What do you say, Vernon?
Welcome.
Two new arrivals on the Golden Coast.
Each with dreams.
I'll give you a full day's pay, free, if you'll take me.
And stars in their eyes.
I'm definitely excited.
I am not nervous yet.
But will they make it on mining's toughest stage?
Cause to mess up out here is to die.
There is drama.
I literally in a plastic bag this morning.
There is love.
I swear to God I think we still have a future together.
I just don't know.
Better take my temperature. I got a fever.
There is riches.
Gold fever.
And there is danger.
I can see the hospital right there.
That's good news.
Somebody on this boat is going to die.
Now on As The Bering Sea Churns.
A long stretch of rough sea conditions
put a squeeze on the miners plans for summer
as the gold has been hard to come by.
Now as Mother Nature opens a window to opportunity,
each member of the fleet is looking to make the most of it.
Weather is good again.
It's a calm day. The visibility should be improving.
So we'll get out there and see how she rolls.
For Emily Riedel, that means expanding her team.
So this morning heading to the airport to pick up one Miss Jane Kilcher.
I asked her to come up.
She's a good friend of mine,
and she's gonna help me stand on the boat for the rest of the season.
I definitely need some additional help,
and it would be great to have Jane around.
I mean she's a hard core chick.
I've set the bar at 250 ounces this season.
It will be a struggle for sure,
especially with the weather the way that it is.
But I think we can do it.
I'm building a family,
so I need to build a legacy to go with it as well.
I think the plane is on the ground.
So I think she'll be rolling out with her luggage here.
In order to get where I need to be,
I need to add a new member to the team.
So I'm bringing up my friend Jane Kilcher.
She's someone I trust.
She is a good friend of mine.
And she'll bring an Alaskan frontier attitude
to this business, which I think is much needed.
- Janny. - Hey.
Hey hey.
Hotter than I thought.
Yes it is.
It's only cause you have your nice feather jacket on.
Jane Kilcher has been living
the Alaska frontier life for years.
It's too big for us to bring it on board.
I want to shoot it.
Tackling every challenge that's come her way.
And always in her own unique style.
Come on, move.
Move.
Excited to see muskox and baby muskox.
But I've never been on a dredge ever.
Not even-- not even been close to one.
Not only have I never been on dredge.
I'm kind of going in blind.
I didn't even like look it up.
So obviously Jane knows absolutely nothing
about gold mining, but she is an Alaskan to the core.
She has had this badass, do it yourself life.
She was a commercial fisherman for a while,
and then she's been living on a homestead for a long time.
She's not afraid of anyone or anything.
She's perfect for Nome and perfect for gold mining.
Was that your?
Uh. Yeah. That's our boat.
Yeah, that's the Eroica.
How is it Eroica?
Yeah, uh, well, at least they don't say Eroica.
No, unless there's a lot of PDA on your boat.
I mean...
I'm definitely excited.
I'm not nervous yet, but I'm looking over at the dredge,
this looks like a floating shack.
Well, dredging, the...
You can say dredging, yeah.
So we're going dredging.
The action of dredging.
You could call it sucking, but that's...
We're not sucking.
- Well... - A little bit.
Yeah, dubious.
Back to harbor.
Honestly, I wonder what people on the boat
are gonna make of Jane.
There is definitely never quite been anyone like
Jane on the Eroica or on any other boat in the world really.
We're about to do a shift change,
so this is perfect time
to kind of show her around the boat.
How do you even dredge? I've never been on one.
I'm gonna see how it works. So I'm excited.
The lease is like a mile by a mile,
and we're pretty close to it.
It's like a three mile trip.
Most important thing for Jane today
is to get acclimated to the way
the dredge works as quickly as possible.
Oh, we're almost there.
Because we just don't have a lot of time to slow down
and teach her what's up.
Time on the sluice box is too precious,
so she's just gonna have to like jump right in,
sink or swim, see how it goes.
There's no rails on the boat, bothers me greatly.
I guess I'll be doing this a lot.
Very rustic.
Okay.
Like Darth Vader over here.
That's him breathing?
Oh.
Yeah.
That's what's making the air for the diver.
Afraid he's gonna stop breathing.
My initial thoughts is I can see the hospital right there,
that's good news.
Yeah.
...Straight to the hospital.
We're dredging.
But Emily is not the only miner adding manpower.
Hey, Bryan, hey let's go pick up Gary.
Yeah, I saw the plane land a couple of minutes ago, so he
ought to be getting his bag.
Vernon Adkison is bringing in a heavy hitter in hopes of upping his game.
Time getting short.
The gold of getting cold and we need to bring it up.
Get the show on the road.
It's been blowing like, like a blue ball banshee,
but I think that wind is just about blown itself out.
The ocean is laid down, it's go time, it's show time,
it's time to get the gold.
The start of the season has been rough.
I am looking to get 300 ounces.
I am looking to move into the top tier here in Nome.
But so far it's been one gut punch after another.
But I am stepping up big.
There is Gary.
He is travelling light.
Yeah, buddy, get some gold.
Nice.
Yeah.
I'm expanding my dive team.
I'm bringing in one of my aces Gary Simpson.
That ought to put us back in the fast lane.
Hey, Gary.
It's good to be back.
We got the team back together, we'll start moving.
And that's what it's all about, getting that gold.
Gary is the beast.
Oh! Wow!
There is gold right here.
There you are Gary.
We've got to rename you, you'll be the,
Gary the gold gorilla.
Now these two polar bears in tow
and good weather in the forecast,
we still have time to make this season lift.
I'm ready to kick some ass out here,
make some gold.
Okay. Everything ready to go?
Yeah.
Go out there and get some gold.
But the gold ship crew is not alone in the harbor.
How the hell are you?
What do you say, Vernon?
You brought your weight belt with you?
No.
Oh, that's the one thing I couldn't bring.
It's too heavy.
But I wanted too because I brought every damn thing else,
you could believe that.
This voice calls out.
And I know this voice, even though it's been years since I heard it.
Oh, God, it's Dave Thompson.
We call him Hurricane Dave.
Hands down the most intense man I've ever known.
We're talking, hold on to your life kind of intensity.
Hey it is damn good to see you, my friend.
Dammit, brother.
I've been waiting nine years to do this Vernon.
Nine [bleep] damn years.
Yeah, that's a long time to wait.
I'm telling you, look,
it is so good to see you.
Well, it's good to see you, too, Dave.
Dave, he made a memorable impression
when he was out here mining for me
almost a decade ago.
I'd love to offer my services.
No promises.
But you're invited to come down
tomorrow morning at about eight.
Okay.
So I am going to get off your boat, leave you guys alone,
you all can talk about me and decide whether,
oh no, this idiot, no, no.
It started with him completely losing it
when he was unimpressed with our equipment that we had on hand.
My God, my God, I can't believe it.
They don't have a weight belt.
My God.
Now to his credit, he did manage to pull it together.
Let me get down there and find out what's going on.
Come back and attempt one dive.
But it all went to hell in a hand basket.
Pretty damn fast after that.
Yeah, we got 60 pounds of air up here Dave.
What's up? 60 psi, 60.
Yeah.
All right, so this is it.
It's over.
I guess that's the end of Dave.
I thought that was the last time I'd ever see Dave.
I mean, why would I think otherwise?
But lo and behold, here he is as he lives and breathes,
all juiced up and wound tighter than ever.
And I have absolutely no idea what he's doing here.
I understand you're gonna try to leave the dock.
Yeah.
I'll give you a full day's pay, free, if you'll take me.
Just let me see what you're doing.
That's it.
Don't pay me a thing.
You don't even have to buy me a drink.
All right. Well, well, here's the deal.
You're welcome to come and observe and see
how we do it and like I said, we'll get things going.
Well, if you're interested in taking me on, Vernon,
I'm all for that.
After that, I'll have to figure out what I can do.
If I can work with you if we can figure all this out,
all the better, because I really like you.
And if we can't, because you can't use me,
I understand that too.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go have some fun.
- That's what I am saying. - Okay?
Yeah.
Oh, well, let me give the...
Let me get out of your way.
There's not much I can do here,
except stand around and watch.
I don't want to stick my hands where they don't belong.
- So... - Yeah, good stuff.
Just lay low until we get going here.
I started this season light on crew,
but now I've got more divers than I know what to do with.
I don't know if Dave will ultimately make the cut.
I mean, the guy is a commercial sponge diver.
He's legit, but he's nuttier than a squirrel on mushrooms.
So we'll just have to see how this goes.
All right here we go boys.
I came back to get the gold.
That's it.
I came here nine years ago
when I first found out about this.
Didn't work out back then.
I didn't fail, I learned.
Who is it that said that?
Right, Nelson Mandela once said, "I don't lose.
I only win or learn."
I didn't lose nine years ago.
I learned everything I needed to, to come back here and try again.
And here I am, we'll see.
It's a hell of a boat you got here, Vernon.
There's good gold all around out there.
We'll get on something.
While seas are calm in the east,
out west on Tomcod,
growing swells are making conditions not too swell.
But back in the harbor.
We're here at the barge, ready to go,
and we're on standby
until the ocean calms down just a little bit more.
One captain is still hoping to get back on the water.
You know, there's pretty big swells out there
and it will just kick our ass all day with.
We are so close to going, it's disgusting.
Now's it not the time to go out.
You know, if I was to try and push it,
I can actually break something on the barge.
Well I don't give two [bleep]
I just want to get on the water.
This is gut wrenching.
I went for the brass ring, and so far it's been a disaster.
Right now, I owe 125,000 in three weeks just to keep going.
So I'm enacting a two-prong plan just to get back on track.
Get the Mistress and the Reaper on the water today.
But James is crying that it's too rough
to take the Mistress out.
It's a freaking excavator barge.
Come on, man.
Look at this.
Go for it.
Hey, what the [bleep].
What the [bleep] dude, you just said,
we couldn't go and they're going.
I hate to be passed.
We have to go. We have to.
Fire up the thrust master, please.
Okay, thank you.
I hate to see everybody going out.
And my captain is a [bleep].
It's really important for us to get out there
and make some money because everybody is going hungry.
And I'm not even joking around.
We're going hungry.
We need to start making some gold.
We have rent to pay. Everybody's got bills.
And we got a big payment at the end of the month.
Thank God we're on our way out.
Dude, we should have been out here hours ago.
Look at how flat this is.
James is too conservative for my liking.
And I don't really give
how much I have to argue with James to get out here.
I just don't want to hear people bitching saying,
I don't want to go out.
And it's not that I don't want to go out.
I just want to be able to go out and go mining.
And I mean, I admit you don't want to draft
your $2 million operation.
You definitely don't.
But if your $2 million operation
doesn't make any gold,
it's a sack [bleep] you know, so, you know,
like it's, it's kind of like a fine line
of what we can get away with this season.
And I personally think this boat is a battleship.
It can handle a lot of action.
It can handle some damage.
Is port spud ready to drop?
Okay, we're on our spot.
We're dropping the spud into place.
Every hour we're now running is $400 that we lose.
We're ready to turn everything on
and finally start making some money.
I'm ready for the shaker.
Okay.
Good.
James really didn't even think we were going out today.
And I mean, I admit there is a little bit of a swell.
What the you expect this ocean
to be like a lake thing out here and make money.
Dude, I'm just trying to hold on and,
you know, wait for these sets to calm down a second.
But I can't dig in this.
I'm getting kicked out of me.
Probably [bleep] break something. 'Nother [bleep] big set coming in.
hold on Michael.
Yeah. Hang on.
I can't...
The swells are pretty deceiving.
That's what I keep trying to tell everybody.
Right now this these swells are kicking our ass.
Kelly?
What's up?
A little too rough.
Yeah.
God, these swells are spuds and spud wells.
This is gonna snap one.
I don't know what to do.
I was kind of forced to come out here and,
you know, push it, but I never wanted to.
Yeah, okay.
It is a little too swelly.
Let's go home.
I'm the boss of this operation,
and I have to make tough calls.
Kevin supplies money, but he's back in the lower 48.
So, look, it's just me now, and I thought James was wrong,
but this time it turned out he was right.
Those swells don't look like much,
but they're deceptive as hell.
We're getting beat [bleep].
But we'll stop for the morning
and we'll go back in a few hours.
We've got to keep trying.
Well [bleep] stop.
I am sorry I keep pushing us into things.
And I got to get out of here and make this work.
And I get bummed out when I feel like I'm working for free.
Eventually I'm gonna get tired of saying I told you so,
and something major is gonna break
and they're gonna look at me and oh my god, well,
what [bleep] did you expect?
I think Kris is gonna hopefully start listening.
And if he start to see the reality,
no matter what I do,
what I say, I don't think they're ever gonna
understand the ocean and what it's like to work on a [bleep] splendid barge.
It's not a dredge, we're not on anchor.
It's just depressing, you know, very depressing.
We didn't make any money at all.
So I'm on an expensive boat ride with no drinks.
Wow, amazing.
Oh, it actually looks pretty good, huh?
While he waits for swells to die down,
Kris Kelly has got another shot
at testing the new Reaper in the flat waters of the harbor.
Feeling real lucky it should.
You're permitted to come aboard.
Well, we're just gonna test start up the engines,
test everything out, make sure we have no major problems.
To make Reaper Nation a reality,
it's supposed to be a two-pronged assault.
I head up the Mistress.
My dad and brother run the Reaper.
The swells are too big for the Mistress.
I'm gonna see if those clowns got the Reaper ready.
Judging by the fact my dad was too lazy to show up,
I'm not optimistic.
Well, do you need to shorten that anchor line
on that back because that's way too [bleep].
Start to prime the system and let's go through the motions.
There's no gas in it.
No, I thought Dad...
I'm not gonna say it dude.
Okay, let's...
We obviously didn't come prepared.
No, because, you know, you ask dad to do
the simplest thing and he can't do it.
Hop that thing.
Idle up.
The hose is like three feet too long
because it's just binding up on everything.
You guys have everything off [bleep].
Have a go at dad not me.
Buddy, in order for us to succeed this season,
we're gonna not have to blame things on our dad.
Oh, well, he's the one that [bleep] it up,
whom I supposed to blame, Kris?
Well, you're supposed to do it yourself.
Two major things I've noticed with this test so far.
One, the Reaper is a dumpster fire.
Nothing is set up right, the system is messed up.
And two, Andy's instinct is just blame my dad.
Yes, my dad is a disaster.
We know that.
But Andy needs to step up and start acting like a captain.
Time for me to crack the whip.
You have too much rope on this.
You need to shorten this up.
that whole set up is not gonna work.
Try doing that when the waves are big
and you're gonna be sorry.
You need clamps for that.
That cleat is not gonna support the anchor.
Of course you guys put the battery on the foul line.
You didn't even try to dial this boat in at all.
That rope needs to come up.
The pickup points are wrong.
The foot valves, the crane at the front,
the gas, I don't even think that gas system is gonna work.
Oh man, this whole system is [bleep].
You guys aren't gonna make it anywhere.
Pull that anchor up.
Start the outboard. Let's get back.
Everything is on this boat.
That's what my dad is good at.
And all I'm hearing is a lot of it blaming my dad for all of this.
What was that?
All I'm hearing is everything that's going wrong,
you're just, that's dad's, that's dad's fault, that's dad's fault.
That's dad's fault is over there.
You have to take accountability for your own [bleep].
I am [bleep].
I need you to [bleep] run this thing.
Okay, well, good job then.
Good job at all this.
Where is my other partners then?
Who is your other partner?
You need to be able to do this yourself.
So why do I need dad on the boat for then?
Dude, you know, it's like right now stop worrying
about dad all the time, you...
What do I need him for?
Well, what are you doing on the boat,
man everything is all [bleep] up.
You can't run this boat by yourself.
You obviously need dad.
You obviously need him next to you every second
because why isn't everything going?
Everything that [bleep] up,
but not everything that's dad's work.
Do you see what I mean?
Put the air compressor, put the air lines.
Oh, yeah, buddy, that was all dad, not me.
So if I have to go over dad's work,
what do I need dad for?
You, because you're...
You guys are [bleep] equals.
So obviously, you can't do anything without dad,
because right now dad is not here.
Nothing is working.
Start the [bleep] please.
How the you think it went?
We got to fix the water on this boat.
And we need to do it today.
While things on the Reaper are stirred up.
On the other side of the harbor.
Security, security, security, Little Irene,
leaving the inner harbor, heading for sea.
Mr. Gold's gotten word,
swells on the Tomcod have receded.
We finally got a good weather window.
Getting out, we're going digging.
And you don't have to tell Mr. Gold twice.
This is the one, this is the run make some,
something amazing happen.
What's going to happen?
We got high, high, high north winds coming.
You got to pull that water out,
it's gonna drop it down and we're gonna be able
to take out to that next beach line
that is just out of the reach of the Myrtle.
So I can hit that next beach line for four or five days,
we're gonna do really well.
The north winds have come in.
That calms the swells, pushes the water out,
and it's gonna allow me to get to this beach line
I've been wanting to get to forever.
It's been too deep, inaccessible until now.
And this spot should be absolutely packed with good stuff.
And this is exactly what we need.
Since the Myrtle has been on the bench for at least a week.
Just get another claim.
I'm gonna start doing some test pans.
See what we got here.
And it takes a while to get used to everybody does it different.
Everybody likes their own way of doing it.
There should, should be some gold here.
We want to see a smiley face.
Few pieces, not what we're looking for.
We're going to go ahead and move.
Oh, you're good, go up.
Let me try another.
Come on, I want to see some cheese.
I don't feel real hot about how we're doing right now.
But you know what, if we keep pushing through we're going to find it.
No spot up.
Crap.
I got all my old points on the GPS from the Christine Rose.
Let's go to that.
Nine years ago I tried digging in that area
and there was really good gold,
but it was too deep a material for the Christine Rose to dig in.
But I'm hoping that the Myrtle is the machine
that will dig in that area really good.
So we're gonna ahead, get into the middle of this area
and see if we could get to the bottom of it.
Hopefully it's good.
Myrtle is an absolute game changer for me.
It can go to the depths of 25 feet
where the Christine Rose can only go to 19.
And it has a six yard bucket.
Those extra feet are critical.
It opens up ground I've wanted to mine for years.
All right boys, we're in the spot.
See what the hell we can find here?
Hoping to see some sand on top
because all the suction dredgers don't like sand,
so they stay away from it.
But this thing doesn't care
whether there is two, three feet of sand,
it will dig right through it.
Oh, we got sand.
Come on, show me some gravel underneath there.
Good, there is some gravel under there.
Yes, there is.
If there is any gold in here, it will be in this bucket.
Yeah, that's what I am talking about.
Uh-huh!
That's some good stuff.
Dylan has got a smile on his face.
There's only one thing that puts a smile on my face.
Fire everything up,
prime the pump, make gold.
Woo!
We are good to go.
Oh he is coming up.
Wow, God, that is some contraption.
This is all very crazy.
I'm gonna be using that word a lot
because that is what it is.
But it's super cool.
I am definitely afraid to fall over.
No, whaling.
As captain Emily expands the team,
her newest recruit is getting a crash course in dredging.
Yes.
Oh, wow.
Oh wow.
Yeah. Oh my God.
This is a lot of gold.
I just got here too.
That's crazy, Emily.
Get back to work guys.
Oh my God, looks like you're buying dinner.
It can be life altering to see gold
in that sluice box for the first time,
and we're killing it today.
So I think Jane is loving it so far.
And I think it's inevitable she's gonna develop insane gold fever.
It's like a jewelry shop down there.
- It's so much gold. - Yeah.
So it's super nice to have Jane's energy on the boat.
She's funny. She adds a lot of pizzazz.
There has been a lot of surly, minor dudes on this boat
over the years, so it's really nice to have
a badass woman on the team.
So this is a motor, it's a 100 horse diesel motor,
and it's connected to the pump.
Purred like a cat.
Things are making sense.
But I get is that it's really loud on this boat all the time.
Oh, you did down here.
Oh, it's heavy.
Okay.
What's my air pressure at?
Looks like the air pressure is at 200.
200?
20.
I am gonna put my glasses on, it's 20, seriously.
I wonder if he knows I'm eating his wheat thins.
Okay, we weigh them.
Yeah, so you can ask them how the gold is.
Okay.
How the visibility is?
How is the visibility?
Ooh.
How is the gold looking?
Wow.
Cause to mess up out here is to die.
That's awesome.
Thanks, everybody.
Thanks, Nome and all your crazies.
Like everybody here is crazy, whoa, whoa, whoa, hands down.
There is gold, so I see why it's worth it.
Looks like a jewelry shop in the little sluice box.
We have a beautiful day, and everybody is getting along on this boat.
And there's lots of gold in this sluice box.
So, rock and rolling down there.
One mile east.
We're looking quite predictive.
We're trying to find the spot that we call easy gold.
That's what we're doing.
With his A team finally reassembled
and the wild card in the mix.
Three forty seven, we ought to be getting pretty close.
Yeah.
Vernon Adkinson is hoping for his first
hot streak of the summer.
I'm showing up about 800 feet from the spot we got marked.
We're looking for a location I've deemed easy gold.
It's a little spot that I've kept up my sleeve
just for an occasion like this when we're desperate to get on good stuff fast.
All right, here we go boys.
We are here back on that easy gold site.
Okay. We're right over the spot.
All right drop rear anchor. Good.
Now the trick is to set the anchor
just right so the boat will stay there.
It's got a lot of current out here,
and we get drug all over the place.
Put out about 50 feet,
and let's see what this current is gonna do.
The problem is the wind and current spin the boat
around like a rag doll.
So you got to dump the anchor ahead
of where you want the boat to end up.
It's a precision art form, but I've gotten it down to a science.
Right now I'm just letting the current take us
and settle into the anchor.
And we'll stay here pretty close
to where we put this damn thing.
All right, then it is coming around some.
Eventually both anchors will bite in,
the boat will settle into the land and that's where
we'll stay for a while.
The last time we let it settle to the anchor,
the anchor line was going like that.
This time it's over in this direction.
I think ultimately it will settle back
to where the anchor line is leading in that direction.
In the meantime,
we got a stern line out with a stern anchor on it,
and hopefully we'll stay here pretty close
to where we put this damn thing.
We're holding pretty good.
Dave, you stand back there and keep an eye on
what's happening with that anchor.
Don't let me run over that anchor line.
You betcha.
You always anchor with the tide.
The tide is coming in.
The winds are coming from the south.
If he had anchored that way on the other side
of the cobble he would have drifted
right over top of it,
but he anchored on top of the cobble
which is why the boat moved east 56 feet.
But I ain't arguing with anybody.
That ain't happening.
It looks like it's gonna hang right about here.
You know there is no sense in fighting it anymore.
It's like a damn toothache.
We are here, so let's just go ahead
and get our stuff together and get about our business.
I am going to lower the jet down into the water,
and then we're fire it up, and I'm going down.
Be careful under there.
Just keep track of where that umbilical is at all times.
- Yeah. - Try not to get hung up on it.
I'm not beating around the bush.
We're getting killed this summer so far.
Feel good.
Hopefully we're on that easy gold site
and Gary can drop down and start filling that barge
fast because God knows we need it.
Gary, can you hear me?
Yeah, I can hear you.
Okay.
Coming down.
All right. All systems okay.
All systems are go.
Okay, everything feels good.
Okay it's on you're at 17.7 feet.
- 18 feet. - Okay.
What the [bleep].
I really don't like the way it looks here.
What [bleep] show.
Okay, so standby I guess.
We're trying to figure it out right now.
We slipped anchor bad.
We're at 300 feet from where we dropped.
Yeah, I think what happened when we turn the sluice on,
power of the sluice box moving the water
kind of pushed us and moved the boat.
[bleep] Dammit.
I don't know why in the hell we're not on easy gold.
I don't know if the coordinates were not right
or if we're getting pushed off by the current.
But for whatever the reason is,
we're on more sand than pebble beach right now.
This is a polite way of saying this.
He does things differently than I do.
I would never have set this boat
up like this ever.
We're sitting on a spot that's worthless.
Little excited. I got a lot of things on the line.
Our first real weather window is opening up.
It's a little bit cloudy, cold, but the ocean is flat.
I can go digging.
Tide's pushed way out, we can grab gold out
that we never got to grab before.
So the waves kicked our ass this morning
and my dad and brother's incompetence
demoralized me even more.
When we tested the Reaper in the harbor,
man, I was pissed, and I'm trying not to yell at everybody.
I didn't see what happened.
Oh, nothing good. Nothing good happened.
So while these two idiots are fixing everything,
the currents died down and I can go back to work with the Mistress.
And we're so far behind to make those payments in three weeks,
we need a record day today.
So we're going back to where we were finding gold
before all this stuff happened.
Hell, yeah.
I know.
All right, finally, digging.
Yeah, baby.
I'm not really liking this material. It's really sandy.
I'm gonna dig down a little bit deeper
and see what we get into.
No big cobble.
I don't know if we're on gold yet.
They have to tell me if I'm on gold.
You don't just come out here
and land on gold that's at there.
You got to go prospect.
Ready to rock and roll.
Make that gold.
Yeah, right now it's all about feeling around little.
I feel roughly some hard packs,
some cobbles and something.
He'll make it work, though.
There's some bigger rocks starting to show up,
looks too clean, though.
Being an owner of an excavator barge is brutal.
Its less hands on control.
With the suction dredge, I can go underneath the water
and find gold myself.
There we go.
With the Mistress, all I can do is test and watch,
keep my fingers crossed and hope.
It's like a helpless feeling while I watch us burn money.
Man [bleep] this is soup.
Yeah. I'm just trying to see where they're lining up at.
There might be something they know that I don't know.
You know, this could be the edge of the paystreak
and where they're heading could be the beginning.
So I'm gonna hit on that same pay zone,
and we'll try and stay on the same course, go east and west.
You know what they say. If you can't beat them, join them.
What James is doing is perfectly legal.
He's gonna line us up on coordinates with Sean here.
Hopefully the paystreak extends all the way over here.
We're getting closer.
Almost in line with the CR now.
We're gonna try...
All right.
Can we try it here?
I really need it. Please pretty please.
Hopefully we're on some gold.
Oh... Can't be any worse than the last find.
I know
I didn't see. I saw two flakes.
I saw a couple of specks, but that was it.
I had to re-pan it twice to make sure I wasn't...
Just to make sure, yeah.
That felt like something.
Oh, yeah.
Maybe I'm getting into something now.
Wow.
Was there a color?
Make that gold.
So yeah, James was right about not going out earlier,
and now he just got us on the gold.
So I'm gonna let him do his thing.
Let's put gold in the box and finally make some money.
Oh, yeah. Of course.
I guess we're in it.
Nice good coarse gold.
Hell yeah.
Ten miles east.
Okay, Gary, how does the bottom look?
You know what?
I'm looking right here, and this looks like it's been worked.
Yeah, it's all been worked.
Vernon Adkinson is finding his easy gold sweet spot
is not so easy.
We're on top of our old holes. Our winter hole.
Yeah. These are the coordinates I gave you for winter.
This exact spot.
Yeah, that's right, this is where we worked in the winter.
Okay.
Crap. That sucks.
Maybe I jinxed myself by calling that's easy gold,
because so far it's been nothing but a pain in the ass
trying to get back on it.
The first spot was all sand.
Now we're on top of a spot that we cleared out over the winter.
These currents keep knocking us to hell
and we can't get smack dab on the coordinates.
Honestly, it's just not working.
I think we're done, Gary.
We're gonna pull out and come back
and give it another shot tomorrow.
All right.
It looks like the anchor line is wrapped around the hose.
How in the hell did the hose
get behind the anchor line like that?
Okay, Bryan, I'm gonna leave you down here to monitor him.
I'm going to start up the engine.
And I'll just very slowly ahead on it towards the anchor.
One thing after another, now the anchor line has caught up around the hose.
So, now we've got to get it untwisted and back up.
It's The Gong Show today.
No. I am [bleep].
He's got it.
All right. Pull it up.
Just side off, don't bust the nuts.
This is one of those days you just want to forget.
We'll head back to shore, lick our wounds
and see if we scared up any gold at all.
It's one of those days, I know.
I've got to say, everybody performed
about as well as could be expected under the circumstances.
What?
No [bleep] way would I allow the
that I've seen here today on my boat.
I do not dive in bubble gum operations like this.
And don't get me wrong, I like Vernon.
I like 'em all.
They have a [bleep] up way of doing things.
Well, in any event, it's obvious
that there's no way I can stay on this one,
because somebody on this boat is going to die,
that somebody hasn't already,
is only by the grace of whatever God exists.
In any event, I'm not gonna make any money on this boat.
And if I can't make any money, I can't stay here.
I'm gonna have to seriously consider buying another damn ticket and going home.
So if I can't generate a paycheck, I can't stay.
And I dearly want to, because I'm telling you,
there's gold here.
With the right operation, there's gold here.
Okay.
On Claim 14.
Mother Nature may be putting an early kibosh
on Jane's first day of gold mining.
Safety first.
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.
You'll be having a great day out here and beautiful weather
and then the weather God decides
to throw it all at you
and you've got to roll out as quickly as possible before somebody gets hurt.
That's how gold mining works.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
We're gonna have you idle down and come up.
Yes. Copy that.
Yeah, it's clearly getting worse.
Oh, my God. You had two of 'em.
Ooh. I'll add them to the collection.
Oh, my god.
Look at this.
I don't want the wind to blow them.
First day here.
Pretty awesome day.
The weather is coming up, obviously,
which can make it, you know, horrible out here and unsafe.
So we're going in.
That's a lot of gold in the sluice box.
Better take my temperature.
I got a fever, gold fever.
Back out on Tomcod.
See it?
Better, we're getting better.
We're getting down there.
Yeah, we're getting better.
Yep.
Thank God.
I'm like the same line as the Rose.
So we'll try and stay on the same course.
As we're mining, the gold keeps looking better and better.
That's big rock.
This ground is just ridiculously hard,
super rocky, but great pay.
But the ground is brutal and it's pushing our old excavator
to the limits.
Old Betsy, you know, she's getting tired,
doesn't quite have the digging power.
I think she is just old [bleep].
Yeah, no horsepower, dull teeth, super hard grounds.
That's just a recipe for disaster.
So basically, I know this excavator is on life support,
but I have another one, the Volvo, and it's way better,
but it's still being prepped in the harbor
and it won't be ready for a couple of days.
So, I need this girl to hold on a little bit longer for daddy, please.
It's crazy. That's all we need.
We just need time on [bleep] water.
There we go baby, treat her nice. I love you.
Give me the gold.
Hang in there.
Jeez, you hear that?
Yeah.
Oh, what just happened?
I think we just broke the excavator.
Did it break?
Where am I leaking?
I smell it.
We're checking it out.
There might be a problem with the excavator,
which I hope to God there isn't.
Is it bad?
Get us out of here.
Get back to the dock.
This machine's done for the season.
We should have had the ex-- the other excavator on the deck right now.
Spud up.
This isn't a minor setback, dude.
This is a catastrophe.
We've been waiting this whole [bleep] time for good weather,
and finally we make it.
And now the hydraulic oil cooler is cracked,
and it just sucks.
I'm trying not to yell and scream I am in a bad mood now.
We're gonna go in.
We're gonna rip this excavator dinosaur
off the deck.
We're gonna put the Volvo on here,
which all the way around is a better machine if it runs.
After 20 something thousand dollars
invested in the piece of it better [bleep] run.
Every day as an owner of an excavator barge,
I learn something new.
Today, I'm learning, I really don't know that much
about running an excavator barge.
I'm constantly getting my ass kicked,
but all I can do is keep learning these lessons
and try to keep this operation alive.
I knew something bad was gonna happen today.
In Nome Harbor.
Here we are on a big adventure.
First day out with the Reaper, the new Reaper.
Andy's gonna go down and make us rich.
The morale's high with crew cause Kris isn't here.
It's actually really peaceful.
We're going out here, we're gonna make it work today
and have a good, peaceful, quiet day, that'd be nice.
After addressing the captain's fixes,
the new and improved Reaper sets off on her maiden voyage.
This boat is ready to go now.
He shouldn't have to mess with it for the next few years.
So Captain bitched his little ass off,
how dad and I prepped the Reaper.
So we did everything he said to do.
So hopefully we'll get some gold in the box unlike, you know, who.
See you guys later.
Look there it is.
You want to see what a waste of money looks like?
Just cast your eyes on that [bleep] bucket.
They're all standing around, five crew members,
all waiting to get paid.
No one's working.
Wow. There's the captain himself.
You look good at the harbor.
Thanks. See you later captain.
Call us.
We'll be out making gold.
And now they're working hard,
cause he looks embarrassed because we're on the water.
Now I'm on the water.
Yeah. Now he's got a lot to live up to.
Oh, yeah, now he'll [bleep] Damn, he is on the water now.
Hurry up, guys.
Oh, dude, my clean out.
I'll beat them every time.
Let's do it.
Line me up with that buoy right where that is right there,
a little orange buoy.
That's one of Kris'.
There you go.
Oh yeah.
How's it looking?
So I did everything my brother said to do.
Hooked up everything the way he wanted.
Now, my boat's front heavy
and basically under the water.
Hey, don't blame me.
Hopefully his other ideas didn't screw up things too bad.
Let's go.
The pressure is good, 120 pounds.
All right.
So far, so good. Knock on wood.
The box is running, everything's running all right.
Hopefully Andy puts us on big gold right now.
Everything's working good up here.
How's the visibility Andy?
Visibility sucks, but I can see.
What's the bottom looking like?
What's that mean? No cobble?
My brother is [bleep]
What's the matter, Andy.
You okay?
Okay, I'm gonna get the hell out of here.
So what do you want to do?
This is complete garbage.
The water heater is crap.
The front of our boat is dipping
and what the hell is my brother with his buoys?
I don't understand that.
It's a bunch of rocks, dude. What is he, stoned?
- What the hoses? - Yeah.
Too much float on it?
Yep.
So we gotta cut the float?
That's Kris' idea, two floats on each side. Too light,
What the he keeps everything up.
It was good the way it was.
That's the last time we listened to Kris.
We can't listen to a failed captain on a failed boat.
We should have probably named this boat the SS Kris Kelly.
On the Tomcod.
Feels good to be back out on the sea,
digging, making money.
The Myrtle's digging deep
and the captain is digging what he's seeing.
I mean, the Myrtle's been sitting here all lonely
and sad hasn't been running, but now she's happy, back up and running.
Got dirt going through the box.
Materials looking really good.
Lots of colors.
Sometimes you get frustrated.
Sometimes you don't get anything else.
There's days I want to quit and give up.
How come I don't quit?
We got way too much on the line.
Way too much money
and way too many guys count on me.
So they can feed their family
and now my son is working for me.
He's got a new kid.
I'm a provider.
Only way to provide is to find gold.
My family, that's what I'm doing this for.
That's why I push it 24/7.
They're all counting on me.
Hopefully with this deep ground,
I'm gonna come through big for 'em.
Night shift's here.
Those boys are going to make some money tonight.
This spot is hot.
I want to keep the Myrtle on it digging around the clock.
I'm going to keep that gold coming.
We've been down for almost a week,
so we got to make up for lost time.
Oh, you got to rub the good luck belly.
Yeah.
We got these guys all ready to rock and roll.
It never stopped, but, hey, that's the gig.
That's the life we choose.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
Need to pile up some gold.
Well, we're gonna clean gold.
I don't know how to clean gold, but I'm about to find out.
I have no idea what to do,
but I'm happy to be of assistance.
With only one day of gold mining under her belt.
The fronts moved in quicker than we thought,
you got cut off early,
but let's get the material out to the cleanup
and start running it.
Emily's apprentice, Jane Kilcher,
is about to experience the golden rewards.
Jane flew in and she got right into the gold gig right away.
Like, wasted no time.
Just basically like stepped off the plane
and onto the boat and now we're doing a cleanup today.
So she's getting the full gold miner experience.
Every little speck matters, so.
Apparently.
Yeah, we just like clean it as best as possible as we can.
I have shown Jane every step of the cleanup process,
we take the screens out, we rinse the screens.
That's the shiniest part there.
It's what we call it the yum yums.
That's just nice pile
and then we take the carpet out, rinse it.
How does this look?
It looks pretty clean.
Okay.
Yeah, we like scraped the dirt from the corners of the box.
There's little specks in there, and they add up fast.
Leave no gold behind.
Yeah. This part of the cleanup is over.
Total mancave in here.
All that glitters is not gold.
I'm going to classify the concentrates
and then run it through our gold cube and then after that,
we've got to pan our pants off. Dry it and weight it.
I am overwhelmed with excitement.
God, it's like gold in every scoop.
Jane is a gold cube expert over here.
Very rewarding. It can go a little late.
We have panned this gold out
and it is ready to be dried and weighed.
It's going to go on the scale
and then we're either going to cry or celebrate.
Maybe a little bit of both.
It's really cool to see all this gold.
I mean, this is what it's all for.
People go crazy over this stuff.
And now we're gonna go weigh the gold.
That's the final step.
The gold is cooked, it's dry.
Now it's time to show Jane the really fun part.
Alright everybody.
We are weighing some gold.
One, two...
It's so pretty.
Three...
Six, seven.
Oh, over ten, 11, 15, 16...
Almost 20 ounces though.
Almost 20.
19.1 ounces.
It's worth over $34,000.
Hey, that's pretty good.
We were just moving into better stuff
when the weather got bad so...
and I'm happy we got this clean up in
and as soon as the Bering Sea decides to calm down and take a nap,
we'll be ready to hit it again.
But thanks for being here Jane.
Oh, it's awesome.
Summer just continues to go really well.
Even though we got kicked off for weather,
we still have a good number.
I'm feeling really good about where we are.
I've got my buddy to help manage,
full slate of divers and so we'll be running a big team
and we should see a big uptick in numbers.
All right. Well, awesome.
Let's get out of here. Go get some food.
Few things I learned so far is that nothing has changed in 100 years.
And everybody that's out here mining is crazy.
Not the good kind of crazy like the crazy, crazy.
Three miles north.
You guys got that gold cleaned yet.
You can see, we got good gold.
Nice job, guys.
Kicking ass. Doing well. Doing well.
After the night crew
added to Mr. Gold's tally in the box,
it's time to put it on the scale
and see if big waves provided big dividends.
You need a little morale booster.
Inland mines go on strong, but the gold on the water just hasn't been there.
Starting to get a little nervous.
Dave Young, it's a big investment for him.
He's nervous too.
He's starting to breathe down my neck.
Hopefully, with this opportunity to get to deeper ground,
we're gonna drive right towards our goal of 3,000 ounces.
Here we go. Let's see what we got.
Had a good day of mining.
Everything was working.
Come on, let's hit triple digits,
40, 50, 60, 70.
Come on.
Oh, man,
85.5.
Man, I was hoping to hit triple digits.
85.5 ounces is worth over 150 grand,
but Shawn is still facing a long road to get to 3,000 ounces.
Eight five ounces should have been 160.
Is this a good cleanup?
Yeah, but at this point, is it what I need?
No, it ain't going to cut it.
We lost a bunch of time mining.
With the soft start and the days off the water,
we got to have bofu numbers from here on out.
Get back out on the water. Get back to mining.
Back in town.
So, how's it looking at cleanup.
You know, there's not a lot of hours.
So there really wasn't a lot of material to even run it.
So I don't expect to see a lot of gold, but right now,
a nice paycheck would be great.
After a day filled with struggles,
Kris Kelly is hoping for a pleasant surprise on the scales.
Please let there be a lot of gold.
Oh, we've got some nice little pickers going on.
I know it looks like a lot of gold, but it's not.
I don't want to start thinking that I made a bad investment,
but it's excavator problems.
We're not having a problem with gold recovery.
Everything's working good, it's [bleep] excavators.
So at least I'm getting gold.
And I'm not mad.
At least everybody's getting a paycheck.
But I would like a lot of gold. I'm not gonna lie to you.
I would like so much gold.
I don't know what to do with all my gold.
This is maddening. I have a huge payment due.
I know where the gold is,
but getting it is becoming a huge problem.
It could be better, let me tell you. It could be a lot better.
I wish I could just go down there and get it myself.
But it doesn't work that way.
Come on.
So I got a skeleton crew working on the new excavator,
trying to get it up and running
ASAP while we weigh what we got, ASAFP.
Five,
6.29.
6.29 ounces is worth over $11,000,
but with the bills piling up, it's far from what Kris needs.
Right now the Mistress is not doing as good as it should.
I have put a lot of money into it and it's real stressful
and everything going
If I have that excavator running, I'd be making a lot of money
because this isn't [bleep],
you know, we should be getting three times that on the Reaper.
This is a sad amount of gold, but it's proof we're on the gold.
We're just not getting it and further proof,
we just need the new excavator ready to go, like, immediately.
I want to see that doubled next time.
Damn, well, it's kind of spongy down here.
Damn right, because you got a sponge diver standing here.
Sponge Dave.
You got the only sponge diver on the West Coast standing on this guy's boat.
I guarantee nobody else.
It's probably the western part of the United States does what I do.
So, that's why it tends to stay with me wherever I go.
They've got a pet name for you, right?
What do they call you?
They call me the naked sponge diver.
Yeah, actually, truth is, I don't actually dive
for sponge naked, but as soon as I come up
because I work alone...
As soon as I come up above the waterline,
as soon as I get back on my boat,
every stitch of clothes comes off
except a pair of boots, a bandana and a hat.
And I got the tunes going, so I can't hear [bleep].
I used to run downstairs and put clothes on, not anymore.
I don't dive naked.
I'm not that kind of an idiot.
There is a thread of reasoning involved in this.
- I mean... - Yeah.
You know, you stay down there long enough
with all your assets hanging out,
something bound over a period of years,
something's bound to take a nibble.
Yes sir or take it right off, one or the other.
Yes, sir.
As dawn breaks on the Bering Sea.
Dave, thanks for coming out with us.
Thank you for letting me get out.
After I left y'all, I thought about this
and thought about this and I decided
there's no point in me staying.
All I'm gonna do is hemorrhage money.
That's why I went online and got the cheapest ticket
I could find, which is today.
That was the cheapest one I could find.
Oh, Dave, we hardly knew you,
but like any good hurricane, you blew yourself out.
You know, I cannot stay here without a paycheck.
The only reason I didn't leave was because you graciously,
out of the kindness of your heart,
allowed me to stay on your boat.
Dave came here with no leads, no housing plan,
just a bag and a dream.
Pretty ballsy, actually.
So I let him stay in an old boat on the property.
Hell, there was literally
no other option than Nome last night.
It wasn't exactly the Ritz,
I'd rate it slightly primitive.
I hadn't had a shower since I got here.
Hadn't brushed my teeth since I got here.
No shower.
I had to... I'm not even gonna go...
I'm not even gonna go into where I had to go to the bathroom.
I'm not gonna even go there.
I literally had to plastic bag this morning.
I couldn't make it to the outhouse.
I stood in your cabin with a plastic bag
underneath my ass taking a
and the only reason that I had toilet paper
was because you left a roll there.
Vernon, I don't live like that.
I'm not gonna live like that.
I don't want you disappointed in me,
but there's nothing I can do.
I appreciate you coming up here and checking it out,
but you haven't really given it enough time
to get a fair assessment of what's going on.
I do not need any more time to determine
it's not going to happen.
It wouldn't have mattered if I had stayed another week.
The situation was not going to change.
The circumstances of me being able to generate
a paycheck in two weeks is not going to change.
It's not going to happen and I can't stay.
I understand, but here's what it's all about.
That's about an ounce, that's g-o-l-d.
Nine years and thousands of dollars
and I finally get to hold gold in my hand.
How about that?
I couldn't let Dave leave without setting his eyes on some gold.
It's the first time he's ever seen some
from the Bering Sea.
The guy instantly turned into Gollum.
Yeah.
It was like he was hanging on to his precious,
the one ring to rule them all.
Gold can have that effect on people.
Anyway, about time to get you to the airport, Dave.
All right, boss.
I had a hell of a good time.
The only way I'm ever gonna make it here
is because I'm in command of my own boat.
I may as well go home, regroup, and set up for coming back next year,
but under different circumstances.
So it's back home to Florida.
Back home to my sponge boat.
Back home to sponging.
Oh, my God.
I'm heading out to the beach one more time.
I swear to God, I think we still have a future together.
I just don't know.
I just can't stay here and [bleep] around.
I've got to be allowed to go to work.
I'm gonna miss this place.
Oh my God, I can't believe it.
Nine years it took me to get back.
You know, I got to go home.
It's okay. It's okay.
I knew I was gonna get emotional.
I knew that was gonna happen.
Later man, take it easy.
- Take care of yourself. - Yeah, yeah. I'll see you next time.
Okay.
All right, we need to make tracks.
Okay, buddy.
I am gonna talk to you again in summer.
We'll stay in touch.
- Okay, Dave. - Thank you so much.
Yeah. You just have a good trip home.
Thank you so very much.
I just hope I can figure out how to make this happen.
- I got to go. - All right.
Yeah. Go check in.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
He blew in and he blew out.
Call up down to Florida and tell them Hurricane Dave is on the way.
Don't get down there and get all those sponges.
So, sponges beware.
Adios, Hurricane Dave.
We've survived that hurricane.
Don't let it be said that he mellowed with age.
He's the same Dave.