[suspenseful music playing]
[shawn] I'm trying to take over nome.
I wanna get so much gold
that's gonna shock everybody up here.
Now I have my hands on the biggest barge
on the bering sea.
When I'm done with these changes,
it's gonna be total domination.
It's a ton of work.
I'm already in the hole of millions of dollars...
And the clock's ticking.
But when I get around the water,
you better look out.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] on the christine rose...
The pomrenke empire...
Is in full swing.
[cody] with shawn back in town
working on the myrtle,
I'm just responsible for the christine rose now
and just trying to keep it making money,
we gotta keep making money.
We got these big projects.
[narrator] while his second-in-command
keeps the gold flowing...
[suspenseful music playing]
[shawn] so far,
christine rose is doing very well,
the inland is doing very well
and the myrtle is coming along.
[narrator] ...Mr. Gold's master plan
to secure a stranglehold on nome
pushes ahead.
[shawn] we have a huge payment
on the tomcod leads.
Second, I have to buy by dad out.
I wanna own the inland mine outright.
I got 350,000 plus
into the myrtle right now.
I need to get the myrtle up and running
if I'm gonna make all these payments.
[dave] it's complicated.
[shawn] our gold recovery is gonna sky rocket.
Will you put your money on it?
[narrator] shawn made a deal with gold tycoon dave young
to partner up on the myrtle irene.
[shawn] well, I'll throw 350 at it.
[narrator] but not without agreeing
to bring more than just blueprints to the table.
[dave] let's give it a shot but you got...
You got three weeks.
The key to a successful gold dredge
is efficiency.
Everything from the size of the bucket,
to the length of the sluice box,
to the amount of water,
it all has to be dialed in just right.
Otherwise, you're just blowing the gold
out of the box just like the myrtle's
been doing for years.
Luckily my guys are already working on the fix.
We've lowered the wash plant to give the operator
a better view.
We're adding a more powerful pump
and we're adding a second sluice box
so we make sure we're catching
even the finest gold.
How's it going, dave?
[dave] good. Let's do it.
Let's get out of here.
[upbeat music playing]
[shawn] I figured a way we got
the christine rose set-up
it's pretty efficient,
real efficient.
It's done very well.
[dave] yeah, it's done well, you kicked our ass last year.
I'm excited.
I can't wait.
I just hope we can pull it off.
[shawn] I'm gonna go check out cody
make sure he's staying on the gold
and giving my business partner
a little peek behind the scenes.
Show him how mr. Gold makes the big money.
Well, I'll show you what we do
with this little dredge.
[dave] what do you have here, shawn?
Holy cow.
There's a lot of gold down there.
We just be blowing that out.
[shawn] well, with my design, we'll be catching all that
on the myrtle.
I hope.
We've never had anything way down here, nothing.
We clean from up there, there'd be nothing down here.
[shawn] and with that second...
That second sluice, it's gonna look like...
Yellow.
I hope.
[shawn] smells like money.
[dave] the stinkier, the better.
Right now, the christine rose is dialed in.
But it's the attention to the small details
that makes it work so well.
I know how much dirt's coming in
with each bucket.
How much water to put to it to move it through
and I know the length of the sluice box
to catch every big chunk of gold
in all those little pieces too.
It's just math. You get the numbers right,
you'll get the gold.
I bet you there's a half ounce right here, shawn.
Look at that.
What d'you find? Pecker?
Yeah.
-Right off the bat. -[dave] well, thanks.
My first piece of gold, shawn.
-[shawn] uh-huh. -[laughter]
[cody] that's good.
[shawn] I'm glad you got into kicking ass,
keep it up, man.
[dave] I'm excited. Show me around.
-[shawn] yeah. One second. -[dave] what do you got here?
I'm gonna see your gps and everything.
Holy cow.
Dam, that's a lot of dig holes, shawn.
[shawn] uh, yeah, but you look
there's big areas like this,
this whole area to the...
To the west of us was too much sand
for this to be, uh, productive to dig through
where with the myrtle,
we're just gonna go and take a bucket of sand
and be right in the bed.
We're gonna pile up for gold, dave.
I know how to build dredges.
I built the christine rose to be more efficient
than any other dredge that's been built before.
Now I'm gonna do that with the myrtle irene.
With the bucket five times bigger
than the christine rose,
nome's not gonna know what hit it.
It's gonna be sick.
Just think about it, we'll have a bucket
five times the size of this thing,
could equate to four, five times as much gold.
I'm excited. Let's go get it.
Let's do it, shawn.
[narrator] back at the harbor...
[upbeat music playing]
all systems are go on the black swan.
[laughs]
what a contraption, huh?
[narrator] ...Nome's resident wizard
readies his greatest creation,
his one of a kind sailboat dredge
for a voyage on the high seas.
[producer speaking]
[zeke] I don't know where those guys are.
[narrator] but currently, he's without a crew.
[zeke] I mean, I woke up at like...
I was up at like 7:30 and I made a fire
and I was like, "wake up, guys.
Going in to work on stuff."
I don't know what's going on, hopefully they're doing
something productive.
[guitar music playing]
[bleep]
[upbeat music playing]
you always wanna bring the banana up to your mouth.
[laughs]
[narrator] in other news,
he's also without a place to mine.
I think I have all the details taken care of
and I think we're ready to go do some diving.
So, I accomplished the large part of this goal,
I got the sailboat in the water,
it floats good,
and we're close to all systems go
to get gold.
I don't have a claim to go out on yet.
But I do know someone who does.
[suspenseful music playing]
[engine revs]
yeah.
[laughs]
[vernon] hey, zeke.
[zeke] hey, vernon, good to see you.
-[vernon] long time no see. -[zeke] yeah. For sure.
Vernon just bought a claim
and it's not just any claim,
it's loaded with gold,
everybody knows that it is.
I'm sure vernon is protective of lease 56,
but I really think that I can convince him
to let me out there.
Here we go.
[vernon] so here's the rig, huh?
[zeke] here it is.
[vernon] I've been hearing about it.
I've been thinking about this
for a couple of years,
it's been in my front yard forever, you know,
-and... -Right. Uh, I remember
you talking about it a while back.
And my imagination kicked off this spring
and I was like, "I'm just gonna go for it
and try not to over think it."
and we're ready to go out today.
Mmm-hmm.
I have a sonar system,
sonar side scan system with a...
With a function that it records
a side scan map.
So I know where all the sand pockets are
-and like all the image. -And that gives you
the recording...
You have here the gps location?
Yeah, then you overlay it onto the gps map.
That would be huge.
In order to sweeten the deal for vern
in letting me go out on his new lease,
I can offer him a bunch of sonar data
that will save vernon a lot of time
and I think that I can help him get an advantage
in finding his own gold there too.
I was happy to hear that you bought that lease.
[vernon] yeah. Me too.
[zeke] um, would you be interested
in, uh, working out an agreement with me
and my brother there to work on it?
[suspenseful music playing]
um...
I'll be able to share those maps with you.
I'd be very interested in that.
I got one more slot open on my, um, permit.
I'll put the paperwork together.
If you wanna sign it, then I'll turn you loose
on 56.
Well, right on, I'm excited.
So the sailboat dredge
is finally finished and ready to go,
I've got a lease that I can go to,
I'm gonna have to pay a little bit of a royalty.
But that's okay because I'm gonna start
raking in the gold here
and I'm gonna save up for a lease of my own.
-[vernon] all right, buddy. -[zeke] hey,
-I'm excited about this. -Okay, well,
-best of luck. -Right on.
If there's some good gold
out on that lease, I'm gonna find it.
Mmm-hmm. Yeah.
[laughs]
-right on. Thanks, vern. -We'll see.
-Cool, talk to you soon. -Yeah. See you later.
[zeke] I'm excited about this.
[vernon] I like zeke,
the guy's honest, he's a hard worker.
He's welcome to prospect on 56,
I'm not sure he's gonna be taking up that much gold.
It, uh... It looks like
it might have a few design deficiencies
to work through.
So, we'll see.
[zeke] I'm super stoked because one of my buddies
got in some really good [bleep] on that lease.
And I don't think that he got it all,
I really doubt it.
Because then the boat sunk.
[laughs]
I'm super excited about going there.
It's everything that I could want in a place to go mining.
[laughs]
[suspenseful music playing]
[emily] I'm gonna go down the beach
and find rick and offer him a job,
turnaround 24 hours a day, I already have,
uh, bob and darryl on there.
And I need a third guy.
[narrator] on a quest to raise enough gold
to buy a claim of her own,
emily riedel is on the hunt
to expand her dive team.
[emily] at the end of the day, even though 14
has been old faithful
and it's been very dependable
and we've done well season after season on it,
right now it's about getting my own claim.
It's about getting my own ground
and getting as much gold as possible.
To get the 75 ounces,
I need another diver
and that diver's gotta be rick.
He's worked on my boat before,
he's good and, uh, might be available.
[rick] I need to go down right now and I need to get
25, 30 ounces.
Could be a record.
You might wanna avoid that, it's surfer, guys.
Yeah, you're on some nice gg.
That's sexy.
Rick's been out of the scene for a while,
he hasn't been diving.
But because the gold price shot up,
he came back to nome to work the west beach.
West beach life is rough,
it's a freaking grind,
you've gotta move a lot of material
to get to an ounce.
It's a rough way to try to be a gold miner.
I don't think you're gonna get rich that way,
but some people have done pretty well.
Hopefully, I can convince rick to put the dive suit back on.
What's happening, em?
We're hugging in these times, right?
-Pandemic or no. -Long time no see.
[emily] I know, how you been?
-Not bad. -[emily] good, good.
I see nome's herself.
Oh, yeah.
[emily] hi, nome.
-Hi, hi. -What's up, girl?
[emily] it's okay. You know what,
sometimes you gotta sit on a mound.
What you up to?
Uh, you know, just driving around,
looking for people,
people named rick.
I just wanted to put like a...
An idea in your ear.
Um, I know you dove in the eroica
a couple years ago
and I'm looking for a third guy.
Right now I've got, uh,
bob and darryl diving on the boat.
And it'd be nice to have a third guy
so we can go 24.
Um, I mean,
if you're looking for a way
to supplement your beach mining activities,
-you know... -I really had no intention
on diving, I don't know, I gotta think about that one.
[emily] I mean, it's gonna take a lot of those
to, uh...
-To get to an ounce. -[rick] yeah.
[emily] that's the problem. It's gonna take two hours
to get to an ounce on my boat.
But it's my ounce.
[emily] I can see the appeal of beach mining
on the west side.
You're gonna control your own schedule and your life,
nobody's telling you what to do,
significantly less dangerous
unless you get hit by a hobo on a quadrunner.
I mean, what are you doing like on average?
If I work really hard?
-Yeah. -Maybe an ounce.
[emily] well, the price of gold the way it is,
it's like you're leaving money out,
now that the price of gold is 2,000 an ounce.
It's like...
-That's why I got up here. -Just sitting here...
-Yeah, I know. -[rick] oh man.
It's the time to be a gold miner, rick.
It's a good time, rick, to be a gold diver.
-Yeah, you're right. -[emily] and now this,
-you know, it's not bad. -[rick] I know.
Not knocking beach money at all,
but then you can really make your hours count
on a 10-inch
as oppose to something like this,
so small scale.
I mean, you're keeping everything,
but how much are you really able to move
to get to that ounce per day, you know?
If you're on half an ounce an hour grounds
with three divers,
that's gonna stack up pretty quick.
Right, yeah, I got you.
And you're half ounce an hour?
Yes, sir. Nice, easy,
material to work waiting for you.
[suspenseful music playing]
[nome barking]
[rick] what do you think, nome?
What do you think, girl?
[emily] butt scratches and quibble,
that's all we got here.
Oh, yeah.
[rick] beach is good but...
-[emily] diving's fun too. -Yeah.
[upbeat music playing]
[rick] yeah, I'm down.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
Nome... [whistles]
come on. Let's go for a ride.
Thank goodness because I saved him
from making a life flake by flake
among the hobos on the beach
and now he's got the much more glamorous dive position
on the eroica.
I'm really glad that rick came on.
I have a really strong team now,
veteran divers, and hopefully,
uh, rick is right back on the saddle
and starts producing gold.
It's a good feeling when you know
you have a solid crew.
[mellow music playing]
[steve] I got the hat, the coat.
I got my hat and coat.
Go for broke here.
Uh, actually I've gone for broke.
I am broke.
[engine starts]
[steve] I got to get work.
[narrator] steve riedel is done
being nome's most notorious free spirit.
[car horn honking]
[steve] oh.
Oh, I almost died.
[man speaking]
[narrator] he's now looking for pave work...
[steve] first stop, vernon.
See if he's got some work for me.
[narrator] ...To start building a vast golden empire
or at least pay for a place to live.
I need the scratch and no job is too big
and no fee, for me, is too big.
My resume is weak in mining,
but strong in other activities.
I'm a rank amateur philosopher,
scientist,
uh, mountaineer,
uh, downhill ski racer,
cross country ski racer,
and I'm a really good swimmer,
I can even go underwater for, like,
-almost a lap... -[buzzer buzzes]
almost a lap underwater.
Um...
It's cool.
There are claims out there
and I wanna get an operation together
and buy one.
But rome wasn't built in a day.
Everyone's gotta start somewhere,
so I need a gig.
I cannot afford to be picky.
I'm open to whatever comes my way.
I think I'm gonna hit up vern
because we've worked together before.
[vernon] you're not in-charge of this boat.
You don't have the expertise.
-Get off the boat. -Sir, I'm off...
-You're off the boat. -Okay.
He hired me in the past.
He just might hire me again
plus he did hook me up with this sweet ride.
[suspenseful music playing]
[steve] hey buddy, what's up?
What are you doing around these parts?
[steve] I'm looking for some dive work maybe
or some... Yeah, that's your...
That thing looks familiar.
[steve] yeah, that's yours, uh, vern.
I, kind of, added to it.
What's that thing on the front?
[steve] okay. That's, uh, the end of a pontoon.
It looks like a rhino horn,
so that's my rhino ride.
Look at what gold I owe you on the wheeler.
It's your lucky day vern
because you could put me to work
and I could have that gold for you really fast.
Maybe you need a little bit of, uh,
heavy lifting from, uh, this guy's brain.
I could, uh, make your life easier.
[vernon] I think it'd be better probably based on
past experience
if you find another business to work.
You know, you probably ought to keep looking for a while.
Why don't you get hooked up with somebody else
-and pay me for that rig? -I'll pay you back
as soon as I can.
-Nice to see you. -[vernon] yeah, right. Okay.
You know steve... Damn.
I gotta say I probably fired steve
at least four or five times.
So, um, I'd have to be pretty hard up to hire steve.
And luckily I'm not that desperate,
at least not yet.
[steve] I have a feeling vern's gonna call me.
I got way more genius in my little pinky
than he has in his whole big body.
Vernon needs me.
[suspenseful music playing]
[kris] I'm just trying to dial the sand,
make it work.
We have one shot to make it to elim.
So it's our last chance.
[narrator] despite setbacks,
captain kris is more determined than ever
to see his dream become a reality.
[kris] yesterday, we were on the bering sea.
We were testing everything out.
I know it looks like everything went to [bleep]
and it, kind of, did.
-[andy] shut your mouth. -You shut the [bleep] up.
All you do is sit in your [bleep] for nothing.
-[screams] -[andy] [bleep]
[andy] ah!
[dramatic music playing]
[kris] today, we're gonna do a few little fixes
make sure the high pressure line
is fastened securely.
Um, we're gonna re-blow up the pontoons,
get a new radiator cap,
and figure out a stand for the...
For filling the foot valve,
just little itty-bitty things and then we're done.
[alarm buzzing]
[kris] I can't even undo this one.
The wood is sitting right on it.
[kris] because it's gotta spin the pontoon.
[narrator] nothing about kris' years long odyssey
to make the 120-mile journey to elim
has been cheap or easy.
[upbeat music playing]
[kris] I'm trying to get to elim
but anything that can go wrong
has gone wrong at this point.
Our bad weather test of the sickle was a disaster.
And we have to pay 1500 a day
to the captain so we can lease his boat.
So the longer these repairs take,
the more money we're just throwing out the window.
We got to get going now.
Come hell or high water,
hopefully not too high though.
The pontoons were leaking a little bit of air.
As they got lower, they spun in the water.
We're gonna reposition them.
[kris] and why would you take 'em off?
-The straps? -I removed 'em to spin 'em.
[kris] I know we can do this. I know there's a ton of gold
waiting for us at elim.
We just need a little teamwork.
Let me... Let me see your knife.
-[andy] what are you cutting? -[kris] this rubber piece
-right here. -[andy speaking]
[kris] andy, I'm tired of your attitude.
Okay. Well, this is the cluster [bleep]
-beyond belief. -[brad] shut up, kris.
Well, asking for teamwork for my dad and brother
-may be a little too much. -[machine revving]
[brad] I know you're a [bleep] whiny little baby.
You need your diaper [bleep] changed.
[kris] the problem is everybody thinks
they have a boat.
Democracy, I swear to god, does not work sometimes.
[suspenseful music playing]
[brad] here's our captain.
Look at our captain.
What a loser he's become.
[kris] really? We don't have enough time
to do all the little things
to make everything amazing
but as long as we get most of them,
that's all that matters. User-friendly
is what we're trying to work for it today,
user-friendly.
[upbeat music playing]
[andy] I'm not gonna get it.
You know what, let kris deal with that [bleep].
[kris] andy, I'm tired of your attitude man.
We just have to put all the bitching aside
and get this done today.
We can't afford any more delays
or there's not gonna be enough gold in elim
to stop us from going broke.
You really have to count on everything going
to [bleep] on you. You know,
if you count on everything going to [bleep]
you're not gonna be mad when everything goes
to [bleep]
but if you think you're gonna get it here,
everything's perfect,
you're a [bleep] idiot.
Biggest key to mining is you never give up.
[dramatic music playing]
[zeke laughing]
so stoked. [laughing]
I finished setting up yesterday,
I was just like,
"oh, the nose is on, it's ready to go."
and I need to some gold, super bad.
We need to find a place to just go grind,
-you just go grind at 'em. -[sam] yeah, man.
[zeke] I wanna go to grind town.
[laughter]
[zeke] I think we got everything.
[narrator] in exchange for mapping claim 56,
vernon has given zeke and the crew of the black swan
permission to mine.
You can't forget the important stuff.
[narrator] so it should be all
smooth sailing from here, right?
[zeke] oh, yeah, hit on the boat.
The truth is I know very little about sailing.
My dad knows a lot more about it
and he's not here to help me today.
I'm super aware that sailing has a steep learning curve
and sailboats have been known to sink, kerplunk,
not to mention that this sailboat
is all loaded up with mining gear.
So I am... Like, I'm not super confident
as sailboat captain but, like, sometimes
you just have to learn by doing them.
[laughing]
[zeke] we're gonna try pushing the bow out,
-is that the plan? -[raven] yeah, uh, yeah,
I'll get up on the bow.
-[laughing] -[zeke] here we go.
All right. Perfect.
Woo!
[zeke speaking]
[laughing]
zeke's pull out game is strong.
-[zeke] it is dude. -[laughter]
I'm on top of it.
[laughter]
pull up king. [laughing]
[dramatic music playing]
[zeke] all right. I don't really know how to,
communicate sail commands,
but I guess, like, what...
[raven] we're gonna raise the jib.
Let's just raise the jib and then we'll sail.
Sail that way. [laughing]
yeah.
Vern's claim is right over there,
we'll just sail over to it.
Oh, yeah.
[zeke] looks good to me.
Here we go, we're sailing boys.
Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
[raven] I guess we could raise the main, huh?
[zeke] I think we're good for now.
-[raven] yeah? -Yeah, I mean,
we're just gonna go that way for ways.
I mean, if we... If we raise the main sail, we're...
We'll go too fast.
Oh, I don't know [bleep].
We can just put up the main sail.
[upbeat music playing]
[laughing]
here we go.
Yeah, woo!
-[bleep] sweet. -Yeah.
Yeah.
We're gonna sail all that.
Dude, it's cutting right through the water.
[laughs]
[zeke] I think this is probably, like,
it's pretty close to top speed.
[dramatic music playing]
-[zeke] whoa. -[sail flapping]
[raven] uh-oh.
[beep] will you grab that?
[wind whooshing]
[raven] oh, wow [bleep].
Whew, damn.
[raven] whoa, watch out.
[zeke] why do we get knocked over so much?
I don't wanna tip over, this makes me super nervous.
There's just so much [bleep] going on.
Sailing is fun
but it's definitely a wakeup call for me
about how much forward momentum
you can develop so quickly.
The sluice box is so far in the water
that it's at risk of ripping the sluice box off
or the drag might potentially capsize us.
The wind is trying push us way over.
It's getting way worse.
[sam speaking]
-[zeke] what happened? -[sam speaking]
-[zeke] is it? -[sam speaking]
[zeke] we're still a little green
when it comes to sailing here
and it's picking up,
so we're gonna drop down the main sail.
We're just gonna use the jib.
So I think right now, like,
we just need a little more experience
before we're confident enough. We don't wanna wipe out
right in front of town here. Guys, I don't know,
it gets a little sketchy, you know.
The reason all hell broke loose
was because I didn't tighten up
the main sail well enough. I mean who knew?
But we're fine now
and we can do what we set out to do
and now have the claim.
Oh, yes, that's much more manageable.
[laughs]
we just rolled up on the eastern edge
of vernon's lease here.
And what I wanna do
is drive figure eights around it
while I'm recording a sonar map.
And we can make a map of the bottom,
the whole area, so we'll know
where all the different pockets of rock,
and sand, and reefs are, and everything,
be able to, like, make a really educated guess
about where to start our diving,
where gold's probably gonna be.
[narrator] zeke's sonar system emits
a powerful wave of sound towards the sea floor.
Then it measures how long the echo takes
to travel back to the boat.
Using this data,
he can make a detailed map of any part of the claim
the boat sails over.
[zeke] this is vern's claim.
So, basically in between these bubbles.
Great structure map, yeah, great structure map.
-[sam] no. -[zeke] and then it saves
to the memory card on top, file format.
I'm bill gates-ing this right now.
Vernon is gonna be super stoked
that we're out here making a sonar map
for him of his lease.
I'm gonna name the file vernon 1.
Enter.
Record.
Okay. See recording.
Now, oh, I'm pointing the wrong direction,
so I wasn't paying attention to where I was driving.
[laughs]
hello and welcome to another episode
of kris kelly's secret guide to mining.
Secret guide to successful mining they say,
but I'm gonna tell you what, I'm not that successful.
[dramatic music playing]
there's some half brain,
big pocket ideas
that people just throw their money into
and they don't get anything out.
So hang out with me as we go around town nome
and see the different gold contraptions
where people pissed their money away.
So right now, we have behind me
an underwater crawler set up.
So the boat's a piece of [bleep].
But what he has is a piece of gold.
So right now, I know you think
and you're looking at something out of dr. Seuss
but you're not. This thing is an enormous
vacuum cleaner that's gonna go on
the bottom of the ground, knock out rocks,
big boulders out of the way,
and just suck everything below it.
This right here is [bleep] the money maker.
It's only gonna cost him two, or three, or four,
or five million more dollars to figure out
how to make this work. But after that,
he's gonna be rich. Come on, let's get out of here
before we're caught.
Behind me is sitting shawn's mega dredge.
I mean, you look at it,
what the [bleep] was shawn thinking?
That thing is a damn floating city.
[producer speaking]
no [bleep] knows.
Thank god, shawn gets a lot of gold
because he's gonna need every penny of gold he gets in
to put into this piece of crap.
This one right here is called the submarine.
And probably the blue ribbon winner
of worst design,
biggest waste of money in nome.
They put $1 million into this 10 years ago
and went out there one day
almost drowned the guy running it
and it hasn't been out there since.
As you can tell, it's surrounded by a fence,
that's to make sure nobody steals
any of their really good ideas.
So on this part of the tour
we have an excavator barge behind me.
It's a barge with an excavator on it.
Just in case you can't figure that [bleep] out.
My [bleep] boat,
the little itty-bitty reaper
that cost about...
...I don't know a hundred times
less than this piece of [bleep]
gets a hundred times more gold than it.
So, that's the wrong arm.
That's the wrong bucket.
That's the wrong sluice box.
That's the wrong shaker.
Well, actually, that's new.
Where did they get that from?
An excavator barge is probably the best
and easiest and most efficient way
to get gold out of the ocean.
And I am jealous, I wish I had one.
Not this one, but I mean a real one.
This has been another edition of kris kelly's
secret guide to successful mining.
Okay. Pack the [bleep] up. [claps]
[dramatic music playing]
[rock music playing]
[shawn] we are getting close.
[narrator] mr. Gold is pushing hard
to get the myrtle irene rebuilt
and into the water fast.
[shawn] well, it's crucial that everything
keeps moving forward
and keeps going in the right direction.
We have one hiccup
and we'll miss our cut-off
and our deadline
to get this thing up and running.
I have way too much
of my own money invested into this
to do that.
I took a big gamble that I could rebuild this
in a matter of weeks.
The longer it takes, the less time
I have to make my money back on the water this year.
But so far my crew is killing it.
We've already completed most of the big redesign.
We've lowered the wash plant to give the operator
a better view and more control.
And we haven't just installed one sluice box,
we've installed two, making sure
we have enough space to process all the material
from the myrtle's massive five yard bucket.
[dramatic music playing]
[shawn] it's gonna be a gold gobbling monster.
[machine whirring]
[dave] holy cow.
[alarm beeping]
[dave] [bleep] shawn.
-[shawn] what do you think? -[dave] holy cow. Huh?
[shawn] a little different, isn't it?
-Woo. Looks [bleep] good. -[shawn] yeah.
[dave] good job.
I can't believe it.
[shawn] we brought everything down.
You can see from the excavator,
you can see right into the wash plant now.
[dave] holy cow.
So we come up out of here, huh.
-Yup. -[dave] pump it up.
-This is sluice, right? -Primary sluice box.
[dave] so what are you catching here?
[shawn] we'll catch a half-inch minus.
[dave] what's that right there, sluice?
-[shawn] sluice. -[dave] that's sluice.
So you think this will catch everything
we've been blowing out of the box, eh?
-Yeah. -I know we've been losing
-like 50%, 60%. -Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.
-It's gonna work. -I like it.
Let's go up and look at it.
I can't believe how high it is.
I've said it before and I'll say it again,
the name of the game is efficiency.
Each of these systems is designed to work together
to separate the gold from the dirt
with minimal loss.
Just like on the christine rose.
[dave] holy cow, this is high.
Whoa.
This is cool.
I can't believe you got this much done.
[shawn] it's not that complicated.
[dave] see, we were doing this and this
and then we would shut it down
and there is no gold.
-How? -[shawn] too much water.
And then when I do my test, all the fines,
they were just gone right out.
That's a game changer right there
adding a secondary stream.
[dave] yeah, I like this.
[shawn] I can't wait to get the mining
on this thing. We're talking millions,
millions for sure.
[dave] I know you've been dreaming of this
for ever since I have known you.
Hopefully this works.
-Oh, we're gonna make it. -I hope.
We're gonna make it work.
There ain't no quitting.
[narrator] two miles east.
[dramatic music playing]
[emily] rick, are you excited?
-To get [bleep] down there? -I'm stoked, man.
I, kind of, get goose bumps, it's been so long.
[emily] right. Let's try to check the count today.
It's the first day back on the 10.
A couple things have changed
since he last dove on the boat.
So, it should be exciting for him to get in there.
[narrator] the eroica's newest crew member
rick smith is ready to make his summer debut.
It's been a few years since I put this puppy on.
Hopefully it still fits.
[narrator] but the verdict is still out
on whether the once all-star diver
still has his shine.
[rick] so, I'm just gonna get down there
and poke around and see what I see.
So hopefully, I do a couple ounces
and that's the plan, man.
I'm bringing rick on and it's a bit of a gamble.
[engine revving]
[rick] woo.
[emily] he's been out of the game for a while,
but hopefully, he can get right back to work.
[suspenseful music playing]
-excited? -[rick] yeah, sweet.
It's good to have you back ricotto.
All right. Get it.
[rick] bye, girl.
You got to say bye to my good luck charm.
Bob and daryl are strong divers
and in order to keep the crew happy,
rick needs to perform at their level.
The new diver has to kind of win over the existing divers.
Otherwise, there's conflict.
[radio hissing]
[rick] check, check, one, two, three.
[emily] copy, copy, sounds good, rick.
-You're diving, here we go. -[rick] woo.
[engine revving]
[dramatic music playing]
[rick] coming down on the nozzle.
What do we got here?
Yeah, I got a little spot right here.
I'm gonna work this little area right here.
Oh, boy, oh, yeah.
[emily] hey, ricardo, how's your first dive going?
[rick] oh, this is great, em.
There's gold all over in here.
All through that.
God, I miss like... I missed this.
Oh, good. Well, [bleep] welcome back, rick.
I'm glad you're seeing some nice gold.
[rick] there's a hole in the seam right now.
Watch this.
See that? Oh, damn, my hand.
This rock, I'm going to move this sumbitch.
That's why there's gold here.
Nobody moved this.
[groans]
yeah, no.
Not today.
You know, how hard it is to do this,
if it was easy everybody would be doing this.
[groans]
yeah, amen to that, dude.
It's not an easy job.
[rick groans]
[rick] this is like the baby [bleep].
All this stuff, the different colors.
When it's virgin ground,
this stuff is typically just loaded.
And gold will be down inside there
a little bit.
Like, right there.
See how it goes from the...
This stuff to the heart.
[groans] [bleep]
[emily] rick hasn't dove for gold in a while,
but I think he's right back in the saddle.
It's not gonna take more than a few drives
for me to know whether it was a good decision
to bring him on.
[dramatic music playing]
[rick] oh [bleep].
My mask, I need to get up there.
I'm coming up.
[rick groans]
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[rick speaking]
I'm coming up.
[rick groans]
[suspenseful music playing]
[emily] you okay?
[suspenseful music playing]
[bleep]
[grunting, retching]
[bleep]
yeah.
So the seal broke,
and as the water just kept coming in,
I kept clearing it...
[emily] yeah.
Pushed it out,
and right when I got to the top,
it was like, fluid right there, and I...
-Whoo. -Yeah, the...
I just heard running water over the comms.
[rick] yeah. Well...
-No bueno. -[rick] anyway...
-That's not fun. -Rick was diving,
and he got into a bit of a situation
where his mask flooded,
and he had to do an emergency ascent.
-[rick] it's right here. -All right.
Uh, you're not gonna seal it to your hood again, are you?
-No. No. No. No. -Okay.
[rick] it scared the [bleep] outta me.
[emily] you know, you don't want somebody to be
demoralized by a scary experience.
Like, it's a scary job in a lot of ways,
but these things are gonna happen,
and you kind of have to get right back to work.
That scared the [bleep] out of me.
-Yeah. -[rick] let's do it again though.
Never fun when a diver is ripping their mask off.
[rick] yeah.
You want to help me get that.
[emily] but, you know, he's a pro.
He, uh, had a scary experience,
and he just kind of got right back in the water.
[rick] [bleep] I hope this doesn't go to my head now.
Oh, oh, you mean like trip you out?
[rick] like, anxiety, and get weirded down there.
Yeah. Well, you know, listen.
Just, uh, just pop your head in up here,
hold onto the ladder...
-[rick] yeah. -...Take a couple breaths.
Chill.
[machine rumbling]
[tense music playing]
[rick breathing]
[emily] all right. Buddy, you good?
[rick] yup. So far.
[emily] roger.
He said he might be having a little bit of
a head trip after that dive situation.
Nobody understands head trips
about diving more than me.
Diving for gold in the water is scary.
Holy crap.
Oh, baby.
[rick] you know, I got a little spot really good.
-Hey, em. -[emily] what's up?
[rick] I got some gold.
It's coming down full rear in this rubble right here.
[emily] that's awesome to hear dude, after all that.
[rick] yeah.
Perseverance.
I admire rick, you know, he fixes the problem,
and he went right back to work.
That's always a good sign of a diver.
Rick doesn't have time to kind of dwell in it.
I don't have time, and, uh, he got back in there,
so I'm really happy with the team that I have.
I think we're gonna do well.
I think we're gonna make a lot of gold.
[rick] oh, we're getting it.
As long as I don't get stuck in the damn hole again.
I've already been stuck in the hole once.
There was a big piece,
now I don't know if you saw that.
And there's gold all over here, all through that.
If he stops talking, he could mine more gold.
[rick] I'm gonna work this for a little bit, em.
[emily] all right. Roger that. Sounds good.
Don't get stuck in that hose,
and keep sucking up that nice gold.
[rick] okay, em.
[narrator] back in nome.
[kris] literally, you get this boat in the water,
and then, we're a hundred percent ready
to go elim.
Okay. It's great to see this thing go in the water.
I really hope to god nothing else breaks.
[narrator] after years of dreaming and scheming,
and a few days, scrambling to repair his dredge,
kris kelly's grand plan
to make the 120-mile journey to elim,
has finally in the homestretch.
[kris] there's my dad and brother pulling up.
Fashionably late, as usual.
Just when everything is already taken care of.
So the sickle's get ready to go.
Captain dave is ready to go.
My dad and brother are also here.
We'll get this bad boy in the water,
and then, in the morning, elim awaits.
We need to have a quick talk because this, uh...
Right now, we're going on
the biggest adventure we ever had.
Andy, pay attention.
Lookit, pay attention for two seconds.
We need to have a talk
because this is a no [bleep] around.
We're going on the biggest adventure
we ever had on our lives,
and we're gonna get rich for it.
I need everybody to be on the same page,
working hard and working as a team,
or this is [bleep] gonna fall apart on me.
We know. We'll work harder. We'll work harder.
[kris] I need you to be on the same page, you know.
I will. I'm on the same page.
We're just reading different books.
Oh, yeah [bleep] [bleep].
My dad and brother, well, they are who they are.
Despite all that, this is still gonna be
our most successful mining operation to date.
Can I do anything?
Just shut the [bleep] up.
[kris] okay. I got that.
[tense music playing]
[kris] you're in the water.
Yay.
[upbeat music playing]
and we made it on the water.
[brad] the repairs are all done.
The boat's in the water.
We're ready to go to elim finally.
Took all... Took all week.
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] with the norpac floating...
Um, as far as I'm concerned, we're ready to go.
In my mind, we're ready.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] ...There's just one last detail
to be hammered out.
Cash, right?
Of course. Cash is king.
Now that I see that we're gonna make it,
I'll pay you today.
You know, because dave loves cash.
-Who doesn't? -Dave wants to see the money.
And he's kind of like a hooker.
He wants to be paid first.
[man laughing]
it's gonna be a long trip.
I hate giving up cash up front,
but in nome, money talks.
At this point, I have to pay dave whatever he wants.
He has all the power.
I have nothing, but I'm gonna make
so much gold in elim,
paying dave now is just a drop in the bucket.
[knocks on window]
here you go, buddy.
And I really hate to let money go.
I'm gonna tell you the truth.
Is that it?
[kris] that's it.
[dave] only 20s.
Uh, just there's 100s and 50s.
You got to come up with more.
The boat's... This thing's not cheap to run.
How much more do you want?
[dave] some gold, we'd get us down there.
-And back? -[dave] and back.
[kris] you've got me over a barrel kind of.
[dave] yeah, I know. It sucks to be you.
Well, it doesn't suck to be me.
You know what? Let's...
How about we go down there,
we'll make a deal on gold when we get there,
based upon how much we see,
and it'll be like an evolving deal.
Say, I'm a pessimist, but we'll see.
[kris] come on, dave. Be in a good mood.
It's all gonna work out.
You know, a little money in your hand
and a promise of gold in the future.
-Don't worry about it. -[dave] yeah.
You know, there is gold in elim.
Okay.
So, the drop in the bucket turned out to be
the whole bucket, and then some,
but the boat in dredge are ready
and the money's spent.
It's time to stop talking about it
and start cashing in.
Everything's good, it's a done deal?
[kris] it's kind of a done deal.
-[brad] so what's the deal? -The deal is,
it's an evolving deal obviously.
-Evolving deal? -[kris] don't worry about it.
I will take care of the money situation.
[zeke] can you not blow that in my face, please?
[chuckling]
it's time to go home.
[narrator] zeke and the crew of the black swan
have mapped out claim 56 for skipper vernon adkison.
[zeke] so I made about 15 passes
through vernon's lease.
I got a big, long sonar image on each pass,
and I pretty much know where the rocks are,
where the sand is,
where the gold is likely to be.
I feel like I've got a pretty good lay of the land.
I did a lot of sonar mapping all over lease 56,
and it looks pretty good.
I'm definitely feeling more comfortable
with the sailing than I was right at first.
Well, I'm not gonna go as far to say that I'm confident,
but I'm at least reasonably confident.
[upbeat music playing]
[zeke] it's a little squirrely coming in the harbor.
[sam speaking]
that would be really embarrassing.
[laughter]
[sam] what happened, zeke?
Whoa. Whoa. [bleep]
[raven] that's weird.
What the [bleep] really?
[bleep] where's the channel?
[bleep]
dude, is the tide coming in?
[machine roaring]
[zeke] we hit the sandbar,
so I'm trying to pull us off a bit.
[foghorn blowing]
[sam] whoa [bleep].
What's the channel you're supposed to,
uh, monitor in the harbor?
I forget.
Is it channel 16?
Because this barge is just fighting
for space in the channel.
Oh [bleep].
[laughing]
[foghorn blowing]
there's that really long stick you could grab.
We need to get our sailboat
pushed the hell off this sandbar
before this giant barge gets on top of us
because it's not stopping,
so here we are with
a sailboat dredge contraption,
but we're stuck using paddles
to push ourselves off the sandbar.
This situation is super embarrassing for me,
and it proves to me that I have a ways to go
in being the captain of a sailboat.
You're almost going on.
[sam speaking]
it's working.
Yeah. I think you're off of it.
Nice.
Whoo.
[upbeat music playing]
definitely never had that happen before.
[foghorn blowing]
yeah. You don't want to get stuck on that bar.
[chuckles]
I guess what happens
when you get stuck in the sandbar,
and there's waves that you kept...
Boat tips over, and fills up with water.
-[raven] yeah. -[zeke] that felt like
that was what's about to happen to us.
[chuckles]
so as of today,
we've got access to a really good claim
that I'm excited about.
The flipside is that it's apparent to me,
I need to become a better sailboat captain,
so one step forward, one step back, I guess.
We're done mapping.
And now, we're just ready for dive, so...
-Sounds great. I'm stoked. -[zeke] yeah.
You know, we got a good place to go.
We got it all mapped out.
We got the boat working.
We got everything leaning in our favor.
Yeah.
Let's go. [chuckles]
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] one mile east...
[steve] okay, let's see if we can get down to the beach.
There's a dredge in the way.
It's gonna be a little rough.
Hold on. Here we go. Whoa.
This little tiny wheeler, man, they go anywhere.
[narrator] after striking out with vernon earlier,
steve riedel has his sights
set on another potential employer.
[steve] oh, hey. There's emmy.
[narrator] none other than his daughter, emily,
who's just wrapped up a successful day
on the high seas.
[emily] hey. I didn't know you're back in town.
It's nice to see you. Give me...
Uh, come out there and give me a hug.
I see you have some interesting decor.
Yeah. It's the rhino... It's the rhino rig,
this is my rhino...
-My rhino on. -Oh, it's a ride...
Oh, that's what's that supposed to be.
My rhinoceros.
I didn't tell emily I was coming up here,
so it's gonna be a bit of surprise.
Last summer sort of didn't end well for us.
I know a way to get him more efficient
by dropping the temperature about 15 degrees.
[rick speaking]
[steve] take that cold and turn it into gold production.
Woo-hoo!
Yeah. Yeah.
[emily] I don't really have the energy
or the patience to argue.
It's best if we don't do this venture.
Kids never trust their dad.
It's, uh, built in ageism.
Emily taking me on might be a bit of a hard sell,
but hey, we're family.
So what brings you back to nome? What are you up to?
[steve] well, just like you emmy,
I'm... I've come here for the gold.
The second gold rush of the decade.
Are you... Are you prospecting?
[steve] well, um, you know,
I, um, uh,
well, yeah, but there's, you know,
I got some money issues,
and I'm looking for work.
Okay.
[tense music playing]
[steve] so, uh, so how about,
um, how about a job,
emmy, on your boat?
Um...
On my boat, on the eroica?
[steve] yeah. How about a job there?
Uh, I need some gold.
Um...
I could dive for you or I could, um...
I, uh, I... I'm good.
I love my dad, but, uh, the last time
he worked in the boat, it didn't go super well.
I'm sort of like stacked up...
-[steve] mmm-hmm. -...In terms of divers.
-I got bob, daryl... -[steve] yeah?
...And rick at the moment, but, um...
Bob, daryl, and rick, huh?
-I could tender because... -Um...
You know, I've tendered on your boat before, remember?
You sure have.
Listen, like I love to help you out,
but, uh, I'm all crewed up.
I mean, if something dramatic changes,
I'll talk to you about it.
[steve] this plan didn't work.
It was basically, uh, crash and burn scenario.
Ouch.
-Okay. -You call me, okay?
All right, love you, dad.
I'll see you. Good to see you.
I think she's a little crazy she didn't hire me.
I can get so much more gold for her.
I got great ideas.
But I got other prospects, so I'm going for them.
[lounge music playing]
[narrator] and now, another episode
of social hour with vernon.
[vernon] hey, naomi.
Double shot of red eye in a dirty glass.
I like to just stop in
and check on my social media.
Harry knuckles says, "I love you, vernon!"
[laughs]
well, you know, I like you too, harry.
Okay, who's next.
Shaquille oatmeal, "vernon should hand over
the operation to elaine."
[laughs]
"vernon is an amateur compared to everyone else."
naomi, how about another one, please?
Meat in the pants.
No, man eats pants.
"vernon's operation looks like a bunch
of junk floating on the ocean,
like a floating trailer park."
I mean is it only trolls who are out today?
Baaad karrmma says,
"man, vernon never finds gold."
well, we'll look at the leaderboard from past years.
Just because I don't go yippee ki-yay
every time I see a couple of ounces,
doesn't mean I'm not getting the gold, knucklehead.
It just means I'm not a...
Like a damn teeny bopper,
that's gonna get all wet in the underwear
every time he sees a speck of gold.
So [bleep] off.
[narrator] this has been another episode
of social hour with vernon.
Seem like they got it in for me today.
[naomi speaking]
oh, okay. Well, naomi's on my side.
To hell with them.
[dramatic music playing]
let's do it, buddy.
[shawn] today's the day.
[dave] damn, I hope it works.
-I'm gonna make it work. One way or another. -[dave] it better work.
[narrator] with the heavy work of rebuilding
the myrtle's gold recovery system complete...
Flint.
[engine starts]
[narrator] ...The final phase of shawn's redesign
will happen on the water.
[shawn] oh, she's coming up now.
All ready to roll this myrtle in the water.
We'll have so much gold coming out of her.
It'd be coming out of her ears.
I hope.
[narrator] but getting the reconfigured 600-ton,
40 by 135-foot behemoth
off the ground and into the harbor?
Let's get her. Let's go.
-[shawn] yeah. -Let's do it.
I'm ready.
[narrator] well, that's easier said than done.
[shawn] we've rebuilt the myrtle irene
for maximum gold-getting efficiency.
Now we need to get this beast in the water
and make her final tweaks.
But talking about the biggest dredge
in the bering sea,
so moving it won't be easy.
One screw-up, and I can kiss
my $350,000 investment goodbye.
Not to mention, the millions of dollars
I'll miss out on if I can't get her out
on the water.
[dave] hey, what on the, uh, new design
shawn did a pretty damn good job.
I was impressed at, uh, how much he got done.
Guy's been working his ass off.
I'm convinced if anybody can do it in nome,
it's probably shawn.
We'll see if he lives up to his name, huh?
[shawn] hooking up the shackle,
hooking up the chain to keep the boat
from rolling away from us
once we get the bags on it.
This is one of the most nerve-racking parts
of the job, is getting it in the water.
The myrtle irene is 10 times heavier
than the christine rose.
So it's 10 times more difficult.
[dramatic music playing]
that should hold her, huh?
[shawn] I've seen plenty of these operations go to hell.
So my heart's in my mouth right about now.
And we're about ready to start rolling here.
[dave] we're probably getting it up.
Yeah, these bags are like 6,000 each.
Yeah, we don't wanna be popping them.
[truck beeping]
pull that ladder up.
[coughs]
get ready to roll now.
All done.
It's time to roll this thing in.
We're gonna start moving.
Yeah.
Let's get this boat in the water.
-[dave] let's do it. -[man] get in the water.
[dave] come on, let's do it.
[shawn] oh yeah.
[tense music playing]
[metal creaking]
[shawn] looking really good.
Slow and steady.
That's how we're gonna do it.
Slow and steady.
The two loaders are bringing about
a half million pounds of pulling power.
We need every bit of it
to keep this monster under control.
If things got loose right now,
that'd be disastrous.
There'd be no stopping it.
It could drag the loaders into the water with it.
And who knows?
[metal creaking]
[shawn] going pretty smooth.
Everything's going as planned.
Doesn't happen very often, it's all just easy.
But we're not in the water yet.
So...
[metal creaking]
[shawn] right now, we're at the water's edge.
This is the most critical part.
We're gonna start going down the raft.
This is a big heavy barge, and it...
And if we don't have enough braking strength,
that barge will just take off, end up on the ground,
it'll be a horrible mess.
[tense music playing]
[air hisses]
[dave] just going in.
[metal creaking]
[shawn] they're floating.
We are floating, dave.
-[dave] woo! -[shawn] yeah.
[grunts]
we're floating.
It's remarkable how easy the myrtle irene went in,
considering how big it is.
Never had a smoother launch.
I'm hoping the good luck continues because
there's no making up for lost time now.
We need everything to go right.
[metal creaking]
[shawn] tighten up one of those loaders
before we float into the rocks over here.
We're floating.
[dave] it's been a long road, and I'm getting excited.
We're in the water, we're floating,
we'll be digging in a week or so, and we're ready to go.
Hopefully shawn can pull it off.
I'm betting on it.
[laughter]
floating, buddy, huh?
-Yeah. -We heard it in the water.
Well, where in the hell are we parking now?
[radio frequency scrambles]
all right.
Woo-hoo, this is steve's weird, wild, wonderful world,
nome, alaska, animal version.
[spooky music playing]
[steve] it's the muskox getting to dance.
The muskox...
Today, we're talking about
one of nome's goofiest residents...
[spooky music playing]
these guys are the muskox,
there are bunch of them right behind me.
They are nome's wandering resident.
You find them all over the subdivisions.
There's so much fur on the muskox. When
it comes off in the spring,
it just peels off in big layers.
And so, a lot of us, uh, nomites will come out
and look for the qiviut fur,
and, uh, gather the qiviut fur
because it makes the finest long underwear in the world.
You need a qivuit dock strap or a downy.
[muskox grunts]
there's a couple things
people don't know about muskox.
They're easy to do mind melds with.
[spooky music playing]
[steve] and that's what I've been doing.
That's how I got them to herd up down here.
Mind melds are all about proximity,
especially with muskox because they're not that bright.
So I gotta get really close to them.
I gotta sneak up on them.
Ssh.
I'm gonna communicate that they should leave
because there's humans here, and the humans are dangerous.
See that? They're leaving.
See? Um, they're leaving,
I'm telling them to leave with my mind.
One of them looked back at me like he wasn't gonna leave.
He's leaving now, too.
No. He's staying.
This is not good. Uh-oh.
Once they start looking back at you,
and they're just sort of standing there,
you wanna go the other way.
[tense music playing]
very bad.
[grunting]
they look like slow, dull animals
but they're angry and they're fast.
So I'm outta here.
That was steve riedel's weird, wild,
wonderful world of nome, alaska, animal edition.
Buffalo.
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] on the outskirts of nome...
[steve] I'm at the end of my rope.
I have nothing to do.
I can't go out to my camp.
Because it's too far away. I don't get service,
so I got service in town,
and I'm just waiting on a phone call,
waiting on a job.
Because I've run out of ideas.
I talked to everybody, I talked to vern,
I talked to emily, talked to a couple of people.
I can't even remember their names.
[narrator] somehow, amazingly, thus far,
the talents of one steve riedel
have remained unclaimed
by the occupational forces of nome.
Somebody see me, give me a phone call, give me a job.
So here I am, like, some school girl
waiting by my phone, hoping it'll ring.
But instead of being asked for the prom,
I just hoping someone will call me up,
wanting me to work.
I'm willing to do anything, someone give me a job, please.
[phone chimes]
I got the five percent warning on my phone.
I guess I should stop cruising the web.
[sighs]
[dramatic music playing]
hmm.
[sighs]
you give me a phone call.
-[phone chimes] -[steve] whoa.
One percent. I got one percent on my phone.
[groans]
oh, man.
Went from one percent to zero, just bang.
So, phone's dead.
That's a wrap.
Tomorrow's another day. Hit it early.
[engine starts]
[steve] you know, it's a matter of time
when you have so much to offer like I do.
I won't be down for long, and then,
I'm gonna start building my empire.
Slowly but surely, nome.
You're on notice.
Steve riedel's coming for you.
Taking a long ride home now.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] three miles south.
[kris] you did a good job.
[andy] be careful. [bleep] hold on.
-[bleep] kris. -Okay.
Well, you had your... The cord caught...
Yeah. I got cord in that finger,
I didn't know you're giving me a remote.
[narrator] after years of just dreaming about it,
captain kris and his clan are finally ready to storm
the allegedly gold-rich shores of elim.
[kris] I'm gonna tell you why I'm a little bit stressed.
Ninety percent chance we're going
through ten footers on the way there.
Another 80% chance we're not gonna have
the stability when we get there.
There's a 50% chance a walrus could grab us
underneath the water and run with us.
Okay. Here.
I'm not going anywhere without my barbeque.
Oh, that'd be perfect.
No, hey, kris is gilligan, dude.
I'm the professor, andy's ginger.
[andy] yeah. But this ginger will [bleep] you both.
That's the difference.
[brad] I don't doubt it at all.
This is still gonna be probably
the greatest adventure I've ever gonna go on.
Ready?
[andy] let's go. Cast off.
[man] when we come back, we're gonna have a jar
full of gold.
Three jars full of gold.
[man] three jars full of gold.
[dramatic music playing]
[kris] I can't believe this is finally happening.
This plan has been years in the making.
Right now, this is a big step for the kellys.
It's like neil armstrong or columbus.
This is gonna be an epic,
once in a lifetime opportunity.
And if this doesn't work out, I'm [bleep]
[techno music playing]
welcome to an episode of pimp my...
[techno music playing]
look at this.
We're right now, we're going
23 knots an hour to elim, cruising.
This can only happen with lots of money
that I know I don't have.
Right now, we're traveling in luxury.
Forty feet of awesomeness.
[techno music playing]
we got our sickle onboard.
It's a badass getting gold machine.
That crane right there
is where all of my operations combined.
[techno music playing]
[kris] up at the front, we have the launch gate,
that's super badass.
Throw that door down, push our equipment out,
throw it back up, so we're safe again.
Step this way, we're gonna take a look at
the rest of my equipment.
[techno music playing]
right here, we got everything stored properly, sinks down.
Because if you get there and everything's broken,
you'd feel like a real ass [bleep]
like one time, we lost half our food,
holy [bleep] were we pissed.
Yeah, another one of your great ideas.
[kris] and bam, here we are with my lead diver,
andy kelly, on a break like he normally is.
We don't have andy for his good looks.
We don't have andy for his charming personality.
But we do have andy for his gold finding abilities,
and being able to move a football field
of material underneath the water.
That's the kind of [bleep] we have andy for.
Other than that, he's almost useless.
Let's keep moving on.
Underneath this tarp is my secret weapon,
it's the barbeque.
Because you can't dive, you can't find gold,
and you can't do anything else,
but you can cook.
Let's keep going on and meet our captain.
[upbeat music playing]
[kris] and here we are on the bridge,
where all the magic happens.
Without a doubt, we wouldn't be going
on this adventure if dave wasn't in our corner.
What do you think of our little operation?
What I think of it?
Uh, you don't wanna know.
Bam. My dad right now is hard at work.
He just looks like he's sleeping, but he's not.
He's working through every aspect of the plan,
making sure everything's dialed in.
[upbeat music playing]
and now we come to our luxurious latrine.
Boom, baby.
Right there, you could feel the six... Jeez.
You could feel six dudes staying in one boat.
-[man farts] -[man grunts]
so right there, you pretty much
see my operation.
So I'm telling you, a couple days from right now,
we're gonna have jars full of gold.
Oh, my god, I hope I remembered my toothbrush.
[kris] bam, entertainment.
You got that piece of entertainment right there.
And let's be honest.
[ring buzzes]
we go big.
[upbeat music playing]
[kris] boom, baby.
That's what I'm talking about
because you can't have an adventure
on the high seas
without a movie at night to watch.
[upbeat music playing]
[kris] let's go and look at our kitchen.
Bam!
[cash register rings]
all of it, cutting edge technology
right here baby.
So, problem with the stove is,
we didn't bring propane to run it.
Bam, the coffee maker, it's seen better days.
So we've got our coffee maker right here.
There's no way in hell you can find gold
without coffee.
[police sirens wailing]
whoa, it does work.
I bought twice as much gas that I need,
I brought twice as much food that I need,
and we brought all the people that we need
to make this dream become a reality.
[tense music playing]
[zeke] I was trying to envision
something that I forgotten that I need.
Oh, yeah, my 12-volt battery charger.
I can only think about one thing at a time.
[chuckles]
I need to get my car battery out of my car
to fuel to turn it on.
[narrator] the mad scientist of nome
has completed his exam on claim 56.
-[vernon] yo, zeke! -[zeke] how's it going?
-All right. -Permission to come aboard?
[vernon] yeah, come on aboard.
[narrator] now it's time to present the findings
to captain vernon.
[vernon] you're definitely a nomite,
you bring your battery with you
wherever you go, huh?
I brought my battery because,
I, uh, brought my gps over,
I wanted to show you what I've found.
-Well, hell yeah. -[zeke] all right.
Well, come on down here.
[upbeat music playing]
[zeke] it's time consuming to make these images
because to do one pass from south to north
on your lease takes almost an hour.
Each one of these is a pass.
[vernon] damn, blue has got for a while, huh?
[zeke] I've been driving around all day on there.
You can see like this kind of dark here.
Like that's just gonna be boring sand.
But with how this color scheme is,
the rock is a little lighter.
So then, there's a little path to cobble right there.
[vernon] oh, yeah, yeah.
[zeke] so with our technology like this,
it's great, it's helpful
to give you clues for prospecting.
But it's not like there's a flashing light that says
there's a bunch of gold right here.
But with this map, you can see
where the cobble ends and the sand begins.
And that increases your efficiency
as a prospector to probably like, a thousand fold
as far as I'm concerned.
From my experience, the gold's gonna be
right on the edge of doing this cobble fields.
So that's at... Gonna be at 30 feet,
and that's probably like maybe about as big
as this room, that little patch to cobble.
So, yeah, that's great, man.
Uh, put some time in doing that.
But I notice a lot of other squigglies there,
but you only were recording on these lines, right?
Yeah, well, I did a... I [bleep] up a bunch of times.
-Oh, I see. -[zeke] yeah [laughing]
you don't need to say no more.
[zeke] yeah.
Zeke like all the rest of us who's up here,
he's got a few quirks.
But he knows his business.
And he just come up with some good information.
I knew this claim was loaded.
Now with the data from zeke,
it's gonna save me a lot of time.
That translates the gold in the box.
So, um, I think this is gonna be
a profitable relationship.
You know, that's extremely good information.
And it verifies what I already knew
about the claim,
but this will make it crystal clear.
As far as I'm concerned, we'll nail it.
[zeke] for sure. Well, cool, thanks a lot, vernon.
-Oh, yeah, hey, my pleasure. -[zeke] um...
-[vernon] thank you. -...Talk to you soon.
[vernon] my pleasure.
We're gonna get lots of gold.
[zeke] yeah. We're gonna find it.
I've got access to a great claim,
I've got sonar map to tell me where the gold probably is,
I've got a brand new gold dredging boat.
To this point, we're in the perfect position
to get out there, and start reaping rewards
for all these hard work that we've done.
I think there's gonna be gold there.
And I think we're ready to go,
dude's ecstatic. [laughs]
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] across town.
[upbeat music playing]
[rick] oh, look at here.
It's a start.
We got this in pretty hot stuff,
so we'll see.
[narrator] no longer just a two all-star team,
emily prepares the first cleanout
from her triple threat squad.
[emily] yeah. It's really big gold in this point at,
-holy schnikes. -Yeah.
Well the nice ones out were hiding in there.
Yeah, big.
I'm still feeling pretty good about the team
I have going here.
Everyone's producing consistently,
we're on good grounds, and that's...
That's good for me.
We're doing our first cleanup,
and we're about to find out what three divers can do,
and I'm hoping for a nice number.
Four, five, six, seven,
nine, ten, eleven,
twelve, thirteen...
Sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen.
Gold's 2,000 and an ounce, guys.
[bob] mmm-hmm.
[emily] that's past 30.
-[bob] thirty, yup, past. -[emily] yeah.
Thirty-six.
All right, but it says point one.
[man] over half an ounce.
-Should we throw these in there? -[bob] yeah.
[emily] that little picker situation.
Pickers are trying to hide.
-[bob] mmm-hmm. -[emily] as they do.
[bob] 36.56.
[narrator] thirty six and a half ounces
is worth $73,000.
Shake the ground there, and we'll get the gold
-a little higher, huh? -Yeah, hug, hug.
[narrator] and emily's three-headed monster
is off and running.
[bob] if we get back on that area again
and keep working out there,
just doing what we're doing, the same practice.
So let's get back to work.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] two miles south.
Cody's been working the ancient river bed.
Man, that seems like it's paying.
He says there's a lot of gold in the box.
We'll see.
[narrator] with a few final days of work remaining
on the myrtle irene before it gets mining,
shawn needs the gold to keep flowing
for his ambitious plans to stay afloat.
[shawn] oh, that looks pretty damn good, cody.
[cody] yeah. Not bad.
We'll see though.
We never really know until you [bleep]
comes down the scale, eh?
That's true, yeah, let's do it.
I'd like to see triple digits.
Anything in triple digits would be perfect.
Time to head to the cleanup shack,
see how much gold we got.
[upbeat music playing]
[machine whirring]
I've been working my ass off to rebuild the myrtle.
I'm trying to make it every bit as efficient
as the christine rose.
Until it's up and running,
I'm counting on cody and the good old,
reliable christine rose to keep the gold coming in.
[upbeat music playing]
[cody] look at that.
[shawn] what do you got there?
[cody] you know, the burnout, it looks pretty close, man.
[shawn] nice and clean.
[cody] let's put them in and see what we got.
Ten,
twenty,
thirty,
forty ounces, fifty,
eighty,
ninety,
going over a hundred.
[shawn] kicking ass.
[cody] ten, twenty.
[shawn] it's still paying.
[cody] 136.6 ounces.
-[shawn] yeah. -[cody] heck yeah.
[narrator] one hundred thirty-six ounces is worth a staggering
$272,000,
and shawn's dream of complete and total nome domination
is alive and kicking.
[shawn] huge haul for the christine rose.
We got the myrtle irene in the water,
she'll be going off in a few days.
On a pay streak like this,
I can't even imagine what she's gonna pull in.
Sky is the limit.
Taught you well.
That's a good cleanup, it feels good.
[shawn] couple more cleanups like that,
and we'll be set.
[narrator] next time on bering sea gold.
[vernon] are you ready for the big throwdown?
The top guy gets a trip to vegas.
The more gold they get the more gold I get.
[steve p] that's money that you should be using
as buying me out with.
[shawn] you know, I get a family discount.
Price goes up with this family is involved.
[zeke] today is going to be first ever
gold mining sailboat dredging day.
[man] finally!
[emily] I think we could do some prospecting.
[steve] what does beach prospecting, uh, pay?
[kris] elim, baby, this is it,
it's time to make this happen.
I'm not leaving without gold.
[andy groaning]
I'm just getting yanked around,
and I don't understand why.
Oh, wow.
[man] whoa, baby!
[vernon] yes, bring it home to daddy.
Gold daddy.
[dramatic music playing]