Bering Sea Gold

In gold mining, the question is always...

when to roll the dice?

While the rewards can be great...

That is what we're looking for.

What?

Seems like it's getting pretty shallow, pretty quick.

...failure can be devastating.

Worst case scenario,

I might snap my anchor line

and get drifted to the rock.

Now, for every miner...

We're gonna try something we've never tried before.

I hope I made the right move.

...it's time for gut check.

Maybe I have like a kind of a gambler's mentality.

Just all in, dude. Why not?

I'm out here by myself.

This is the borderline right here

and I'm pushing it.

Who will make the right move?

And whose move...

...might be their last?

I'm literally left for dead and that's what it feels like.

I'm being left for dead out here.

Everybody's here this morning on time?

damn.

I just have that weird feeling in my stomach.

Energy drinks, nicotine?

Hell.

Feel like I'm gonna my pants.

You know what it'll take to fix that, right?

Nice big pile of gold.

So far this season,

Shawn Pomrenke's gold output

has been, well, crappy by his standards.

Head in to the Tomcod,

and this run looks like it's gonna be a good one.

We had a couple this year, but then Myrtle broke down,

and it broke down, and it broke down.

I gotta be honest with myself.

This season's been a disappointment so far.

I'm aiming for the biggest haul of my career,

but the Myrtle's been falling short

time and time again.

Equipment issues, weak paystreaks.

It's just not cutting it.

I'm gonna check out what the night crew did.

We should be on great ground.

If not, I'm gonna have to do something drastic.

Get those buoys.

Ouch.

I'll tell you in a second how nightshift did.

They didn't have any breakdowns.

Everything's still working.

Man.

We're making gold, but...

I wanna make a lot.

This gold would be good enough for most guys,

but not for me.

Especially considering where we're at in the season.

Not coming in as fast as I wanna see it come in.

It's time to take a big gamble.

Let's jack these spuds up and see...

Copy that.

We've been digging deep,

but right now

we're gonna try something we've never tried before.

We're gonna go in shallow.

I got drill logs that tell me where potential hotspots are

all over the Tomcod.

There's one we've never tried and there's a good reason why.

It's one of the hottest holes on the whole claim,

says about 10 feet of water.

That's at about the minimum of water depth we could go in.

The deepest part of the Myrtle drafts

6 feet of water.

And if you go into water that's 10 feet,

there ain't much room for error.

We're definitely rolling the dice.

The seafloor isn't perfectly flat,

so a miscalculation,

we could damage the hull or break a spud.

If it's bad enough,

it could put the Myrtle down

for who knows how long.

This might be the break we need.

We need a big cleanup in a short amount of time.

But I can't play it safe anymore.

I need a monster haul now.

So it's time to use every ounce of skill I got

to pull this off.

Well, I got the maneuvering thrusters up

that I've taken the bucket

and I'm using it the claw along the bottom.

It seems like it's getting pretty shallow,

pretty quick here.

I wanna take it nice and easy.

You don't want to run your boat

on the bottom at all.

It's all a little less than 700 feet away right now.

So instead of driving the Myrtle

into the shallow water,

I'm gonna use the bucket

and put it on the ocean floor

and pull myself in.

This will give me better control.

So I'll just creep it in real slowly.

So far, so good.

Every time I use the bucket to pull us in shallower,

I got to make sure it's safe to keep moving forward.

There's no margin for error.

If I misjudge the depth, it could be too late.

So I'm gonna start this process

about 700 feet away from where the drill logs

say there's a hotspot.

300 feet away from our point.

Fifty meters,

forty meters.

Seem to be floating good yet.

Twenty meters,

seventeen.

We're here.

That's good there. Let's drop the spuds.

First time in shallow with the Myrtle.

We're on the second hottest drill hole

on the whole claim.

If this works, I'll be a genius.

If it doesn't, I'm a idiot.

Right now, it's time to dig.

While Shawn gambles on shallow ground...

...back in the harbor.

At this point, you know, it's really hard

to get good help in town.

I'm just gonna go out there without a tender.

Oh, yeah.

And today is the day.

Hopefully we can keep the gold rolling in.

Chris McCully is also rolling the dice

as he dares to try another solo dive.

Let's go.

So the one great thing about the Tata is the hydraulics.

I built the Tata so that one person could do everything on it.

I can run it and I can dive on it.

That's assuming if there's no major hiccups.

But on my first solo dive,

there was a major problem.

I got this really nasty rock jam

that I couldn't clear it myself.

It really killed my dive,

so I had to call in for reinforcements.

I need you guys help here

because I'm out here by myself.

Bottom line, this can't happen again.

So the goal today

is gonna have a full day's worth

on that good ground

and don't get a jam today.

That's the biggest thing, never get a jam today.

I'm gonna work hard.

I'm gonna work hard moving those rocks out of the way

and then just do a smooth ride,

you know what I mean?

So I still don't have a tender.

I still have to dive solo

and everything has to go flawless.

I got a goal of 300 ounces,

so if I don't turn around quick,

I'm never gonna hit that.

So today, there's no excuses.

Let's go.

I got it.

Ooh, it's hot, it's hot today.

Okay. Let's see what the guys did last night.

Oh, a lot of... Lot of notes.

So the big dogs like Shawn,

have night crews to go around the clock

to keep the gold rolling.

I have Cam and Bobby,

so those guys dredge through the night

and they also record their dives through the dive log.

6:45, 7:45, 8:45,

two hours, only two hours.

Wow.

Cam did only three and a half hours.

This is not good.

They didn't do very well.

Look at this big jam.

Two-hour jam. Holy .

They might as well work with the Kellys

if they keep doing what they're doing.

Last night, it wasn't very good.

They only got five hours of diving time,

five hours out of that two shifts.

You know, Cam and Bobby have years

of experience in dredging

and this is very unacceptable,

like doing this

two-hour micro dive shift here and there.

Anyways, let's get back to the groove, baby. Let's go.

Let's not get... Let's not get hindered