Craig Foster of My Octopus Teacher

Craig Foster, an Oscar-winning filmmaker and ocean explorer, shares his deep connection to the marine world. He discusses the transformative experiences of wildlife observation and the powerful bonds formed between humans and animals, including his memorable engagement with a Cape Clawless otter. Foster also reflects on his new book, 'Amphibious Soul,' emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with nature in our modern lives. He dives into practices like breath-holding and explores the impact of fame on mental health, advocating for biodiversity and conservation.

Highlights

• Episode AI notes

  1. Discovering the Invisible Trails underwater led to the excitement of observing various tracks on the backs of animals, revealing interactions between different species.
  2. Developing deep bonds with underwater creatures like sharks has enhanced human relationships, creating a sense of family and kinship and improving relationships with humans including with their spouse. Time 0:00:00

• Discovering the Invisible Trails
  Summary:
  The speaker initially struggled with the idea of tracking underwater until they noticed subtle slime trails left by mollusks that collect tiny particles of sand.
  These trails, almost unnoticeable unless observed closely, were everywhere. This discovery led to the excitement of observing various tracks on the backs of animals, revealing interactions between different species.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  At first, and I struggled for several years, I had this idea, I got incredibly inspired by the song in the Kalahari and I thought, could I ever track underwater? And it just seemed impossible because a track gets put down and the next swell washes it away. So there's nothing there. And then I started to notice the slime trails. So a lot of the mollusks leave very subtle slime trails and those collect tiny particles of sand. And if you're not looking very carefully, you'll never notice those, but they're actually everywhere. It's like, oh, questioner. So that was the first track I saw and was very excited. And then I started seeing all these tracks on the backs of animals like that ray that I told you about. So the mollus are interacting with that ray and I could tell how Time 0:38:17

• Deep Bonds with Underwater Creatures Enhancing Human Relationships
  Summary:
  Developing deep connections with underwater creatures like sharks has created a sense of family and kinship, making the individual feel less dependent on human relationships.
  By forming strong bonds with these creatures and learning from them, the person has found their human relationships, including with their spouse, improving. This bond with underwater creatures has provided valuable life lessons and feelings of love, which have positively impacted the individual's relationships with humans.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  Like a seven-gill shark or a great white shark, tiger shark, that kind of thing. So it's fairly safe to be with those animals. And sometimes there's enormous number of them together. In the case of the seven gills, I've been with 55, 60 of them. And they each the size of a lion. And they hunt seals, they hunt dolphins, but they don't know that I'm prey. So it's quite safe to be with them. But what has happened? And I've got a lot of relationships with these smaller creatures. And because of that, it feels as if I'm not as reliant on my human relationships. Because I have this, it feels like family, like kin in the water after a while, many years, you just feel this tremendous love for these creatures. And they've taught me so much. They have real teachers for me. So I love them. And then I have these bonds so that the human relationships on land, I don't feel I need as much from them. So I think my relationship with my wonderful wife has become better because of that. And with a lot of close friends, family, something happens in the psyche. And if you've imagined that we've throughout prehistory for countless hundreds of thousands of years, we've had these relationships with all these species. Time 0:41:17