Joe Rogan Experience #1429 - Colin O'Brady

1. 0:01 – 0:50

   Colin’s new book and the “row back to Antarctica” phone call

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      Three, two, one. Boom. Hello, Colin. Welcome back.

   2. COColin O'Brady0:04

      What's up, man? Good to see you.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      You wrote a book?

   4. COColin O'Brady0:06

      I brought a book. I wrote a b-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      You wrote it? You wrote this book?

   6. COColin O'Brady0:08

      I wrote this book last time, since I saw you last.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      The Impossible First.

   8. COColin O'Brady0:12

      Indeed, indeed, yeah, about my, uh, solo journey across Antarctica and kinda diving deep through my whole life and kinda what brought me there and other expeditions and the ups and downs of it all.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      And you're coming back from another crazy trip, right? What-

   10. COColin O'Brady0:25

       I am indeed.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       What is that nonsense that you did on a kayak?

   12. COColin O'Brady0:28

       (laughs)

   13. NANarrator0:29

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       What did you do?

   15. COColin O'Brady0:31

       So, uh, after I got back from The Impossible First: The Antarctica Crossing, right about the time I saw you last year, um, I got a, uh, a funny phone call actually, of all things. People were asking me, you know, "What's the next expedition gonna be? What are you gonna do?" And I said, "You know, I just walked 54 days by myself across Antarctica. Give me, give me a minute, give me a minute to, uh-"

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Right.

2. 0:50 – 2:13

   What it takes to row the Drake Passage: distance, danger, and the boat setup

   1. COColin O'Brady0:50

      "... relax." And, uh, I get a phone call via a buddy of mine from college, connects me to this, uh, this guy, uh, this Icelandic guy, I've never met him before, his name's Fionn Pol. Don't know his story, I do now, he's an absolute legend. Um, and he says, "Hey man, you were just in Antarctica, right?" And I was like, "Yeah," and he's like, "I think we should go back to Antarctica." And I was like, "All right. Well, what are you thinking?" He's like, "In a rowboat. I think we should row a boat from the southern tip of South America to the peninsula of Antarctica across Drake Passage."

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:19

      How far is that?

   3. COColin O'Brady1:20

      About 700 miles.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:21

      Can I see what that looks like on a map?

   5. COColin O'Brady1:23

      (laughs) Um, and I said, "Please delete my phone number." (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:28

      700 miles rowing a boat?

   7. COColin O'Brady1:30

      Uh, yeah, so Drake Passage is known to be, um, you know, in seafaring, one of the most treacherous if not the most treacherous kind of passageway in the world. You know, you've gotten, you know, the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Southern Ocean kind of all converging between the Antarctic Peninsula and the southern tip of South America. So you've got 40-foot swells, you got, you know, crazy waves, icebergs as you get close to Antarctica. Um, and the, uh, the mission or the goal was to see if we could, uh ... There it is right there.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:54

      That's it?

   9. COColin O'Brady1:54

      That's it. That-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       That whole area?

   11. COColin O'Brady1:55

       That whole area, yeah, right there.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:57

       From there to there?

   13. COColin O'Brady1:57

       From there to there. Um, all the way down, yeah, the main, the main peninsula there of Antarctica.

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       How long did this take?

   15. COColin O'Brady2:02

       So ultimately, uh, it took us, uh, just less than two weeks to do the entire row, but it was a, a long journey in the planning from that phone call all the way through to that year. But it was, uh, it was a two-week or 12, 12-day crossing.

3. 2:13 – 6:30

   Water and food logistics: desalination, freeze-dried meals, and high-calorie ‘Coln bars’

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:13

      So in the two weeks, you had to have two weeks' worth of food, two weeks' worth of drinking water-

   2. COColin O'Brady2:18

      Uh-

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:18

      ... all on the boat.

   4. COColin O'Brady2:19

      Yeah, so well, d- water, actually, we have a desalinator, so off of, um-

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:23

      Really?

   6. COColin O'Brady2:23

      ... off of, uh, solar panels, everything's, you know, solar. There's no, you know, engine, no sail, nothing like that. It's just completely human-powered rowing.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:30

      Do you have a portable desalinator?

   8. COColin O'Brady2:32

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:32

      How big is it?

   10. COColin O'Brady2:33

       Um, it fits inside one of the tiny li... So the boat's tiny. The boat's like 20-

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:37

       Right.

   12. COColin O'Brady2:37

       ... 25 feet long, three guys rowing at a time, so there's six of us total in the team ultimately. Um, you know, barely anywhere to sleep in those tiny little compartments like the size of like, you know, sleeping in the back of a, you know, hatchback of a Toy- Honda Civic or something like that. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:50

       (laughs)

   14. COColin O'Brady2:51

       Um, but, uh, but yeah, so you've got this desalinator that's basically kind of in one of the central compartments. So it's probably like, I don't know, maybe two feet by two feet square, something like that. Um, and I mean, it doesn't, doesn't make a lot of real fast. It can make 10 liters of water in like, you know, an hour or two depending on this how much, how hot the sun is, but-

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:06

       That's pretty good.

   16. COColin O'Brady3:07

       But it, I mean, it gets it done. Yeah, it gets it done.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:09

       Does it taste like whale dicks?

   18. COColin O'Brady3:11

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:12

       Like, what does, what does the water taste like?

   20. COColin O'Brady3:13

       It was weird. As we got closer to Antarctica, I think it started messing up because it got real salty. Like, it wasn't doing quite as good of a job. The water in-

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:21

       Oh, no.

   22. COColin O'Brady3:21

       ... near Antarctica was like one degree Celsius, so 33 Fahrenheit. I mean, practically frozen cold water, and I think that was kinda starting to tweak out the system. Um, but, uh-

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:29

       So you're drinking salt water?

   24. COColin O'Brady3:30

       As we got closer, it was like, it was still potable, but it was like, "This isn't working as well." But early on, I mean, it worked just fine. Like, it was pretty much, you know, cold, cold drinking water.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Like bottled water?

   26. COColin O'Brady3:39

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Wow.

   28. COColin O'Brady3:39

       Exactly. But then-

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:40

       How ... Does it only do it for a certain amount of time? Does the filter get filled up or anything?

   30. COColin O'Brady3:45

       Um, it worked for the entire, uh, 12 days that we were out there. There's guys who have gone on longer, you know, rowing expeditions across the Pacific or the Atlantic or longer stretches of ocean, um, that, you know, u- works the entire time. Um, but it is one of the things that d- breaks down, so we had extra spare parts. Fortunately, we didn't have to use any of that. But, uh, but yeah, no, it, uh, it worked, and then yeah, of course, we had to bring food for the entire time as well, um, on, on there, so that was, you know, a key part of it.
4. 6:30 – 10:48

   Life onboard: 90-minute rowing shifts, tiny sleeping compartments, and team realities

   1. COColin O'Brady6:30

      Um, we've, we talked about, uh, doing that, so maybe in the future. But, uh, you can, you can see online on their website, like, all the different supplements and stuff that went into it, so you can kinda buy the component parts. But yeah, one day, we might w- might make 'em, but they've been kind of just custom for these two projects. But they worked really, really well, particularly in the rowing, so ... I mean, they worked amazing in the Antarctic crossing as well. But in the rowing, it was 90 minutes of rowing on, 90 minutes of rowing off, continuous, 24 hours a day. So there's, we were kind of in two sets of three, six of us total.

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:54

      Mm.

   3. COColin O'Brady6:55

      Three people rowing, three people resting. And in that 90 minutes that you're off, that's also when you gotta, you know, eat, drink, sleep. It's your only time to rest, basically. And so as much time as you can kind of optimize eating and stuff meant more sleeping. And so to have these bars, get done with the 90-minute rowing shift, be able to eat, you know, a 1,000-calorie bar, highest, you know, quality nutrition in your body, um, I mean, Standard Process nailed it again. It was amazing to, you know, have these bars and have it work really well for all of us to kind of optimize not just the food, but also the efficiency of sleep, 'cause the sleep got f- fucking crazy out there. Like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:26

      I can imagine.

   5. COColin O'Brady7:27

      Yeah, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:27

      So you're, you're basically sleeping every 90 minutes for, you know, one hour or so? Ish.

   7. COColin O'Brady7:33

      Yeah, exactly, ish. Like, if you can-

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:35

      Ish.

   9. COColin O'Brady7:35

      ... get it. And like, when, once the swells start cranking up, like you're in this tiny compartment. Like I don't know if we can pull up a picture of the boat for a visual or something on my Instagram.

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:42

       Is it covered at all?

   11. COColin O'Brady7:43

       Um, not covered, like really not covered at all. Like so ... Well, there's covered in the tiny compartment, so the rowing part's not covered at all. So when you're rowing, waves are splashing up, like over top of you. I mean, you're getting completely soaked. Like you're getting, you know, completely soaked the entire time. And then the tiny compartment, you know, it's like, it's like lower than this table. Like you'd be like kinda crouched down, like in there.

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:03

       Mm.

   13. COColin O'Brady8:03

       Um, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:04

       Is this a row here?

   15. COColin O'Brady8:04

       So that ... This is the rowboat right here, so that's us.

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:06

       So that's ... The floor, is that where all the food is stored, underneath you?

   17. COColin O'Brady8:10

       Yeah, underneath there's compartments. So you can see that tiny little kind of compartment-

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:13

       Mm-hmm.

   19. COColin O'Brady8:13

       ... on either side. One's smaller and one's bigger than that one.

   20. JRJoe Rogan8:15

       Mm-hmm. And that's where you guys would sleep?

   21. COColin O'Brady8:16

       That's where we'd sleep. Well, the bigger one has the waves, so like-

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:19

       It's hard to believe that there's 12 people in that little thing.

   23. COColin O'Brady8:20

       Three p- no, six people, six people.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       Oh, excuse me. Six people.

   25. COColin O'Brady8:23

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But still. Um, so you got, you know, three people in the ... Three people rowing and three people in the compartments ............................ I think if you kind of scroll up to the top, maybe there's one of just that shows like the whole boat, um, or like what it looks like maybe there. There's a kind of a shot of it. Um, so yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:37

       Huh.

   27. COColin O'Brady8:38

       So you can see in there, like the back little compartment, that's where I was, um, that I was alternating with this guy Fionn, who I mentioned, the Icelandic guy who was the captain of the boat and really experienced ocean rower. Um, and, uh, we alternated inside this little cabin, and then the other four guys, they alternated two people 'cause that one's a little bit bigger in the front. That's the bow cabin in the front. Um, but they're like ... You're like head to toe in there, or you're crouched into a little ball. It's not, it's not glamorous at all. And-

   28. JRJoe Rogan9:01

       And did you know these guys at all before you did this?

   29. COColin O'Brady9:03

       So, uh, not really. Uh, not really.

   30. JRJoe Rogan9:06

       Oof.
5. 10:48 – 13:43

   National Geographic controversy: ‘Impossible First’ challenged and Colin’s response

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:48

      Now, this thing that you did when you walked across Antarctica, um, very impressive, incredible, but I'm sure you've seen the National Geographic article-

   2. COColin O'Brady10:59

      Of course.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:59

      ... they wrote about you.

   4. COColin O'Brady11:00

      Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:00

      And they said that there was another man from, was it Norway, that had done it already.

   6. COColin O'Brady11:06

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:06

      That this wasn't the first time someone had gone across Antarctica.

   8. COColin O'Brady11:09

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:09

      And he had gone actually a further distance.

   10. COColin O'Brady11:12

       Yeah. So, something I've been talking about super openly, including in my book, which is, uh, the Nat Geo article, you know, it's a little bit unfortunate. Um, I actually just published a, uh, 16-page letter, um, um, asking Nat Geo to retract the entire article. And the reason it's 16 pages is unfortunately the entire article they wrote is just so riddled with inaccuracies and kinda misrepresentations and omissions, um, that, you know, we had to kinda ask them, say, "Hey, look, you know, you kinda got this wrong." I was never properly interviewed for it. But one of the things, you're talking about this guy Børge Ousland-

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:43

       Yeah.

   12. COColin O'Brady11:43

       ... this Norwegian guy.Absolute freaking legend. So what this guy did, um, in 1996, so, you know, 20 some years before that I attempted my crossing, is he crossed Antarctica, um, from the edge of the coastline, across the ice shelf, all the way across the land mass, across the other ice shelf, um, roughly 1,800 miles, and what he used to propel himself was he used a kite, um, for a good portion of the time. And it's an absolute extraordinary project, and what's really weird about sort of this National Geographic article in a number of senses is one of the premises of it was saying, you know, "Colin never talked about Børge Ousland. Like, he never talked about him in his book. He never mentioned him. He never this." And in my book, (laughs) what's really bizarre and why we're asking for a retraction, 'cause it's just really in- ineffectual, is that, you know, here I am on page 49 of my book. Literally, it says, "The Norwegian adventurer Børge Ousland in many ways defined the terrain of astonishing modern Antarctic feats, becoming the first person to cross Antarctica solo when he traveled 1,800 miles acr- in 63 days from 1996 to 1997. Not only did he cross the entire landmass of Antarctica, but he also crossed the full Ronne and Ross ice shelves from the ocean's edge. Ousland's expedition has deeply inspired me and was unsupported, and he hauled all of his food and fuels with no resupplies." So what's weird is, like, the journalist, like, wrote this article, but didn't-

   13. JRJoe Rogan13:00

       Without reading your book.

   14. COColin O'Brady13:00

       ... read my book. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan13:01

       That's not surprising.

   16. COColin O'Brady13:02

       Um, and I had done... I don't know, a lot of sp- there's a lot of speculation. Um, I had did this big project and the film project around the row is with Discovery. I don't know if NatGeo's coming at Discovery or whatever, but it- it's- it's really bizarre. I mean, we could talk about all the different kinda fine points of that. But the big distinction, and, like, I'll say it, I've said it, shouted from the route- rou- rooftops, but I'll say it here again, Børge Ousland is absolutely incredible. Like, I am in awe of the guy. What he did in '96 is phenomenal. That's why I write about it in my book. That's why I've written about it on my social. The day after I finished my crossing, I wrote about it on there as well, and I said, "Wow, so many people have inspired me. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, the only way I was able to do this."

   17. JRJoe Rogan13:39

       Right, but y- this says, "Impossible first," right? So he did it first.

6. 13:43 – 32:06

   Definitions that matter: unsupported vs unassisted—and the kite comparison

   1. COColin O'Brady13:43

      Right, so the difference is, is there's kind of two really specific distinctions in the world of polar travel.

   2. JRJoe Rogan13:48

      Okay.

   3. COColin O'Brady13:48

      There's unsupported, which means not using, um, not using, uh, not getting, sorry, not getting resupplied with food or fuel, like I was talking about-

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:56

      Mm-hmm.

   5. COColin O'Brady13:57

      ... with the food, and then there's unassisted, which means not using anything to propel you other than your own body. So that's called human-powered alone. So what he did is considered assisted, um, in that he used a kite. But he was able to go twice the distance as me, which is amazing. So he crossed-

   6. JRJoe Rogan14:14

      And how often did he use the kite? 'Cause what I had read, that, uh, he had only used the kite in a few instances where the wind was right.

   7. COColin O'Brady14:21

      Right. So (laughs) that's another one of the things that the National Geographic article, um, unfortunately got wrong. And in my 16-page, uh, letter that anyone can read, it's on my website, colinobrady.com/blog/letter-to-nat-geo, or it's linked to my Instagram, um, it's not like a he said/he said thing where I'm like, "Oh, hey."

   8. JRJoe Rogan14:36

      Uh-huh.

   9. COColin O'Brady14:36

      "This got wrong." It's just actually a really kind of documented and sourced document that has links to everything, um, and one of the links it shows is actually his entire kinda project afterwards and the aftermaths of him talking about it, including talking about, um, with Parawing, which was the, one of his sponsors, the guys who actually built and manufactured the kite. And they're talking about how he used it for about at least a third of his journey, six, 600 or so miles, um, as well as, you know, he was able to use the kite going 125 miles in a single day, um, which is, like I said, it's amazing. It's really incredible what he did in the time that he did it. It's just really kind of an apples and oranges, um, comparison when it comes to polar travel and the distinctions, uh, of that, um, in the world.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       So he traveled further, but he used some assistance.

   11. COColin O'Brady15:20

       Yeah, so there's basically these different distinctions in the world of polar travel, and that's another one of the things, again, um, I'm not sure how they got this wrong. I, uh, actua- and in the link on the 16-page thing, I show the text message when the journalist asked me, "Well, tell me about these definitions of unsupported and unassisted," um, and I sent him the link, and there's these links. It's, it's a kinda published thing on this website called Antarctica Logistics, um, and Expeditions, the main sort of expedition, um, facilitator, the person who, like, runs the logistics down there, and it's very clear. Unsupported means no use of resupplies.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Right.

   13. COColin O'Brady15:49

       Unassisted means no use of kites or dogs. And so the thing that I did solo, um, that people, I guess, have gotten somewhat confused about, or th- uh, first, was I was the first person to cross the landmass of Antarctica solo, unsupported, no resupplies, and unassisted, no kites. What Børge Ousland did is he was the first person to cross Antarctica, not just the landmass, but also the ice shelves. So there's frozen ocean on these ice shelves.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Right.

   15. COColin O'Brady16:17

       Um, so from the coast, across the ice shelf, across the landmass, and across the other ice shelf. And no one yet, including myself, has ever done a solo, unsupported, unassisted crossing of both the landmass and the ice shelves. It's tr- I hope someone does it, man. (laughs) It would be amazing. I had a 375-pound sled, and I almost ran out of food at the end crossing the landmass. Um, and, uh, if, uh, you'd need maybe a 600-pound sled or something like that, or maybe a more optimized food solution that no one's thought of yet, but, um, hasn't been done yet. Uh-

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       How big was Ousland's sled?

   17. COColin O'Brady16:50

       Similar size as me. So he was out there for alm- I think he was out there for 63 days f- roughly. I was out there for 54 days. So we were not out there a lot difference in duration of time.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:59

       Oh, okay, so the sled really did make a big difference then, if he's going that much further than you.

   19. COColin O'Brady17:04

       Exactly. Exactly.

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       Okay.

   21. COColin O'Brady17:06

       Yeah, so-

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       That, so, so, so- so one more time, you were out there how many days?

   23. COColin O'Brady17:10

       I was out there 54 days.

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       And he was out there 60-

   25. COColin O'Brady17:12

       63 days.

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       Okay, that's not that different.

   27. COColin O'Brady17:14

       Right, and so he, like I said, on a co- some of the days, he talks about it openly that he went... he does it in kilometers, but if you calculate back to miles, like, 125 miles in a 15-hour period of time. That's unfathomable (laughs) just walking pulling a sled. They're just two different things. It's like the difference between sailing across an ocean and rowing a boat across the ocean.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:31

       Why do you think National Geographic got that wrong then? Because the way they wrote it, it was, you know, it's-... they made it look like you're just a fame whore, and that, you know, there was a bunch of other explorers and outdoors people that were in support of the fact that Ausland was the only one ... the first one to do it. They didn't make this distinction, and they actually made it seem like s- as if this, the sled was an ingenious solution. But it seems like that was a planned thing, and that was an engineered thing, and that it wasn't something that he built up on the fly. This was the method that they used to help him get across the snow.

   29. COColin O'Brady18:07

       Totally, and if, like I said, if you look in the e- letter that I wrote, it's got links to the actual manufacturer. They kind of talk about it as being this elegant solution. It's like he put a kite up randomly.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       He figured it out. "Hey, I got an idea."
7. 32:06 – 59:57

   The ‘road in Antarctica’ claim: the South Pole Overland Traverse explained

   1. COColin O'Brady32:06

      Yeah, so there's basically this, uh, 300-mile stretch, which is the, the last third of my, part of my journey, which, by the way, was on my GPS, which, by the way, I talk about in my book, which, by his way, I widely acknowledge, and it's called the South Pole Overland Traverse. And so the, um, South Pole station, the US mil- or sorry, the US, uh, research station that's at the South Pole was resupplied, um, throughout the summer season from the coast. And they drive this kind of, um, bunch of tractors, basically, up this area called the Levert Glacier. And it's not like a paved road. This is them driving over ice and snow and, like, filling in crevasses along the way, et cetera, and there's some tire tracks and some flagging that are out there. So first of all, I've travel- already traveled almost 600 miles without any of that. And then as I get there, and we know this is part of it, and I've talked about widely with all the polar experts, all of the people that make the classifications, an unassisted refers specifically to kites and dogs. And they're trying to make this claim that the road somehow, quote unquote, air- big air quotes, "road," basically some rutted up tracks in the snow, um, you know, I'm, I'm out there-

   2. JRJoe Rogan33:08

      And this is not a paved road.

   3. COColin O'Brady33:08

      No, there's not a paved road out there. And the thing is, Antarctica is so brutal, we showed some clips last time, me setting up my tent in 50, 60-mile-per-hour winds what it was like.

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:16

      Yeah.

   5. COColin O'Brady33:16

      When that blows over, imagine driving a tractor over snow and then 50, 60-mile-per-hour winds come in. What do you think happens?

   6. JRJoe Rogan33:22

      Yeah.

   7. COColin O'Brady33:22

      It's blown over immediately.

   8. JRJoe Rogan33:23

      Right.

   9. COColin O'Brady33:23

      So I never saw these tractors, I never saw these vehicles, I never saw ... So I, I saw some flags, of course, I saw some rutted tracks, but I link to it on my, uh, letter with this.

   10. JRJoe Rogan33:31

       So it's really not much different than walking on flat ground.

   11. COColin O'Brady33:34

       No, not at all. And still, there's still the sastrugi there, so there's still huge bumps of snow. And all, a lot of the time, it was whited, I was completely whited out. I couldn't see 5 or 10 feet in front of me, so it's not like I could ... A lot of times these flags are every 100, 400 meters, it's not like I'd even see those. So it's just a shame. And I've been very transparent about the fact that I used that route.

   12. JRJoe Rogan33:52

       Yeah.

   13. COColin O'Brady33:52

       It was the safest route, it was the only route the logistic company wanted to support, and it falls completely in the distinctions of what is known as unassisted. And he tr- kind of makes this claim about that's not true or people are rethinking that, and one of the weird things is they-

   14. JRJoe Rogan34:06

       Rethinking it?

   15. COColin O'Brady34:07

       Right, so they're, they're now, because of some of this, the polar community have gotten together after my project. So my project squarely falls in the definitions as they were, followed all of the rules and all of this. Now, now, they're sitting together and they're saying, "You know, maybe we should rewrite some of these rules or make certain definitions different." Which, by the way, if they wanna change rules, that's totally fine. The problem is, it would be like this. This is like, well, them calling me sort of like a liar or something would be equivalent of this, with Major League Baseball got together and said, "You know what? All games in baseball are gonna be 10 innings now instead of nine innings. And all of those guys over the last 100 years that played 200, you know, thousand games or whatever who played nine innings, they cheated, they lied, they didn't play the full game. Like, they, you know, they cheat-"

   16. JRJoe Rogan34:50

       Hmm, I see what you're saying.

   17. COColin O'Brady34:51

       Just like-

   18. JRJoe Rogan34:51

       Yeah.

   19. COColin O'Brady34:51

       ... you know, they're, they're- if they wanna change whatever distinctions or classifications or stuff forward-looking-Great.

   20. JRJoe Rogan34:56

       And, and what would the distinctions be that they would change? Th- you can't do it on a road?

   21. COColin O'Brady35:00

       So I think they're trying to make it finer grained, which is, like, there would be, like, a kite distinction. There would be, um, a no supported distinction. There would be a distinction for using, you know, partial of a ... if there was a flagging or, or this, like, you know, road, which by the way is not a road, to be clear. It's snow and ice just like the rest of it-

   22. JRJoe Rogan35:16

       Do you have images of this road?

   23. COColin O'Brady35:17

       Um, I don't. I, I don't. There's a, a, there might ... if you, if you, if you could go-

   24. JRJoe Rogan35:20

       But none of ... at no point in time was it, like, flat ground?

   25. COColin O'Brady35:24

       No, it's ice and snow-

   26. JRJoe Rogan35:26

       Yeah.

   27. COColin O'Brady35:26

       ... where a tractor, we might see, like, some wheels. And in fact, Lou Rudd, who was the other guy who I was racing out there in Antarctica, he wrote a whole blog post about it that's linked to in my letter. And, you know, of course, 'cause he did the exact same thing as me, by the way. The exact same thing, same distinction. Um, and, uh, you know, I finished a couple of days ahead of him, but what he did was absolutely incredible is this, is this race, and we talk a lot about it in the book. I have a ton of respect for that guy as well. He's a friend of mine. And, you know, he, you know, writes about this, you know, quote-unquote road over at the South Pole Overland Traverse as it's actually known, and he's like, "It's rutted up tracks." Like, you couldn't ... even in the parts where I saw tire tracks, it's, like, actually worse than actually s-

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:01

       'Cause you don't slide across it. Right.

   29. COColin O'Brady36:02

       'Cause you don't slide across it. The snow is all rutted up. It's chunked up. It's actually, like, tripping you. It's, like, even worse. And he-

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:06

       Like skiing on broken ice-
8. 40:01 – 43:35

   Drake Passage history and conditions: prior attempts, timing windows, and real danger

   1. JRJoe Rogan40:01

      Make it happen. Um, so now you get through this, right? You write your book and you get in this, this rowboat journey. Had the rowboat journ- journey been done before?

   2. COColin O'Brady40:13

      So the rowboat before, um, there's a storied history of ocean rowing. So ocean rowing, um, you know, uh ...

   3. JRJoe Rogan40:19

      Sure. The Polynesians.

   4. COColin O'Brady40:20

      Yeah. I mean, goes way back. But even at- kind of as a sport, um, and, uh, you know, maybe the polar community c- wants to do this more formally, but there's something called the Ocean Rowing Society that has, you know, the records of different rows going back over time. Um, there's this race across the Atlantic, um, that happens called the Talisker Ocean ... Uh, Talisker Whiskey Ocean Race, um, across the Atlantic from, um, from the ... Or where does it go from? From the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. Every, uh, winter that happens. So ocean rowing, I mean, it's a subculture. It's a small subculture, don't get me wrong. But it happens. Like, it's a thing, you know.

   5. JRJoe Rogan40:51

      Yeah.

   6. COColin O'Brady40:51

      There's, there's boats, there's races, there's competitions.

   7. JRJoe Rogan40:54

      But had anybody gone through that path?

   8. COColin O'Brady40:54

      But no one had ... Yeah. So Drake Passage s-... had never been rowed fully and completely before. There was a guy, um, who's a fucking legend as well, um, he- I wish, I wish he was still alive 'cause I'd love to sit down more than anything with this guy. His name's Ned Gillette, um, a true, true, like, explorer. Which, I mean, he actually got, um, killed, uh, in the late '90s, I believe, when he was climbing in the Himalayas or in Pakistan, um, he got shot, um, by someone who came through the camp. I don't know the whole story, it was a super sad story. But he's done all of these projects, you know, before social media and stuff like this, this guy was out there doing these badass things. And he made this boat, uh, called the Sea Tomato, and he took it down to Chile, um, to try to kind of do a, what was like kind of a hybrid row and sail. And so he has a sailing mast on there, he's got r- oars, he's got four guys with him. They try it the first season, they actually can't even launch their boat off of Cape Horn. So they wait a whole other year, and then the second year, they launch the Sea Tomato, um, under sail-

   9. JRJoe Rogan41:49

      Why, why did they have to wait a year?

   10. COColin O'Brady41:50

       'Cause the weather. I mean, Drake Passage is gnar- we'll get to that, but it is gnarly, bro. Like, it is, like ... I mean, people, you know, as you say, going around the horn, people say that in sailing, like, Cape Horn is known to just be, like, just treacherous, brutal water as the two of these oceans kind of collide, and these huge standing waves come up. So a whole season they sat down there with their rowboat and didn't even launch it. Then the next year, came back, him and four guys-

   11. JRJoe Rogan42:11

       How small s- small is the window where you can make it across?

   12. COColin O'Brady42:14

       So, uh, basically the best time of year to do it would be December, January, because that's the Southern Hemisphere summer, um, and so the temperature's a little bit warmer, you've got longer days. We purposefully did it over the, um, summer s- or the summer solstice, so December 21st, you know, that'd be June 21st for us in the Northern Hemisphere, um, the longest day of the year. We still had night, um, you know, few days, few hours of darkness every single night, but we at least had the longer days. Because once it gets dark and there's waves coming at you from every single direction, I mean, it is fucking scary, man. (laughs) Like-

   13. JRJoe Rogan42:43

       Yeah. This is it?

   14. COColin O'Brady42:44

       This is Drake Passage, obviously, as seen from a bigger boat than mine, but, you know-

   15. JRJoe Rogan42:48

       Oh, fuck that.

   16. COColin O'Brady42:50

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan42:51

       Can I see what it was like in your boat? Do you have video?

   18. COColin O'Brady42:53

       Yeah. Yeah, if you-

   19. JRJoe Rogan42:54

       We must have video. That's insane, dude.

   20. COColin O'Brady42:54

       If you pull up my Insta- if you pull up my Instagram, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan42:57

       How many people die out there?

   22. COColin O'Brady42:59

       S- I mean, it, I don't know the numbers, but-

   23. JRJoe Rogan43:01

       It seems like a lot.

   24. COColin O'Brady43:02

       Um, well, th- a, a plane crash happened the day we were leaving and 38 people died in a plane crash in Drake Passage as we were about to depart on our rowing.

   25. JRJoe Rogan43:09

       Oh, wow.

   26. COColin O'Brady43:09

       It's a whole- that's a whole other, whole other crazy story, but, um, but, you know, there's definitely, I mean, there's shipwrecks out there, there's boats that have gone down. There was a, a cruise ship, I think, that went down in the 2000s, um, um-

   27. JRJoe Rogan43:20

       In Drake Passage?

   28. COColin O'Brady43:21

       In Drake Passage, yeah, on a cruise ship.

   29. JRJoe Rogan43:23

       Oh, Jesus Christ.

   30. COColin O'Brady43:23

       Um, I hope I don't get that story completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure a big boat went down in the last 10 years or so.
9. 43:35 – 47:09

   On-water extremes: sea anchor, lost miles, bucket toilet, and survival in constant wet

   1. COColin O'Brady43:35

      Um, yeah, so here, here's me, uh, out in that boat.

   2. JRJoe Rogan43:38

      Oh, so it's actually fairly calm sometimes.

   3. COColin O'Brady43:41

      So, I mean, some of the times if you-

   4. JRJoe Rogan43:42

      Yeah, you got some swells, but, I mean-

   5. COColin O'Brady43:44

      You'll see this next part. So this is me in the tiny little cabin, um, I mean, there's waves coming over, they're crashing us pretty good.

   6. JRJoe Rogan43:51

      So where's the cabin in the, the, where, closest to us?

   7. COColin O'Brady43:54

      So there's- yeah, closest to us is the little cabin that I was in, there was just one of us in there. And this is, uh, so this is us putting out something called the sea anchor, um, that's when the waves got so big, or the wind and swell was against us so much that we couldn't row anymore, and it's like throwing a parachute that basically, like, kinda tries to hold you in place, um, I mean, if you look at the waves coming over the top-

   8. JRJoe Rogan44:11

      How does the sea anchor work? What is it?

   9. COColin O'Brady44:12

      So it's like a huge parachute, basically.

   10. JRJoe Rogan44:14

       That's in the water?

   11. COColin O'Brady44:15

       Um, and you put it in the water and it fills with water and it holds the boat into place.

   12. JRJoe Rogan44:19

       Ah.

   13. COColin O'Brady44:19

       I mean, not very well, even in this, if we had the volume up, it's me basically, uh, talking about how we're getting pushed back in the wrong direction, but we can't even, we don't have the strength to row against it anymore, um, just getting hammered. Um, but the sea anchor-

   14. JRJoe Rogan44:31

       How far did it push you back?

   15. COColin O'Brady44:32

       I think that time it pushed us back, like, uh, 15 or 20 miles, um, but-

   16. JRJoe Rogan44:36

       Whoa.

   17. COColin O'Brady44:36

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan44:37

       So you lose 15 or 20 miles of progress?

   19. COColin O'Brady44:38

       Yeah. And that one, that was the longest sea anchor, I believe we were on it for 26 hours. And so what happens is, like as you saw in the boat, there's three people rowing, three people in the cabins any given time. And the cabins are tiny. When you're, even with the, you know, one person on one side, like I was, two on the other side, like, you're like smashing there like a sardine. But then when you put the sea anchor out, no one's rowing anymore, and that, you know, open decking, it's, like, really dangerous to just be sitting out there, so we all try to get in the cabins. But, like, this Icelandic dude who's the captain, Fionn Paul, I mean, he's, like, amazing row- you know, six foot two, broad shoulders, whatever. All of a sudden the two of us are jammed inside of, like, the smallest little compartment, it's like two feet round- three feet wide by three feet tall, we're like spooning each other, we're wet-

   20. JRJoe Rogan45:17

       Oh, whoa.

   21. COColin O'Brady45:17

       ... we're cold, we're in there for 26 hours that time, like we-

   22. JRJoe Rogan45:20

       How did you guys poop?

   23. COColin O'Brady45:22

       Uh, (laughs) so if you look, that's me, yeah, that, this one shows kind of the wave, the big swell. I'm the, I'm the f- the one in the back there, um, and, uh, I'm sitting right next to a really fancy toilet, a little something called a five-gallon bucket. (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan45:34

       Oh, that's what you did, you pooped in a bucket?

   25. COColin O'Brady45:36

       Pooped in a bucket, not, not too fancy.

   26. JRJoe Rogan45:38

       And then chuck it over side?

   27. COColin O'Brady45:38

       Yeah, um, and, uh, and then, then, then the fish can snack on that.

   28. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       Jesus.

   29. COColin O'Brady45:42

       But, you know, you obviously get, not only were we spooning under sea anchors, smashing these little things, and, and oftentimes those other, the other guys in the other compartment are either three, um, three of them were inside the compartment at a time and one would be sitting out, um, and taking shifts, or they sometimes smashed four in there. Um, but I mean, they're like literally on top of each other. So we got close, but then also, obviously, you know, there's no space on the deck, so it's like, "Hey man, just turn your head away, I'm gonna be, you know, pooping, uh, basically a foot away from you while you row into this bucket. Like, don't mind me."

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:08

       And believe me, those mountain houses will create some horrible smells out of your body.
10. 47:09 – 50:09

    Gear and recovery: custom dry suits, safety tethering, and the physical aftermath

    1. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       And what kind of equipment are you wearing? Like, what kinda gear are you wearing that keeps you from-

    2. COColin O'Brady47:14

       So-

    3. JRJoe Rogan47:14

       ... getting really cold?

    4. COColin O'Brady47:15

       So we, we started out, um, in just this Gore-Tex. It was this thick, like, sailing-

    5. JRJoe Rogan47:20

       Yeah.

    6. COColin O'Brady47:20

       ... Gore-Tex, basically. And that worked pretty well for the first few days. But one of the other cool innovations, um, that Fionn thought of, having done so much ocean rowing, is he was like, "Dude, the only way this is gonna work is if we have some sort of dry suit. It's just too cold." But you start looking at dry suits, and you're like, "You could never row. You couldn't be functional, like, wearing, like, this, like, crazy dry suit, right?" And so he basically says he, he spends the year. One of the things that he did is he found this, like, Polish manufacturer, and we all got our bodies measured, you know, 25, 26 different measurements and all this, and basically created these custom dry suits that were a lot thinner than a typical dry suit, but kept us dry, but also allowed us to have the mobility on the oars. And it was really actually built for the sitting position and the leg, you know, the leg press and the arm motion-

    7. JRJoe Rogan48:03

       Hmm.

    8. COColin O'Brady48:03

       ... and all of that of rowing. Um, so it was awesome innovation, and we got just... I mean, thank God we had those 'cause we were getting soaked. I mean, we were getting so, so, so soaked out there. And in the 90 minutes, you would think like, "Oh, in the 90 minutes, quote-unquote, 'rest phase,'" you would get in there, you know, maybe change clothes or something like that. No, absolutely not. Like, the, we had these suits on. We were soaking wet. We'd get in the cabin. We were all sharing, like, one sleeping bag. Like, I had just one sleeping bag that Fionn and I were alternating. It's soaking wet after the first day.

    9. JRJoe Rogan48:32

       Yeah.

    10. COColin O'Brady48:32

        There's just, like... It's basically like, if I showed you what it looked like on the last day, you'd be like, "I wouldn't sit in there for one minute, let alone, like, try to sleep."

    11. JRJoe Rogan48:38

        S- (laughs)

    12. COColin O'Brady48:38

        And there's, like, no pail. There's, like, wa- like, the brown water on the bottom, like, and we were just like, you know. It's the smells from us living in and out of there for this... I mean, and it was grimy and wet and cold. But these suits, um, suited us pretty well. The one thing that was great, you know, obviously we were clipped in for safety. So we were clipped into basically these ropes that you saw on the edge of there, so if we were gonna get knocked off, um, the boat, hopefully we would, you know, be able to clipped in, or the boat itself actually fully selfwrights. So if it rolls over, it hypothetically rolls back over the top. We had some close calls, but we never fully rolled it, th- thank God. Um, but we did test that. But one of the things about the suits is the suits, um, basically have, like, neoprene booties. It's all, like, one kind of one piece, like you would have in a dry suit, which was awesome for keeping us, you know, safe and dry. But I didn't take the suit off for the last six or seven days at all. And so when I finally took the suit off, my feet... Like, you think about your fingers getting, like, pruny maybe, like, you know, in a swimming pool for a couple hours or a hot tub or something like that. Like, imagine seven days of wet and cold and sweat and, like, all the things. Like, when I took the suit off, like, I almost threw up-

    13. JRJoe Rogan49:43

        (laughs)

    14. COColin O'Brady49:44

        ... on the ground (laughs) 'cause it was just, like, gnarly, festering skin, and, like, like, skin was ripping off of my feet. Like, it was nasty.

    15. JRJoe Rogan49:52

        How long did it take you to recover from that?

    16. COColin O'Brady49:54

        Um, I don't know exact- you know, it's hard to put the p- point on, like, "Oh, I'm recovered." But definitely took a few weeks to just kinda get everything back, you know, the s- the stability back in, uh, body-

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:03

        Jesus Christ, man.

    18. COColin O'Brady50:03

        ... mind, you know, all of that. So, uh, yeah, yeah. It was, uh, it was interesting for sure.

11. 50:09 – 1:14:04

    Why do this at all: growth mindset, training innovations, and the ‘range-bound life’ idea

    1. JRJoe Rogan50:09

       What are you gonna do next? 'Cause I-

    2. COColin O'Brady50:11

       Next.

    3. JRJoe Rogan50:11

       ... know you.

    4. COColin O'Brady50:12

       (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:12

       You're one of those dudes. You have to keep doing these things.

    6. COColin O'Brady50:15

       I don't know about-

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:15

       Like, once you've done two of these things, you're gonna keep doing these things.

    8. COColin O'Brady50:18

       Yeah, I did a couple before that too.

    9. JRJoe Rogan50:19

       Yeah.

    10. COColin O'Brady50:20

        Um, but, uh, I think last time, your advice to me was, "Stop."

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:25

        Stop while you're alive.

    12. COColin O'Brady50:26

        Stop while you're... Yeah. Um-

    13. JRJoe Rogan50:27

        But you didn't listen-

    14. COColin O'Brady50:29

        (laughs)

    15. JRJoe Rogan50:29

        ... obviously, so don't listen to me anymore anyway.

    16. COColin O'Brady50:30

        (laughs)

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:30

        Just keep doing what you gotta do.

    18. COColin O'Brady50:32

        Um, you know, look, like, I'm passionate about these things. It's, it's super fun. Um, I do them because I like testing the edges of my potential. I like exploring different places. Like, I'd never... Like I said, I'd never rowed a boat before, and to kind of take this project on and say, you know, I've done expeditions before. I've pushed my body in, you know, deep and interesting ways. But one of my biggest curiosities is certainly about the mind, but, you know, particularly, like, growth mindset. Can I say, like, I'm not a rower, but in the course of a year of training, I'm gonna train myself up, get on a team with some amazingly, you know, accomplished watermen, and learn the skills required to, you know, make this crossing?

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:08

        Hmm.

    20. COColin O'Brady51:08

        And it was cool to kinda prove that out this year because I think that that really applies across so many things, and I'm just a generally curious person. Um, and I think I'll keep pushing myself and pushing my body 'cause that's one of the things that I love to do. But I think that curiosity throughout my life is gonna be, you know, a, a lifelong path of, of diving into sort of different things and taking them on. I think that, to me, one of my biggest sadnesses and one of the things I like to say to people is, like, you know, people come to a certain point in their life, and they're like, you know, "I'm, I'm a lawyer," or, "I'm good at math," or, "I'm terrible at art," or, like, "I could never do comedy 'cause I'm not the funny one," or I'm... Like, you know, these limiting beliefs inside of us. It's like, I could be like, "Dude, I've never rowed ever in my life." I'm, you know, 34 years old, you know? I've never rowed a boat, but actually, like, but, like, doesn't mean I can't learn now to row a boat. Um-

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:54

        Seems pretty straightforward.

    22. COColin O'Brady51:56

        Yeah, exactly. How hard could it be? (laughs) You get a little leg action too.

    23. JRJoe Rogan52:00

        What did you, uh, do to prepare for it physically?

    24. COColin O'Brady52:03

        So, um, the physical, the physical prep was, was pretty cool. Um, I don't know if you remember from last time, but, um, I have this coach. His name is Mike MacCastle, um, and he's just this legendary guy. He's, uh, you know, done 5,800 pull-ups in 24 hours. He's pulled a, a truck across Death Valley in 19-

    25. JRJoe Rogan52:21

        Yeah, I remember that.

    26. COColin O'Brady52:21

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan52:21

        Yeah.

    28. COColin O'Brady52:21

        He's a total, total legend. Um, and he trained me up for Antarctica. I mean, I came to him, and I said, "Hey, look, like, I'm not the most experienced polar explorer. I gotta pull this 375-pound sled. Like, what do you think? How can you train me up?" And he came up with such cool training, um, methodologies for that. Like, he had... One of the things he had me doing for Antarctica was he had me... You know, I was doing planks with my hands in ice buckets, and, you 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 a wall sit, but now my feet are in the ice buckets. And he puts a, a, a weight plate on top of my, uh, legs, and he's like, "Okay." And then he hands me these LEGOs, and he's like, "Solve these LEGO problems. Until you don't solve this LEGO and build this little, like, you know, aircraft, little LEGO man or whatever, you know, you can't get your feet outta the ice bucket." I'm like, "What the hell is going on?" But he's like, "Look, you're gonna be in Antarctica. Your life is gonna depend on you ti- you know, securing your tent right, or tying down the ropes properly," or this and that and the other thing. "You're gonna be cold. Your hands are gonna be frozen. You're gonna be tired. But you're gonna need your mind and your dexterity to be there." Um, yeah, there's the, there's a picture, uh, of that, of, of Mike bringing me through that. And so with the row, it was super cool to come to him again and say like, "Hey man, like, there's no blueprint for this. Like, there's no blueprint for this. There's no one that's done a, a fully human-powered crossing of Drake Passage before, um, to the Antarctic Peninsula. Like, there's some ocean rowers, but this is different. Like, how should we prepare for this?" And Mike, it's not like he's like, "Well, I know everything about ocean rowing," but that same curiosity, that same growth mindset, I trust his, you know, sort of ability to train me. He's like, "I don't know, man. Like, let's start thinking through this." And so in the gym, I mean, we did all sorts of creative things. He brought the ice back. He started putting-... a rowing machine on BOSU balls, like half BOSU balls, basically. And I'd start rowing, you know, doing normal rowing motion. But he'd start shaking it around because basically the ocean is gonna be moving me around so much. So just the rowing motion isn't gonna prepare me for the lateral movements, you know, the, the, the lats, the obliques, you know, the, all the kinda side to side stability stuff. Then he took it one step further which is, he actually shows up at my house, knocks on my door at 2:00 in the morning, I think he had pre-arranged it with my wife. Um, knocks on the door and he's like, "Get up." And I'm like, "What? What, what is happening?" And he's like, "We're going. We're training right now." And he gets me, he's got those BOSU balls, but now it's the middle of the night so I'm sleep-deprived, and I'm kinda disoriented. Now he's got me on the BOSU balls and he had brought these buckets of ice water. So I'm rowing this thing, it's shaking around, it's the middle of the night, and he starts throwing ice water on me and we're doing these laps. Yeah, here I am, uh, you know, getting into this. Uh, the, yeah, you can check this out. The Discovery Channel did like 50-

    29. JRJoe Rogan54:47

        It says, "Training for the Drake, the Impossible Row, Episode 3." You could find it online. Jamie, it's on the Discovery Channel YouTube page? YouTube, they have a whole, uh, playlist with all this video stuff. Oh, okay, great.

    30. COColin O'Brady54:57

        Yeah, so there's 14 of these videos, uh, training all the way through the whole project. Discovery put them online. They're actually doing a feature-length documentary this spring. But yeah-

Episode duration: 1:20:05