Bering Sea Gold

Nothing makes the Bering Sea

more unbearable than the winds.

As they rile up the water

and cause havoc for miners.

At 15 miles an hour,

divers begin to feel the pull from building swells.

I'm just getting yanked around

every which way and I don't understand why.

At 20 miles an hour,

suction dredges will feel the pain...

...as equipment is put at risk.

Hang on.

Oh, .

By 25 miles an hour...

Get out of the way, get out of the way.

...even barges aren't immune

to the wrath of the wind-whipped waters.

We gotta get out of here

before we'll drift into the shore.

And beyond that? Well...

Josh!

My engines are swamping!

Anything can happen.

Abandon ship!

Now,

as the first major storm of summer approaches...

Big storm's gonna kick in.

It's white-capping.

The miners are in a race

against the mounting winds.

We only get so much time.

Let's get as much of it as we possibly can.

Before Mother Nature

blows away their chance for gold.

Stop! Whoa!

Stop! Stop!

Hey!

Today is gonna be a great day, boys.

Every morning, you gotta wake up with a great attitude.

Every morning, what are you gonna look for?

Gold. That's what we gotta do today.

We're gonna keep that gold rolling in.

We're gonna my wallet,

aka sluice box.

It's not your ordinary Louis Vuitton wallet.

It's a bigger kind of a wallet I got right here.

It's more... It's custom,

custom-designed by miners, I would say.

So I'm stoked, really am.

With winds from the oncoming storm

expected to build throughout the day,

first out of the gate

is current gold count leader,

Chris McCully.

So we got today,

the big storm's gonna kick in,

and then we're down, so...

we're gonna pound in some more hours

until we get blown in, so that's the mission.

We are on a hot streak.

Three hundred ounces is my goal this season,

storm be damned.

We got a limited time window.

The first wave of the storm is gonna be winds.

Eventually, the swells are gonna get too gnarly

for us to operate on water.

But until then, we're gonna push it hard as we can.

So, good morning.

So we're here, we're gonna get suited up.

Um, we're gonna get some more gold

because time is money,

and we only have limited time out here,

so we gotta make use of our time.

Let's go pound out some more dirt, and, uh,

yeah, I'm gonna get suited up and get ready.

You know, we could be shut down by any time,

but I'm not backing down.

We're going for three dives today, seriously.

To hell with Mother Nature.

She can kiss off until we get our gold.

Wanna fire up that generator, Cam?

I'm gonna go down there first,

and then Cam will hit it next.

And Bobby, the night guy,

will complete the third dive.

Yeah, dive suit on.

You gotta wear your special uniform, you know, every day.

You got your socks, your shoes.

You gotta shave.

You know, it's like going to school, baby.

School of rocks is what it is, school of rocks.

We're gonna keep mining on Wall Street

because that pay streak is really hot.

And we're gonna keep cashing it in

until the closing bell.

All right, all right. Let's go.

Kick some ass.

I see some rocks there,

there's little rock here.

I'm seeing bunch of rocks over here.

This is a very good sign that there's gold in here.

Just the way how it's formed, it's virgin.

Roger that.

Yup, Chris is down there, we just--

Oh, he's on the gold, I told you.

Yeah, yeah, right where I left it.

This whole area, it just seems .

Like, we could spend another month here

or something, hopefully.

Yup, everything good, Chris?

I'm on the gold...

As Chris tries to get a jump on the weather...

across the water...

I'm headed back onto the drift.

We got some nasty weather coming in.

Whipping winds.

Mr. Gold is hoping Mother Nature

will allow just enough time for him

to overtake the gold count lead.

Got everything serviced, fueled up.

My plan for the day is to pile up the gold in the sluice box,

and then burn and turn

buckets in the box, buckets of gold.

I'm gunning for 3,000 ounces this year.

That would be the most of my career.

But so far this season, we're way off the mark.

Hey, hey, hey. We got a problem.

Cracked spud, it's bad.

The Myrtle was down at the start of the season

because of a cracked spud.

Water pump is up.

And mechanical problems kept us from hitting our full stride.

so we got to limp it along.

Now, there's a storm coming,

so we gotta milk as many hours as we can today

before those winds send us packing.

Here we go.

That looks like it's holding up good.

We dug here yesterday,

the night shift dug there,

now we're back over here.

Roll on out a little bit further,

try to find some fresh ground.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out exactly where I wanna go.

There's a hot drill hole just in front of us.

Oh...

Looks like hardpan.

Let's go ahead and, uh, we'll take some pans here.

Let's see what the hell is on here.

What we got down here?

When you're taking buckets of material

from the seafloor, it can look promising.

Black, rocky ground, untouched,

the kind of place where gold hides,

but the only way to know

if you're on the good stuff for sure

is by taking a test pan.

Come on, baby. Come on.

Shaking out the material

and seeing if we see any gold.

Oh, yeah, this is some good stuff here.

The test pan is amazing.

This is feeling like it might be

the best ground I've hit this season.

If so, it's exactly what I need

at exactly the right time.

We just gotta push till these swells get overpowering.

Luckily, The Myrtle is a big girl,

and we should be able to hang for a long time.

Well, it's good ground, fresh.

You can tell by the way it feels

when you're digging, rocky.

Oh, yeah.

Easy cheesy.

Oh, yummy, yummy.

Chew it up,

eat it up,

fill it up.

Time is money.

I wanna load this box up.

Ooh, yeah.

There's gold in the box.

On the deck?

Let's shut down and clean them out,

ain't no sense in running.

The nozzles on the spray bars are jammed up.

That means the material is not being properly

processed in the wash plant.

The winds are gonna start getting bad,

so we don't have time to spare.

But now we have to shut down, clean the nozzles.

I don't know how long it's gonna take,

but this is bad timing.

The night shift guys didn't clean the nozzles out.

That's these kids being lazy,

it's pissing me off.

There ain't no room for lazy around here,

that's doing nothing but costing me time and money.

If material is coming out dirty at the end

of the wash plant, your wash plant ain't working.