The Grey NATO – 381 – Exploring With Rolex, Nat Geo, Bertie Gregory, & Thomas Peschak¶
Published on Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis¶
In episode 381 of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacy and Jason Heaton discuss their recent travels and adventures. James recently returned from Halifax covering Sail GP with Rolex, describing it as an exciting spectator sport that could become his next obsession. Jason shares his week in Washington DC at National Geographic headquarters for their annual Explorer Festival, hosted by Rolex. He toured the newly opened Museum of Exploration and interviewed prominent National Geographic explorers.
The episode features two extensive interviews conducted by Jason. First, he speaks with Bertie Gregory, a young British wildlife filmmaker and 2025 Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year, who discusses his journey from photographing London peregrine falcons as a teenager to making Emmy-winning documentaries. Gregory shares insights about filming wildlife, including his remarkable footage of 300 fin whales gathering in Antarctica. The second interview is with Thomas Peschak, a marine biologist turned National Geographic photographer who spent 396 days documenting the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon basin. Peschak discusses the physically and mentally demanding nature of his work and how he transitioned from ocean photography to this groundbreaking freshwater project. Both explorers wear Rolex Explorer II watches and discuss the intersection of exploration, conservation storytelling, and the challenges of extended field work.
Links¶
Show Notes¶
- Wind Up Chicago
- Link to RSVP for Chicago Citizen hangout
- SailGp
- The Agency S2
- Autodromo Group C Turbo Sport
- Explorers Festival
- The Museum of Exploration
- Joel Sartore
- Bertie Gregory
- The Peregrine project
- Bertie’s work with penguins
- Hammerhead Sharks Up Close
- Helinox Chairs
- Thomas Peschak
- The Amazon Expedition
- Thomas’ Seabird story
- Thomas’ Northern Mozabique National Reserve story
- Thomas’ Climate change in the Kalahari Desert story
- Dreo TurboPoly 512
- DJI Mic 3
- “Get Birding” With Sean Bean (podcast)
Transcript¶
| Speaker | |
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| James Stacy | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 381, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you so much for your continued support, and if you're listening and would like to be part of the crew, please visit the Graynado dot com for more details. My name is James Stacy. I'm joined as ever by my friend and co host Jason Heaton. Jason, how we doing today |
| Jason Heaton | I'm hanging in there. Yeah, it's uh it's a lovely summer Tuesday here. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, same. Had some |
| Jason Heaton | really great weather here. It's supposed to get hot next week, but we've had that kind of sweet spot of low humidity and decent temperatures, cool mornings. It's been it's been great. Yeah, |
| James Stacy | that's fabulous. Yeah, we had uh I just got back from Halifax uh last night uh from sale GP with Rolex. Uh we're we'll get into that uh in a in a future episode. We have lots of uh uh tangentially Rolex topics to talk about, or tangential Rolex topics to talk about on the next couple of episodes. But yeah, I just got back and got up this morning and took the trash out, and it's like one of those perfect summer mornings. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm-hmm. Uh kind of still, a little bit |
| James Stacy | of a breeze, took our son to daycare and it was just a really nice walk and then I was walking back, replying to emails as you're always doing, and I like checked my schedule to see like when could I go for a nice long walk? I'm not gonna get one today. But hopefully, uh hopefully the weather holds um as I'm uh I'm down to New York uh tomorrow for a couple of days and then I'm really hoping I come back in time for uh like a killer weekend at the at the cottage. |
| Jason Heaton | That'll be great. Yeah. Yeah. But |
| James Stacy | speaking of uh killer weekends, how do you like that transition? Uh wind up Chicago. Uh so we have a Friday night event with Citizen that'll be july tenth, seventh to ninth at Forbidden Root in Chicago. This is a fully RSVP'd event. It is filling up very quickly. You can find the link in the show notes. It's shared uh previously with uh the TGN Slack. So if you're on the Slack, you can find it there as well in the Meetups channel, and I think also in the Wind Ch Uicpago channel um if you'd like to RSVP there is a chance at this point that you will end up on a wait list, so please keep an eye out closer to the evening of the event uh for your ticket, in the event that we're able to release some from the wait list. And then if you decide not to go, this is quite important. If you're currently RSVP'd and you decide not to go, please cancel your ticket so that somebody else can grab it. But please pay attention to the RSVP link, which you can find in the show or on the Slack. Jason, looking forward to uh Chicago. It's gonna be good. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and boy, it's coming up fast. Um it's what we're recording this on the twenty third, seven days left in this month, and then yeah, ten more to go. I mean it's uh less than three weeks away. |
| James Stacy | The summer pace. Right. Yeah. It was a long winter and it's a looking like it's gonna be a short summer. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh man, don't say that. So yeah, |
| James Stacy | but uh I w I wanna get into your trip uh with uh Nat Geo and Rolex. I think that's gonna be great. Uh and it it'll form the the bulk of today's topic along with two really fascinating interviews. Uh but I I just got back from Halifax, did uh did a few days with Sale GP and uh I think I might be converted. I think I found m my next like uh sport to kind of follow. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. It's uh it's absolutely fabulous |
| James Stacy | in person. It's really fast paced and close to shore and e kind of especially with your phone or with it on the TV, really easy to kinda get an idea of what they're doing. Otherwise it just kinda looks like boats out on the water. There's not like a there's only a few markings for the course and that sort of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But I I just absolutely enjoyed it. |
| James Stacy | Uh the uh in in Halifax. Wow, it's my first time out there and what a city. It's great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah., it looked great I mean, the weather looked like it cooperated, and yeah, you got some great uh up-close action. You know, I I think I think Sale GP is is you know exactly as you described, and and that was kind of the goal of that race series, was kind of make it a little more spectator friendly and exciting as opposed to some of the offshore stuff that nobody can really watch. You know, I I I remember doing some stuff with America's Cup years ago and I think that's what kind of the the format of the boats um kind of follows that. It's that kind of fast, you know, close quarters rounding buoys like in a port area. And and man, you you really got got the show. That was great. It's it's for it's like Formula One on the water, right? It's so cool.. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, exactly It it it definitely feels that way. Uh d the difference being that the races are quite fast. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm-hmm. It's all everything comes down |
| James Stacy | to uh, you know, they they say that it's all powered by nature, which ends up in practice being quite accurate. Everything comes down to the conditions and the safety. So they're constantly kind of massaging what the course would be, how long they race, what the expectations of the uh teams are based on the conditions. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. While Saturday was perhaps |
| James Stacy | a little dry at times, though the weather wasn't cooperating perfectly for sailing, Sunday was an absolute delight. Sunny day, good wind, really exciting to watch the boats. Uh we're we're gonna do a whole kind of chat, a a breakdown of of my experience in Halifax for the next episode on 382. So stay tuned to that. But uh certainly my my suggestion is if if you find this stuff even remotely interesting, download their the brand's app, the Sale GP app, and follow along. Uh it's a it's a fascinating thing and got a I got a chance to meet and chat with a couple uh different people from the teams and uh and some Rolex testimonies and that sort of thing. So we'll have we'll have some fun stuff on uh on next week's episode.. |
| Jason Heaton | That's awesome Yeah, yeah, for sure. |
| James Stacy | And for you, before we get into uh your trip to DC, I see uh some defender repairs, anything too major? |
| Jason Heaton | Well sort of. Um so uh the last week, actually the the Friday before the week that I um went out to DC, uh I was uh you know, I'm I'm I'm doing my open water swim training and I drove down to the lake uh one morning. It was the the Friday before last, uh parked the defender, uh got out, getting ready to put my wetsuit on and um, you know, gave the driver's door a good slam as one has to do with a Land Rover. And the driver's window just exploded, just shattered. Oh |
| James Stacy | no. All over the inside of the truck, |
| Jason Heaton | you know. Um and I I'm surprised this hasn't happened earlier because that that glass was kind of not riding in the tracks on both sides of the inside of the door. And so it was kind of rattly. And I think just a a hard slam just caused it to kind of shear off halfway down because I got it kind of rolled down halfway. I never really rolled up or lock the car or anything like that. So you know swi swept all this shattered tempered glass out of there as best I could, did my swim, got home, tried to figure out a strategy for this. Um and long story short, happened upon I can't go into too much detail in this, but I got it uh I I stumbled upon a trove. Yeah, this it's a bit cloak and dagger. I stumbled upon a trove of um like the mother load of old defender parts and half-built vehicles two hours away from here. And so a friend of mine and I, who's he's also got a defender, um, drove out and um with an with a minivan with the seats removed and just stocked up on parts. And I got three actually I got two spare pieces of glass and a full replacement door, defender door with the window in it. Um seat covers, new rims, um I'll get to that in a bit, but um brought it all home and then kind of spent kind of several days, you know, a few hours a day for over several days before and after my trip, taking the door off um that the hinges, laying it on my patio and fiddling with it for hours to kind of remove the window mechanism, take the glass out, and get everything kind of refitted. And it just it took trial and error. I must have taken that door apart 15 times. I'm not kidding. So I'm |
| James Stacy | wow an absolute expert with defender |
| Jason Heaton | doors. And then in the process, yeah, okay, this gets worse. In the process of putting the new window in, I had it pretty well sorted, and then I managed to break off like this piece of the the door latch that you know that hits the striker at the at the B pillar. So the door wouldn't it it it sh it closed, but I couldn't get it open again from the inside or the outside. It's like it got permanently locked. And so I had to climb in through the passenger side to get in and out. Um for that I had to order a new latch that arrived after I got back from my trip and then I spent this past weekend um replacing the latch. And now it's all sorted. Window doesn't rattle, door shuts well. Great sense of satisfaction to get all that sorted. And then the bonus is like I said, I found a set of four white steel legitimate like Land Rover rims at this place and brought those back and I'm having those uh I'm having my tires swapped over to those as we speak. And I should be able to pick that up later today. So off with the kind of crappy old plastipped black rims that I've had on there for a couple of years and on with some proper white land rover wheels. And so I'm I'm feeling pretty pretty chuffed about this whole whole process. |
| James Stacy | If we uh if we use sound effects, I would have the audience just really applause. This is this is this is great. This is really great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. It's a love hate. You know, I mean when when things like this happen, I you know, I I go to a dark place and I start thinking about selling it and thinking, Oh, this is just one thing after another. It's always some little issue and then I get it fixed or I fix it myself and I feel really good about it and then I'm uh fall in love all over again. I guess that's the nature of not just Land Rover Love. Exactly right. Anyway, that's my that's my co-defender saga. Yes, exactly. Right. Right. |
| James Stacy | Well congratulations man. That's awesome. Thanks. Yeah. I I have another question and I I I might know the answer, but we didn't text about it, and it could be that we were both kind of running around the world. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Have you gotten into the agency season two yet? I have not. No. It it neither. I didn't have just like a day or two ago, right? |
| James Stacy | Yeah, yeah. I think uh on the 20th or 21st. |
| Jason Heaton | And are the all the episodes available, or do we have to wait? |
| James Stacy | Everything's there. Oh that's dangerous. |
| Jason Heaton | Dude, I I know. I I got home |
| James Stacy | last night and it had been like a long, kind of a long day of travel. It's really not that hard to get home from Halifax, but you know, you've got a one year old and that sort of thing. And got home, got everything sorted, had some dinner, and then it was just like, I think I'll just go to sleep. I just I wouldn't have made it through a couple a couple I more than a few minutes of the episode. It was probably like nine thirty or ten. It was just time for bed. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um maybe I'll get to a couple |
| James Stacy | episodes tonight or w even one episode tonight. Otherwise, uh uh may maybe that's what I'll do with my you know hotel evenings in uh in New York uh Wednesday and Thursday. That's a good |
| Jason Heaton | idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's sneak out early, kind of you know, pretend you're not feel not feeling well and just like slink back to the hotel and just you know, order room service and like |
| James Stacy | so yeah looking looking forward to that very much but I will text you when I start watching it. I'm um I'm I am incredibly excited. I was just also incredibly tired. It was a it was a week long like weekend a very very busy schedule. Mm-hmm and and maybe maybe that's the uh kind of scenario you had with Rolex in uh in DC. We'll get to that in just a moment. How about some wrist check? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah mine's easy. I I'm I'm sticking with what I wore all last week which is my uh my submariner, the 14060M. It was an obvious choice for the trip and it was kind of cool to see it among, you know, at Nat Geo headquarters in DC and among other, you know, a lot of other people wearing Rolexes there, uh James Cameron won for for one and and some others that were milling around that place. And so yeah, I've still got it on. The love affair continues. |
| James Stacy | Nice. Yeah. Yeah, I will wear I will wear my uh Polar Explorer 2 for next week's episode. Yeah. Uh it's on my desk right in front of me, still keeping time. Wore it all weekend. Kind of a perfect watch, I think, for for sale GP. Works really well. I don't have uh you know titanium yacht master uh or something like that. So we'll we'll go with uh the the Explorer 2, but with the white dial, I think it kind of it has a little bit of like a sailing flair to it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, for sure. Uh which I I definitely enjoyed. |
| James Stacy | And it was nice I didn't see another one while we were there, which which was kind of cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Uh but today I'm wearing uh something |
| James Stacy | else I just got in, still on theme with racing, but much more terrestrial than Sale GP. This is the new Autodromo Group C Turbo Sport. And I gotta say, I wasn't really convinced on the look, especially the case shape. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Uh in the photos, |
| James Stacy | it is just really, really good on wrist. It's re it weighs very little being the anodized aluminum. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. It's very legible. |
| James Stacy | Um and then this sort of curved, almost like nin 90s jelly beans sort of form. It's very automotive of that era. Like I think the design, if you're if you really dialed into what things looked like then, especially things like gauges, it feels really at home. I have all these anti-digi watches and none of them have a backlight and this has a backlight. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh nice. Yeah. And then |
| James Stacy | you know, I've I got some we got some comments on or at least a comment on Hodinky saying that it's not a anti digi 'cause it's two separate movements and you can't sync the two. And I was trying to think if that's really a fair assertion because I would say the majority of my anti digis are not synced. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah the aqualand isn't it? Right. The Aqualand |
| James Stacy | you have to do it by hand if you want to, if you're psycho. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Uh like me. I have them all set by |
| James Stacy | but there's like a process. I have to sit there for four or five minutes and nobody can speak to me. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Uh I'm going full beautiful |
| James Stacy | mind. I'm using a hundred percent of my my intellectual ability. |
| Jason Heaton | Yes. But I can get it where the second's |
| James Stacy | hand links up with the progression of the digital. But they are not synced. You're you're essentially hand synchronizing them. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I actually think this goes this takes |
| James Stacy | the idea and goes in an even smarter direction. I think we spoke about it when the watch first came out, or maybe I just wrote about it online, but the the watch is actually two movements. So you have a a Mioda quartz movement that's running the analog display, which doesn't have a seconds hand, which makes it look even more like an automotive sort of display. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And look, I'm |
| James Stacy | I've never really been a fan of watches that forego a full circular time display to look more like a gauge. I didn't Braymont used to do it on the Jaguar stuff and that sort of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But in this case I don't think it's |
| James Stacy | that ineffective because you still get a pretty strong idea of where the hands are because they stretch fully over the digital display. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh yeah. And then the digital display is just |
| James Stacy | a separate module, has its own battery. Um it also means that you're because you're not syncing the two displays, they can be separate times. So now I have three time zones if I |
| Jason Heaton | want. Uh analog and two |
| James Stacy | digital. Like I mentioned, I have a backlight. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I have a chronograph. I have an alarm. |
| James Stacy | Uh I I really like it. It's super easy to use. It's just a few buttons, um, you know, an action button sort of on the right to start stop the chronograph, a separate um backlight button, which is up by like between nine and ten on the left side of the case, and then a mode button at eight on the case side, and then you have a normal crown to set the time. And because there's no seconds hand, I don't have to be |
| Jason Heaton | Oh it doesn't have to hit me like the Aqualand. Yeah. I |
| James Stacy | don't have to be worried about synchronizing the two that carefully. For $450, I this is one of those few times where I really don't necessarily see the the pricing argument that some people have have said you know it should be less than this or more. This is, I believe, less by a bit than the standard group C, of which I'm an owner. I have the the yellow Sarah coat version, very, very cool watch. Um and this one for me, I think while I I can't I still can't really pick between the three colors. I have the gray, black, anodized with like the pink display, pink red display. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I think that's probably the one |
| James Stacy | I have to try it on a few other straps. But yeah, I've I'm a real fan. I think this is a like a pretty attractive, kind of cool watch that doesn't feel overly serious, but has a ton of functionality and feels kind of appropriate to the world that they're drawing from. Either the world of motorsports at large or this uh you know the the group C stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think it's really cool. And I I I think um you know what Bradley's done over these years, uh it it it's such a breadth of design and when you look at I'm just looking at his full portfolio and he's he's he's uh just disappointing. Yeah, right. I mean the you know you, go from the monoposto, which is such a old school, you know, like kind of faux wire lugs giant dial. Yeah, I mean it's just it looks so retro and then you got this and then the standard group C and it's just it's just um yeah, he's got such a head for design in such a variety of ways. And I think it's uh it's really cool what he's done with this. It's a it's a neat watch. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, I still think for me, like the absolute sweet spot was the group B. |
| Jason Heaton | Uh channel lugs, very lightweight, |
| James Stacy | very thin. I owned one, absolutely loved it. And I think I'd love to see them do another run of those in in a even additional colorways. But to do something so unexpected and what so few brands are really kind of playing with. Mm-hmm. You know, we saw we saw Brew do that really cool Annie Digi, but it was a shot timer. It wasn't like you couldn't also use it to be a clock or another time zone or a chronograph or whatever. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I I just think this is great. I think the pricing |
| James Stacy | largely makes sense to me. It's super light. It's easy to wear. Certainly doesn't look like anything else I have. And I don't really have anything in my wardrobe that suits the sort of like pinkish-red uh hand display. I mean I' Im wearing like a gray Patagonia plaid. It's a very weird look going on in the office today. |
| Jason Heaton | Uh but I really love it. I also love that |
| James Stacy | and and this is real nerdy if you're into digital watches or anti digi watches, you can press the time the you can press the backlight button and then use the other features. It stays backlit. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh so it's some of them when you press the backlight |
| James Stacy | and then go to change the mode, it like cancels the backlight. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And mostly uh the thing that |
| James Stacy | surprised me is not so much that I enjoy the digital part that feels par for the course for me. It's just how kind of comfy and ergonomic the case is. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm-hmm. It sits right in that flat |
| James Stacy | spot on on my wrist above the wrist bone. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um and I'm excited to try it on a few |
| James Stacy | other straps uh and to see how that how that feels. But uh I'm definitely a fan. I I definitely hope that they continue to produce these and make more colorways. Uh I would say like if I was asking for something, just give me a really standard colorway, |
| Jason Heaton | like a black white. Mm-hmm. |
| James Stacy | Something really down the middle, almost boring. I understand that's not not really what autodromo does, and and I'm saying this as a guy who's owned a yellow group B and a yellow group C. So |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But yeah, just a a really conventional |
| James Stacy | down the middle one, I think, would would hit me. I don't know that I need the extra splashes of color. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's already a funky watch. |
| James Stacy | All right. Wanna get into some main topic? I think this is yours to intro. I'll I'll take uh I'll take the rambling uh element uh of the show next week. Uh but yeah, I'm excited to hear about uh Nat Geo and and get into a couple interviews. |
| Jason Heaton | So last week I was invited by Rolex to fly out to Washington DC, um where they hosted me and and some other press. Uh not really any watch press per se. Um it was mainly kind of climate act ma activists and filmmakers and things like this, but um for for two different reasons. Uh National Geographic is headquartered in Washington, D.C. And annually they do an event, a week long event called um the Explorer Festival. And they fly in all of their National Geographic explorers from around the world, um, and there are a lot of them. Um, and they have uh a number of kind of talks and short films and um receptions and symposiums, presentations, um, you know, in and around the headquarters and then at uh George Washington University, which is just down the street. And uh and then one evening they do they announce their annual National Geographic Explorer of the Year. So that was one of the nights that we went to this kind of gala event where they introduced uh this year's Explorer of the Year. But the other reason that um this year was particularly special is that National Geographic has just opened, actually, well, let me think here Wednesday, Thursday. It'll be the day after this episode goes up, so the twenty-sixth of June, the Museum of Exploration. And National Geographics had a museum for, you know, several years, number of years, kind of a smaller museum, I think that just kind of lived in the first floor of their headquarters in DC. And over the past three or four years, they constructed this incredible huge hundred thousand square foot multi-level state of the art museum called the museum museum called the museum of exploration. And um so I I was there with others with all these explorers that were flown in and press and VIPs and donors, etc., for a preview. And we got a tour of the museum and there was an opening night reception in the courtyard and then inside. And it it was it was such an inspiration to be there. I mean National Geographic is something I think everybody, well myself, I should just speak for myself, I've always just kind of taken it for granted. You know, the yellow framed magazine, I've got a stack of them on my bookshelf downstairs. You know, I remember reading when I was growing |
| James Stacy | up. It it really is. And |
| Jason Heaton | so much more than just the magazine. I mean they they they really do underwrite a lot of um amazing science and exploration around the world. And um, you know, they're famous for their map making and their kind of cutting edge uh exploration technologies and things that they're supporting. Um, so it was it was really something to kind of walk the halls of of their headquarters, not even including the museum, and just kind of walk, you know, walk past maps that are hanging on the wall. They're signed by famous people and conference rooms named after you know, famous places around the world and it's just it was just a neat thing to do. But in terms of the museum itself, I I wrote it up for Hodinki. Um, you know, that article will will run at some point, but you know, we can read kind of more about it and there's a bit of a photo essay as well. But um it it it just Yeah, |
| James Stacy | oh on on that topic, if I could just cut in quick on that topic, it that delay is on me. It should run in the next two days. It'll probably be up by the time this goes this episode goes |
| Jason Heaton | up. Great, cool. So as the name suggests, Museum of Exploration, you know, National Geographic is largely about exploration, but this museum is strictly focused on that. So there's all sorts of displays as you'd find in a museum with artifacts from different expeditions. They had William Beebe's uh bathosphere that he took down to 3,000 uh feet back in 1935. Um, you know, they they they had you know cameras that belonged to national geographic photographers, um the terracotta warriors that you know were dug up in China um famously years ago, um, you know, as well as these kind of interactive interpretive displays where you know they've got touch screens and and kind of interactive elements to it where you can learn just a lot about different um you know expeditions that have occurred over the years. Um uh and and one that really stood out for me was this uh photographer Joel Sartori, who um some people might recognize his work because he's done these the what what amounts to studio photography of wild animals um against either a white or a black backdrop. And um they had a whole walkthrough exhibit um with huge screens on all the walls showing all of this photography. And as he explained it, he's his goal in life is to take as many photos of animals before they disappear, which is a very stark kind of way of putting it. Um he focuses on, you know, endangered species, um, you know, at at various zoos and and game reserves and things like this where they can actually get an animal and kind of put it in the an environment where he can use studio lights and, you know, a camera on a tripod and a backdrop, you know, when the animal will cooperate. Um and it's just it's really remarkable work, very impactful. And um yeah, it was it was it was pretty amazing. I just would encourage you to check out the article in the in the photo essay. And then I've even got um some story highlights that I saved on my Instagram if you want to kind of scroll through my my own experience there that I shot with my phone. But uh it was great. And then as as part of um the week, other than the museum and and um just kind of meeting a lot of very inspirational people, including Dr. Sylvia Earl, who have met before and you know, probably the most uh well-known of the explorers that I met. But, you know, we had people like Steve Boyce and Asha DeVos and the two uh the two explorers that that are featured on today's episode, Bertie Gregory and Thomas Petchak. So I got to sit down with all of them and and and just have these wide-ranging chats about their work. And it was uh it was just an amazing time. As you said earlier, it was it was a full-on schedule from you know 8 a.m until 9 p.m every day for for three days straight um which was great um and then in terms of explorer too uh it's funny because uh both the guys that i interviewed birdie and thomas were both wearing uh kind of the the current edition of the Explorer to the Rolex Explorer 2. And um you know I was curious because both of them are pretty avid divers, particularly Thomas Petchak. I mean he's kind of made his his name doing underwater photography. And um he he just recently did this uh this incredible project uh uh involving the Amazon. And uh I I asked both of them, like I'm are you guys watch guys, you can listen to it in the interview, but um long story short, I was like, why and why not a submariner? And they said, well, you know, this was more about exploration, kind of above water and below water. But then it occurred to me later, I thought maybe maybe the submariner is just a more sought-after piece that that you know it was just less available and and it was just easier for Rolex to or maybe I'm just being you know crass and jaded, but um you know give give them Explorer twos because it's probably the the lesser known version. But they they just looked so perfect on their wrists. I mean, I just feel like that was the watch that, you know, you you mentioned wearing it um for the sailing event. And I think that watch is so versatile. I think it it really works well in in any environment. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, I I would a couple, I have a couple thoughts 'cause it's an explorer too, and we'll I'll try and keep it to a couple. One, the longer I own it, the more I think this is like an absolute peak sport watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then I I'm my guess is like |
| James Stacy | you know, it's I wouldn't think that Rolex has any troublech sourcing a wat for their people. I I genuinely don't. Yeah, that's true. I I think I think that they're a brand that has largely put their ambassadors, their testimonies, their um, you know, the the people in the Perpetual Planet program, the people in in all of these other programs, y you know, I I think you get to ask for, see, borrow, whatever the condition is um from the you know from the realistic part of the catalog. My guess is that giving it giving the explorer two to them is is maybe more a statement of the sub has a ten out of ten fan base. Mm-mhm. And the Explorer 2 has always kind of played second or third fiddle to the sub or to the GMT. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm-hmm. Um, and so I would see it as |
| James Stacy | more of a marketing opportunity to be like, hey, nothing these guys do is gonna extend beyond. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um, granted, I mean I I agree the |
| James Stacy | diving, the diving focus um would make more sense in a sub, but in some ways, and maybe it's just on this bias when it comes to liking Explorer 2s's cool cool. It that that they're just like, yeah. I mean it's kinda like it's kinda like Sylvia Earl in a in a date chest. Which she was wearing, |
| Jason Heaton | yeah. Which which is which is just great. Totally uh |
| James Stacy | 'cause you gotta know she can have whichever one she wants, or James Cameron can have whatever she w whatever heants and that kind of thing. And and look, I think, yeah, I I I just this is this is super fun. I I I'm not gonna step on anything for next week's episode. Got to meet a couple pretty remarkable um sailing testimonies for Rolex. And, you know, they both had some of the coolest watches on that you can get from the brand right now. My perspective, not necessarily the same at retail. Neither of them were wearing a Daytona, for example. But yeah, I I I I would think that it's more about the storytelling and more about the totality of their work. Yeah. Maybe if they were just a diver, if it like with James Cameron, it'd be very strange if he wasn't wearing a super deep diving watch, you know what I |
| Jason Heaton | mean? Yeah. Right. And these guys are I mean, I think even the the Explorer of the Year um award, you know, as part of the award, they give out um an explorer too, which is so fitting, right? I mean it's the explorer of the year. Yeah, they're explorers. So it's uh |
| James Stacy | did you did they was it clear whether it was a black or white or they just mentioned |
| Jason Heaton | uh no uh no it slips my mind. I think both of them had white dials on, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah, and seeing the seeing the the the bigger one, you know, I spent some time with one years ago. I think it must have been probably the first year they brought it out. But um and |
| James Stacy | Yeah, the bugaboose trip. Yeah, I just remember |
| Jason Heaton | that watch and and seeing it again, it just suddenly tweaked something in me and I was like, oh boy, I'd really like one of those. |
| James Stacy | It's a great, it's a great watch. Yeah. That's uh that's great. So who should we dive into first for these chats? |
| Jason Heaton | Um let's do it. Uh let's do Bertie Gregory first. Um it's kind of the opposite order in which I interviewed them, but um you know it's real toss-up. They're both just remarkable people. Um and I can |
| James Stacy | everyone's gonna listen to both, I hope. Yeah, I hope so. |
| Jason Heaton | There's a rare opportunity to chat with these folks. Yeah, and |
| James Stacy | I'm I'm guessing that a lot of our listeners have have heard |
| Jason Heaton | of at least one of these two, if not both. They're both uh fairly well known in their fields. Um so let me uh give a quick uh little blurb about Bertie Gregory from his website. Um he is a British wildlife filmmaker, environmentalist, and national geographic explorer. His career began when a childhood nature obsession earned him the title of Youth Outdoor Photographer of the Year. And you'll hear me ask him about this. It's a pretty amazing story. After completing a degree in zoology, he began assisting legendary Nat Geootogra phpher Steve Winter. He has since produced and hosted 11 national geographic television projects, including the original series Epic Adventures, Streaming on Disney Plus, his multiple Emmy Award-winning series, Animals Up Close, is also currently streaming with the newest special latest installment, Hammerhead Sharks Up Close, coming this summer. In 2020, he became BAFTA's youngest cinematography winner for his work with Sir David Attenborough on the BBC's Seven Worlds, Frozen Planet 2, and Planet Earth 3 series. Birdie recently led the newest installments of the Emmy Award-winning Secrets of franchise, Secrets of the Bees, Secrets of the Penguins, both now streaming, and it was recently announced that he will narrate and lead the upcoming specials Secrets of the Bears and Secrets of the Deep. And last year he was awarded twenty twenty five's Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. So amazing guy, young guy. He's in his early 30s, super um personable and very inspiring. So I hope people really uh dig this interview. Yeah, so let's just jump right in. Bertie Gregory, um you're on a plane and the person next to you asks, like, what what do you do? I I I asked the same question earlier um to Tom Petak and he's like, I tell them I'm an accountant and then that guy can sleep for the rest of the flight. But uh how would you answer that question? |
| Bertie Gregory | Uh I may well, I guess the official line would be uh I make wildlife documentaries and I'm fortunate enough to be able to call myself a natural geographic explorer. But I think on a fundamental level, I try to get close enough to animals without disturbing them so that I can reveal their hidden lives and that sort of fulfills me on a personal level. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um but then bigger than |
| Bertie Gregory | that is I do that in order to get other people excited about things I'm passionate about. Yeah. Um I guess that's's it. It kind of most simple fundamental level. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, you're screwed for the rest of the flight. They're just gonna be asking you questions. Yeah, |
| Bertie Gregory | yeah, yeah. Yeah, what's your favorite animal? Yeah, right, |
| Jason Heaton | right. What is your favorite animal? Uh per Peregrine |
| Bertie Gregory | Falcon, fastest animal on earth. I like them because their scientific name, Latin name is Falco Peregrineus. Falco means Falcon. Peregrinous means the wanderer. And I like that idea that maybe I'm a bit of a peregrine falcon in spirit. Yeah, a bit of a wanderer that they you know that they can survive in you know mountainous areas at the coast, even in they do well in cities. Um yeah, and I I grew up photographing peregrine falcons in the middle of London in the city. So |
| Jason Heaton | okay. Didn't didn't grow up, you know, photographing |
| Bertie Gregory | lions and and polar bears I hung out with city animals. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Oh that's great. And there's a well known this might be a bit of a tangent. There's a well known old book that was written by a British author called The Peregrine. You familiar with |
| Bertie Gregory | this? No. Oh, you need to look it up. It's |
| Jason Heaton | beautifully written. He spends all of his days wandering the marshlands to sort of observe them and he takes his kind of daily notes. It's a it's beautifully written book uh have to look it out for that yeah yeah so what what how did you get started like what were were you exploring as a as a kid and I mean you're a pretty young guy now but like when you were eight years old or something were you on |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah, yeah. So um my my family are obsessed with water sports. Mm. So my mum and dad, my three brothers. So I I grew up surfing and sailing and just spending a lot of time in the sea. And I I I think when you spend a lot of time as a very small child, you know, salty, wet and cold, uh, you're going to gain an appreciation for being outside and and I think being comfortable outside. And that's something that I certainly take for granted now in my in my job. Um, but I I I found that I was getting really obsessed with all the animals near to where I lived. Like I I didn't actually live near the sea, I went there on holiday to places like Cornwall and southwest of England. But I grew up uh a place called Reading, just west of London, uh not a wild place. Um wild for a different kind of meaning. Um but I I I had a bunch of there were a bunch of farmers fields near to where I lived and I got permission from from the farmer, the landowner to, sort of just wander around. And I've I when I was sort of twelve, thirteen, I was getting really like weirdly obsessed. Um and I would sneak up on foxes and badgers and red kites and kingfishes and then I found that actually if I started stealing my dad's camera, he's you know, takes pictures as a hobby on holiday and stuff, not a a professional. Um I started stealing his camera and and I found that that was a really good way to channel my my passion, my obsession. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um, and then sort of by accident, |
| Bertie Gregory | I realized that when people see things that I was seeing through my pictures, they kind of underst they kinda understood what I was doing. Yeah. Um and they got interested and excited about what I was passionate about. And, you know, I said fundamentally that's what my job is. I didn't realize at the time that that is an incredible thing to be able to do. Get other people excited about something you care about. Um, and so I started entering wildlife photography competitions. Lots of them have like a young category. Yeah, started winning those and ended up meeting uh a guy called Steve Winter, who's like the David Beckham of |
| Jason Heaton | saw one of his exhibit stuff. Exactly, the David |
| Bertie Gregory | Beckham of National Geographic Photography, and he was looking for a new assistant, and so um he uh he offered me a uh a job and I ended up assisting him for for two years and we went all over the world photographing leopards and jaguars and all sorts of things. |
| Jason Heaton | At that time did you think you'd get into filmmaking or were you more I just want to be a wildlife photographer or |
| Bertie Gregory | so I grew up watching uh David Attenborough documentaries on the BBC. Probably shouldn't be voicing this too much in this particular building. Um, but that was the reality. Uh, you know, I was obviously aware of Nash Digafic magazine. I I would I would you know, I I read it. Um and I started out in stills, but that was that was always in my head kind of a stepping stone to shooting video because that I wanted to make wild-life films like Sir David Attenborough. Um and well while working for Steve, he was shooting a still story for Nash Geographic magazine. And I found that actually I was best in you know in service by um helping Steve get those stills. That was my main job. But then also, you know, lots of assistance then also shoot stills. But that doesn't actually help the person you're working for. If anything, it puts more pressure on them because very well known on nastrographic assignments, every frame anyone takes on assignment is shown to the photo editor. Wow. So if I get a moment, not through any skill, but because I get lucky and Steve misses it, then that's kind of you know, that's not great. So I found I was I was much better uh if I shot video. Yeah. So I started filming the wildlife and Steve, and we ended up going back to Nastrographic television and saying, look, the magazine are paying for us to go on all these amazing adventures. |
| Bertie Gregory | Oh, sure. Um, why do you |
| Bertie Gregory | why don't we you know but shooting all this footage, why why don't we make a film? And so that's how I started out with um Nastrographic television. And what was funny was on a couple of the shoots, you know, the last week or so, I was basically making these TV programs by myself, having never made a TV programme. Total fake it till you make it. But Nadge T OV, I'm not stupid, they knew this. And so they'd each time they'd send one of their grown-ups out to kind of piece the whole story together in the last week and figure out what the hell I'd done. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um, and one of them, |
| Bertie Gregory | as well as filming Steve in that last week, also started asking me questions on camera and he liked the kind of Batman and Robin relationship. And he ended up, guy called Simon Boyce, he ended up going back to Nage Television and saying, you know, this is great, they make a great kind of um, you know, but it's a great sidekick, but uh actually, you know, he he he's good on camera, you should give him a show. So that was never really my my plan to do stuff behind the camera uh, you know, in front of the camera, my passion is behind it, but um I just sort of worked out and then started to run with it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, so uh that like is a question I was curious about too, is um you know, so often in photography, especially like wildlife photography, or just being behind the camera is oftentimes an introverts or sort of self, a solitary function sort of thing, um, to make that change to get in front of the camera and be kind of a personality, you know, have some level of uh fame, notoriety, whatever you want to call it, and and become a bit of a public figure. Like, was that a comfortable transition? Were you kind of ready for that? Did you move into that fairly easily? I mean, you seem very comfortable you're sure you've done your share of interviews and things. But |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah, I think the you know the interesting thing is like you you you become a personality. And I I think it's it's interesting thing to get your head round 'cause you know, w we all have personalities and I I I think uh the thing that I I hope I always come across as is is myself. I didn't didn't change at all. It's just well I'm filming this animal anyway, so this is how I'd be. I'm I'm I get excited about stuff. So it doesn't didn't feel like a strange kind of extension of of of that. And I I think, you know, television has has changed a lot as, you know, as a social media in that you know television typically you used to have television presenters um that were people that were good at talking kind of talk about anything um whereas now you know you see more and more like the the scientist, the the guide the, whoever is the one that's on camera. People want that integrity. And I think the thing that I hope comes across when I'm there is that if the camera wasn't there, I'd be here doing it anyway. This is what makes me tick. It's just a bonus that it happens to be my job and I get paid. Um and I think also I I quickly realized when you're in front of the camera as well as behind it. Yeah, when you're in front, um you you can have so much more of an impact. Um and um, you know, I also have a lot more agency with where I go and what I film. Um and that's you know, when you're behind the camera, certainly within wildlife television, you're you're very much a a gun for hire generally and you know you you get to go on some amazing assignments but someone else is is telling you where you're gonna go and what you're gonna do. Whereas you know with my films, I I they kind of get to be my babies, which is really exciting. I get some agency w where I go. Um and so yeah, it's a amazing platform to |
| Jason Heaton | have. Yeah. I I I've got kind of a two part question. One is kind of what would you consider? I mean, congratulations on the Emmys for the Penguin uh documentary. Um but so I maybe that's the answer to this question, but what do you consider your kind of biggest success or your biggest win, whether by your criteria or others. And then the flip side is have you ever had any just absolute hor horrific disasters where everything just went wrong? |
| Bertie Gregory | Well, in answer to your second question first, uh bad stuff happens all the time. And the key with wildlife filming is you need to be uh, yeah, everyone says you need to be patient to film wildlife. That's complete rubbish. You you need to be passionate and you need to be persistent. Stuff goes wrong all the time, and sometimes we include that in our nature documentaries. A lot of the time we don't. You know, these films are a massive compression of time. Uh, you know, we film for three years and it ends up as a 44 minute film. We can't include everything. Uh and often, you know, failure is sometimes entertaining for the viewer and sometimes pretty pretty dull, so it gets cut out. So yeah, I I I think it's easy to watch some of my documentaries. Like I have a film coming out uh called Hammerhead Sharks Up Close. And it is, it is just, I mean, my up close series on Disney Plus, I always it is full of amazing wildlife encounters, but this one's almost embarrassing. Like how many ridiculous animal encounters there are from uh giant oceanic mantas parking themselves on my head, dolphins asking for a tickle, uh surrounded by all kinds of sharks. Like it's it's it's it's wild. It's very easy to watch that and I think just think that my job just involves prancing around the world having a wonderful time and it all just works out. But um often often it doesn't. Yeah. Um well I think going going back to does does stuff fail all the time, I think the highs are higher if the lows are lower and vice versa as |
| Bertie Gregory | well. And so I think often it's the |
| Bertie Gregory | ones when you think it's all gonna go you it really you really think it's all gone wrong and then and then there's a turnaround. I mean, one of the things I'm most proud of was managing to to track down and and film the largest gathering of great whales ever recorded. So there were three hundred fin whales in Antarctica, all in this huge party. I mean, just one finwhale is mind-blowing enough. They're 80 feet |
| Bertie Gregory | long, way the same as a fully loaded |
| Bertie Gregory | airliner. And there were 300 of them together with tens of thousands of penguins and albatross and seals in this big wildlife party. Um, and it was something that hadn't been filmed before. There were rumors that these gatherings would happen, |
| Bertie Gregory | yeah. Um, but they happen in |
| Bertie Gregory | the Drake Passage, so the the roughest stretch of water on earth between the Antarctic Peninsula and South America. And that's part of the reason why well I think the reason they hadn't been filmed. Like these parties, these whale parties were happening all the time. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. It's just finding them because |
| Bertie Gregory | it's so rough was was hard. So I thought that was all gonna go wrong. Um, you know, we'd we'd done so much work to get to the start line. Um and I thought we were in with a chance and then you know we we burned basically all our time down there running away from storms and we had we had a month down there and we had just six days when we could go film the whales. I say film the whales, six days when we could actually go looking for the whales. |
| Bertie Gregory | The rest of the time we were just rolling |
| Bertie Gregory | around, running away from storms with slabs of ice grinding down the side of the boat. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. And so for it all to come together, |
| Bertie Gregory | and that was also, you know, on a on a professional level, that was my first big Disney Plus series. It was called Epic Adventures. That was how I had basically sold the entire series was based on the first episode, this one, where I said to the Nat Geo executives, I'm gonna go down and we're gonna film the largest gathering of wildlife, which is actually the greatest comeback story in our history, because whales in Antarctica hunted to it the brink of extinction. And then fifty years on from the ban on commercial whaling, there was this glimmer of hope that they were coming back. It was this amazing story. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And they all went, Yeah, yeah, yeah, |
| Bertie Gregory | sounds great. Go for it. Go do it. And I was like, oh I |
| Jason Heaton | gotta do it. Wow. Yeah. I mean on these expeditions, you know, I think there's th there's all these variables. There's, you know, the kit you take, the technology, the weather, the critters, um, health. Um there's just so many things you have to balance that um do you do you feel that and any of that can go wrong or or several of those things can go wrong and |
| Bertie Gregory | all of them can go wrong, and I'm curious, |
| Jason Heaton | like do you do you feel when you're when you're sort of pitching these stories and you're headed out to do these, is there a sense of pressure that you need to deliver and I I'm I'm recalling I was on a trip to Ecuador years ago to to see this big uh congregation of manta rays down there, and I was there for a full week, no, not a single one. Came back just Does that I mean do you feel a sense but I wasn't delivering a film. Like, do you feel a sense of pressure to like at the these variables you can't control? |
| Bertie Gregory | Of course there's pressure. I think with experience I,'ve learned you need to get stressed and care about things you can control. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. And do your best |
| Bertie Gregory | at those things. You can't get hung up on things you can't control. And so what I find when stuff isn't working out and it and it sometimes we do fail, I always like to analyse what went wrong. And then, you know, the I live in Bristol in the UK, which is the world hub of wildlife film. So there's two streets where 99% of the nature documentaries worldwide are made. So there's an amazing community of people there. And I am so nosy about all the people filming around the world always asking, okay, you were successful. Who did you go with? What you know how many days did you go for? And that is the the first thing I do when we go to film something is I call up everyone I know who has been there or done something vaguely similar and I I forensically analyze why it went well or why it went badly. And so you set yourself up to win. You know, yes, there's a huge amount of luck involved, but there is so much luck that you can you can manufacture. Um and I think that's that's really the the trick. And and I I often you know think that the best part about my job is that yes, I get to hang out with cool animals, but I also get to hang out with cool |
| Bertie Gregory | people. And that is always the key. |
| Bertie Gregory | I mean, you mentioned that filming is a fairly kind of while that filming is a fairly solitary existence. The reality is it's actually not. Okay, when you're actually on location in the blind, sneak him on the animal for various reasons, you need to put by yourself. But there is enormous teams that we we work with. And so it's about surrounding yourself with amazing people that you know there's a a a phrase if you want to film an animal, find the guy that knows the thing. |
| Bertie Gregory | Oh yes. So you just find that guy and then he |
| Bertie Gregory | knows the thing. Um and and that's really the the key, you know. So often I'd say the vast majority of times that a shoot fails, um, there's there's two problems. One is uh they didn't go for enough time. And the second is they didn't go with the right people. And so, well, you can control both those variables. One is you find the right people, and the other one is time is is your well, on in the words of uh Top Gun Maverick, time is your greatest adversary, I think, is a Tom Cruise line. Um, which is very true with filming wildlife as well as flying fighter jets. Um and and yeah, the the more time you spend, the more lucky you get. And and sometimes, you know, nature will give you something that you, you know, won't give you what you expected, and it'll often be better. You know, animals don't read the script, which is both really annoying, um, but also really amazing because it means you know, it's gonna nature's gonna give you something you didn't expect and you you can't plan for it, but you gotta you gotta be ready. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Yeah. Um you mentioned Bristol |
| Jason Heaton | um and time, time away, time on trips. I mean w what's your what's your sense of home? Um, whether it's Bristol or or somewhere else and and how being on the road a lot, like is is are there bits of home that you miss? I'm I'm sure the answer is yes, but like you know, whether you have a pet or a partner or, you know, your pillow or your coffee that you like or whatever, like how do you relate to that when you're gone a lot? |
| Bertie Gregory | And do you take some with you, you know? Uh yeah, yeah. So some of those. Well I don't I don't have any pets. Uh I because they'd unfortunately be dead um because I'm away away a |
| Bertie Gregory | lot. I I think I've |
| Bertie Gregory | found you know I've spent so much time on on the road, you know, I I haven't worked out what it is this year, but there were it won't be this the as crazy, but there were years when you know I've been away nine, ten months in the year, like you know, not spent more than a week at home at a time. And at that point, I mean I'm not saying that's particularly s sustainable or healthy. Uh I certainly had a good time, had some good stories from that |
| Bertie Gregory | time. Um uh but I I think |
| Bertie Gregory | it's you know a a lot of people's lives are you know they're they're they're punctuated by I'll I'll flip it round. I guess yeah I I have these these really intense shooting periods whereby you get to know a little random corner of the world, you know, more intimately and better than you might even know the park down the road from where I live. Like we've got this amazing park uh near where I live called Ashton Court. Um I've never spent five weeks camped out and not, you know, not left. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. But I have done that with lots of places |
| Bertie Gregory | around the world. And as a result, I know those places pretty intimately. And so uh it what I'm getting at is you you know the key I think to filming wildlife is is to immerse yourself in an environment and sort of make it like you know your backyard. People often you know I often get asked at events and stuff, oh like, you know, I I can't um can't aff afford to you know go film lions or whatever without a Disney Plus contract or whatever, like fair enough. Um, that's not what you should be trying to film to start out. Like you, you know, the reason that we're successful when we make documentaries is we we we get to know one area so well that we can predict the animals' movements. Well, the place that most people know best is the park down the road. So make a film about about that. Um and so I don't find I necessarily miss stuff that much because I've become so kind of laser focused on the place that I'm that I'm at. No, it's not to say I don't miss I don't miss certain things. Yeah, I miss friends and family and and um you know my my bed sometimes. Um, but I think I'm really glad that I'm in the places that I'm in when I'm there and gotta yeah, focus on on that and and finding the finding the thing we're trying to find. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um obviously gear is very |
| Jason Heaton | important. Your kit, what you you take with on these expeditions. Do you have, besides the camera gear, which is obvious, uh any other sort of little sort of travel hacks or or work things that you like? I can't live without my, you know this specific torch or this, you know. Uh you can say you can say your Rolex if you want to like you know kiss up to your sponsors, but but uh uh but yeah. So I I think one of the favorite backpack. |
| Bertie Gregory | Well this is kind of niche. Uh so I for many years have tried to find the perfect chair for sitting in a blind, in a hide. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. And that's actually quite a f a hard |
| Bertie Gregory | thing to find because you need something that allows you that kind of sits you up pretty upright so you can operate a camera comfortably, because that's how yeah, if you're not comfortable when you're filming, you shaped camera. Um but at the same time you need something that you can sit in for like fourteen hours without |
| Bertie Gregory | you know getting some kind of terrible |
| Bertie Gregory | backache. Um and yeah, I I recently the last couple of years I I found it. Um and I yeah, I'm not gonna endorse it because I I I don't I don't want the them to sell out. Oh no and I also want some free ones first. Uh but yeah. Oh |
| Jason Heaton | that's that's cruel. Oh man. Heliox, |
| Bertie Gregory | they're great. Um yeah, yeah. They're they're really good chats. They're super light, they're tiny, and um yeah, I I I really like 'em. So yeah, if they're if they're listening, I'd I'd yeah, I'd love a hookup. |
| Jason Heaton | Um well I did bring up the watch. Uh were you a watch person? Are you wearing an explorer too? |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Well is were you a watch person before? |
| Jason Heaton | Are you a watch person now? How important is a watch besides the usual sort of sound bites of like, well, it helps me stay on time for my morning shoots. I mean, like |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. How do you feel about a wall? Animals don't care about the time. Um, I mean, they have a a pretty incredible, you know, we all have circadian rhythms, and uh I it's one thing I really love on shoots is you're often waking up at exactly the same time. So you have a very you know, I say I don't have a routine. When I'm on a shoot, I have a really specific routine and you often wake up with the sun and go go to go to bed close to with with the sunset and that's uh yeah. I I find when I go away on shoots, yeah, it's so lovely 'cause I get to leave behind all of the chaos of the urban world and the corp corporate world. Um it's a n necessary uh evil for me. Um uh and when I get to go away I can feel my senses like heightened, like my vision gets brighter and clearer. I become more in tune with nature and I yeah, it's it's kind of weird that even for me that's like a thing I notice. It's like a a state that I wish I could be in all the time. And it's a state that, you know, lots of people in our modern society have no concept of. And it' its's, you know, it's it's a reason that there's this massive rise in depression in our modern society because of our disconnection to nature. So, you know, we talk about conservation and looking after the environment. You know, those things are all really important. But we we need to look after ourselves and that crucial to that is making sure that we have a healthy environment. Um I guess in in answer to your question of am I a watch person, I I think one of the really amazing things about Rolex as an organization is like they're incredibly successful. They could choose to spend their money and support a lot of different things. And of all the things they chose, you know, the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, they they chose to to you know to work on planetary and on wildlife and conservation projects and they support some really cool people and I'm I'm very grateful to be part of that. Um and yeah, it's you know, there's a lot of brands that you know, oh you know, we're into the environment now. It's kind of a cool hip thing. Lots of people were jumping on the bandwagon, it's just blatant greenwashing, but like yeah, Rolex they they talk they talk but they they |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah, true. Um uh okay, I'm gonna let you go here soon, but I I just have to know, like, given the the breadth of critters that you've filmed and been close to Or are there any that you just won't touch? Like I don't want a fur to lance or a mamba or like use a snake guy, do deep sharks clearly you're comfortable with. |
| Bertie Gregory | Well, I mean I,'ll start by saying that by far the scariest animal on earth is is us. Um and I I think we're also scared about scared of things we don't understand. So that's a you know, or we're not familiar with. So that's a a big thing that I work on is showing that, you know, of course, you know, their predators are potentially incredibly dangerous. They're like they're designed to uh you know, hunt things. Um but at the same time, you know, just like us, like we all have personalities, we will have personal space, and if if you read body language of any animal, you know, it's perfectly possible to to live alongside them safe and yeah, they they don't want to mess with us. It's a real inconvenience and it's a danger to them to to mess with us. Um and I I think that is part of sort of we're in the reason you know the the reason we're in the mess that we're in as a species, uh, you know, and and the planet's in a mess as a result of our actions is because of this disconnect that we have. And you know, when you are disconnected from something, it's it's much easier to be really cavalier when you're treating it. Um and and so I think part of my job is is kind of trying to reconnect our modern society with with the natural world, not just because it's the right thing to do, to want to look after nature, but we need nature for so many things we we take for granted. Um so yeah, I think that's super important. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. All right, last question. Um what's |
| Jason Heaton | the I'm not gonna ask you what's next. What is your what's your dream trip that one day like if you were given all the money in the world just a a year to do it, w w where would it be? Or what would it be? Well |
| Bertie Gregory | I I've been really fortunate to have uh sounds so cliche, a bit of vomits pulling up in my mouth. Uh to to be able to, you know, go to a lot of the places I've dreamed of going. I've spent time with Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. I've filmed the wave-washing killer whales that, you know, using teamwork, make the wave to wash seals off of ice flowers. Like I've I've seen such extraordinary things really now, you know, I I get a kick really out of a lot of the time going back to film things I've already filmed because you know we talked about you know, what do you miss? Well, I have to miss the animals that I filmed a long time ago that you know you you feel like you've made a bond with. I mean, let's be honest, they don't care about you at all. Anyone that says, you know, some wild animal really cares about me, uh be very skeptical. It's a one-way connection and that's very important and very valuable. But um yeah, they just want to go about their their lives. Yeah, I so I think part of my big thing now is is using the incredible platform that I have with you know so fortunate to have my documentaries on you know Nash Geographic on Disney Plus you know my my documentaries are right next to Thor and you know Mandalorian and that's that's an amazing thing. So it's okay, how do I use that platform to make sure we have really quantifiable positive impact? And my new initiative, Act for Wildlife, is really the answer to that. Very proud that Rolex is supporting that that campaign and essentially films are made in three acts, right? So act four, wildlife is the fourth act where we actually take what we've learned and that platform and all that footage that we've collated and and make quantifiable positive change. So whether that be, you know, trying to um encourage a policy change or uh, you know, convincing a corporation to do something a bit differently or or just getting people excited about a certain thing, because that's gonna lead to a change. So yeah, I love that my documentaries contribute towards kind of the greater good and the the greater passion and awareness of of the society. And then Act for Wildlife's Now, how we take that one step further to really make sure we we move the needle. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Great. All right. Thanks for chatting with me. |
| Bertie Gregory | Thanks so much. Good to chat. Cheers. |
| James Stacy | All rightright, that was an incredible chat with Bertie Gregory. I don't even know where to begin. That was just uh an absolute delight. You know, the breadth of his work and also the focus on very specific things that have kind of broken through the crust of the world into pop culture like planet Earth is really fascinating to me. Uh, the only thing I I definitely have learned 100% from all this is I probably need a Disney Plus subscription |
| Jason Heaton | to get in on some of these. I don't I don't think we have |
| James Stacy | Hulu up here. Yeah. Uh so that'll be great. And a big thank you to Bertie for being willing to uh jump on the mic with uh with Jason. Uh Jason speaking of, next up we have uh Thomas Peshak. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Thomas Peshak, another amazing guy. Um he's a national geographic explorer and photographer specializing in documenting the beauty and fragility of the world's last wild places. This is also from his website, by the way. Um he's trained as a marine biologist. He embraced photography and storytelling after realizing his photographs could have a greater impact than scientific statistics. Peshak has covered some of the most critical conservation narratives of our time, resulting in twenty one feature print stories for National Geographic Magazine. His images and stories have won eighteen Wildlife Photographer of the Year and seven World Press Photo Awards. He's the best-selling author of eight books, including Sharks and People and Wild Seas. His latest book, Amazon, A River's Journey from the Andes, to the Atlantic was published by National Geographic in March of this year. I have the book. It's phenomenal. Um, he also, as part of this project, um, he's one of only two photographers to have his work make up the entirety of one issue of National Geographic. So they did a an Amazon issue, I think in twenty twenty four and from cover to cover every every photo in it is is so |
| James Stacy | and and here I thought just being on the cover would be the thing to go for. Apparently being the only thing in the book is the is the move if you're Thomas Petak. |
| Jason Heaton | That's crazy. Unreal. And both these guys, Birdie and Thomas Petchak, they've like each of them has like a million followers on Instagram. So um go check them out. They're they're both amazing guys. So anyway, let's uh jump into this uh short chat with Thomas Peschak. So you know I I know something about you, but for for our listeners, um if anyone isn't familiar with with your work or who you are, um let's just say you're it this happens a lot. You people talk about an elevator pitch, but you know, oftentimes you find yourself on an airplane, there's someone next to you, and they ask you what you do, who you are? How do you describe that? I say I'm an accountant. So I can go to |
| James Stacy | sleep, but they don't bother me, to be honest. |
| Bertie Gregory | I do taxes for a living and that probably shuts the conversation |
| James Stacy | down immediately, and they leave me alone for the rest of the trip. |
| Bertie Gregory | If I say I'm a national geographic photographer, |
| James Stacy | I'm I'm in trouble for the next eight |
| Bertie Gregory | hours. No, um, my name is Thomas Peschuk. Um I'm a |
| James Stacy | national geographic iEplxorer and photographer. And um I used to be a marine biologist. |
| Jason Heaton | And I've been um working in the storytelling photography field now for the last 20 years, uh, most of that for National |
| James Stacy | Geographic. And I I I began specializing |
| Jason Heaton | in telling stories about the world's oceans and coastlines, |
| James Stacy | really looking at sort of the interface between marine biodiversity and humanity, and you know, documenting some of the world's last wild places and also, you know, photographing the core environmental threats to the world's oceans. And then, you know, more recently, I also began telling terrestrial stories, mainly in the conservation realm. And then most recently, |
| Bertie Gregory | I spent uh 396 |
| James Stacy | days in the Amazon basin uh to document the aquatic underwater worlds of |
| Bertie Gregory | the world's largest rainforest, the world's |
| James Stacy | in largest river ecosystem. And |
| Jason Heaton | yeah, I I I try to |
| James Stacy | really tell stories um to drive measurable conservation impact. You know, I'm I'm less interested in you know overall raising awareness. I'm more interested in in in trying to tailor my stories to actually drive measurable conservation |
| Bertie Gregory | impact over both short, medium, and long-term |
| Bertie Gregory | time spans. Trevor Burrus Yeah. I'm curious, |
| Jason Heaton | you know, the kind of work you do, and when you think about somebody who was a biologist in the science field, photography,, um both disciplines arguably you could consider introverted. You know, draw might might draw introverts or people that are more kind of I know there's collaboration involved, but like so much of your work now, case in point, we're doing this interview now and you've done many over the past year, I'm sure. Involve telling your story and becoming more of a public figure. You know, you have a million followers on Instagram. Like is that comfortable for you? Do you are you is that I'm not gonna ask if it's something you sought, but but how do you balance kind of the work with presenting stories and being kind of a public figure? I mean most of us who are photographers or filmmakers, we |
| James Stacy | we we really thrive being behind a camera. Right? You know, we we we |
| Jason Heaton | love to tell other you know, we |
| James Stacy | love to tell the story of others, whether |
| Bertie Gregory | the other is a a jaguar |
| James Stacy | or a great white shark or a or |
| Bertie Gregory | a conservationist. We're behind the camera |
| James Stacy | for a reason. But having |
| Bertie Gregory | said that, um Um when |
| Jason Heaton | you are a conservation |
| James Stacy | photographer and when your goal is to drive measurable conservation impact, um you can't always do what you're comfortable doing, right? And the reality is that in this day and age, uh people |
| Bertie Gregory | are often more interested in people |
| James Stacy | than in animals or ecosystems. And if you |
| Jason Heaton | want to have a measurable impact, you |
| James Stacy | need to really become an ambassador, a spokesperson, a mouthpiece |
| Bertie Gregory | for the species or the ecosystems that |
| James Stacy | you're advocating for. Um, which involves you getting your back set out of bed and getting on a stage in front of you know five, six thousand |
| Jason Heaton | people, or getting into a |
| Bertie Gregory | TV studio and doing a |
| Jason Heaton | live show with X or doing you know 100 podcasts or or sitting down to you know interviews with you know the Wall Street Journal or |
| James Stacy | so at the end of the day you you at |
| Bertie Gregory | the beginning you're not comfortable with it |
| James Stacy | and you're not good at it either. I mean bottom line is I mean this is like photography right you you you you know you know you might be okay at it at the beginning but if you do a hundred interviews, if you do radio, if you do you, know, TV, if you like |
| Jason Heaton | at the end of the day, you can you can you can get better. You can you can you can become more adept at it. And now I think it it's just part of my my conservation media impact repertoire. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um whether I'm making images |
| Jason Heaton | or whether I'm talking about them or whether I I'm doing a live show on stage or whether I'm on TV. I mean at the end of the day, it it's kind of it's all part of the same |
| Bertie Gregory | same thing at the end of the |
| James Stacy | day, cause photography for me is just a tool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Photography is a tool |
| James Stacy | to make a difference. And so is speaking or sitting down for an interview. Yeah. So no, certainly not my favorite activity, but one one where I definitely see its value and I see the importance and and it's something, you know, becoming a a quasi public |
| Jason Heaton | persona and becoming a a a a ambassador and a spokesperson for |
| Bertie Gregory | in our environment, that's something |
| James Stacy | that I had to embrace and get comfortable |
| Jason Heaton | with and and here we are. Yeah. Yeah. Guessing after years of doing this you've you've developed a a level of confidence, but do you ever feel a sense of pressure to bring the story home, to to bring the story back? And I mentioned earlier when we were in the group, uh this idea of you know things going wrong, equipment failures or health issues. I mean, uh i in your line of work, if if you had broken your ankle uh three weeks into the trip, uh that would have been very problematic. Um do do you feel that daily sort of pressure of the team around you, the equipment, |
| Bertie Gregory | the the the pressure is unbearable most of the time. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. These assignments are not |
| James Stacy | fun luxury holidays as |
| Jason Heaton | much as I want them to be. No, um I mean sure there are moments that are awe-inspiring and that are |
| James Stacy | just utterly amazing and and and thrilling, but most of it is uh most of what I do is just a hard grind. It's a hard grind with a a a a gigaton of pressure on my on my on my on my and a body and mind of of you know of having of having to produce what I promised I was going to produce. And you know, when you're when you're pitching ideas or projects or stories, you walk a really fine line because if you're too conservative and you're like and your pitch and your idea is just, you know, you play it safe, like, okay, I know I can do this. No one's interested because it's it's it's it's it's not exciting. Um if you really go out on a limb and you just go and you promise the you know the world on a golden platter, then you might not be able to deliver what you promised, and then that's equally bad. So it's a fine line, and and and so I always try to pitch at that sort of sharp edge of things where it's ambitious and it's hard, but it's, you know, it's doable. With Amazon, what I pitched was Borderline Impossible. The idea, the project, what I wanted to do was right at the edge. Um, I would say it was almost on the other side of the edge. Um that could have gone either way. Um the ambition, the scale, the time frame. Looking back at it, I don't know what possessed me, to be honest. Aaron Powell |
| Jason Heaton | What was the kernel of the idea? When did this when did this come to you, this idea to trace the entire length of of the Amazon from source to mouth? Aaron |
| James Stacy | Powell I mean, at its at its root um was the fact that I became complacent and a little bit bored in the ocean. And that's a you know sacrilegious thing to say. All right. I mean, oh my God, he became I mean, what a, you know, um not bored, but just, you know, when you shoot in the ocean for 20 years and when you've had you know have an even longer relationship with it in as a marine biologist and before that as as a as a diver um things became not boring but, pedestrian. I became too comfortable, I became very familiar. I kind of had a had a shtick, I had a repertoire of things I would do, you know, and you know, and there's only so many ways you can photograph a shark or a humpback whale or a you know fur seal. Um and I felt like my work was was becoming a little bit predictable. And I I pride myself of be uh I pride myself of being at the cutting edge. I pride myself um about doing things that no one else has ever done before. I I pride myself to pioneer new and exciting things. And that was getting hard in the ocean. And also, you know, the you know my viewpoint became a little bit fixed. So I I I I was just feeling a little bit stuck. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. And I then pivoted |
| James Stacy | to terrestrial stories. I pivoted to |
| Jason Heaton | telling um you know um a |
| James Stacy | story about well, first a story about Seabirds, which is sort of a quasi-terrestrial, quasi-marine story, and then I and then I did two complete land stories. Uh one story um in northern Mozambique about the Nyasa National Reserve, this incredible and protected area where I know 40,000 people live within its boundaries. And it's a place where humanity and wildlife have to have to coexist. Um and then I did a story on climate change in the Kahahari Desert. And um Loved those experiences. It was all new. It was fresh. It was exciting. I I I didn't know what I was doing at the beginning, which was great. Um but I just missed being underwater. I missed, I I realized that I realized that at my core I was an aquatic being. And that, but I wasn't ready to go back to ocean photography. I wasn't ready just to re-embrace the sharks and the dolphins and the whales and the and the you know and the squid and the sea stars. Um and around that time I I came across a scientific paper about um dams in the Amazon basin. And there were uh you know there was a statistic that kind of stopped me in my tracks and it was something and I can't remember the exact number, but it was like I think to date over six hundred dams have already been built to cross the watershed of the Amazon River, and a further 600 plus are scheduled to be built or in various stages of construction. And even me as a marine biologists knew that that dams at that sort of scale are a are a death knell to freshwater biodiversity. I mean uh and that was sort of a wake-up call thing like hang on a second um there's this aquatic wilderness to the size of Australia. I mean if you were to superimpose the Amazon basin on on North America, the source would be around it's in in in Tucson, Arizona and the Mouth in DC, and you know, the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystem on our planet. And I was just thinking, like, here's this place that is every bit, if not more, endangered than the oceans that I've been helping to protect for over twenty years. Yet everybody goes there to photograph trees and flowers and monkeys and and and and and class you know, the Amazon has been a conservation stalwart, an icon for over half a decade. And most people see it as only a rainforest. And all of a sudden it clicked in me, saying, hang on, here's here's this, here's this incredible aquatic ecosystem that has been completely neglected, both from a storytelling, you know, mainly from a storytelling perspective. And here's this gigantic threat. And the more I started to look, I found other threads, you know, overfishing in the Amazon basin, as every bit as a big issue as in the ocean. Uh pollution, uh, from mining, uh, logging, um, climate change. Um, like wow, okay, the more I was looking, the more threats I was finding, and the more I was realizing that time was running out for the aquatic um biodiversity of the Amazon River Basin. And uh it was just like, well, you know, here's a place whereere I can use my aquatic skill set, yet I am also going to be a rank beginner in the high Andes in the lowland rainforest. So it's like this this sounds like a really cool thing. So I I I went to National Geographic. Um I pitched the idea. Um they they made me a National Geographic fellow uh for this project. And the idea was to just produce like a 30-page Nacho magazine cover story. Simple, you know, underwater Amazon, 30 pages, boom, done. Um, and as I was about to go out the door, uh COVID hits. And of course that shut and the Amazon thing down. It was too complicated. And and so that sort of that um so I went out to other projects that were feasible during COVID. Um, worked in the Kalahari and worked down in Antarctica. And in those two years, um there was just um a synergy uh moment where National Geographic and you know Rolex's Prophet Planet Program were uh getting really interested in and doing sort of a rainforest type expedition. And they hadn't worked out where yet. And um, you know, they put us on a call together, everybody, and uh and I sort of told them what I was gonna do, my expedition, uh and they were talking about, you know, their interests and it was just it was just this real exciting synergy. And you know, you know, over a year plus, um we transformed my original idea of kind of, you know, doing this comprehensive Amazon underwater story. And we turned it into what we now know as the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition. And in addition to me, you know, crossing the Amazon basin to photograph the aquatic underworlds, we also created this really rigorous scientific component, you know, bringing in all these awesome and incredible and scientists working at the cutting edge. And I was now also going to be spending time with them. In addition to my expedition across the basin, I was going to be stopping off in different places to photograph some of the most cutting-edge research in the Amazon. And that's how how this project was born. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Was did you know at the beginning that it was gonna be almost 400 days or did it become 400 days? Was it did you plan for this? |
| James Stacy | You know, originally when it was only my project, m my initial seed of an idea, I think it was going like 1000, 12 days or something like that. And then, you know, as you know, when Rolex and became involved, it kind of grew to probably two 50. And then it just kind of, and then we, and then we added the ocean component to it because of the plume and then and eventually ended up at three st it ended up at that number. Um so it was always gonna be big but uh I think none of us uh realized the the the type of monster we were creating. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Did you do this in I apologize, I got the book last week so I haven't read the whole thing, but I'm curious, did you were you able to dip in and out? Did you go home in between certain stages? I had a |
| James Stacy | break or two. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Where is home? Just curious. |
| James Stacy | Home is based in Cape Town, South Africa. Oh, it is. Okay. I've been based there since the late 90s. |
| Jason Heaton | What's your uh what's your conception of home? Uh do you do you miss home when you're on on these expeditions? I mean this is a really long time to be away. Like or do you have a do you have a little piece of home that you take with you? Is uh uh is it as important to you to like have your thing your your things around you, your home, your special coffee that you like, you know, things like that. I mean, how do you balance that? |
| Bertie Gregory | Um you know, I I'm I'm I'm |
| James Stacy | human. Yeah. So you know uh you know, of course you're gonna miss miss home. Um home is where where the dogs are, where the books are, where the where the Land Rover is parked, right, at the end of the day. Um, home is where my partner is. Um luckily she was able to travel with me, you know, on parts of the Amazon expedition. So um you know I was able to bring parts of home with me on this expedition. Um but no I mean you you just to be honest you you suffer through the homesickness. Um that's just part of the, that's part of the deal. That that's part of the you know that's part of the deal that you signed with the with the universe at the end of the day. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um no, um it |
| James Stacy | was a very long time and and I emerged from the rainforest, um both physically and mentally broken. And it's taken me two years to put it all back together again. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. Could you see yourself doing another trip or expedition this long this vast? |
| James Stacy | The wonderful thing of the human brain is that we we we we put a um a great emphasis on all the positive experience and we have a way to f file away all the horrible stuff um right in the back drawer somewhere underneath the you know the the kitchen towels. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Right next to the, you |
| James Stacy | know, the the roller pin. And I looking had, I known what I know now, I would never have done it like this. I would have, I would have, you know, to do this in a healthy way, you would need to do it over four years. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um because look, normally, if |
| James Stacy | you think about it, normally you can do about one and a half national geographic magazine stories a year without losing your mind. This expedition was six Natchio magazine stories back to |
| Bertie Gregory | back. So the the the looking |
| James Stacy | at it now i in that way, it was the most ambitious and probably the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life, uh, in terms of you know thinking that this would be uh an a good idea. Yeah. Um am I glad that I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely not. Um I think moving forward, I am certainly never gonna shy away from um doing and proposing hyper ambitious projects. Um, but I think as we grow a little bit older and as we, you know, are um becoming more and more anchored in middle age, uh, we become a little bit smarter and we're able to uh be a little bit more um strategic uh how we allocate our mental and physical resources. So I think that I would just um I would still be every bit as ambitious, but I would uh do it in a um in a way that was more um sustainable and healthier for me and my team. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Aside from your camera gear, what would you say is the is there a piece of kit that you take with you on expeditions that you find essential, whether it's something sentimental or something useful that you rely on day in and day out. |
| James Stacy | The most important piece of equipment is my brain. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. At the end of the day, right? A camera |
| James Stacy | is a box that lets in light. And a camera is a tool. But realistically all the images are made in your head. Um you know every bit of equipment is just a tool that helps you to uh execute on and and deliver upon an idea or a thought or a plan that your brain is cooked up. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah. Um so I think |
| James Stacy | that's number one. I think gear wise, I'm I'm not a big uh I mean I have a lot of gear. As you can imagine, I have an entire studio, you know, full of gear um in South Africa, but uh gear is just a gigantic pain in the backside at the end of the day for me. Um, I have a I have a love-hate relationship with gear because I obviously need it, but I also hate not traveling with it and and lugging it everywhere. Yeah. Um not I mean probably the the the so the one the one bit of luxury that I schlep with me all over the the the in the world is is my own pillow. |
| Bertie Gregory | Oh really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's |
| James Stacy | sort of that's sort of that's uh yeah. My own pillow is my one non negotiable. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. That's great. That's a good one. Yeah. Um yeah, we well can wrap up here quickly or soon. But um I'm just curious also with regard to sentimentality and gear. Um you're obviously very tied closely with Rolex, you're wearing an Explorer 2. Um first question, why not a submariner being a uh a diver? Maybe you have one as well, but uh |
| James Stacy | just you prefer that one or this was the most um it just felt the most organic in terms of the the you know the Amazon expedition had a very strong aquatic underwater component but it also had a real you know above water exploration feel to it because to get to these underwater places, we had to surmount, you know, some of the highest mountains in the Andes and some of the most, you know, um, you know, and deepest, most remote swamps. So so there was also this sort of classic exploration component. And I just felt that I think we just felt that the the explorer was just |
| Jason Heaton | a yeah a better all around |
| James Stacy | fit for the the the you know for this type of expedition. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah it's a great watch. Um I are are you a watch person or is it what does a watch represent? Is it is it kind of you don't want to get you in trouble, but like is it sort of gotta please the sponsor, so I'll wear the watch? Or are you a do you see it as something that you you wear as a memento or um |
| James Stacy | so so I I'm gonna be completely in blunt and honest about it. Uh pre expedition, |
| Bertie Gregory | yeah, I wasn't into watches at all. Yeah. |
| James Stacy | Uh pre expedition it was it it was kind of you know a watch tells time and I was not wedded to any particular watch. And um when I got the the Explorer, um it was just an instant connection to it, I guess. It was just like, huh. This just I don't know. It just connected with me for whatever reason. And now, you know, after after wearing it, you know, all three hundred ninety-six days and and wearing it, you know, uh now it's become my my my daily companion, you know, both in in you know both in daily life and in expedition life. So so I've I've I've become a watch person throughout my experience and now I I I you know I wouldn't want to be without it. |
| Bertie Gregory | Yeah, yeah, interesting. Well that's that's |
| Jason Heaton | all great. You said through, but uh appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Happy to |
| James Stacy | do so. Yeah, great. All right. Sorry to say that that is now over and you're back to the normal show. What a treat to have Thomas Peschak on. Boy, we are just very blessed after even 380 episodes with the folks that that we get to talk to and kind of engage with. And this was super cool. Uh please dig into everything that Jason spoke about before. It'll all be in the show notes. Uh some really, really great stuff, but not not wanting to drag any longer than we need to. A huge thank you to Thomas for being on uh on Mike for the show. Uh hope we get to cross paths sometime in the future. Super glad that uh you and Jason got to chat. Uh you want to jump into some final notes? I feel like w what what left is there to say? I mean I uh mine's pretty soft as far as things go for this episode. But it's kind of nice for the summer. We can get into it if you want. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um well people probably been listening to my voice for a while now. Why don't you take the first uh the first hit at the final notes this week? |
| James Stacy | Sure. Look, people know me for a lot of things, and one of them I guess is also my love of fans, just moving air. Uh I told you it was soft. It's definitely soft. I have a I have a problem and I think it's shared among a lot of the TGN Slack, the crew that I've met, which is like you have things in your life where when you've decided you want to replace them, you have to go down, you have to become an expert in those things. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And so I've I've gone |
| James Stacy | down a journey recently to replace and and add some fans in my life. Fans have come a long way in the last few years, especially in the world of like I think they're called like air circulators. |
| Jason Heaton | So like where the fan isn't blowing directly |
| James Stacy | at you. Yeah. But it's powerful enough that it can remove it can move air all around the room. And uh the one thing I would do want to make clear, whether or not you want this fan or not, it doesn't really make any difference to me, but I do want to make it clear, I have no relationship with this brand. Um, I actually found their name because I bought a smart dehumidifier from them, |
| Jason Heaton | yeah, which I really like and my it pings |
| James Stacy | me when the tank has to be emptied, which is just a nice feature. Um, but I have no relationship with this brand. I paid full Amazon price for multiple fans uh from them after doing my research. Um, but I highly recommend and I I can't at this point the the their website's complicated. I'm 40 years old. I'm not built for this anymore. Uh, but this is Dreo, is the brand, and it the fan is the Turbo Poly 512. It looks like they maybe have the 513 now. I don't really care. Um, I wanted their best fan that had no smart features. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. What I will tell you is I went from |
| James Stacy | whatever the Amazon number one pick tower fan was a decade ago. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And this fan |
| James Stacy | is so quiet. It's affecting my sleep. Hmm. Because I can't turn it up. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Because it's way then then you're like you're |
| James Stacy | in a wind tunnel while trying to sleep. And and for those of you listening, yes, I do have the terrible habit of largely enjoying I. don't need it. I can sleep without it. But enjoying a fan on me when I'm sleeping. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Not that uncommon, |
| James Stacy | but I know it's frowned upon by some elements. So I I've had a tower fan for years. It's very loud, but didn't really move that much air. This is the exact opposite. Um, currently, if you're listening to the recording, the fan is on in my office. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh wow. And I did several test recordings |
| James Stacy | because you cannot hear it. I could feel it, |
| Jason Heaton | but you can't hear it. It's |
| James Stacy | really silent. It looks pretty good. It has a remote control that's not that special. I can tell you that at the higher settings, like I think it's on two out of nine right now, at the higher settings, it's like you want to go sailing. Like it's just an unbelievable. I have no idea who needs this much air. And then I watched a video and apparently you're supposed to angle the fan up in the corner of the room and just let it fill the whole room with moving air. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. Which works really well. That's what I do in |
| James Stacy | my office now. Because I'm not joking, and and again, maybe some of you have a modern fan, maybe you have one of these fans, but like if I point it towards my desk and then turn it up on a hot day, it blows everything off my desk. All the papers, all the little like spring bars are rolling away, all this sort of stuff. And so you can kind of put it in more of like a full room scenario. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I've just been really happy with it's a hundred dollars |
| James Stacy | Canadian. So check it out if you're keen. Um I I like it this time of year. Uh those of you who followed the show recently we I moved my office to the top of the house. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Which means I now live in the hottest room |
| James Stacy | in the house or work in the hottest room r versus the coolest. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I can't run the AC |
| James Stacy | all the time because then my little tiny baby son, who lives in the coolest room, would freeze. So you kind of have to use that small, very easily cooled room as the core temperature decider for the house. So I quickly realized I needed a fan up here. I did a a bunch of research. And outside of the ones that are really smart fans, um, or where you're into like eight, seven, eight hundred dollars for a Dyson, which I'm just I don't care that much. Yeah, I can be hot. That's okay if that's if that's what it costs. Uh but I was super impressed by this for a hundred dollars. Same money that I spent a decade ago on the last fan. And I bought it an up. So I have one for my office, I have one for the bedroom, and I'm considering one for the cottage as well, where some airflow in that main space can be pretty tight 'cause there's the windows are very small on an old building. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But yeah, just uh it's really good. |
| James Stacy | I've rambled on about a fan. I'll let it go now. But that's great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'm a I'm a big big fan of fans myself as well. And don't I I'm gonna resist making only only fans jokes here. |
| James Stacy | Oh yes. Hey, hey, it's a family show. It's |
| Jason Heaton | a family show. But uh quick question for you. |
| James Stacy | Are you do you have you gotten to the point because I maybe I'm just psychotic? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I kind of feel bad turning on my AC. Mm. Yeah. I resist |
| James Stacy | like really hot. I resist AC until |
| Jason Heaton | it gets super sticky. Uncomfortable. Yeah, and really uncomfortable. Um I've really become a a Acolyte um ceiling fans. I think I I think the more rooms you can put ceiling fans in, and I suppose that's kind of the the effect you're getting with this Dreo is kind of overall air movement um as opposed to just like blasting on your face, which is you know, as you said earlier, some people frown upon that sort of thing. But uh air movement is so critical. Yeah. Right.. Yeah We've been doing it for a decade. Oh man. |
| James Stacy | Hopefully if you didn't if you uh if you skip through this segment of the show, you're just landing back in. Jason's gonna talk about something cooler than a fan. I mean, not physically cooler to be clear. That's the point of the fan, but more interesting than a fan. I I just um I am an acolyte of this product and uh and yeah, I'm I'm I'm in and I was impressed, so I thought I'd share. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's great. Okay. All right. |
| James Stacy | So what have you got for us? Yeah. Well, uh you |
| Jason Heaton | know, before I move into mine, I just want to drop a little technology thing here and and mention the the DJI mic three, um, which is something you turned me on to for these field recordings that I did with Birdie and Thomas earlier in this episode. Um |
| James Stacy | we are we are definitely going to get burned for seeming like influencers. I I'm talking about Drail fans. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, right. Okay and now now we're talking DJI. |
| James Stacy | I paid full price for the DJI. I assume you paid full for yours or whatever. Whatever Amazon price was. |
| Jason Heaton | Yes. I was I was blown away by how simple these things are. They're they're just they're so good. |
| James Stacy | I will bring you I will pr I'll 3D print you some handles so that you can hold them like a microphone. Did you just clip them to our Yeah. I mean it's it's as somebody who's been recording audio for a decade for the show, but really started doing, you know, vlogging for watches and that sort of thing like five, six years before that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. In some metric, even back to watch report, |
| James Stacy | we were trying to make videos. It blows my mind. I know this makes me an old man, but it blows my mind how good it is now and how small it is to carry. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. You just clip it on a lapel and and and hit one button and it records to this tiny little device. And then you bring it back, put it in its holder, plug in the USB, and download the files. I mean, I I I I remember when I first got it, I was like, can you explain how this thing works? And you're like, uh you push a button. I mean, it's really amazing. Yeah. |
| James Stacy | If you're if you're in the audio production space for things in the field, it's worth considering for sure. There's some other stuff that's nice to have, but if you're just looking for the tiniest field recorder that ever existed and you have two of them, |
| Jason Heaton | it was perfect that this exists. It was it was great to be able to just carry that around. Doesn't even cost |
| James Stacy | that much. Yeah. Well, okay. |
| Jason Heaton | And now on to my final note, which is decidedly Birds. We can say, yeah, more low-tech. Um with a high-tech element to it because it's a podcast. It's called uh Get Birding with um Sean Bean. Um Sean Bean |
| James Stacy | starting this immediately. The British actor Sean |
| Jason Heaton | Bean who's got one of the great voices in um I don't know in theater, in in film, whatever. Um I've always been a huge fan of Sean Bean, you know, Ronan, Sharp, um, Goldeneye, etc., Lord of the Rings. I mean, just amazing. Um uh he uh who knew he hosts a podcast about bird watching and his delivery is this calm, pleasant. He he's really gets into this stuff. He's interviewing you know experts. There's an episode, the one I listened to uh most recently was called Birding for Mental Health. And he's just kind of talking about how um, you know, bird watching can can kind of bring the calm element to your life and and kind of improve your mental health. Um, you know, he he brings in different guests. Uh he's done Will Young and Samuel West and David Gray. It's just this kind of pleasant podcast that is Sean Bean talking about birding. And you know, I'm not a super avid birdcherwat. I can see myself getting there one day because it's like you can do it right in your backyard. You can introduce a camera to the whole thing. You can you can go as far as deep or or shallow as you want with bird watching or birding in this I guess is the proper word here. But uh to have Sean Bean talking about it and listening to that while I'm doing my dog walks in the in the morning uh has just really improved my life. So check that one out. |
| James Stacy | Man, it's so good. I love one, it's uh it's touted by when I went to subscribe to it, the UK's leading bird watching podcast. And for people for people who either don't realize we have show notes, we do, you can check them out at the Great NAVO.com if you're asking. But the feedback where they go we, need to be able to see what you're talking about, make a video version. It could be worse. We could be talking about birds that you can't see. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Uh I'm I'm pumped |
| James Stacy | for this. Uh yeah. I for me it it this feels very downstream of Bill Nye's podcast. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Uh that you recommended as well. |
| James Stacy | All right. There you go. That's a full episode. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I hope people like that one. Uh it was fun to interview uh Thomas Petchak and Bertie Gregory, and uh thanks uh to Rolex for inviting me out there and to National Geographic for hosting. It was a it was a good time and next week more Rolex stuff when we're gonna talk to you about uh sale GP in Halifax. |
| James Stacy | Looking forward to it. Yeah look as always thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes get into the co com. Music Throat is siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from David Livingston who said, I will go anywhere as long as it's forward. |