0:00
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.
Search this video
0:01
I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement.
0:05
I've been asked this for years.
0:07
The answer is invariably AG1 by Athletic Greens.
0:10
I view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance, so you can cover your bases.
0:15
If you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases.
0:23
I've recommended it since The 4-Hour Body, which was God, eons ago, 2010, and I did not get paid to do so.
0:28
With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense formula on the market.
0:36
It has a multivitamin, multimineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, an immunity formula, digestive enzymes, and adaptogens. You get the idea.
0:47
It is very, very comprehensive, and I do my best, of course, to focus on nutrient-dense proper meals, but sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're traveling, sometimes you just want to make sure that you are getting what you need.
1:01
AG1 makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods aren't readily available.
1:06
It's also NSF Certified for Sport, making it safe for competitive athletes, as what's on the label is in the powder.
1:13
It's the ultimate all-in-one nutritional supplement bundle in one easy scoop.
1:19
Right now, Athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all-in-one formula, which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase.
1:30
Many of us are deficient in vitamin D.
1:32
I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure.
1:37
So, adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support.
1:42
Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens. com/tim.
1:50
You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription.
1:54
Again, that's athleticgreens. com/tim.
2:02
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.
2:04
My god, am I in love with Eight Sleep.
2:06
Good sleep is the ultimate game-changer.
2:08
More than 30% of Americans struggle with sleep, and I'm a member of that sad group.
2:13
Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat has always been my nemesis.
2:17
I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, putting them back on, and repeating ad nauseam.
2:25
But now, I am falling asleep in record time, faster than ever. Why?
2:28
Because I'm using a simple device called the Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep.
2:33
It's the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature.
2:38
It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced, but most user-friendly solution on the market.
2:44
I polled all of you guys on social media about the best tools for sleep, enhancing sleep, and Eight Sleep was by far and away the crowd favorite.
2:55
I mean, people were just raving fans of this.
3:00
So, I used it, and here we are.
3:02
Add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F.
3:10
It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.
3:13
My girlfriend runs hot all the time.
3:15
She doesn't need cooling.
3:15
She loves the heat, and we can have our own bespoke temperatures on either side, which is exactly what we're doing.
3:23
Now, for me, and for many people, the result Eight Sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by up to 40% and get more restful sleep overall.
3:34
I can personally attest to this cuz I track it in all sorts of ways.
3:38
It's the total solution for enhanced recovery, so you can take on the next day feeling refreshed.
3:42
And now, my dear listeners, that's you guys, you can get $250 off of the Pod Pro Cover. That's a lot. Simply go to eightsleep. com/tim or use code Tim.
3:53
That's eight all spelled out e i g h t sleep.
3:56
com/tim or use coupon code Tim t i m eightsleep.
4:04
com/tim for $250 off your pod pro cover.
4:06
Optimal minimal At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
4:15
Can I ask you a personal question?
4:18
Now I just did my personal What if I did the opposite?
4:20
I'm a cybernetic organism living this year over a metal endoskeleton.
4:34
Well, hello boys and girls, ladies and germs.
4:36
This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to a very special episode of the Tim Ferriss Show recorded at many degrees below zero.
4:42
And my guest today I met on the road.
4:46
I did not expect to meet her and I met her in Antarctica. Sue Flood. Sue Flood is amazing.
4:52
Sue is a photographer and former BBC filmmaker.
4:57
Her work has taken her and still takes her all over the world, but she has a special passion for the wildlife and icy beauty of Antarctica, which is where we met, as I mentioned.
5:06
A Durham University zoology graduate, Sue spent 11 years with the BBC Natural History Unit working on series including The Blue Planet and Planet Earth with Sir David Attenborough.
5:16
We talked quite a bit about him before turning her focus to photography.
5:20
Her most recent book Emperor, The Perfect Penguin is absolutely spectacular.
5:24
It's stunning with a forward by Sir Michael Palin was published in September 2018. Check it out.
5:31
At the very least look it up online to see some of the imagery.
5:34
She has appeared on screen for the BBC, Discovery Channel and National Geographic, been featured on the series Cameraman Who Dare and has had her images in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, GEO and other distinguished publications.
5:47
Her work has won many awards and competitions including Travel Photographer of the Year, International Photographer of the Year, International Garden Photographer of the Year, and a Royal Photographic Society Silver Medal.
5:59
In recognition of her photographic achievements, Sue was invited to meet Her Majesty the Queen during a special Adventures and Explorers event held at Buckingham Palace.
6:05
She has so many adventures to share, so many incredible stories, and it was just an honor and a thrill also a gas, we laughed a lot to meet Sue unexpectedly in Antarctica.
6:18
And I knew that we had to sit down and record this episode.
6:23
You can find her online Sue Flood s u e flood.
6:25
com Instagram Sue Flood Photography Twitter Sue Flood Photos Facebook Sue Flood Photos.
6:31
We'll link to all of those in the show notes at tim. blog/podcast.
6:38
And now, without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging and what was for me a very enjoyable conversation, a hilarious conversation, with Sue Flood.
6:51
Thank you for being here.
6:51
I am delighted to be here.
6:54
In my cozy podcasting studio.
6:58
And how would you describe where we're sitting right now?
7:01
Why don't we start with that?
7:02
Yeah, it this is definitely not quite as cozy as I had imagined.
7:05
So, we are sitting in the Weddell Sea.
7:08
It's the most remote camp in the Antarctic right now.
7:14
And we are sitting in a tent with a table made of snow and ice.
7:17
And looking out the window, we can see a twin otter and some emperor penguins.
7:23
So, it's cool in every sense of the word.
7:28
It is cool on every level.
7:28
And as I was mentioning before we clicked or I clicked record using the royal we already.
7:35
That I've tested this gear in some very hot conditions, but never in very, very cold.
7:40
So, I'm watching battery very closely.
7:42
Why don't we start, since you mentioned penguin, we're here or the guests are here, certainly, to see penguins.
7:52
You are a penguin master of sorts. We'll get into that.
7:57
Where does this word penguin come from? Oh, that's very cool. So, I'm Welsh.
8:00
I hail from North Wales, born in a place called St.
8:06
Asaph, and living in a place called Ffestiniog, near the edge of Snowdonia. Rolls off the tongue.
8:13
It certainly does roll off the tongue.
8:14
And there's a community of people from Wales who settled in Patagonia in South America.
8:23
And pen is the word for head, and gwyn is the word white.
8:27
So, pen gwyn, white head.
8:30
And it's thought that the first Welsh sailors who came over to South America, they saw Magellanic penguins, as they're now known, and called these birds pen gwyn, white-headed, you know, birds.
8:44
But there is still a community of people who speak Welsh in Patagonia.
8:49
So, there is a connection between Wales and penguins. So wild. Yeah.
8:54
I We mentioned that as I was on my I'm not going to say first, I'm not going to say seventh glass of wine.
9:01
Probably second and a half glass of wine.
9:03
I was like, you got to be kidding me.
9:05
And you can hear snow machines in the background.
9:07
That's part of this audio verite.
9:08
You mentioned Absolutely. the aircraft.
9:10
And this is a What would you call this? A working camp?
9:14
It's not exactly Is it a station?
9:16
Is this considered a station?
9:17
not a station, but yeah, a working camp that is put up specially for the purpose.
9:21
And that snow machine you hear is carting away some of the, let's say, waste, but it will be flown out back to South America, cuz we have to keep this place absolutely pristine.
9:31
So, everything, can I mean everything, bodily products get flown back out to South America to keep this place as beautiful as it could possibly be.
9:39
Yeah, it's like a Burning Man with fewer bikinis. This is true.
9:46
And I wanted to have this conversation on tape because I recall that I have this experience every once in a while when you and I were trekking back from the emperor penguin colony dragging our sleds behind us which are attached to us at the waist and you're telling me all these stories and I thought, "God damn it, I really wish this were being recorded."
10:12
God, it bothered me so much.
10:15
But we've we've spent a little bit of time together certainly in close quarters because we have the mountain tents in which we sleep and then we have one structure right next to us.
10:26
What is this even considered?
10:27
It's almost if people can imagine this is not the best description, but a wine barrel laying on its side cut it in half horizontally and then you have the top half you put it on top of snow.
10:38
Looks something like that, but what is this considered?
10:40
So this is a structure called a weather haven and it is absolutely fantastic, very strong once you put it up and metal hoops covered in a strong canvasy material and that's our dining tent and it gets very very toasty in there.
10:57
Um but then if you've got a nice warm sleeping bag it's can be really toasty in your tent maybe minus 20 or so it will do worst, but then you get into your nice warm sleeping bag and stick on your headphones and the only thing to disturb the silence is probably my snoring heard throughout the camp.
11:14
And hopefully you have eye shades as well because it is incredibly bright here at the moment 24 hours a day which has been difficult to get accustomed to.
11:26
I'm not sure if you ever do, but the light prompt every time it would peep through my the the cracks in my eye shades, I would pop up thinking, "Oh, it is morning."
11:36
and check the alarm and be like, "No, it's 1:00 in the morning.
11:38
It is technically the morning, but it's 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning."
11:43
Let's uh pull a hard left.
11:43
You mentioned this yesterday and I thought it might be an interesting place to to to start the chronology.
11:50
So, this is going to sound strange to people listening, but tell us about the very early days of your time on this planet and hips. What happened to you? wow.
12:02
I was due to be born on Thursday, the 12th of August, and I was actually a day late, born on Friday, the 13th.
12:09
And my poor parents were told that I would never walk.
12:15
Um and I had a My hips weren't formed properly and they were told I'd always be in a wheelchair.
12:20
So, you know, they were obviously devastated by that.
12:22
And as a consequence, my poor dad had a lifelong aversion to Friday, the 13th.
12:30
But they tried this revolutionary new treatment at the time to um try and build this special frame to hold my legs in a certain position and I was able to kind of recover.
12:41
And so, a couple of years later, I was toddling around and the fine physical specimen you see before you today is So, it's But you know, it's I often think about how lucky I've been to to not turn out the way they thought I would turn out.
12:57
And not long ago, as I understand it, correct my memory here, you came across that brace, which I guess it's almost like a almost like a retainer for your entire body, right? It would fit.
13:11
Were were they like stiff suspenders that would hold your hips in a particular position?
13:16
It's a little um X-shaped cross with hooks on the end of it and it would hook over my shoulders and then hook under my backside to sort of hold my legs in a certain position and my mom used to tell me it was just awful because they'd put me into this thing and I would just cry and cry and cry, but they were told that they had to do this to try and, you know, give me a chance to to possibly walk.
13:38
So, and yeah, we unfortunately my father passed away recently and we were clearing out the house and found this little thing and my brother was saying, "Oh, check that out."
13:49
And I said, "No, I'm going to going to keep it."
13:52
And that's in my office just as a constant reminder that I've been very lucky.
13:59
How much of it is a reminder of being lucky versus something else?
14:04
Or maybe it's a combination say of overcoming adversity.
14:08
I don't It's a leading question, of course, and I'm asking it, but I'm I'm wondering if you could just expand a bit on why you would want to have that at the ready as a reminder. Ah.
14:16
Never to take anything for granted is you know, I feel like I've lived a super privileged life, not in any financial sense, but in a My mom used to say I've lived the life of five people and I have my absolute dream job.
14:33
It's what I've wanted to do since I was a kid and I as a child, I would watch David Attenborough on all these wildlife documentaries and there were two people who really really inspired me.
14:44
One was David Attenborough.
14:46
I remember seeing him crawling around in the Rwandan jungle with mountain gorillas and thinking, "Well, that's a cool job."
14:52
thinking, "Well, that's a cool job." And then also my dad, my dad used to be in the merchant navy, so he would have all these amazing stories from Japan and China and Burma as it was and and we had this big camphorwood chest he'd brought
15:08
back from being at sea with kimonos and hats and head hunter swords from Borneo and all this incredibly cool stuff and it was inspirational as a child and but yeah, I never dreamt I'd actually get to do this dream job of being a wildlife filmmaker, but I did. And it wasn't
15:25
And it wasn't quite as as simple as just signing up, was it?
15:30
As as I understand it, there wasn't a sign-up sheet, so Probably not.
15:35
So, if we go back to then, the the inspiration, so you have these figures, your father, David Attenborough, probably among others, but those two primary inspiring you. Yeah.
15:45
When did you start and how did you start finding your way towards this job that you have now?
15:51
What did the early chapter or earliest chapters look like?
15:55
I had no idea how to go about it.
15:58
I I wrote to the BBC to the Natural History Unit, as it's called, which is a special department in Bristol that makes all of the BBC's wildlife documentaries, and a very kindly producer there saw my letter and bothered to reply, and of course they get thousands of letters from people wanting to make wildlife films with David Attenborough, of course.
16:20
But, I went and studied zoology at university, so I went to Durham University in the UK, and this producer had said, "Look, you need to put something on your resume that will make us take a second look, because we get lots of people with their zoology degrees or their biology degrees or whatever."
16:41
So, I went managed to get onto this really cool expedition to Australia, and I had to raise money to go on that, and that was working for the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service um for 3 months unpaid, diving on the
16:57
Barrier Reef, doing these surveys for crown-of-thorns starfish, which were damaging the reef, white-water rafting through the rainforest, and building this path through the rainforest, and caving in the Outback in Chillagoe. So,
17:08
So, this was all Caving meaning cave diving?
17:14
Uh no, caving going into caves into these like this limestone cave system.
17:19
That was a character building experience since I don't like the dark and I don't like enclosed spaces.
17:23
So, that was a great mix.
17:25
And then I also I'd heard about a place called Bermuda Biological Station and they had this 3-month work-study program where you could volunteer and assist the marine biologist.
17:37
So, I managed to get onto that and the 3 months became 8 months.
17:42
And it was really great experience being out there because I was able to use that time and it was an unpaid position again.
17:48
So, I didn't have the money to do this, but I was racking up really useful experience.
17:53
I got my food and my board and built up a credit card bill I was assisting the marine biologist as I say and then there was this team who came out from the UK and they had been working excavating the Mary Rose and the Mary Rose was this was Henry the VIII's flagship.
18:11
So, this incredible vessel that had been found and they had managed to excavate this ship and they were now coming out these specialists to dive on a wreck called the Sea Venture which had sunk in 1609 and so I volunteered in the days of snail mail to could I possibly help them and they took me on to go and help that team as well as working at the bio station.
18:39
Could I bookmark this for 1 second? Don't lose your place. Okay.
18:42
I want to rewind to this letter that you sent.
18:45
So, they get thousands of letters.
18:46
Do you recall at all what you said in this letter?
18:49
I'm just wondering why it because it's not physically possible that that the producer who received it replied to the many thousands of letters that were received.
18:58
What did you put in that letter? Do you have any idea?
19:00
Yeah, I I well and I have his reply somewhere at home.
19:04
So, it was along the lines of ever since I was a child I've watched David Attenborough's documentaries.
19:10
He's inspired me to want to become a wildlife filmmaker.
19:15
I'm going off to university to study zoology.
19:18
I'd love to come and work for the BBC.
19:20
And can you give me any advice? That kind of thing.
19:24
And this person, Mike Salisbury, he was He's a really kind, generous guy, and he it's typical of him to bother replying.
19:34
And he was the producer on a lot of the big Attenborough series.
19:37
So, things like Life of Birds, Life in Cold Blood, all these um actually And that was with my friend Miles.
19:44
But, he'd worked on all these big key series and some of the older ones like Living Planet and so on.
19:50
That was the question to him.
19:54
So, he receives a letter, replies to the letter.
19:56
I want to connect a couple of dots Mhm.
19:58
to you arriving in Australia. Yeah.
20:02
So, this was Let me get this Operation Raleigh?
20:04
Yeah, so this was straight after university.
20:06
I'm sorry, what was the producer's name again? Uh Mike Salisbury. Mike.
20:11
So, Mike in effect, please please feel free to fact-check this, but said, "We get a lot of people who check these several boxes.
20:20
You'd best differentiate yourself." Right.
20:22
And add some add some special sauce. Yeah.
20:24
How do you go from that to arriving in Australia?
20:26
So, this Operation Raleigh had been started up by Prince Charles and also guy called John Blashford-Snell.
20:36
And the idea of it was to give young people a chance to do community work, conservation work, you know, character-building stuff.
20:43
And I come from this very tiny village in North Wales where not much happens.
20:48
And um a friend at university said, "Hey, look at this."
20:52
Because it was all over the TV and the papers.
20:56
It was advertised for applicants. Yeah, absolutely.
20:58
It was very very popular.
21:00
And you know, it's wow, this seems amazing.
21:03
And she said, "Let's apply."
21:06
And in the confident way I have, I said, "You're never going to get onto that."
21:10
She said, "Come on, come on, let's apply." And anyway, we applied.
21:11
So, you had to fill out this form, this very detailed form.
21:15
If you got through that, you got interviews.
21:18
And I remember going into this dusty old room at university, being interviewed by some equally dusty old men, and thinking And they were all terribly terribly posh, I guess.
21:30
And thinking there's no way I'm going to get through this.
21:33
But I did get through the interview.
21:35
And then you got onto what was called a selection weekend, where you went away for a whole weekend, and they put you through your paces. Just just a drizzle. Yeah.
21:45
And uh you know, I remember going to sleep in this tent at about 10:00 at night, and then they wake you up at 1:00 in the morning, and we got given a box with a dead rabbit and some potatoes and things to make your evening meal.
21:59
And you know, no one wanted to touch the rabbit, but you know, I did zoology, so I was happy with that.
22:06
And And then the pièce de résistance at the end of the weekend in a very cold November in Newcastle was to There was an outdoor swimming pool, unheated, where they told us to jump in and swim a couple of lengths.
22:20
And at that point, my friend Alice, who'd encouraged us to apply, she'd also got through.
22:27
She promptly burst out crying, and uh she did not get on.
22:29
And um I think I was made of sterner stuff.
22:37
Maybe I'm just more used to the cold. Wow.
22:38
So, Alice, I hope I hope Alice gets some chocolates or Christmas cards for that push, for that nudge in that direction.
22:45
Okay, thank you very much. That was great.
22:47
I'm very glad we filled in some gaps there.
22:49
So, then but a bing, but a boom, you're in Australia. Yeah. You end up in Bermuda. Yeah.
22:55
This crew from the UK shows up.
22:55
They, I suppose among other things, are doing wreck dives and they bring up What was the date you said on this?
23:08
1609 And they were we were finding all these really cool things like shoes like these leather shoes have been preserved from being buried in the silt and mud.
23:17
And you volunteered to do this.
23:18
I did volunteer and coin weights and cuz I was cuz I heard that they were coming out and I thought, "Wow, doesn't that sound amazing?"
23:24
And by now when I was at university, I knew that there was a chance of getting onto this Operation Raleigh.
23:30
I'll be at a very small chance I thought.
23:32
And also so I learned to dive when I was at university in the hope that I got accepted and could go and do this dive project on the Barrier Reef.
23:42
But you know, jeez, I I never thought I'd get to do a thing like that. It was amazing.
23:47
And I I never thought I'd get to Australia.
23:50
May as well have been on the moon as far as I was concerned cuz I had been to France and that was it.
23:59
So I I was 20 years old and I'd hardly traveled. Wow.
24:01
All right, so I'm trying to think here because you have as as we were I guess we were chatting yesterday and our now mutual friend um was asking you key life lessons takeaways.
24:13
You mentioned carpe diem. Yeah.
24:17
Because you seem very good at taking advantage of these sliding door moments where you sort of feel like opportunity sliding.
24:22
However, you also have this long-term chance favors the prepared mind Yeah.
24:31
type of orientation because you did the diving in the hopes that one day if you were accepted Yeah.
24:37
you would make the cut which you ended up Yeah. being able to do.
24:41
How do we go from that point in time, the diving that you're doing to not to provide a spoiler but to David Attenborough?
24:50
Well, And there's no rush so whatever the whatever the path is direct or meandering as it may be, I'm just curious how how we go from there.
24:59
Well, it was quite an interesting trajectory.
25:00
So, by now, I'd got some interesting things on my resume.
25:04
You know, I'd got the experience in Bermuda.
25:07
I got the experience in the Australian in Queensland with the National Parks.
25:13
And so, now I was writing to the BBC and saying, "Well, actually, now I've done this."
25:18
So, instead of getting rejection letters if I applied for a job, now I was getting interviews.
25:22
So, you know, first of all, it was I'm getting through to the last couple of hundred for the job. Then, it's last 50.
25:29
Then, I'm down to the last 10.
25:32
And I Pause for 1 second.
25:35
Up to that point, how many letters of or communication of one sort or another had you sent to the BBC?
25:40
I would write pretty regularly, and there was a What happened was, you know, I I'd get encouragement from people.
25:48
Also, there were a couple of wildlife film festivals that I would go to, and I'd just go, "Hi, here I am, and still here.
25:54
Love to be a researcher."
25:57
But, you know, not quite getting there.
25:59
And then, um I got to the last two for a job, and I didn't get it. Oh.
26:05
And it was for this children's TV program called The Really Wild Show.
26:11
But, the producer, guy called Paul Appleby, he was really kind, and he said, "Look, you didn't quite get the job, but would you like to come and spend the day in the studio?"
26:19
And one of the people who had interviewed me for the job That's very kind. Yeah, it was very kind.
26:25
He's a nice guy, and uh one of the people It was a board of three people interviewing me.
26:30
And one of them said, "If you're ever in Bristol, just let us know.
26:35
Come for a coffee in the BBC canteen, and come and tell us what you've been up to."
26:40
So, of course, I pretended I was in Bristol.
26:44
happened to be direct direct path to Bristol. Exactly.
26:49
So, I, you know, took a 5-hour coach ride to get there and this producer, Michael Bright, we had a coffee and he, you know, what have you been up to, what have you been doing?
26:57
And he said, I don't suppose you've got any free time, have you?
27:01
Cuz there was this researcher meant to be starting today and she just didn't turn up.
27:05
And he said, you know, have you got any free time? And I said, absolutely.
27:09
And he said, when could you start? And I said, today. Yesterday.
27:14
Yeah, so I was given a 3-day contract.
27:19
And yeah, and then that got extended by another 3 days and a few weeks and then What was the project?
27:24
There was a series called Wildlife on One.
27:29
Um, actually just before that there was a Oh, that's right.
27:31
Wildlife on One as in BBC One. BBC One.
27:33
Now, back in the back in that time, just for context for people who are not from from the motherland, not from Britain, uh, in the case of us Yanks at least.
27:47
At that time, as I recall my childhood, for instance, was it effectively what BBC 1 2 3 4? No, it was BBC 1 and 2. 1 and 2.
27:55
Yeah, and then there was ITV and Channel 4. Channel 4. Yeah, there we go.
28:03
But the in the sense that you were getting incredible coverage to be on BBC One. Yeah, absolutely.
28:08
A larger percentage of the population than people now can younger generations would imagine because they have It's not like there were a thousand channels to choose from. No, exactly.
28:18
So, and this was the BBC's longest-running nature program at the time.
28:22
So, it's presented by David Attenborough and wow, so I was getting to work with David, uh, at last. closer, closer. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
28:31
So, what did working with him look like?
28:33
Was it through multiple ears?
28:33
Did you have direct communication? What was that like?
28:38
That's a great question, Tim, cuz I remember phoning him up and I imagined that there was going to be some secretary answered the phone and, uh, you know, you hear his voice because hello and I said oh David hello it's Sue Flood and I'm surprised that you answered the phone he said well yes I do live here and so you know I had the producer as my
29:04
boss and so on and I was the researcher but occasionally I'd have to speak to him and that's still exciting cuz he's such a wonderful guy but yeah it was that was my first break was working on on Wildlife on One and then there was a series that was coming up with the provisional name Oceans and this was going to be a series an
29:26
eight-part series that was going to be a big budget series on the natural history of the oceans and this is the series that became the Blue Planet and one of the cameraman had told me about this and he said you know you should try and get a job on that because it's going to be really really good series and I said oh they
29:45
won't get me for something like that but he said well you're a dive instructor I was a dive instructor by now and I'd worked for a smaller TV company on a series about the oceans as well so I knew my way around and yes so I applied and then my boss Alister Fothergill Alister was the head of the natural history unit Great name. Yeah very English and
30:05
Great name. Yeah very English and Alister said you've got the job and I recall exactly what I said I said that's better than winning the lottery and it was it was better than winning the lottery even now if you could turn back the clock and I had the choice between winning the lottery and working
30:24
on Blue Planet I would choose working on Blue Planet For people who don't know or maybe just have a a passing familiarity since it the name has come up quite a few times with David Attenborough Yeah Who is David Attenborough just so that we that we can paint that picture just a little bit before we keep going. What has made him so
30:43
What has made him so iconic?
30:45
Oh, well, he has a longevity in terms of wildlife presenters, but I mean, he's so much more than that. He's now 95.
30:53
He has inspired millions and millions and millions of people around the world.
31:02
He's just recently spoken at COP and as a child, you know, he was presenting these amazing documentaries as he still does.
31:09
But he's just an incredible communicator and just has this constant fascination for everything and he's not just an expert biologist, he's an expert on all sorts of things, paleontology, a type of China, amber, oh, all sorts of things and he is a fascinating and lovely man who um as I say, he's inspired millions of people.
31:36
He also used to head up BBC 2, but he was going off doing things in his 20s that were really extraordinary, going off exploring in places like New Guinea and remote parts of Indonesia and doing some very, very cool things that I recall seeing as a child.
31:56
Now, for people listening, I'll play a foil just as a stand-in for some people who say, "TV presenter, that's like a TV host on our side of the pond. How hard could that be?
32:06
Isn't he just reading a script?
32:08
Isn't that what happens?"
32:11
Oh, it's so not like that.
32:12
I mean, he he had many of the ideas for series, so he would come up with the idea and he would be writing the scripts and the thing with David is he makes his job look like falling off a log, but it really isn't.
32:29
It's an incredibly difficult to that point. Oh, yeah.
32:31
And um you know, he just to go into a recording studio, and he's reading the script you've hopefully written for him, and he's always going to come up with some improvements.
32:41
And but yeah, it's really so much more because he's out in the field, and he's just as I say got this incredible enthusiasm for the subject matter and an incredible knowledge, and um it is absolutely infectious.
32:57
And anybody in the BBC Natural History Unit would have been inspired by him as a kid. And he can do no wrong. And the voice.
33:09
I mean, let's not forget about the voice. there we are.
33:12
It you didn't gloss here or gold plate.
33:15
Or pause pause snow leopard. No, not snow leopard.
33:20
I'm I'm mixing up my leopards. Leopard seal.
33:22
The footage he did Leopard seal.
33:24
But just the just the pacing the pacing. Yeah. Is is so outstanding.
33:30
He's absolutely brilliant, and he is so unbelievably kind and nice, and there's this great story where cuz his number used to be in the phone book, and I always remember him saying how this little boy had phoned him up because his pet rabbit was ill.
33:45
You know, here he is phoning up David. Sir David.
33:50
No, um cuz he was knighted of course.
33:53
It's like calling the President of the United States to be like, "Yeah, the the the the traffic light at my corner isn't really doing what it's supposed to do." Exactly.
34:02
And one of the I'm jumping ahead a little here, but one of the things all over the place.
34:10
One of my top few experiences in my life couple of years ago I'd done this book, and one of the paragraphs in the acknowledgements was thanking David for all he'd done to inspire me as a kid.
34:23
And and I'd gone to this book launch for a friend's book, um Michael Palin, and he had written this book called Erebus and I had a copy of my book in my bag and David was there.
34:36
So the three of us had a drink together and I said, "David, please forgive me for doing this, but I'm never going to be able to do it again."
34:43
And I basically took my book out and held onto his arm and read out this paragraph in the acknowledgements about what he meant to me and how he'd inspired me.
34:52
And then I got to the end of this paragraph and slightly teary-eyed and then he gave me this big hug and I Yeah, it was great. Aw, it was so amazing. Full circle.
35:01
And that book, just for people listening, I'm sure I will have already mentioned it in the intro, but which book is this?
35:09
It's a book called Emperor, the perfect penguin.
35:12
And I've been lucky to spend a lot of time with emperor penguins, which as you know now, Tim, are the biggest of all the 18 penguin species.
35:20
They're the, you know, the happy feet penguin, if you like.
35:24
And they are so spectacularly beautiful and I'd done a book, a mainly photo-led book about emperors and why to me they were the perfect penguin and been photographing them over about 14 years.
35:39
Crikey, that's a long time.
35:42
And so that was a book came out a couple of years ago.
35:45
And literally as we're sitting here, like we can look and we're looking out at that.
35:51
in between in between some structures here and we see a a line Yeah.
35:56
which is almost like cutter ants on their way back to the colony, but in this case it is a line of pretty closely spaced emperor penguins. Yeah. Uh tobogganing.
36:05
Could you explain what tobogganing is?
36:10
Well, they they can walk, you know, maybe even 100 km from the edge of the ice where they've been feeding back to the colony to feed their chicks.
36:17
And of course, toddling along on their little legs takes them a long time, but they'll flop onto their bellies and then propel themselves along using their flippers and their very strong feet.
36:29
That's exactly what they're doing now.
36:31
So, we're just sitting here watching this trail of the most beautiful bird in the world tobogganing along on their bellies going off to feed their chicks. It's very cool.
36:42
They're a lot faster on their bellies than I would have expected. They really move.
36:47
They really, really move.
36:49
They're like oblong bowling balls.
36:49
I mean, they really they really hustle and you have this beautiful photograph that you showed the group here, which is of the the track left behind, which would be just completely befuddling to decipher unless you knew what was going on.
37:08
Because how are they propelling themselves?
37:09
They do glide, but then glide, but they use their feet.
37:12
They've got really strong feet that have special lipids to help stop them freezing.
37:18
Because, of course, they're standing around in the middle of winter maybe minus 50 or so with wind chill, and the males will be incubating the eggs.
37:25
So, uh they'll be using those strong feet to propel themselves along, and then using their flippers to push in the snow.
37:32
So, you get this very cool track of where their bellies rubbing through the snow, and then these little sharp lines either side of that.
37:40
But, yeah, you you can never get bored of them penguins.
37:45
And they're you know, a big one that as I say, the biggest of the of the penguins, but the a tall one, a big one would be about 1.
37:52
25 m tall, which is, you know, pretty big. Yeah, it is big. So, Yeah. Weighs 45 kilos. 4-4-ish feet tall. Yeah. Something like that. You said 40 kilos? Yeah, about Yeah. thereabouts.
38:03
And you mentioned the males incubating.
38:06
So, the the eggs are laid, then the males will stand guard and keep the egg heated by putting it into What is this structure?
38:17
They have a thing called a brood pouch, which is a bare bit of skin at the bottom of their belly and they'll tuck the egg in there so the female of course lays the egg.
38:26
She will pass it over to the male and she'll then be zipping off to sea and leaving him to do all the work of looking after this egg during the winter but it's you know, it's a really precarious thing to pass this egg in super cold temperatures over to the male and then this big sort of flap of insulating skin goes over the top of the egg and he's able to maintain that egg at about 34 35° even though the outside temperature can be minus 50°C.
38:57
And for just to emphasize the the endurance required after that point after the pass has been successful Yeah.
39:07
the males will stand around for what anywhere between two two and a half months and lose something like 30 40% 40% of their body weight.
39:15
Yeah, it's not incredible so they can not eat for about four months um from the time they're arriving back at the edge of the ice they're finding their partner mating taking care of the egg sitting on the egg for two two and a half months so that can be about four month period that they're not eating and
39:34
then when the chick hatches the first meal they get is from the father and they he's produces this kind of mix of protein and fat that he feeds to the chick from a special gland in his esophagus so just an amazing life cycle that they can breed over the Antarctic winter like that incredibly harsh. So incredible. So incredible.
39:59
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.
40:02
This episode is brought to you by UCAN UCAN.
40:03
What you eat and how you live exercise sleep stress all play an important role in how your body handles glucose it's main form of energy you might think of blood sugar that is glucose.
40:16
When glucose levels are steady and you avoid spikes, you're improving your metabolic fitness.
40:20
An important way to take control of your metabolic fitness is to eat and fuel with foods that help regulate blood sugar.
40:25
To help enhance my own metabolic health, I was introduced to UCAN by Dr.
40:30
Peter Attia, who said there is no carb in the world like it.
40:34
UCAN's patented ingredient, Superstarch, has the remarkable ability to provide a steady release of energy without spiking blood sugar levels.
40:41
I use UCAN's energy powders and low-calorie bars to maintain focus throughout long days, for exercise, better performance when training, and to avoid fatigue without making metabolic compromises.
40:53
So, when I need a Scooby Snack, when I need a little pick-me-up, I reach for UCAN.
40:57
UCAN has a variety of different products with Superstarch to help you balance your blood sugar, from energy powders and bars to Renola and almond butter. There's a whole suite.
41:06
Check out my favorites at ucan. co/tim. That's ucan.
41:10
co/tim, and save 30% on your first order. That's ucan. co/tim.
41:21
So, let's let's flashback to Blue Planet. Mhm.
41:22
And you've captured Why don't you just give people a a teaser of some of the firsts that you've captured?
41:30
So, we're going to bounce around a little bit, but then we're going to go back to Blue Planet.
41:31
So, what are some of the firsts that you've captured?
41:35
I've I've been so lucky to photograph some very cool things.
41:37
So, um the first shoot I went on for Blue Planet with cameraman Doug Allan and Tom Fitz, we went to Monterey Bay in California, and that was to film killer whales orcas hunting gray whales as they migrated up the west coast of the states towards the summer feeding grounds in Alaska.
41:58
Then, a couple of months later, Doug and I went up to Lancaster Sound or Jones Sound, beg your pardon, in the Canadian High Arctic, where there was a super rare event of polar bears hunting beluga whales that were caught in something called a sassat, which is a hole in the ice being kept open by the movement of animals.
42:17
And the reason they're trapped, it's not because it's a pond, it's because they're they're mammals, the beluga whales, and ultimately if the next opening in the ice is too far away, they have to stay where they are. Yeah.
42:30
So, being marine mammals, belugas have to come to the surface to breathe, and it's thought that what had happened, they'd been feeding at the ice edge waiting for the ice to break up before they could move into the summer feeding grounds, and there'd been a bit of a cold snap, and in still conditions, the ice can freeze very suddenly overnight, the sea ice, and so that ice had encroached on them and trapped them in this hole.
42:54
But, we were camping on the sea ice when we were filming this, a bit like camping on the sea ice here, but with the difference that you don't hear it kind of groaning under under your tent in in such a sort of large area as we're in here.
43:09
You've certainly had no shortage of adventure, and I want to explore a bit more the experience in Monterey Bay. Mhm.
43:18
Because this phenomenon of orcas hunting Mhm.
43:22
Uh which type of whale was it again? Uh gray whales. Gray whales. Yeah.
43:28
And I guess specifically, what are they referred to as?
43:30
The sort of adolescent or young gray whales?
43:35
you've got mothers with their calves.
43:38
So, the calves are born in San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California, and they're going to migrate up the west coast of the states to the summer feeding grounds in Alaska, and Nancy Black, who was the biologist we worked with, she had this theory that it was the immature mothers that were
43:56
taking a shortcut across Monterey Bay Canyon, this very deep water, and we knew that National Geographic had tried to film this and not been successful, and then my boss Alister, who I mentioned before, he gave me the task of deciding should we go and film this. So
44:10
So that was obviously quite onerous deciding, you know, should we spend this money to go and give it a go.
44:16
And we were extremely lucky that on day three someone reported this behavior.
44:22
And Nancy, who runs a whale watch business and she's a biologist in in California, she had never seen an attack from start to finish in the whole time she'd been watching this.
44:35
So she said, "This is my hunch.
44:37
I know roughly when it happens cuz, you know, the Blue Planet team had gone off to the this marine mammal conference and had said, "If anyone's got any stories that they think would be interesting for us, let us know."
44:50
So this this really interesting situation.
44:52
And day three we saw these killer whales hunting gray whales.
44:58
It was you for just one second? So it's a day three.
45:01
I don't want you to lose your place. Mhm.
45:02
You're mentioning that the the younger mothers, the so the theory goes, would take their calves Straight across the bay.
45:10
on a shortcut not having the sort of not having the life experience of the more senior mothers who would hug the shore.
45:17
hugging the shores and we know Take the long way around the bay.
45:21
dragons be Yeah, here be dragons.
45:21
Yeah, and here be dragons, exactly.
45:23
And why had the couple of questions you can answer them in any order.
45:28
Why do you think, or perhaps you know, the National Geographic attempted failed.
45:35
And then when you're tasked with deciding go or no go, Mhm.
45:38
how did you think about making that decision?
45:41
In other words, for instance, maybe there's not much downside to you personally in your career for if you say, "Let's do it." and it doesn't work.
45:52
It's like, well, bad luck.
45:55
Maybe there are consequences, but if it actually pays off, Right.
45:57
then like the upside is is huge, right?
46:00
So So the two things, why did, whether it's speculation or or something that you know, why did Nat Geo not capture the footage?
46:08
And then how did you think about making the decision?
46:10
In terms of them not making getting the footage, I think they were unlucky cuz they had a fantastic cameraman, Mike de Gruy, who was he was a brilliant cameraman and a wonderful person who's sadly no longer with us, but he and another fantastic cameraman, you know, they were really good guys and they didn't manage to get it.
46:29
But then I thought if they're sending them to do it, they obviously think it's worth a try, so let's give it a go.
46:34
But then in terms of trying to decide, you know, my whole life as a wildlife filmmaker is trying to make sure that the camera team was in the right place at the right time.
46:47
And I love logistics, I love the research.
46:50
And some of these behaviors, you know, if you're going to film something where an animal is it's well known what it does, you know, maybe it's a lion going to hunt in polar in Zambia or something like that and people are seeing that regularly.
47:04
But when it's something that's not been filmed before, you just try and have to piece together the bits of the jigsaw.
47:10
So, I'd say this woman, Nancy Black, the biologist, she knew roughly where it was happening, roughly when, and then you have to think about, well, if you're not there, you're not going to get it, so let's go and give it our best shot, work with her because she seemed to be the person as she was indeed the person who knew most about it.
47:32
Get a good boat, have a zodiac that we could get into to go and film from, and all you can do is try.
47:39
And a zodiac is, what would you say, 12 12 I don't know how many meters long?
47:44
And it's roughly 15 feet long.
47:48
People have seen these before.
47:48
They look I suppose they are they inflated?
47:52
I mean, they look inflated around the the perimeter, flat on the inside. Yeah. With an outboard motor. Yeah. More navigable.
48:01
And we were, you know, sitting and when we found this event where the killer whales were surrounding this mom and calf and we quickly clambered into the zodiac.
48:15
I remember my mom saying when she saw a photo of this, "You haven't got your life jacket on."
48:19
Because we got in so quickly I'd forgotten to do that.
48:21
And at one point the gray whale mother was trying to shelter under our boat. Oh.
48:29
So, it was, you know, as a biologist, it was incredible to see this behavior, you know, absolutely amazing behavior.
48:34
And literally the killer whales were the orca were close enough that if I'd wanted to I could have touched them cuz they were coming right around the boat.
48:44
But then and as a filmmaker, wow, this is exciting.
48:48
No one's filmed this before, you know, how incredible is that?
48:49
Very, very high octane stuff.
48:52
But then, you know, as a human being it pretty grueling to sit and watch this poor little calf get drowned and then eventually eaten.
49:03
But hey, killer whales have to eat.
49:06
They're not called killer whales for no reason. Exactly.
49:09
They're not called cuddling whales.
49:12
So, I'd love to get a bit more details.
49:14
So, how large are orcas compared to the calves?
49:20
Now, let me have a think about that.
49:22
I would say use metric because I have to accommodate the one of the few holdouts in the world, aka US.
49:28
I think a big male orca would be about 30 ft, 10 m.
49:31
I need to check that, but I think that's what it would be as I recall.
49:36
But the calf I guess the calf would have been about 5 m, 15 ft, something like that.
49:45
Okay, so I mean there's there's a size differential, but not as much as I would have expected.
49:48
Yeah, and that's the the male orcas.
49:50
They can have a dorsal fin that's about 6 ft high, but the females would be smaller.
49:54
Why are their dorsal fins so long?
49:56
So, dorsal fin for people imagine Jaws, the shark fin cutting through the water on the let's just say on the on the spine on the back of that that that's the dorsal fin.
50:06
Why is the dorsal fin of the orca so long compared to the length of its body? Why is that?
50:14
I do not know the answer to that. Why is it so big?
50:16
I guess it's helping Maybe it's acting a bit like a a rudder or something can and certainly I guess if you're traveling in rough seas, other members of your pod can see you cuz if you didn't have I'm just hazarding a guess there cuz you know they're a interesting society.
50:33
It's a matri- matriarchal society and when the male calves grow up, eventually they'll be they'll leave the pod and yeah, and you've got basically a group of females and calves.
50:46
I mean, they're extraordinary animals and I've seen them do some really neat behaviors.
50:51
Um after Blue Planet, I went on to produce a film about killer whales.
50:56
We got to film some really really cool behaviors. Like what?
51:01
For example, in the Straits of Gibraltar between the southern tip of Spain and Morocco, they were hunting bluefin tuna.
51:09
So, bluefin tuna will go into the Mediterranean to spawn and then about August time, they're coming back out of the Mediterranean and at that point the fishermen are long lining for them. They are so smart.
51:22
are so smart. They had learned that when the they'd been milling around and you'd see them just swimming around, you know, just keeping an eye on things and then the minute a fishing boat hooked one, they had clued in to the sound of the
51:38
winch as they're winching and as soon as they made a beeline for boat, you knew that that boat had hooked a tuna and they would just be diving on this line, and then they the fishermen would haul it up and it'd be big killer whale sized bites out of it. And um yeah, I mean,
51:53
And um yeah, I mean, they're very impressive animals.
51:58
uh some predators elsewhere will become attuned if they're surrounded by hunting to the sound of gunshot. Yes. Grizzlies and so on. Question about orcas.
52:08
So, in the case of Monterey Bay, are they This is going to sound stupid, probably.
52:15
Are they hunting the gray whale calves to primarily eat?
52:19
Are they teaching their young how to hunt?
52:25
And I will let's start there.
52:25
Is it Is it primarily of both. A bit of both.
52:28
And Nancy had this theory that what they were doing was eating the tongue and leaving the rest of it.
52:37
And we were able to film that and show it was that was the case.
52:41
So, what happens, they've got this thick layer of blubber, but the killer whales were going in sort of through under the jaw under the soft palate, and they drowned the calf by jumping repeatedly on top of it and holding it under and ramming into the side of it.
52:56
And then they were actually eating the tongue.
52:59
And once they'd done that, they'd leave it and then just swim away.
53:01
And uh Doug the cameraman, he got into the water and was able to actually film this slightly gruesome carcass of the whale, which then sank to the bottom of the ocean and then would be feeding other creatures.
53:16
So, again, all part of nature's great cycle, albeit a bit sad to witness.
53:21
So, if they're just consuming the delicacy of the tongue, Mhm.
53:23
which is true for humans, also.
53:25
I feel like it's some history of, say, uh some Native American tribes would regularly just remove the tongue of the bison. Mhm.
53:32
And leave the rest, of course, which would then get consumed by other things. Yeah.
53:36
But, what is your theory of what primarily was happening in that case? Was it teaching hunting? Was it sport? Was it simply sport?
53:44
There was definitely an element of teaching hunting and we we were able to show that with the footage we got because there was a particular matriarch that had a very noticeable little notch in her fin so you could see that she was leading the attacks if you like but then she would hang back and you could see her and the other adult females hanging back and letting the calves go in and kind of have a go if you like. Yeah.
54:12
So there was definitely an element of teaching and you know I've seen that with orca in other places up in Alaska for example they were hunting maganzos so these sea ducks would be swimming around on the surface and then the whales would swim underneath them get hold of their feet and just pull them under just pulling them under for a few seconds and letting them go.
54:33
So these birds were flustered and flapping around and then they'd come up and do it again just like playing and then of course eventually they drown these poor ducks but they are the smart animals the smart animals.
54:48
Coming back to the the size of the dorsal fin I know that I like the the signaling theory is most in the hunting that you've observed how much of it is coordinated group hunting almost like a wolf pack or something like that versus solitary hunting?
55:04
I'd almost say the the former and there was a fantastic film made by David and Liz Paracook some years ago gosh about 20 25 years ago called Wolves of the Sea Ah.
55:18
and they are just that wolves of the sea they coordinated hunting in a pack and the different types of killer whales residents that hang around in one place they tend to eat fish there's transients that hang more offshore and they tend to eat marine mammals and then there's an offshore type that's bit of a mix of the two, but yeah, I I really enjoyed working with them.
55:41
My one regret is I haven't got in the water with them yet, but one of these days Is it Is it What is the danger level in getting in the water with orcas?
55:52
There's never been a case of a person being killed in the wild by an orca.
55:57
I mentioned that place near Tarifa in Spain where, you know, they're coming out of the med after spawning.
56:04
And one of the stories that I just loved was they'll have these great big pens where they're catching the fishermen are catching the tuna, and if they're not in great condition, they'll put them into the pens to kind of fatten them up, if you like, for later in the season.
56:18
And this guy's his job was to repair these nets, make sure they're in good condition, no holes in them, if, you know, someone's caught it on their propeller or something.
56:28
And he was there in the water in his dive gear, sort of sewing up this net with a bit of rope, and he became aware that someone's watching him, and he turned and looked over his shoulder, and there's this killer whale just sitting at his shoulder watching him repair this net, which, yeah, that would give you a That's spooky at all. Uh not spooky at all.
56:50
That would give you a wee bit of a fright, but God, what a thrill.
56:54
And And you mentioned also I'll I'll give you a visual cue.
56:56
And maybe you can if you remember. I do remember. So, I love this story. I love this. Oh.
57:05
So, there's a a cameraman called Andrew Penniket in New Zealand who worked on this killer whale film with me, and he was telling a story about his friend diving in the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand, which is this absolutely brilliant dive spot.
57:19
And this guy's swimming around, and then all of a sudden snags his leg, as he thought, and he thought he'd caught it on some, you you fishing gear or something like that.
57:32
And he turns around and this is orca, this killer whale that's basically holding his calf between its jaws and just gently squeezing his wet suit with its teeth.
57:44
That's sort of Well, this doesn't look like it's going to taste too nice and uh just let him go, but yeah, that would be a um I think you'd probably feel quite wide awake after that experience.
57:55
Yeah, no no extra coffee needed after that time. So incredible.
58:01
What would you like to do if you got in the water with orcas?
58:04
Just your dream scenario be?
58:08
I would like to photograph some, but then equally it's you know, nice to not have a camera and just sit and observe them because as I say, they no one has been killed by one and we did have the intention when we were filming the Monterey Bay sequence that
58:22
we'd get in the water, but then we decided not to do that because they were really kind of thrashing around when they were hunting the gray whales and I think there's probably a very good chance you might have got injured just in the the melee. This is as good a a
58:34
This is as good a a layup of a segway as I could hope for.
58:40
We might as well use this opportunity. The divorce whale. The divorce whale. Oh dear god.
58:44
Well, um so Doug who I mentioned earlier, Doug Allan, Doug is a fantastic fantastic documentary cameraman, but as I always tell him, not such a fantastic husband.
58:58
But anyway, um he proposed to me when we were adrift on a piece of ice in the Canadian High Arctic during the making of the Blue Planet um with the classic line, "If we get rescued, will you marry me?"
59:11
Um as I always tell him, probably he thought he was going to die to do that.
59:17
But then some considerable time later when we were working on Planet Earth, we were filming humpback whales in Tonga in the South Pacific, which is definitely my favorite shoot from my time with the BBC.
59:32
And we spent 10 weeks filming humpbacks, and the humpback whales which are in the southerly latitudes, when the winter approaches in the Antarctic, they're going to move to northerly climbs to have their calves.
59:46
So, places like Tonga where you've got shallow, warm, protected waters.
59:51
Anyway, we were filming them, and I was I we were both in the water.
59:56
He's filming the mom and calf, and I'm filming him filming the mom and calf for the sequence for Discovery Channel. quite close.
1:00:04
And I was quite close, and I looked over the top of the camera and realized I was way closer to the calf cuz I was on a very wide-angle lens, and the calf was kind of flopping around cuz it didn't have the control that the mom had.
1:00:17
And you know, the mom's 45-ft long, 15-m long, and the calf was about 15-ft, 5-m, weighing about a ton, and this calf basically bumped into me with its tail.
1:00:31
I mean, certainly not being aggressive or anything, just cuz it didn't have the control the mother did.
1:00:37
bump is a perhaps an understatement.
1:00:40
Yeah, and cuz I was filming at the time, this was all caught on camera, and it just really felt like I'd been hit with a sledgehammer, and I thought straight away I'd broken my leg.
1:00:52
So, I stuck my head above the water and shouted to Doug, "I've broken my leg."
1:00:57
Normally, I would clip the video camera on before I get in the water, but this day I hadn't cuz we'd gotten in the water very quickly, so I was just holding the video camera.
1:01:05
And that was slightly negatively buoyant, so it had started sinking.
1:01:11
Anyway, given the choice between rescuing me with the potential broken leg or the camera, sadly, there was no contest.
1:01:23
So, I was not in any doubt before the incident that Doug preferred his camera to me, but I was definitely left in no doubt at all after that event.
1:01:29
So, I always joke and call that the divorce whale.
1:01:34
But, so we are divorced a for a re- a number of reasons, but that I think was a a nail in the coffin, but we do get on much better now.
1:01:45
I'll get my own back one of these days.
1:01:47
You've had tremendous success in your career.
1:01:51
What are some of the most common mistakes or any mistakes that you see in novices who are trying to become or are but just in the early stages of being wildlife photographers?
1:02:08
We can start with that category.
1:02:10
You need to walk a fine line between being determined but not too pushy.
1:02:15
No one wants the pain in the ass. Hopefully, I'm not.
1:02:18
I would but you need to want to do that job more than anything else in the world because it is absolutely all consuming and I don't have kids and there are a very small number of people who have made a success of this career who do have kids, but it is a very small number.
1:02:40
But yeah, you just have to want to do it to the exclusion of practically everything else, but I did.
1:02:49
I did want to do that and it's just been a fabulous life getting to do what I absolutely love. Now, you are remarried. Yeah.
1:03:00
And you I was chatting with some other folks on this trip also.
1:03:07
Just curious as to how the relationships work.
1:03:11
Like what the kind of agreements are since some people here and I don't know what your split looks like, but they'll spend you know, 200 plus days of the year on the road and their significant other is not on the road. Yes.
1:03:24
Could you just tell us a bit more about that?
1:03:29
My husband Chris, he and I were at primary school together, so we met we were 10, then didn't see each other for 37 years.
1:03:37
A dear friend of mine, Judith Owen, she's a fabulous singer-songwriter and I'd been to stay with her and her husband, Harry Shearer, in Santa Monica and photographed Judith's album.
1:03:52
Chris had seen a post I'd made about this and and then he said, you know, wow, that's what an amazing voice this woman's got and we had got back in touch.
1:04:00
I invited him to go to the gig and that's how we re-met after all this time, but he is not good in the cold, whereas Doug was, you know, the world's leading polar cameraman.
1:04:11
It's a bit of a contrast there.
1:04:13
So, I I think, um, he wishes he'd married a tropical specialist, but he absolutely loves being at home.
1:04:20
He loves being at home and we course we've just had lockdown, so we've been at home together for almost a couple of years and amazingly he seemed to have enjoyed spending that time with me, but yeah, I I'm going to be away a lot probably the next couple of years trying to make up for a bit of lost time and revenue, but you know, it's what I do for a job and I need to be able to go to these places and do these things cuz it's what makes me tick.
1:04:48
So, it would it actually works out really, really well cuz it's it's funny someone was joking about having a, you know, a home husband and a work husband cuz, uh, you know, I like working in the cold and have friends I can do that with and and then Chris likes being back home in front of the log fire in North Wales.
1:05:07
That sounds like, uh, he and my girlfriend would get along because, when I first shared the description of this trip and I sent it to her and if she could sleep in a sauna.
1:05:19
Not to be confused with a What is it? Um a so- sauna. Sauna. Yes.
1:05:24
We had some confusion earlier.
1:05:26
I do not speak the Queen's English. Sauna. A sauna. What's a sauna Tim? Yeah, yes. What is that?
1:05:35
Sounds Sounds vaguely foreign.
1:05:35
The response that she gave me when I shared it and I sent a very enthusiastic cuz I was I was downtown working.
1:05:40
Very enthusiastic email like this is even more amazing than I possibly could have imagined. All these caps.
1:05:46
And then we talked about it later.
1:05:48
She said, "Yeah, I really hope you have the best time."
1:05:54
Because you should go and this is not for me.
1:05:57
She's probably on holiday with Chris as we speak.
1:06:00
be They might be sitting in front of a log fire. I think so.
1:06:02
On some tropical island somewhere.
1:06:06
How many people who are in relationships do you meet who have an opposite as you do in a sense versus someone who perhaps understands because they do the same type of work because I've met some of both here.
1:06:24
Is there a breakdown that you've seen or just in your experience? one, isn't it?
1:06:28
I think that for me it definitely works better being married to someone who's the opposite than doing someone who's got similar passions because it's the sort of where you have to be very driven.
1:06:43
You know, you can't think, "Oh, I'm going to stay in the tent today."
1:06:44
when the polar bear's off doing something exciting outside, you know.
1:06:48
The longest we had in one spell filming was 36 hours cuz there was this interesting behavior going on.
1:06:55
So, you need to be 36 hours of continuous filming? Yeah. Yeah.
1:07:01
So, but that was super rare and that was this polar bear's hunting beluga whales thing.
1:07:06
So, you have to be prepared to to put up with discomfort.
1:07:09
But then, the really cool thing about my job now is since I decided to leave the BBC cuz, you know, I wanted to go out on a high after Planet Earth.
1:07:18
Getting out at the top like Rocky Marciano. Oh, absolutely.
1:07:24
Just with smaller biceps.
1:07:24
Possibly and the Yeah, no, I did.
1:07:28
I wanted I it was just such an amazing experience and by now I'd had 11 years, you know, working on these David Attenborough series and this had been my absolute dream as a child and I just thought, well, I'd been doing photography as part of my job.
1:07:44
So, I'd been promoted to assistant producer, associate producer, then producer and director.
1:07:49
And I thought, you know what?
1:07:52
I'm actually enjoying photography more than being a producer.
1:07:56
So, I decided to see if I could make a go of that.
1:07:58
Now, quick interjection because I enjoyed your presentation the other day.
1:08:02
Time really blurs here, by the way.
1:08:05
Like time dilation and contraction.
1:08:07
It's very hard to know like how tired you are or awake you are.
1:08:09
I'm sure you figure it out over time, but for me I'm like Oh, I'm so hungry and tired and it's probably 11:00 in the morning.
1:08:16
Oh, wait, it's 1:00 in It's 1:00 in the morning.
1:08:20
It's It's very confusing to my circadian rhythm, but when I was you watching your presentation a couple days ago, feels like a couple days ago.
1:08:28
Uh you mentioned that your photographs were sort of inching their way, centimetering their way closer to the covers of magazines, right?
1:08:36
So, that was Was that also part of the reason you decided, you know, Yes, it was.
1:08:43
I have a I think I think there's a shot.
1:08:45
I think there's a pretty good shot here. Yeah, and I I guess.
1:08:50
Well, you know, in the same way that as a kid I thought, if I don't give it a go to try and work with David Attenborough, and that was what going back to that Operation Rally project in Australia, what that gave me was the confidence to at least try and if I didn't succeed, at least I tried, you know?
1:09:09
Better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all kind of thing.
1:09:13
And then same with this idea of the photography.
1:09:15
So I as you mentioned, I got a shot of a great white shark on the cover of the BBC Wildlife magazine and then I got it on the cover of a National Geographic magazine.
1:09:27
And then I had another shot on the back cover of the National Geographic magazine and I thought, well you know, I'm getting a bit closer here. So let's give it a go.
1:09:35
If it doesn't work out, at least I tried.
1:09:37
I won't be sitting here wondering if it I just succeeded.
1:09:41
So I I handed in my notice and I had a really good bit of luck the next day.
1:09:46
Although the whole thing of you make your own luck, right?
1:09:49
So I was asked the following day, did I want to join this Russian icebreaker that was going to the North Pole.
1:09:56
And they asked me, did I want to do that?
1:09:58
And I was going to go and speak about polar bears and other Arctic wildlife cuz I just finished this film about polar bears.
1:10:07
So that led to me doing seven trips to the North Pole by nuclear icebreaker and getting to have some wonderful experiences working on the ship. A quick quick question.
1:10:19
What does nuclear icebreaker mean? Icebreaker I understand.
1:10:21
What What What is the So rather than running on diesel or whatever, it runs on nuclear power.
1:10:30
And the Russians have a number of the Can you hear those emperor penguins in the background? Isn't that great?
1:10:37
I have fantastic neighbors.
1:10:39
you don't sleep normally here. This is right.
1:10:41
I mean, the other night about 3:00 in the morning, there was one clearly standing right outside my tent and about 2 ft from my head and then suddenly started calling, which was a rude awakening. But lovely.
1:10:56
Just to build on that, so people can fully appreciate these emperor penguins do not have, as I understand it, any terrestrial predators.
1:11:05
So, when they are out of the water, we briefly mentioned leopard seal.
1:11:09
We can maybe come back to that, but people can certainly Google it and see some crazy imagery.
1:11:16
On land, they are utterly unafraid.
1:11:16
I mean, you can still freak them out if you move too quickly or something, but I guess some of the staff here have called them the inspectors. Yeah.
1:11:26
Because they'll come right up to you and check you out.
1:11:28
It's It's really incredible.
1:11:31
Yeah, and I you know, there are very strict guidelines about how close you can approach them.
1:11:35
So, you know, no closer than 5 m, etc.
1:11:37
But of course, if you sit still and wait, they'll come and check you out.
1:11:43
And it's it's just a magical experience.
1:11:45
I mean, one time I'd carried my camera bag out to the colony, and it was a really cold day.
1:11:50
It was, you know, uh minus 22°C, and I lay down, I put my head on the camera bag, and was just listening to the chicks, and I actually fell asleep while I was listening to them, and my hand was stretched out on the snow.
1:12:06
When I woke up, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes later, and my arm's on the snow with my glove on, and and there was this little emperor penguin chick with its little flipper stretched out on my hand right next to me.
1:12:19
But yeah, going back to the icebreakers, the I mean, I had seven trips on those, and um lockdown has given me the chance to think about how I want to slightly change how I'm working.
1:12:30
So, flying less, you know, cutting my carbon footprint, which is obviously been very easy in the last year and a half cuz I've hardly been anywhere.
1:12:39
But, you know, flying less, and it was very cool in September.
1:12:44
A couple of months ago, I was asked to join a hybrid electric ship going to the North Pole.
1:12:49
This is this amazing ship which new design and owned by Ponant, the French company.
1:12:55
So, I'm going to be working with them the last couple of years.
1:12:58
So, it's really lovely to be able to find this hybrid electric ship running on liquefied natural gas and battery power and just doing things in a very different luxurious way. Hurrah.
1:13:10
Well, you also mentioned in a very quiet way, right?
1:13:14
Which which which is I suppose obvious once you say it, but you're mentioning that you're on deck and being able to take these amazing photographs of polar bears because the ship is so quiet and you actually had to ask some fellow passengers to pipe down because their voice was the loudest Yeah, it was loudest in the ship. It was amazing.
1:13:32
So, we were able to stand there photographing this mother and cub, you know, playing around in the snow, climbing over the ice, rolling, just behaving completely naturally, not affected by our presence.
1:13:45
It was, yeah, absolutely wonderful.
1:13:47
So, being able to sort of tweak the way you're doing your job is really important.
1:13:51
One of the things that I've seen you doing here with some mutual friends is going through photographs, discussing photography.
1:14:01
What type of feedback do you give most frequently when you are interacting with people, say at a camp like this?
1:14:09
What are some of the things that people perhaps don't pay enough attention to or things that are missed by folks who come here?
1:14:14
Because many people who come here are experienced, not necessarily well-trained, but experienced photographers. Yes.
1:14:22
I'm one of the few people here who isn't carrying equipment.
1:14:25
How do those feedback/teaching sessions go?
1:14:27
That's one of the things actually that since I left the BBC that I've really enjoyed doing is teaching people and getting that feedback from people who watch these documentaries as opposed to just being with people who make them.
1:14:40
And I realized that actually being with people and getting them to observe the natural world and tell them about animal behavior and help them capture it with their cameras or their iPhones or whatever, you know, that's something that I really really enjoy doing.
1:14:58
So, and that's led to a number of whether it's working for different travel companies or private individuals where I'm taking them on location and doing that for them or maybe making a book of their trip, that sort of thing.
1:15:12
I love doing that and just trying to point out different bits of behavior.
1:15:18
So, because as a zoologist, you know, that's been very helpful getting to be a wildlife filmmaker or photographer.
1:15:22
So, you can, you know, observe the animals and point those things out to them and try and get them to look for the little moments that make a special photograph, not just it's standing there, but you know, what is there about the scene in front of you that you can capture and turn into a special moment.
1:15:43
What might be an example?
1:15:45
Something like emperors, you know, when when you're watching them.
1:15:49
So, because I've been fortunate to to photograph them so much, you can tell when an adult has paired up with its own chick.
1:15:58
You know, it's coming back from feeding at the colony.
1:15:59
It's walked and now at the moment we're about 10 miles from the edge of the ice.
1:16:04
So, it's walked about 10 miles to come and bring food to the chick.
1:16:07
And they locate their chick amongst thousands of birds by calling to it and they will find their chick.
1:16:16
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na That sort of thing.
1:16:21
I'm so much more poetic than that. But It is. It is.
1:16:24
And they have, I guess someone was saying they're biharmonic, so it's it has a very particular sound to it.
1:16:29
It's a fantastic sound and then the chicks are calling to the adults and oh, it's just lovely.
1:16:33
But, you know, you can see if that adult is with its chick because when it is, it'll snuggling close to it and then you can see when it's about to feed it.
1:16:43
So, I'm able to say to people, "Look, you see that one over there? That's its chick.
1:16:47
It's not a stranger, if you like."
1:16:49
And then it will stand there and regurgitate its meal of, you know, fish, squid, krill to the chick, which is a lot more photogenic than I'm making it sound.
1:17:02
But, you know, being able to do that kind of thing and and help people see little bits of behavior is a cool thing to do.
1:17:08
Same when I'm taking people on safari, you know, if you see a leopard and you can anticipate what that leopard's going to do.
1:17:14
Cuz I take people on safari to Zambia every year and watching marine mammals in Alaska, whatever it is, it's just trying to get the detail and and trying to help them tell a story with their photos.
1:17:27
So, if you have one, this is a really large component, which is sort of your Venn diagram of strengths of helping people anticipate or perhaps first just see Mhm. Mhm. the behaviors, right? Yeah.
1:17:41
So, certainly you have your books.
1:17:44
Are there any other books that you've gifted most to other people?
1:17:45
I actually gifted one recently.
1:17:48
A friend of mine, Ian Dawson, he trains mountain rescue people.
1:17:53
Mountain rescue is in Scotland and he was working with me at the North Pole and he'd never seen a polar bear before.
1:18:01
He absolutely fell in love with the environment and I gifted him a book called Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. Have you read that? is on my to read list.
1:18:10
So, Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez is one of my favorite non-fiction books I've read in the last 10 years.
1:18:17
And Arctic Dreams, I was just saying on the way here in the airplane that I wished I had Arctic Dreams.
1:18:24
So, I haven't read it yet.
1:18:25
It is a magical book and yeah, I gifted that to Ian and I know he loved it and um that is a great read.
1:18:32
You have to immediately dash off.
1:18:34
Well, perhaps not now, but when you get back to civilization.
1:18:38
Yeah, that's a that's a really beautiful book and I've bought that for quite a few people.
1:18:41
that for quite a few people. Um there's also a fabulous book on polar bears called, imaginatively enough, Polar Bears uh something like their ecology, behavior, something like that by Ian Sterling and Ian is the world's leading polar bear biologist who is a fantastic person
1:19:01
and I've had some amazing experiences with him going tagging polar bears and just yeah, so that's another brilliant book and having worked a lot with the Inuit in the Canadian High Arctic, I've got quite a large collection of books about Arctic stuff, whether it's wildlife or the Inuit themselves or polar art and so on. So, we'll we'll
1:19:21
So, we'll we'll link to all these for folks in the show notes afterwards.
1:19:25
So, we'll give that URL a little bit later, but I'm curious about polar bears.
1:19:29
I've never seen a polar bear and I was chatting with some folks here.
1:19:33
We have a lot of staff from Alaska.
1:19:35
We have folks from Baffin Island Mhm.
1:19:41
and a number of them have commented because I was asking about grizzly bears as well about how small grizzly bears seem compared to polar bears, which is kind of uh mind-boggling for me to even Yeah.
1:19:55
ponder because I've seen grizzly bears and they're by no means they don't strike me as small. No.
1:20:00
And I'm wondering why polar bears are so huge because you'd think their task of hunting seems to be much more difficult than say a grizzly bear. I'd say so, yeah.
1:20:13
wouldn't it make more sense that to sustain a larger body requiring more calories would be better suited to the environment of the grizzly bear as opposed to the Arctic.
1:20:24
So, why are polar bears so huge? What am I missing?
1:20:26
Well, for starters, they have to be able to survive a few months without food when the sea ice breaks up cuz they need sea ice as a hunting platform to hunt for amongst other things ring seals which is the most numerous seal in the world.
1:20:42
That's their favorite prey, but they can also help hunt other seals.
1:20:44
Sorry, rustling a bit there cuz I'm sitting here in my parka in our I'm going to put my top up.
1:20:51
My head's getting pretty chilly.
1:20:54
Need a little fur around the face. Yeah.
1:20:55
Also, you've maybe seen footage through in documentaries where they can they'll pound the ice and break through the ice to break into a seal lair.
1:21:02
So, they can break through several inches of snow and ice.
1:21:07
So, they've got to be pretty hefty to do that. right.
1:21:10
Yeah, and they'll So, the seals ring seals will build a little snow lair under the ice and they'll be in there with their pup and then the polar bears will walk along and they'll be able to sniff the seal through the ice and then pound on that.
1:21:22
But, I mean the lair, it's effectively a burrow of sorts.
1:21:28
It's called a subnivian lair.
1:21:28
So, it's like a little lair under the snow.
1:21:30
So, they will come up from the ocean and there'll be a hole kind of into this little den, this little pocket and then there's a Now, I think the word is agloo.
1:21:42
This uh little tiny little hole with which is open to the air where they can breathe and you know, both the Inuit and bears can spot this.
1:21:52
Quite how I'm not sure still.
1:21:55
And then the other thing is that they will as well as being you know, pounding through the ice and as I mentioned you know, they'll be a pregnant female when she goes into the the maternity den when the ice breaks up, she's going to be in that for a few months.
1:22:10
So, they give birth to the cub and it'll be about the size of a guinea pig and she'll be in the maternity den with that cub for about 3 months before they emerge out in about March, April time.
1:22:24
So, she's got to have the subcutaneous fat for her to last that time.
1:22:30
And actually, what there's a really cool fact I I I managed to get this into this film I made about polar bears with Ian Stirling and and David Attenborough.
1:22:39
So, in 1990, oh gosh, I think it was '93, it might be '98, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines.
1:22:49
And when that you think, "What the heck's that got to do with polar bears?" Right.
1:22:54
So, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, it threw up huge amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.
1:23:01
And that obviously stopped some of the solar radiation getting through.
1:23:07
So, the following spring, temperatures were about 1 and 1/2° cooler than normal.
1:23:12
And that meant that the sea ice stayed longer than it would usually, maybe an extra couple of weeks.
1:23:22
And so, that meant the polar bears, including the females, they were able to feed up a lot more on ring seals, put on more weight, so that when they went into those maternity dens, they were able to basically have more cubs or hang on to their cubs, and the cubs were in healthier condition.
1:23:41
So, they actually called the bears that emerged that spring the Pinatubo bears. Isn't that incredible?
1:23:48
So, this volcano in the Philippines was directly linked to the success of those bears. Isn't that cool? I love that.
1:23:57
And also, actually, polar bears he came out with this great statistic that polar bears being affected by forest fires.
1:24:04
You think, "What's that all about?"
1:24:06
But in the southern Hudson Bay population of polar bears, which are the most southerly population, unusually, they'll dig sometimes they'll be digging maternity dens into river banks where there are tree roots and so on, which will kind of hold the substrate together, but when there's a forest fire, then that will burn the tree and then that is affecting how well that den can hold together.
1:24:32
Anyway, all sorts of interesting facts about polar bears, and here we are in the Antarctic. Yeah. Wrong pole. Wrong pole.
1:24:41
Yeah, I I accidentally Antarctica is a real hassle to spell with your thumbs on an iPhone, so I I told a friend of mine I was going to the Arctic to see penguins, and he's like, "You might You might want to just double-check and make sure you're going in the right direction."
1:24:54
And I said, "Okay, I will."
1:24:56
Well, I'll tell you what, you sleep a lot better in a tent on the sea ice in the Antarctic than you do in the Arctic. Oh, I bet.
1:25:02
Cuz there's a couple of occasions where we've been woken up in the tents by polar bears.
1:25:06
And in fact, Doug, my ex, uh who we heard about with the divorce whale, Doug was filming polar bears with an Inuit friend, and they were in the tent around about March time, and it was pretty chilly.
1:25:17
So, he's kind of huddled in his sleeping bag, and his feet were pressed against the wall of the tent, and he was woken up by a polar bear pouring his feet through the wall of the tent. Oh my god.
1:25:28
So, he woke up Andrew, our Inuit friend, and said, "Hey, we've got a bear in camp."
1:25:33
And Andrew said, "Just open the tent, and it'll run away."
1:25:37
He said, "No, you open the tent." You open the tent. Oh my god. Yeah, no, thanks. I'll let you do that. You seem confident.
1:25:47
Yeah, where do you think all this gray hair came from? Does that actually work? It does work, yeah.
1:25:54
They they unzip the tent, and the bear run away.
1:25:58
That's so strange to me, because I've also seen footage of bears like smacking on windows and trying to get in. absolutely.
1:26:05
And you know, people are fairly regularly killed by them.
1:26:07
But you know, the first time we ever went to the Arctic, I will never forget it as long as I live.
1:26:15
So, you know, I've got pretty big feet, and I was able to stand and put both of my feet inside one paw print and have a bit of space around the outside. big. Yeah, they are. It's really incredible. And very impressive.
1:26:30
Speaking of boots, I'm in these boots Are your little toasty feet?
1:26:35
Uh uh well, they're rated down to I guess -100° F, and my toes are cold. Oh, dear. No, it's okay.
1:26:40
They're not They're not frost nipped They're frostbitten, but But, your backside will be soon.
1:26:46
Yeah, my ass I don't know if I can even feel my ass anymore.
1:26:50
Sue, where can people find you online?
1:26:53
Where can people find you?
1:26:54
me on my lovely new website, which is just suflood. com.
1:26:59
Flood like lots of water. Um uh suflood. com.
1:27:01
And then, you know, Twitter and Instagram, sufloodphotography or sufloodphotos.
1:27:08
And um yeah, love to hear from you.
1:27:08
We will link to everything in the show notes at tim. blog/podcast. So, please check it out.
1:27:14
You have to see Sue's work. It's just spectacular.
1:27:16
It's really And the And And it's not just the expertise and the patience and the endurance and the creative eye that is reflected in the work.
1:27:32
It's also the spectrum of your photography.
1:27:34
I mean, you It's not just even if it were solely in, say, Antarctica, it would still be amazing.
1:27:42
But, you operate and have been able to capture such incredible visuals in so many different environments with so many different animals.
1:27:51
It's very impressive, I must say. Thanks so much.
1:27:53
But, you know, my mom, Tim, she always used to say, "How come you're so patient with animals and not with people?"
1:28:01
What's What's your What's your answer there?
1:28:04
They don't They don't talk back.
1:28:04
Yeah, something something like that.
1:28:06
And um yeah, it's a lot easier to be uh patient with a I don't know, a polar bear or a leopard than some some people.
1:28:14
But, yeah, it's Thank you for that lovely comment.
1:28:17
And you know, it's a massive privilege to do what I do for a job, and I never forget it.
1:28:23
And you know, the great thing is going back to full full circle to when I was at school because when I was about 15, I was asked by a teacher at school, "What do you want to do when you leave school?"
1:28:37
And I said, "I want to make wildlife films with David Attenborough."
1:28:41
And was told, "Nobody gets to do that. Um how about cooking?"
1:28:47
Which was obviously a non sequitur.
1:28:47
And um a few years ago, I was invited back to my school to hand out prizes on prize-giving day and give a speech in Chester Cathedral.
1:28:57
So, I was able to tell that story and say, you know, if you have a dream to pursue something, pursue it because, you know, I was never the smartest, I was never the hardest working, but I knew what I wanted to do, and I'm too stubborn to give up.
1:29:12
So, that's probably the secret of some of the success, but it's a privilege to A, get to do it, and B, talk to you about it. So, thank you. It's it's great.
1:29:23
I mean, what what a spectacular environment.
1:29:26
I can't think of the next time that I'll have a chance to sit in a snow {slash} ice lounge in this sort of half-spherical tent.
1:29:38
It's like being inside the top half of a 20-sided die for any D&D nerds out there.
1:29:42
This ice table that has been created and It's pretty fussy.
1:29:46
and I am very impressed that the gear has actually lasted this long.
1:29:50
And I also want to give credit where credit is due.
1:29:55
We have Hannah to thank for many things. Yeah.
1:29:57
Keeping us alive and running this camp being very high on the list, but also just to humanize you a little bit.
1:30:03
She was telling a story as we were kind of huddled around the oven in there that I guess it was a previous trip where there was a daily practice of sitting down and she would say maybe you can fill in the gaps here.
1:30:18
Sue, you have to tell us three good things about yourself because you're so bad at it.
1:30:25
She did say that she brought it up the other day.
1:30:28
Yeah, but it's not my high suit.
1:30:30
Um, I have constant imposter syndrome, constant.
1:30:34
And so Hannah punished me by trying to get me to say three nice things about myself, but it's funny.
1:30:41
You make me think Tim, there was this event.
1:30:42
I'm still astonished that I was invited to this event at Buckingham Palace to go and meet the Queen as a result of my photography and my first reaction when I got this was this was someone playing a joke on me.
1:30:57
And um, yeah, and it wasn't and I just find that remarkable and I've got one of my photos hanging on the wall of Buckingham Palace, which is Wow. Wow.
1:31:06
I mean, the Queen could breathe and I did the world's worst curtsy, which was having watched American football on TV, it would not have looked out of place in American football match or a rugby scrum in Wales.
1:31:20
But um, but anyway, it was a rare chance for me to wear a dress.
1:31:22
That doesn't happen very often.
1:31:24
That and when I got married, I think was the last time. Amazing.
1:31:30
Well, to a great many adventures had and a great many adventures to come.
1:31:35
It's really wonderful to spend time with you.
1:31:39
You've been so generous with everyone here and it's really wonderful to see how excited you still are to engage with the work.
1:31:48
the work. Being out there and sitting out there and listening to the penguins and watching the penguins as I have been has always gone hand in hand with watching you on your side crawling around in the mud crawling around crawling crawling around in penguin
1:32:02
guano doing the little come on come on the little hand beckoning to get the I and I often talk to you know I'll often talk to wildlife because you you know whether it's a you'll often catch something's attention if you start talking to it. Or you know
1:32:17
Or you know if you're in the water with a humpback whale or something you can start singing down your snorkel or you know something where you're going to catch something's attention. Catch their attention.
1:32:30
So now next thing we have to do is we have to go to the Arctic together then we can do a podcast about more polar bear stories. I'm into it. I'm very very into it.
1:32:36
As long as I don't have to be the one unzipping the tent I'm all for it.
1:32:40
Yeah and there won't be a tent there'll be a luxury icebreaker.
1:32:43
I'm all over it don't worry. Okay.
1:32:48
I'll bring I'll bring the I'll bring my podcast studio with me which for those who obviously can't see this is just an H6 Zoom sitting on my thigh.
1:32:55
It's the only warmth I'm currently getting.
1:33:01
And let's not forget your special hat.
1:33:03
Oh yes yes and then I I've I have a banya a Russian banya hat a sauna a sauna sauna hat which insulates your head especially if you're bald like I am so that you don't turn your ears into you know Chinese dumplings when you're in these things and it turns out to be perfect for an ice table when you want to put your gear down without destroying it so spared.
1:33:26
No expense spared for my my like hand-me-down Russian banya hat and I would say this has been been a great success so thank you again Sue.
1:33:36
Hey thank you I absolutely loved it and really appreciate the opportunity and look forward to the Arctic next North Pole here we come.
1:33:45
North Pole here we come and everybody check it out sueflood.
1:33:47
com and we'll link to all the socials.
1:33:51
You're on all the on the various networks and so on.
1:33:53
Where are you most active on social media? Probably Instagram. Instagram.
1:33:59
What is your Instagram handle? Sue Flood Photography.
1:34:02
Or is it Sue Flood Photos? I'm just blanking.
1:34:04
We'll We'll put We'll put the right one.
1:34:06
It's pretty pretty easy to find.
1:34:07
Sue Flood p h and then it will pop right up.
1:34:09
So, check it out everybody.
1:34:12
I can't recommend it highly enough.
1:34:15
And Sue, what a gift your work and your teaching is.
1:34:19
So, thank you again for that. I'm cringing here now.
1:34:21
You're saying something nice. Thanks. Nice things. Nice things. And uh well deserved.
1:34:28
And to everybody listening, I'm going to go warm up my body and my feet and my rear side with uh with some hot coffee, hot instant coffee.
1:34:37
I love I wouldn't say it's shitty, but I really enjoy hot instant coffee.
1:34:44
Yeah, you need to get over that.
1:34:49
Where's my cappuccino machine when I need it?
1:34:51
well, you know, I'm from Long Island.
1:34:51
No No one ever accused me of being too high class.
1:34:56
So, I'm showing my true colors.
1:34:56
And everybody listening, thank you so much for listening.
1:35:00
Until next time, be safe, be adventurous, let someone else unzip the tent.
1:35:08
And uh you'll be able to find everything at tim.
1:35:09
blog/podcast for links to everything we've discussed.
1:35:13
And And just one more thing, boys and girls, this is an afterword.
1:35:19
I forgot to mention something.
1:35:20
And that is in February of 2021, Sue won the climate change category in the Science Photographer of the Year contest, which was run by the Royal Photographic Society.
1:35:31
And this image is pretty stunning.
1:35:35
It's beautiful, also shocking in some ways.
1:35:37
And you just have to Google North Pole underwater Sue Flood and the image will pop right up.
1:35:45
And I recommend checking it out. Thanks for listening.
1:35:49
Hey guys, this is Tim again.
1:35:49
Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday.
1:35:53
Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1.
1:35:59
5 and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.
1:36:06
Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.
1:36:08
It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week.
1:36:17
It's kind of like my diary of cool things.
1:36:19
It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests.
1:36:30
And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you.
1:36:38
So, if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.
1:36:45
If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim. blog/friday.
1:36:48
Type that into your browser, tim. blog/friday.
1:36:54
Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.
1:36:58
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.
1:36:59
My god, am I in love with Eight Sleep.
1:37:02
Good sleep is the ultimate game changer.
1:37:04
More than 30% of Americans struggle with sleep and I'm a member of that sad group.
1:37:09
Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat has always been my nemesis.
1:37:13
I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, putting them back on, and repeating ad nauseam.
1:37:20
But now, I am falling asleep in record time, faster than ever. Why?
1:37:23
Because I'm using a simple device called the Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep.
1:37:29
It's the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature.
1:37:34
It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced but most user-friendly solution on the market.
1:37:40
I polled all of you guys on social media about the best tools for sleep, enhancing sleep, and Eight Sleep was by far and away the crowd favorite.
1:37:51
I mean, people were just raving fans of this.
1:37:55
So, I used it, and here we are.
1:37:55
Add the Pod Pro cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55° F or as hot as 110° F.
1:38:05
It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.
1:38:09
My girlfriend runs hot all the time.
1:38:11
She doesn't need cooling.
1:38:11
She loves the heat, and we can have our own bespoke temperatures on either side, which is exactly what we're doing.
1:38:18
Now, for me and for many people, the result Eight Sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by up to 40%, and get more restful sleep overall.
1:38:30
I can personally attest to this cuz I track it in all sorts of ways.
1:38:34
It's the total solution for enhanced recovery, so you can take on the next day feeling refreshed.
1:38:37
And now, my dear listeners, that's you guys, you can get $250 off of the Pod Pro cover. That's a lot.
1:38:45
Simply go to Eight Sleep eight sleep. com/tim or use code Tim.
1:38:48
That's eight all spelled out e i g h t sleep.
1:38:54
com/tim or use coupon code Tim, t i m. eight sleep.
1:39:00
com/tim for $250 off your Pod Pro cover.
1:39:06
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.
1:39:08
I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement.
1:39:12
I've been asked this for years.
1:39:14
The answer is invariably AG1 by Athletic Greens.
1:39:16
I view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance, so you can cover your bases.
1:39:21
If you're traveling, if you're just busy, if you're not sure if your meals are where they should be, it covers your bases.
1:39:29
I've recommended it since The 4-Hour Body, which was, god, eons ago, 2010, and I did not get paid to do so.
1:39:34
With approximately 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense formula on the market.
1:39:42
It has a multivitamin, multi-mineral greens complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, and immunity formula, digestive enzymes, and adaptogens. You get the idea.
1:39:54
It is very, very comprehensive, and I do my best, of course, to focus on nutrient-dense proper meals, but sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're traveling, sometimes you just want to make sure that you're getting what you need.
1:40:08
Huel makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods aren't readily available.
1:40:14
It's also NSF certified for sport, making it safe for competitive athletes, as what's on the label is in the powder.
1:40:21
It's the ultimate all-in-one nutritional supplement bundle in one easy scoop.
1:40:26
Right now, Athletic Greens is giving my audience a special offer on top of their all-in-one formula, which is a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs with your first subscription purchase.
1:40:37
Many of us are deficient in vitamin D.
1:40:39
I found that true for myself, which is usually produced in our bodies from sun exposure.
1:40:44
So, adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine is a great option for additional immune support.
1:40:49
Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting athleticgreens. com/tim.
1:40:56
You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your subscription.
1:41:00
Again, that's athleticgreens. com/tim.