cover story in August
of 2010 and that’s a shot you can see
there’s four divers in that picture
actually and Wes in this tragic irony he
died just a few days before the magazine
with his cover shot came out and it was
devastating to all of us but it’s to me
being up here is very much also telling
my friends stories and it’s not just Wes
who passed away in expedition related
activities it hits
the home as well this was from one of my
little boys names Lincoln and this was
in kindergarten that’s not his
handwriting it’s like a free association
I guess so when he came up with sad it
kind of rubs your nose in it you know it
hits home and it’s just this battle in
my own brain of what’s worth it what’s
not and every once in a while it just
gets too much and at some point you know
20 years ago I went back to school
because I felt like okay I need
something a more substantial career I’m
very interested in the science this mix
of ecology along with with human
behavior and that’s how I ended up in an
environmental anthropology and I was I
was only in school for less than two
semesters when I get this letter in the
mail from some of you may know dr. bill
stone he’s an explorer and an innovator
inviting me to join the United States
deep caving team and this is where we
went
so with southern Mexico in Oaxaca in the
what’s called the WA plateau and we all
drove there independently and we’re set
to meet at a certain date it was pre GPS
so actually that’s the map that we were
given and saying where to go you know
don’t be late
bring your money but you know we’re
driving through the lowland jungle and
you come around the corner and this is
what you see this massively this
uplifted limestone plateau and the cave
entrance we were going to work on was at
the top of this plateau and that’s the
view from the cave entrance in the mouth
of the cave is quite small but it
creates a giant microclimate because of
different temperatures and pressures
this is the entrance so you drop down I
don’t think you can see the person and
so here’s the the cave system so you
have the jungle drop I just mentioned
you start doing day trips where you’re
dropping all the equipment you’re
dragging everything by rope it’s a very
vertical cave and when you have enough
equipment at the depot you stop making
day trips and you start living
underground so camp 3 was our main base
camp Camp fives where we would start the
diving but you could only send two
people at a time to camp five because
the area is really small and you’re
hanging over the water so most of the
activity was at Camp three and you’re
going down and down and you know some of
these drops are a few hundred meters
really you’re can
I into the dark and you’re stuck with
people some of whom you really love and
some of whom well you know and then from
there you really keep going down and
keep going down and you go through these
canyons that are just amazing of
crystal-clear water you get to roaring
waterfalls and you can’t even hear
yourself think
and in fact camp five was at one of
these roaring waterfalls and so we used
to wear balaclavas and earplugs and I
ended up down at camp five with my very
good friend Ian Roland and he he and I
were kind of the team pranksters so Ian
and I really teamed up and we were the
two youngest and we really got along
very well so when we were down there was
our turn we were lower on the totem pole
to to get a chance to dive and the other
team the other team members hadn’t had
luck at cracking the sump cracking this
underwater passageway is full of some
tight restrictions and you can’t see
more than about really about what’s in
front of your hand and so I got to die
first and I went on this is this gives
you a good sense of the machine it’s too
redundant rebreathers that you’re
wearing on your back there’s about ten
valves that you’re constantly changing
there’s two computers that you’re
constantly monitoring and changing so
it’s a it was a complex very
experimental system at the time and then
you’re also doing all the cave diving
which is running a constant guideline
tons of other caving related equipment
so Ian and I were down there and it was
really the probably at that time was the
most fun I’d ever had in my life
everything was going like clockwork we’d
been working together for two or three
months we traded jokes we didn’t even
have to finish each other’s sentences I
mean we were quite close and I made it
pretty far on the first dive I got
through what had been apparently
stopping people and made it far came
back excited we fixed up the rebreather
because we were sharing one rebreather
and then Ian took off and he made it a
little bit further and he said I think
it might be sloping up and then came
back and then I went and I actually made
it all the way through the something
came up into a big air bail with a big
giant sandbar
and I literally felt like I was on
another planet it had this otherworldly
feeling this otherworldly silence
and I was so excited and Ian was a
better driver than me so I wanted to get
back it was a little less than a half a
mile swim back so I made it back to camp
five and this is it we did it
and Ian took off on the next dive and he
took off I remember he had his helmet he
had his kids teddy bear taped onto his
helmet or tie wrapped onto his helmet
and you know we had it said if he’s not
back in six hours you know the literally
the words were called the cavalry and
two hours go by I was expecting him at
about three or four hours five hours six
hours and no Ian so I you know I left
the pot of hot pot of tea alight a
pulley system so you could get yourself
out of the water and I headed back a few
hours up to Camp three I got there at
about 1:00 in the morning and woke
everyone up and said we have to go on a
rescue and Ian was probably one of the
most experienced with this machine and
but he also was a diabetic so there was
a question in my mind was he having some
kind of diabetic incident and I got into
quite a fight with a team but to make a
very very long horrific story short I
ended up going back down making the dive
and found Ian on the other side of the
sandbar back in the water where he had
started diving again with a cave diving
real with a line in his hand and I found
him at the bottom with just the reel
right out of his hand very peacefully so
it was you know all of a sudden to go
from the highest high to the lowest low
you can imagine in about the lowest
point you can ever imagine literally was
was devastating and you have to block
that out of your mind and I made the my
way back to camp five where Bill was
waiting for me and it took six days to
get Ian’s back out to the surface and it
ended up I was ended up being
underground for 21 days and that’s what
it looks like after 21 days underground
but when we came out and we came out
with Ian’s
the Mazatec village and I’ll never
forget this and I’m still forever
grateful
they had carved out steps in the
cornfields and the whole village came in
accompanied us out and we went right
into the local small Cathedral where we
it was a really a combination of an
indigenous religion along with
Catholicism and had an extremely moving
ceremony right there and it was bottom
out to tell you how it was get the idea
but for me I was I don’t even know I
hadn’t slept for days and days and ended
up the National Geographic film team
with my friend Wes had just gotten down
there a couple days before and somehow
we decided to go back into the cave for
a few days and just kind of try to get a
grip on things we got caught in a flash
flood and ended up getting trapped for
four days it ripped all of our rigging
out we ended up having to ration food
and lighting stuff by the way if you
ever are short on things and after rash
and don’t tell anyone you’re rationing
it just it’s like creates instant
hoarders but you know we got out of
there and at the end of that I was
really I was done and I left the
expedition and Bill was very gracious
and in that in fact most of the
expedition was gone but bill and Barbara
Hammond who was one of the leaders on
the expedition she and Bill decided to
go on and they did what was in my
opinion one of the most audacious
exploration feats so Ian and I had
stopped at that deepest point they went
by themselves all the way to that
furthest point which at the time was the
deepest point known and there was no
chance of anyone ever rescuing them and
that’s them at the the deepest point
right there and this was in the 1995
issue in National Geographic and here’s
a picture of my friend Ian and you know
I kept in touch with his family over the
years and his wife remarried someone
from the same Mountain Rescue team but
this is that his two-year-old Connor now
who’s become a British cave or a very
well known British cave ER and we hadn’t
met
for he’s now 24 years old and he came to
Florida two weeks ago so we spent 10
days together traveling around Florida
diving together so I mean it’s hard is
for me to tell this story it’s kind of
in a strange way it’s come full circle
and it was we had a really great great
time together we’re heading down to
explore an underwater cave and then all
of a sudden it just started raining down
on top of me my initial reaction was to
just scream in my own head
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