UTD Podcast #2 – Ghost Net Removal Diving

spk_0:   0:05
everybody. I'm Jeff's. Seo changed its name. You Didi scuba diving.

spk_1:   0:16
Well, as you do my team diving or you didn't

spk_0:   0:18
score you depending about how you could have an official name. It's you to D C. Yeah. Welcome to the podcast, Jeff. Second Dorf, CEO of Utd Scuba diving. And I'm here with Ben Boss, the training director. Hey, Ben!

spk_1:   0:34
Hi, everyone

spk_0:   0:36
and our incredible special Guest and Utd instructor Kim Kardashian iss Take him.

spk_2:   0:44
Hey, man. Thanks for having me.

spk_0:   0:46
How fun, Right most. So tonight we want to talk about ghost net removal, diving from a training perspective, which I think is super cool. So Kim is a seriously bad ass net removal diver and has been doing this for what? How many years

spk_2:   1:07
I started in 2013 About seven years.

spk_0:   1:10
Okay, Seven. That's incredible. So what I want to do tonight is talk about the not so much specifically about the diving, because we'll get into that a little bit. But I'm really interested in the training that led you to do this, Kim. And, um you know the the training we've done in other kinds of scientific diving I've done tons of urchin removal I know, Ben, you've done a bunch of scientific stuff. To what? But I want to talk about I want to talk. Keep it sort of focused from a training perspective. Since that's what we do, right? We are training agency, and, you know, I think it requires a bunch of kind of unique skills. Uh, and so how do you as a Utd instructor as a longtime technical diver? And now is this net removal Divers see this whole training package come together? Uh, that, you know, you've You've created this certain avocation for yourself, which is super cool. So, um yeah, you want to just let's just dig right in And, um, you know, let's start with what is net removal? Diving? What's ghost Net diving?

spk_2:   2:20
Okay, Well, so that the official term is derelict fishing gear D E F G, which is abandoned, typically commercial fishing gear, gill net squid nets and then the different types of traps. Mostly, what we see here in California is lobster in crab, Dungeness crab traps, and what happens is the commercial fisher in. They lose about 20% of their gear every year due to a variety of reasons. It could be, um, storm activity. You know, when they've deployed their traps, um, they usually put them out and come back and check them 24 to 48 hours later. So during that time, if a storm comes through, it could move the trap. It could separate the trap from its marker buoy, and so when they go back to retrieve it, they can't find it sits on the ocean floor. And that's why it's called Ghost Gear, because it it continues to fish, right? It's continuing. You know, animals are continuing to go into the trap, and I No one's coming to retrieve the trap. So it just sits there. Overtime for years and years that sometimes and traps and killed animals. The Nets,

spk_0:   3:44
20% 20%. Seems like a lot.

spk_2:   3:47
It is a lot, um, you know. So for every 100 traps every year that a fisherman they may use that season, he's losing 20 of them well, and then that the, uh, the nets, Typically they get snagged on a wreck or a reef or something like that. Um, there's a mishap on the boat. It fought, you know, comes loose. And so those those end up usually ah, stuck on, you know, some kind of a structure snagged onto the structure. Um, and again, it's not intentional. It's not the fishermen throwing stuff away. It's It's something that happens when you're dealing with the ocean. It's the unexpected. So

spk_0:   4:29
economically it seems like nobody is in favor of this happening. So

spk_2:   4:33
absolutely, absolutely,

spk_1:   4:35
no matter effect. I know that for sure that back in Holland, when I was doing sports diving in the North Sea, which is like a flat, sandy bottom with Rex on it, and the trawling nets often got caught in the shipwrecks. It was a big, big, big loss for the fishermen because thes nets are expensive, these big trawling nets, they use their super expensive.

spk_2:   4:59
Yeah, absolutely so. And then the hazard, of course, is then to our marine life, particularly marine mammals. Um, I think everybody's seen those pictures of whales swimming along with hundreds of pounds of line and nets and everything else dragging after, um, eventually that you know, eventually animal can't swim or they'll lose fins. Circulation gets cut off, you know, And so eventually animals not gonna make it. I'm not to mention all the smaller fish and sea lions, you know, crustaceans and things like that are also killed in numerous, you know, numbers by by this gear. Um, a secondary to the commercial Fishing is is there's recreational fishing line. Um, and we can talk about this maybe more later. But we have, ah, Hawaii chapter. And most of their problem there is fishing line. Not, but not the nets and traps. But, you know, there's thousands of feet of fishing line all over the reefs over there.

spk_0:   6:08
That just seems like he'd be a crazy, tedious job to pick all that up. Yeah,

spk_2:   6:12
it iss it is laborious or

spk_1:   6:15
even to spot because they're they're hard to spot these thin.

spk_2:   6:19
Yeah, but I mean, you know, what's the cost of a life, right? Saving potentially a very large, you know, mammal or whale or any kind of marine life.

spk_0:   6:31
Is that your motivation to do it?

spk_2:   6:32
Absolutely. You know, it's fun, and it's fulfilling, and I have I get to do something I love, which is diving with a higher purpose. But I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, it's too to prevent animal entanglements and unnecessary, you know, death. We don't have some of these species. There's not a lot of them left now.

spk_0:   6:56
Is there a long term solution to losing 20% of your fishing here?

spk_2:   6:59
There's all kinds of new technology. Um, it's it's matter of getting it to be cost effective. You know, you could use different materials that degrade over time. And you know, the nets are made out of material that stay in the ocean for hundreds of years. There's other materials that will degrade much quicker, but it's very expensive. I'm with the traps. Um, there's a trap on the bottom with a line that goes up to the surface to a buoy and those those lines, or what often catch the whales on their migration patterns. They'll swim, you know, because they'll put out lines off four rows and rows of these traps, you know, hundreds of yards wide, and it's like a document that whale house to swim through. So he's getting caught in these lines. So there's a technology where the line and the buoy actually stay down on the bottom with the trap. And when the fisherman comes to retrieve it, he hit some kind of a remote button that shoots the buoy up to the surface, and then he can pull that trap up from there. Ah, a lot of these things are just not cost effective and they're not, you know, readily available. A lot of the fishermen are they're working on a very, very minimal profit margins, so things have to be cost effective for them. So yes, to answer the question. There's a lot of technology out there, but it's not really in use at this time.

spk_0:   8:31
Wow, Ben did these lot. These numbers line up with what you see in Europe. This is Kim's diving off the coast of California.

spk_1:   8:38
Yeah, that if I mean the ghost nets we've seen I've seen in the past in Holland are our media majorities trawling? That's because that's only fishing that's done. Obviously you see, you know the fishing lines from recreational fishermen that gets that get sailed out to wreck sites where they fish for card, mostly, and they use a you know, a fishing rod and line going down, and these hooks get caught in the wrecks, and then they lose them. So you see the lead weights with lines and the hooks on Rex. Um, and but mostly it's the big trawling nets in Holland, under coast of the North Sea. Here in the northern part of Europe, in Denmark and stuff like that, the coast is or the bottom is very different. And there we see a different array we see, like these funnel shaped nets. I don't know what you call them, but they're they're used for, you know, catching the smallest fish on the bottom. And they get sometimes the buoys that mark their location get lost, O r get ripped off, and then they have no idea to find those nets again. And they'll stay there. Um, but we see a lot of on the recreational dive sites here in this area. We see a lot of recreational fishing, um, lying on the bottom and lead weights as well. A lot of lead weights.

spk_0:   10:03
Interesting. So all right, well, so let's get into the into the training part, because that's what we do. And that's one of the That's what really interests me about this conversation, particularly with Kim. So, um, so you're the company you're working with? Kim is ocean defenders. It's here based in L. A in Los Angeles. And you said there's a chapter in Hawaii, right?

spk_2:   10:24
Correct. Ocean Defenders Alliance.

spk_0:   10:26
So, um, where do we start? So how did you get hooked up with these guys?

spk_2:   10:33
So they were founded as a 501 c three nonprofit in 2000. Um, and since their local I had friends and colleagues and acquaintances who were volunteer divers with them and I have been hearing about him for years. Um, and I've always had a lifelong interest in, you know, environmental awareness and environmental protection and love of the ocean. And so I kind of was following them anyway. And then, um, late 2000 2000 12 or something like that. I I had some real close friends that were diving with him, and I just said, Hey, can I, you know, volunteer the diver, and that's basically what happened. I was recommended, and the founder, Kurt Lever, had me come out and and just started diving with him from there. And that's basically it was sort of word of mouth, really, and just hearing about them through through people I knew.

spk_0:   11:46
So what was what was your very first dive with them, like

spk_2:   11:50
my first dive. Uh, we went out to There's a chain of islands out here off the coast, the Channel Islands and a lot of the diving, and that we do, we dive right outside them. Or there's a series of marine protected areas in California, which is great. They've been very successful, but thieves marine protected areas have an abundance of fish and wildlife because they're protected. So what the fisherman do is they fish right outside the boundary of the marine protected area. And so we went to one of the island's Anacapa Island and this was looking for lobster traps and we dropped in. We had scooters, and we just do a search grid, Um, and when you start to get very good at it because you're looking for something that's not a natural shape, it's square, right. There's no right angles in nature, so you start to get really good. You find the traps, you attach a lift bag and shoot him up. So that day, my first day, we've found five traps in two dives, and I don't think we've ever found that many sense. So that was super. Yeah, Yeah, it was We were shooting bags up left and right. Yeah. Wow.

spk_0:   13:12
So how do you How do you How do you get to that point where you're comfortable jumping the water, grab a scooter, and basically, day one starts searching for and and raising traps off the bottom. Right. So what's your background? Is a diver Kim that makes you comfortable doing this?

spk_2:   13:35
Um, I would have to say my training, probably the two most important parts of my training that I think I would have to say, are the most important in this kind of diving is team and situational awareness. You know, good boy, and see Yes, of course, that matters. And good trim and things like that. But it's really, really a team effort when you're so the minute you touch a net or a trap for anything instantly, it's like zero visibility because the settlement just get stirred up. So and then, on top of that, you're deploying lift bags cause you need to shoot these, the girl scare up to the surface so we can retrieve it and pull it out of the ocean. So if you're not really communicating with your your team and getting good underwater communication, and you're not aware of what's going on around you, and you're sending stuff up to the surface. You can imagine that could be become very dangerous, right? If you're you're so focused on what you're doing, and you may inadvertently be right next to somebody working to shoot up, but, you know, a lift bag. So if you're not communicating with each other before that bag goes to the surface and making sure everybody's clear, you know, you could have an incident where somebody goes up with the bag they were somehow got hooked onto it.

spk_0:   15:05
Sounds bad.

spk_2:   15:06
So I Yeah, so I see. And I'm never It's never happened, but we're very, very careful before we, you know, do anything. Everybody's gotta have eye contact, Um, and give the okay that, you know. Yes, I'm clear. And we're watching out for each other constantly. Um, and just paying attention. Listening. You know, you have to listen. I'm hearing somebody fill a bag. You know, um, with your eyes looking around, feeling you know, when you're cutting nets, when there's three people cutting the net and they're all in the same small area, you gotta watch out with your hands are not gonna cut cause those you're really hacking away at these nets. So, you know, you just really have to I'd have to say that the awareness part is the number one thing that I think I learned in training that I use here more than anything.

spk_0:   16:00
So you're a longtime tech diver and cave diver and and you and I actually, we did our cave training together. Seems like a 1,000,000,000 years ago. Um so which of those disciplines you think that gives you the most insight into how to manage the the net? Diving or either Or neither. Or do you need to be that level of diver to do this, you know, can like, do you have to be tech Cave, Deep Scooter, all this other stuff to be an accomplished? You know, Ghost Net diver?

spk_2:   16:32
Uh, you don't You don't have to um because we're not going necessarily to depths where we need mixed gas. We're not going in tow overhead environments. Uhm, but does it help? Yes, Absolutely. Because I'm used to dealing with the task loading because there's a lot going on, You know, there's zero visibility. There's off. You're fighting a current while you're trying to cut it net away. Um, in those nets are trained, you know, are designed to entangle and trap and kill things, right? That's how they were. So you know, if there's a current and when will call the dive off Oftentimes if the nets, if you're cutting it and it's coming loose away from the structure and it starts blowing in the current, let's get out of there. Um, because we don't want a diver stuck in a net. Um, but I would say you don't have to be cave or text trained, but the skills I learned from that training certainly helps. Um, most of the volunteer divers I work with are not cave in tech trained, but I I do try to informally and still a lot of these things in them. You know, situational awareness, underwater communication, task, loading things like that, making sure your gear's all buttoned up. You don't have things hanging down and, you know, potential dangling is getting stuck on stuff. So, uh, well, they don't have the training. I think they're using a lot of the protocols. You certainly apply.

spk_1:   18:22
Yeah, and I think also, regardless of what kind of trained the divers that do that kind of dives half done in the past decide effect of all kind of training is more situational awareness because you're creating Maur awareness around you by doing any kind of training under the water. So but, yeah, I totally agree what you came there. Anyone who's ever used anyone, any form of line under the water knows that line underwater has its own life. It's it's like it's reaching out for you. So now imagine swimming up to a big net that's made of line. It's It's almost like a diver's worst nightmare, and you're diving in it headfirst.

spk_0:   19:03
So what happens when ah, a recreational diver trained? So you told me the other day that, um, the requirements for this really our only that your rescue trained to get on the boat with you guys. So what happens when, um, a new diver, a recreational diver? Somebody's very focused on just, you know, blowing bubbles that, you know, 30 or 40 feet 10 12 15 meters shows up on the boat. What's their transition like, What's it like for them to come across from recreational diving? Basically, the occupational diving, Which is kind of what this sounds like.

spk_2:   19:41
It. Yeah, so there's no formal certifications or training for this kind of diving. And there's organizations all over the world doing this, but, you know, it is kind of, I guess, arbitrary or informal, um went for our organization. Typically, the diver comes of the referral from an existing known diver who's Hardy, you know, kind of come as a recommendation, and we'll take them out and they'll just shadow a team before they're actually doing any hands on work. And they may do that for one or two are up to several dives. We can it after every dive, will do a debrief and see how comfortable they are. You know, we're also watching them that the existing divers and it's a small group. We only at any given time have half a dozen, too, maybe up to 10. That's rare divers, that air diving regularly with us

spk_0:   20:43
at the same time.

spk_2:   20:44
So we're kind of, uh, no, not at the same. We have, ah, six divers, Max per trip. But our pool of divers is never more than eight or 10. So, um, so we're all pretty tight knit. And when there's a new diver being introduced, we're We're watching them underwater. We're talking to them when they come up, we're getting their sense of comfort. And then when kind of that diver agrees, and we agree that it's like, OK, you can Now instead of just watching the reasonable process, participate and then someone's watching them, you know, an intervening as needed. Stop. You know, you didn't check to see that everyone was clear before you started shooting that bag up. You know you're again. There's no standards for this. It's kind of informal, but it's more of like I want to see almost like an apprenticeship. Where would just kind of get a feel over time? Whether that person is paying attention and you know, if you can't get their attention while they're cutting a net or or trying to lift back to a trap, you know they're just so focused on it. You can't get them to even look up and acknowledge you. You know these air that needs a conversation that we have with them, so we're kind of doing on the job training because again have been mentioned. Situational awareness is key you know that there's no avoiding, uh, poor trim. And in these kind of situations, you know, because you're wrestling sometimes things where you gotta, you know, race your knee on the bottom toe, get a net. That I mean, a trap that half buried or something out. It gets pretty visible. So what? We're really what we're really looking at is are you paying attention? And are you Are you a team member? So nothing formal, just kind of we to kind of bring people along as it goes, and sometimes it's it's not for everybody, and they don't come back. You know,

spk_0:   22:50
I was just gonna ask that people jump in, they take a look and it's like, No, thank you.

spk_2:   22:54
Yeah. I mean, everybody wants to save the whales and help and are sometimes that, you know, only other have other positions. You maybe help on the topside crew. If you're not comfortable with this kind of diving because, you know, it's like I said it. Zero visibility. You have sharp knives, you're cutting nets. It's a little you know, I can be a little daunting for people.

spk_0:   23:17
We should probably mention that you weigh about £100 about 50 kilos. So you don't need to be, Ah, rugby player football player to do this,

spk_2:   23:25
right? Right, It's but I have to say the trap removal I prefer because it's less physical, the Nets. I mean, you're cutting it out. It's grown into a reef or in Iraq or something. It's hard work and that's a whole nother level. Um, you know, gas planning and things like that totally different because you're using much more gas and you have to really pay attention physiologically, what's happening because he can start over breathing and you have to take a lot of breaks.

spk_0:   23:58
It's interesting that you say there's no sort of structure training program for this. So when we developed the Utd Scientific diving program years ago, it was interesting. We're trying to figure out a model for that one, and what we turned up with was basically a five day course the 1st 2.5 days. There are normal essentials of wreck course, getting people dialed in on buoyancy, trim, gas management, gas planning all that. But then the second half of the scientific diving course, we've always left too the local instructor because every single organization. That or area has its own thing. So taking essentials of dive of scientific diving course in California is really different than the course that they're teaching in Seattle, the course that we're teaching in Hawaii, the ones that they're teaching in Korea, you know, our our guys and career doing, you know, deep, um, equipment recovery, you know, these 100 meter, 300 foot dives, recovering equipment, whereas, you know, here in California, you know, I've done a gazillion urchin dives, you know, urchin relocation dives, and there's fish counts and things like that. So it seems I could be interesting to actually create kind of a scientific diving program around this particular skill set.

spk_2:   25:19
Yeah,

spk_0:   25:19
you know what they teach People think

spk_1:   25:20
the challenge is there also lie that there is a fine line between what is working underwater and what is doing environmentally, you know, safe cleanups. Underwater. I think there's a There's a balance there between what? Dusty Yeah, the commercial diving aspect. And what's the recreational diving expect?

spk_0:   25:41
Yeah, in the United States, um, OSHA Office of Occupational Safety and Health. Something like that guides scientific divers with a very serious Siri's off regulations and things like that, some of which are not well adhered to in that community. So, um and Ben, you're absolutely right, right? There's this balance between you know what's occupational, what's recreational. And, uh, I don't know, Tim, How do you guys face that? You know, Do you consider yourself recreational divers or occupational divers or scientific divers

spk_2:   26:15
with? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's in terms of recreational diving is usually defined by the depth and timing type of gas, right, and whether it's overhead environment or not. So in that sense, these air, all recreational dives, they're all you know, no decompression, recreational profiles. But the activity that's happening during that dive, it's definitely not recreational diving. You know, you're you have to assume it's a deeper depth, right? Kind of, because you're working hard,

spk_0:   26:51
you're equivalent. Depth is effectively with them,

spk_2:   26:54
and there's no rule for that, you know, really, just just we don't push the limits, but and, you know, in that sense, it's almost like commercial diving. In a way, it's just not on paper doesn't qualify because you're not being paid. And we're not, you know, part of a for profit organizations.

spk_0:   27:15
Interesting. So, um

spk_1:   27:17
yeah, I spoke earlier today. I spoke to Ah, a ah guy who's done some diving with an organization that sounds like it's very close to the ocean defenders. Um, and this was in Holland and he said that Ah, some years ago, the law in Holland with regards to what is considered commercial diving, what's considered recreational diving got cut adjusted and got really, really sharp. And they just made it really black and white and say OK, if you go underwater, lose your dive light, you can come back the next day and find your dive light. If your body loses his dive light and asks you to go and look for it, that's considered commercial diving. So they made it really black and white. And that's really hard for these organizations that do these kind of nonprofit things trying to clean up the ocean because there's no commercial interest in it for the, um, for the for the commercial divers, because who's gonna pay for it? You know, there's some some, you know, bullies coming out that people gonna pay, you know, in in strong organization is gonna pay for this for for commercial marketing purposes. But no one's going to do a long term development off removal of nets that not gonna bring your income. So it's a problem, I think.

spk_0:   28:43
Yeah. So, Kim, what do you say to somebody Who here's the Here's this podcast or has a friend you know, doing this kind of diving and wants to start So they call you up and say, Hey, I heard you're doing this cool ocean cleanup. I want to do it, too. What? Where do you start?

spk_2:   29:01
Well, for our particular organization, we have an online volunteer application, which goes to, uh, our founder, Kurt Lieber, who reviews it. And on there you would put, if it's if you're being referred by someone you know that Kurt would talk, call that person and it kind of interview them about this diver and talked to the diver, you know, kind of find out what the motivation is. I mean, I hate to say it, but some people are like, Hey, this is free boat diving, you know, because obviously you get to go out. It's very nice. No 50 foot Chris Craft boat and do some cool diving. But, um, really that the proof is when they actually come out. And like I said, shadow the team. And if they keep coming back, that's really the test. Because once you start shadowing these dives, you're gonna realize that this isn't all fun and looking at fish, you know, you're just down there. Thio do the job and remove the gear and get it back up on the boat and out of the ocean. So if they keep coming back, that's the real test. And then when they start actually participating, how did they do? You know, we've never asked somebody to stop diving. It's just maybe they need to be taken along a little flow er than somebody else. Yes, yeah. We're happy to have anybody who wants to help. Really?

spk_1:   30:38
If someone is listening, that is like, Do you know of any resource is that people can find local organizations that do this? Like, do you know if there's a global I know, ah, recognizable platform that they all use all these like localized?

spk_2:   30:56
I don't think there is, um other than, you know, looking on the Internet. And I mean, I know they're all over the world. Um, they're small little. You know, Puerto Rico's got divers that go out because any time there's a hurricane, all that fishing year goes into the ocean. Right? So they have They have divers bringing all their traps back. Um,

spk_0:   31:24
what about organizations like the Waterkeeper Alliance and people like that?

spk_2:   31:29
Yeah, I

spk_0:   31:29
know. They're a resource for this.

spk_2:   31:31
You know, if you looked like sea Shepherd's water keepers, bay keepers, any local, any local, Uh, I think if you just start asking around, you'll end up. If you just googled ghost net removal, I'm sure you can find local, you know, organizations in your area that are doing this, But I don't It's not It's really piecemeal. They're not all coordinated into one platform.

spk_0:   31:59
Yeah, it's It's interesting. You just found it by word of mouth. You've heard about it, and they showed up and have been doing it for years. So, um, awesome. So, you know, from a Utd standpoint, right from a training standpoint, uh, you know, because you have three instructors here talking to each other about this whole thing. It's like our our path to making somebody a safe diver to do this. Seems like, you know, it could stop it. The essentials of wreck level, of the essentials of tech level. Right where you get somebody, understands team diving, understands good buoyancy and trim, can manage, you know their gas and has some so awesome situational awareness. It could realistically stop at that point and send somebody into this type of diving safely, right? You don't need to go away, okay? All that.

spk_2:   32:47
That's a great start. And then, you know, from there, Like I said, it's then it's on the job training specific to these types of tasks, but that's a great That's a great foundation.

spk_0:   32:57
Yeah, so we should, um we should pursue this a little more, you know, and see if we can help. At least on on. You know, here in Southern California, if we can help ocean defenders in Kurt and you find qualified divers, that would be cool. And, you know, Ben, we should look into the stuff in your neighborhood. You know, Scandinavia, Holland, all of that. And, you know, spread this around to our guys and see if we can actually build a little program around. It's I think it's cool,

spk_1:   33:23
but it ties in perfectly with our ocean friendly approach to all our training, right? So I think it's him. It's something worthwhile to look into.

spk_0:   33:33
And then we have the global initiative, right? The cleanup dives anyway you have, which is Ah, you know, It was always designed as kind of a recreational. Go pick up plastic bags thing who's never, never, You know, that program was never designed for this kind of scope, but it certainly could be expanded into that because you know, that infrastructure for Utd has already set up Facebook page marketing material stuff like that on the Global Global Cleanup Initiative, which is was always planned around instructors creating monthly or bimonthly dives where they would just go with a group and clean up in area either in the water on the shore.

spk_1:   34:11
That exactly. And that's

spk_2:   34:13
yeah, I mean, and we do that, too. We do a lot of harbor clean ups and a lot of the Hawaii. There's a gyre. There were all the plastic from all over the Pacific, collects so a lot of their diving is it's not necessarily fishing gear. A lot of it man made trash.

spk_1:   34:33
And for all the instructors that are listening to this. I mean, we've done, um, a local cleanup on a yearly basis for a festival that's done here in the area where I live and it's near Lake and the people who attended a festival swim in the lake. So every year before the festival, we go into the lake on the beaches they use and see if we can find, you know, sharp bottles or rocks or, you know, whatever debris that's been dumped into the lake during the year before the festival. We take it out and you know, obviously the part of the people joining in to make it safe is a good initiative. But, man, we have fun doing it. It's amazing you don't you see the people you've never seen in a year and all of someday come and tickets because I really feel like they can be part of something again, and it gives them an opportunity to go into the water and do this stuff. So it's an amazing tool to re engage a lot of people that maybe I don't know either lost the interest in diving or have gotten bored with their standard IVs. So it is really a good opening.

spk_0:   35:43
I think that's the thing, right? I mean, years and years ago when I the same way Kim stumbled into ocean defenders. I stumbled into the Santa Monica Bay Keepers, which was a water keeper is still around Waterkeeper Alliance organization. And they were doing urchin relocations. Who's the urchins? Would get onto these reefs and just demolish the juvenile kelp that was killing these kelp forests. So we would relocate thousands and thousands of sea urchins a day on a dive. And And it was it was super fun diving. And it was good for the world. And we could actually see over the course of years, these huge help fields would come back to life is really satisfying.

spk_1:   36:27
How do you move a sea urchin? Well, sticking years.

spk_0:   36:29
Ah, yeah, you go through a lot of gloves, but it was interesting that that there too, right? I mean, now we're going off this topic a little bit, but for a while I'm That was kind of a solo diving experience, which goes against everything I believe in. So, you know, six people would go in the water, they'd each have a little knife, e thing and a bag and they would go fill up urchins and we'd bring him back to this look central location and then send him up on a bag. Samos what Kim does with the Nets. And, uh, I started bringing team diving to that organization a little bit. So rather than going solo, we went out in pairs of two. And we did a couple of these dives. Or we compared the efficiency of two people with one net one bag versus two people with two bags, and and the team was like 25% Maur efficient than the individuals.

spk_1:   37:23
It's good. It's the same thing we do. Yeah, one guy held that. The other picks this stuff up. It's so much more efficient than you trying to juggle around all these tools under

spk_0:   37:31
our That was amazing. It's amazing. Awesome. Any other thoughts, ideas, things? We'll, um, we'll try to get some of the local resource is in the show notes for this. Ah, and just, you know, put some links in for, um, you know, shin defenders, which we have to plug right. It's a It's a nonprofit organization. You can make tax deductible contradict contributions to them.

spk_2:   37:58
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. That'd be great.

spk_0:   38:00
We certainly want that to be happening. And yeah, we'll look at some of the other organizations and see if we can find ways to help promote this and and, uh, guide people through the Utd system into this type of of, you know, environmental diving. I don't want to call it occupational diving, but environmental safety divers,

spk_2:   38:21
if if you would have that as a baseline training, it would help. You know, that'd be a great starting point for people that want to pursue this kind of diving.

spk_0:   38:30
Cool. Awesome. All right, Kim. Thank you.

spk_2:   38:36
Thank you.

spk_0:   38:37
Amazing Thio to talk to you about this. It's It's really cool. And I may be joining you.

spk_2:   38:42
Absolutely.

spk_1:   38:45
Next time we're over would do a feature on it again and have a look underwater

spk_0:   38:49
direction. We will go out of

spk_1:   38:50
juggling around.

spk_2:   38:52
Yeah. Come out with us. That be great.

spk_0:   38:54
Yeah. All right. Thanks, everybody for listening. So that's it. We're done. Bye bye.