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  • A 22‑year‑old's government‑recorded coordinates led to an empty ocean floor

    A 22‑year‑old's government‑recorded coordinates led to an empty ocean floor
    2026/10/30
    A 22-year-old diver gave coordinates for the missing Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley - then divers found an empty ocean floor. How is that possible?

    A 22‑year‑old's government‑recorded coordinates led to an empty ocean floor

    In this episode, we follow the sequence that began when a twenty-two-year-old diver reported finding the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley off South Carolina and submitted coordinates that federal agencies accepted. The story traces the dive report, the National Park Service nomination, and the baffling dives to the recorded location - so why was the site empty?

    Person: E. Lee Spence
    Event: Reported discovery of H.L. Hunley
    Date: 1970 (diver surfaced and reported)
    Date: September 13, 1976 (NPS used coordinates to nominate site)
    Date: December 29, 1978 (Nomination approved)
    Location: Off the coast of South Carolina

    - At twenty-two, Spence dove the waters off South Carolina, mapped a position he said was the Hunley, and submitted those coordinates to government agencies.
    - The National Park Service used Spence’s coordinates to nominate a site to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
    - In 1978 the nomination was approved and the site became a federally protected historic landmark based on the recorded coordinates.
    - The Hunley had sunk in 1864 after attacking the USS Housatonic and remained physically absent from the seafloor for 106 years despite repeated searches.
    - Divers later visited the exact government-recorded location and encountered an empty ocean floor where the Hunley had been recorded.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • He learned to swim in one YMCA lesson and dived a Bronze Age wreck

    He learned to swim in one YMCA lesson and dived a Bronze Age wreck
    2026/10/29
    A man who learned to swim in a YMCA pool weeks earlier descended into the Mediterranean in 1960 to excavate a Bronze Age wreck - how did that happen?

    He learned to swim in one YMCA lesson and dived a Bronze Age wreck

    In this episode, we tell how George Fletcher Bass went from an English literature student to the director of the first fully excavated ancient shipwreck, and how a chain of unlikely events - a university prank, a spring break in Sicily, military service, and one YMCA diving lesson - placed him at the right moment to create underwater archaeology. What sequence of choices and accidents made 1960 the tipping point?

    Person: George Fletcher Bass
    Date: December 9, 1932 (birth); March 2, 2021 (death); 1960 (dive)
    Location: Cape Gelidonya, Turkish Mediterranean
    Event: First fully excavated ancient shipwreck using systematic archaeological method
    Occupation: Archaeologist; founder of underwater archaeology

    - Suspended from an exchange program at Exeter for a prank, Bass joined roughly forty other students who traveled to Sicily with unexpected free time.
    - Exposure to Mediterranean ruins in Taormina led Johns Hopkins to build Bass a custom archaeology major after he returned from England.
    - After graduate study, Bass served 1957-1959 in South Korea commanding a thirty-man security group, honing logistical and field-command skills.
    - In 1959 Peter Throckmorton alerted Professor Rodney Young to a Bronze Age wreck off Cape Gelidonya; Young invited Bass to direct the excavation.
    - Bass took one practical diving lesson at a YMCA in Philadelphia weeks before descending to the eighty- to ninety-foot site and applying land-archaeology methods underwater.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    15 分
  • He logged twenty thousand hours underwater with four missing finger segments

    He logged twenty thousand hours underwater with four missing finger segments
    2026/10/28
    An eighteen-year-old loses four finger segments in the calanque of Sormiou and refuses to leave the sea - how far will they go?

    He logged twenty thousand hours underwater with four missing finger segments

    In this episode, we follow Albert Falco from the limestone inlets of Sormiou to the decks of the Calypso as he turns a crippling injury into a life lived beneath the waves. The episode traces his early dives, the industrial surveys, and the path that led him to work with Jacques-Yves Cousteau - and asks how a boy without the papers to command a ship became the first oceanaut.

    Person: Albert Falco
    Date: May 9, 1946 (injury); October 17, 1927 (birth)
    Location: Sormiou, Calanques south of Marseille; Grand Conglué; Calypso
    Event: Detonation of wartime ordnance; entry onto the Calypso in 1952
    Hours logged: Twenty thousand hours underwater

    - At eighteen, Falco found a pen-shaped device in the shallows that detonated in his left hand, costing him four finger segments.
    - Within two years he was working professionally underwater, logging ninety hours on a single dam survey at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.
    - He adopted the name "fish-man" for himself while local officials like Jean Flavien Borelli called him a "water god."
    - In 1952 Borelli recommended Falco to Jacques-Yves Cousteau for a chief diver role on the Calypso to work a Roman wreck at Grand Conglué.
    - Falco spent decades on the Calypso, working long, dangerous sessions at depth on a ship converted from a Royal Navy minesweeper.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    16 分
  • 29 million tons of plastic flows into Indonesian seas every year

    29 million tons of plastic flows into Indonesian seas every year
    2026/10/27
    A 20-year-old diver on an Indonesian reef counts every piece of underwater plastic before she cleans-will her data change anything?

    29 million tons of plastic flows into Indonesian seas every year

    In this episode, we follow how a student diver turned systematic observer as she confronts an overwhelming national plastic figure. We trace her early dives, the methods she and two friends developed to record submerged debris, and the choices that shaped their approach - but what questions did that counting raise about scale and response?

    Person: Swietenia Puspa Lestari (Tenia)
    Date: first systematic dives in 2015; graduated 2017
    Location: Pulau Pramuka, Thousand Islands, Java Sea
    Topic: underwater plastic debris counting and cleanup methods
    Statistic: 1.29 million tons of plastic entering Indonesian waters annually

    - At age 20 she and two friends dove not to remove trash but to document it with waterproof slates and mapped locations.
    - She built a counting system before organizing any funding, partners, or formal group identity.
    - The decision to record embedded debris first became the guiding principle for later actions and methodologies.
    - Divers faced shifting currents and the risk of damaging coral when extracting plastic, making precision essential.
    - The large national estimates (1.29 million tons/year) framed the scale she confronted and the need for data from below the surface.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    14 分
  • A weighted rope descended 26,850 feet and hit bottom

    A weighted rope descended 26,850 feet and hit bottom
    2026/10/26
    A British warship in 1875 lowers a weighted rope into the Pacific and records a 26,850-foot drop-how could a rope measure the deepest place on Earth?

    A weighted rope descended 26,850 feet and hit bottom

    In this episode, we follow HMS Challenger’s three-and-a-half-year voyage and the scientists and sailors who methodically sounded the deep ocean with new instruments and miles of rope. We trace how they made long, slow measurements at numbered stations and why one accidental sounding stopped them cold - what did that number mean for the ocean?

    Date: March 23, 1875
    Ship: HMS Challenger
    Depth measured: 26,850 feet (4,475 fathoms)
    Expedition start: December 21, 1872
    Scientific team: Sir Charles Wyville Thomson; John Murray; John Young Buchanan; Henry Nottidge Moseley; Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm; John James Wild

    - The corvette HMS Challenger was refitted for science: guns removed, two labs installed, a dredging platform and winches bolted to the deck.
    - The ship carried 181 miles of Italian hemp rope and specialized thermometers like the Miller-Casella designed to withstand deep pressure.
    - Soundings were taken at numbered “stations”; each required hours as rope was marked every 25 fathoms, limiting precision to that interval.
    - On March 23, 1875, at Station 225, sailors paid out rope for nearly two hours until it reached 4,475 fathoms-26,850 feet.
    - The expedition logged 492 soundings, catalogued thousands of species, and produced a 50-volume report that took 19 years to publish.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • She published a paper from her last dive six weeks before she died

    She published a paper from her last dive six weeks before she died
    2026/10/25
    A ninety-one-year-old ichthyologist published a paper from a 2014 dive - how did her pursuit of ocean life survive every institutional barrier?

    She published a paper from her last dive six weeks before she died

    In this episode, we trace the life and work of a woman who spent eight decades studying marine life, from childhood afternoons pressed against aquarium glass to founding a marine laboratory on Florida’s Gulf Coast. We follow the choices, rejections, field trips and small triumphs that built a singular scientific career and ask how she kept going when the system expected her to stop.

    Person: Eugenie Clark
    Date: last dive in 2014; death on February 25, 2015
    Location: New York Aquarium (childhood), Florida Gulf Coast (marine laboratory)
    Event: published paper from 2014 dive six weeks before she died
    Career: 175+ scientific articles; 200+ field expeditions; 70+ submersible dives

    - As a child in Queens she spent entire days watching the largest tank at the New York Aquarium, an obsession that never waned.
    - Columbia’s graduate admissions rejected her explicitly because they expected she would leave science to raise children.
    - She earned a PhD from NYU in 1950 while working as a chemist and later conducted fieldwork at Scripps, Woods Hole, Bimini and the Red Sea.
    - A 1953 popular book, Lady with a Spear, brought her visibility and led Anne and William Vanderbilt to offer to fund a marine laboratory on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
    - In her nineties she continued diving and publishing, including a paper based on a 2014 dive that appeared in print six weeks before her death.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    16 分
  • A diving bell dropped 90 metres after an anchor chain cut its lift wire

    A diving bell dropped 90 metres after an anchor chain cut its lift wire
    2026/10/24
    A diving bell dropped 90m after an anchor chain sliced its lift wire beneath a support vessel - how could that single cut happen?

    A diving bell dropped 90 metres after an anchor chain cut its lift wire

    In this episode, we follow the documented sequence of a night dive off the Beryl Alpha platform in 1978 and the decisions, equipment and conditions that set the scene. What choices and failures left two men on the seabed with rescue teams searching through a storm?

    Person: Michael Ward
    Person: Gerard Anthony Prangley
    Date: 27 November 1978
    Location: Near the Beryl Alpha oil platform, North Sea
    Vessel: MS Star Canopus

    - The MS Star Canopus used dynamic positioning and had a documented beam-wind limit of 18-20 knots.
    - At 05:45 a north wind sustained at 40 knots pushed the vessel beyond its DP capability and the captain began turning the bow into the wind.
    - The diving bell was descended to 102 metres carrying Ward outside on an umbilical and Prangley as bellman inside managing the lifeline.
    - Anchor chains from the nearby Haakon Magnus semi-submersible lay in the water within the operational zone beneath the surface.
    - When the lift wire contacted an anchor chain it simultaneously severed the main lift wire, the life-support umbilical, and the guide wires, and the bell fell ninety metres.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    16 分
  • He ran out of guideline at 8,800 meters and surfaced into air

    He ran out of guideline at 8,800 meters and surfaced into air
    2026/10/23
    A cave diver runs out of guideline deep inside a flooded mountain and surfaces into a pocket of air - but how did thirteen people end up there?

    He ran out of guideline at 8,800 meters and surfaced into air

    In this episode, we follow the path that led John Volanthen from routine cave dives to the flooded labyrinth of Tham Luang, and we trace the methodical decisions that guided him through dark sumps to pockets of air. What precise practices and choices turned a volunteer diver into the person who reached the missing group first?

    Person: John Volanthen
    Event: Tham Luang cave search
    Date: June 2018 (team entered June 23, 2018; Volanthen arrived ~ten days later)
    Location: Tham Luang cave system, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand
    Record: 8,800 meters continuous cave penetration at Pozo Azul (2010)

    - Volanthen ran a guideline as standard protocol and surfaced whenever the line ended, even at extreme penetration distances.
    - He built and maintained his own equipment, including home-made rebreathers, while working as an unpaid volunteer and IT consultant.
    - His cave-diving history includes a 2010 team record of 8,800 meters and earlier deep dives and rescue attempts that resulted in recoveries and withdrawals.
    - Inside Tham Luang, Volanthen and Richard Stanton treated every air pocket as a deliberate stopping point: surface, shout, listen, and wait.
    - The cave is a stacked series of flooded sumps and chambers, not a simple tunnel, and the boys entered before sudden monsoon flooding sealed the exit.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分