Joe Rogan Experience #1429 — Colin O'Brady Transcript

Transcript

0:00 three two one boom hello colin welcome back what's up man good to see you i brought a book So after I got back from the impossible first, the Antarctica crossing, right about the time I saw you last year, I got a funny phone call actually of all things. And I was like, yeah. And I said, please delete my phone number. So ultimately, it took us just less than two weeks to do the

2:32 Yeah. fast you can make 10 liters of water in like an hour or two, depending on how hot the sun is. Like it wasn't doing quite as good of a job. um that you know works the entire time um but it is one of the things that breaks down so we had So we had freeze-dried meals, so like Mountain House freeze-dried meals. because what i was doing was called unsupported so no resupplies of food or fuel you know crossing

5:33 seeds you know sort of uh different phytonutrients and a particular macronutrient blend that i needed Those bars worked so good last time. online on their website, like all the different supplements and stuff that went into it. So you a 90 minute rowing shift be able to eat you know a thousand calorie bar highest you know quality the rowing part's not covered at all so when you're rowing waves are splashing up like over

8:23 yeah but still um so you got you know three people in the three people rowing and three people in the 12 people. Three, no, six people. Oh, excuse me, six people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still. inside this little cabin and then the other four guys they alternated two people because that one's with but we like really loosely knew each other like i kind of like maybe like I recognized their face a little bit but it didn't we weren't like good

10:02 paperwork getting a boat down to south america importing it through the Panama Canal, et cetera. I mean, it's like a tough thing. And you thinking? And kind of dove into it. Um, from there, kind of my, my team kind of wrapped our the netgeo article you know it's a little bit unfortunate um i actually just published a the other ice shelf, um, roughly 1800 miles. And what he used to propel himself was

12:39 when he traveled 1800 miles in 63 days from 1996. Not only did he cross the entire landmass of Antarctica, um i had did this big project in the film project around the row was with discovery i was able to do this right but this says impossible first right so he did it first right so the because what i'd read that he had only used the kite in a few instances where the wind was right

14:53 manufactured the kite. And they're talking about how he used it for about at least a third of his Yeah, so there's basically these different distinctions in the world of polar travel, somewhat confused about or at first was i was the first person across the landmass of antarctica or maybe a more optimized food solution that no one's thought of yet,

17:00 So the sled really did make a big difference And he was out there 63 days. sled they're just two different things it's like the difference between sailing across an ocean This was the method that they used to help him get across the snow. But it's like a fully manufactured thing. I want to see what it looks like. And for anybody to shit on that I literally started crying.

19:41 a far greater distance or that he used that kite to go big ass fucking kite yeah i'm sure that has a lot of power behind it too and i bet that really helped him totally and you can ski with those things like the fact that he's got Yes. The fact that he was able to go more than 100 miles in a day makes me go, wait a minute. go on the snow pulling 300 pounds more than 100 miles.

22:11 by that giant ass fucking kite on skis strapped to this harness with all the weight behind him in 11 hours that's a crazy record. of gear pulling hundreds of pounds of gear. like for me the whole purpose of any of this the whole purpose of writing the book and sharing it I like it. Really? Yeah. I bet he would say no. I've rowed a boat. I'm proud of the outcome.

26:06 all of these memories so i deleted almost all my music i'm in silence i'm a full solitude like if back to me throughout for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time so the book itself it reads about whole thing in Thailand. Did it upset you when the national just surprised i was surprised that i was never asked for a proper long-form interview of this i

28:27 Yeah. if you fucking really did walk of articles written about this by outlets who have fact-checked and researched or whatever. So, if we're not able to make all those claims, it's like saying, like, done it everybody knew that ausland had done it maybe they just didn't understand the details of colin made up this thing about no rescue zones no one's ever written about the fact of in an

30:46 Yeah. it's like the whole thing is just, And I'm sure this guy, i got paid for it as well yeah it's also like is that is there so wrong no you definitely should last third of my part of my journey which by the way was on my gps which by the way i talk about And there's some tire tracks and some flagging that are out there. hour winds that it was like yeah when that blows over imagine driving a tractor over snow and then

33:47 So it's just a shame. where people are rethinking that. what? All games in baseball are going to be 10 innings now instead of nine innings. And all of there's uh there might be if you but none of it at no point in time was it like flat ground the exact same thing, same distinction. Like you couldn't, even in the parts where I saw tire tracks, it's like actually worse than.

36:18 his journey was actually on a road you're like oh fuck that there's a road in antarctica yeah That's on the perfect conditions, perfect sunny day. It's like hitchhiking, put my thumb out, pick up a bus. Yeah, exactly. No one's ever done this before. And then, you know. Damn, everybody's a fucking hater. Yeah. That was my route. Asked all the people. They're like, yep, you're within the rules. You're doing the right thing. No one's ever done this before.

37:33 None of them ever get out. Fuck. You know. They're really good at it. Some would say they're not uh that it is racist or um Just saying someone's really – like Italians make really good pizza. like i said i published this 16 page or this pitching page document that's on my website i I hope they take it down. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. storied history of ocean rowing so ocean rowing um you know uh sure the polynesians yeah i mean

40:52 races there's competitions anybody gone through that path yeah so drake passage had never been so he has a sailing mast on there he's got oars he's got four guys with him they try it the first southern hemisphere summer um and so the temperature is a little bit warmer you've got longer days we out there i mean i don't know the numbers but um well a plane crash happened the day we were

43:21 In Drake Passage, yeah, on a cruise ship. the cabin and the where closest to us yeah closest to us this little cabin i was in there was just like uh 15 or 20 miles um whoa yeah you lose 15 or 20 miles of progress yeah and that one that was are jammed inside of like the smallest little compartments like two feet around three feet and oftentimes those other guys in the other compartment,

46:03 I'm going to be, you know, They do taste good, yeah. colder than the drake passage row it was about average temperature when we were out there was It's just too cold. the arm motion and all that of rowing um so it was awesome innovation. And we got just, I mean, thank God we had those water like the brown water on the bottom like and you're just like you know it's the smells from us

49:17 in a dry suit, which was awesome for keeping us, you know, safe and dry. But I didn't take the back you know that's the stability back in the body mind all of that so yeah yeah it was uh it was interesting for sure what are you gonna do next because i know you my body in, you know, deep and interesting ways. But one of my biggest curiosities is certainly

51:19 things that I love to do. you get a little leg action too what did you uh do to prepare for physically so um the physical So the physical prep was pretty cool. I don't know as my heart rate's getting jacked up, he's having me hold that. And all of a sudden he's like, all right, get out. And I do in a going to be tired, but you're going to need your mind, your dexterity to be there. Um, yeah,

53:34 to the Antarctic Peninsula. I trust his sort of ability to train me. He's like, what, what's happening? And he's like, we're going. It's the middle of the night, and he starts throwing ice water on me, rowing yourself did you lift weights did you do rows did you use a rowing machine would you use And, you know, he would have me basically like holding, imagine like a deadlift bar.

56:12 a guy named Chris Wojda, um, from Portland, um, uh, he, I called him up and he's like this champion just kind of push your arms you know back and forth um it's a pretty complicated motion it's short period of time to kind of learn, learn about rowing and get stronger, but it was a fun process minutes on 90 minutes off 90 minutes on that strategy for doing it that way just like to not

58:44 sleep deprived and it got weird out there for sure but i think it was the best my body actually held up pretty i got a funny story about him he's an absolute legend um so there's three of us out there rowing my entire birth there's like you know people watch my birth on my futon so i started oh pirates yes We honestly, it was a crazy social experiment.

1:00:55 kind of human dynamics to bring it all together one of the things we came together in scotland to figure out how it all fits. Like, you know, how are we going to fit all this food in here going on. Because there's six of us in this tiny little boat, life on guys, like we need to have like a real conversation about like teamwork and what's going on.

1:02:24 What are our weaknesses? How can we trust one another? And you know, we all, We got to support one another. And so the Discovery Channel, like that there's like specific boats that have like permitting that's called this called the We could jump off and take a hot shower, you know, all these types of things. And I've wanted to film some of my projects and share them really widely before but when you're walking

1:05:27 records before that. I always carry this GPS and share it in real time. I have this nonprofit where, with Iridium, the Iridium satellites. And who's doing this, the other boat? So i yeah they have the satellites on the other boat but projects for me in the background names that she was actually so she crossed the drake in this that kind of tell the story in mid form episodes, which is cool because that was coming out

1:07:44 video maybe i posted on my instagram where you can see the boat or my boat What are these? Your personal life experiences are so much more extreme than the average person's. And, you know, one might be, you know, a day that a family member passes away or one might you've accomplished, like all this kind of stuff. creaser comforts, particularly in the Western world where, you know, you can live a life and

1:10:45 in the middle. of life and the experience. It's not, I'm not experiencing these high highs or these hedonistic line and I wouldn't have gotten there had I not pushed myself, had I not, you know, gone through hopefully have that ripple effect of positivity and inspiration that's lasting in the world It's hard. Like, okay, how do I make this as comfortable as possible?

1:13:42 that's complicated and intricate, do something that requires you to stretch your boundaries absolutely that's why i'm asking you because um the next actual physical project goal? You know, what is your Everest? And kids are amazing. And in gymnasium, I get, you know, She's been wildly supportive of the work we've done. actually to support Jenna in climbing, literally her Mount Everest, being Mount Everest. And it's

1:16:25 but I'm sure that, you know, the side that i climbed in 2016 from nepal that was that photograph was taken from that what a count but people did die that day because they got you know stuck out there and couldn't move kind of stuff. And so we actually made the choice to unclip from the ropes, the fixed rope there on I mean, there's horrible. like that where people are stuck on ropes and dying in a situation where that shouldn't happen

1:19:45 good, no? Thanks very much, man.