01x06 - Beyond Fear

[bunniefuu]

(wind whooshing)

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

(helicopter engine rumbling)

WILL: A big part of why I live

my life the way I do today

is because I was fearful as a child.

DWAYNE: What was your biggest fear?

I was scared of everything.

Uh, I was one of the youngest kids

in the neighborhood.

Uh, I got I got bullied all the time,

you know?

I think there was a certain harshness

to our environment.

- But I love the challenge

- Yeah.

of having to conquer my mind.

This hasn't been seen

- or experienced by many people.

- Yeah.

It's difficult to get to.

It's difficult to survive in.

- We're gonna be walking around out there.

- Really?

DWAYNE: You can see

all the cracks along, yeah?

WILL: The cracks, yeah.

It looks like you could actually go down.

It looks like things could go wrong.

There's no part of this that's anything

I've ever done or feel confident doing.

I won't lie.

Over five expeditions,

I've followed explorers into situations

that were straight-up scary.

- Whoa.

- (crew cheers)

- (lava splashing)

- WILL: That's crazy.

Rock, rock, rock, rock.

(insects chirping)

WILL: It was worth it

to discover the Earth's wonders.

But your boy was tripping more than once.

(animal growling)

Because when I see wilderness,

you know, nothing but nature,

I get nervous.

Because I don't understand it.

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

WILL: So, that's the next step for me.

Throw myself into the unknown,

and try to beat my own fear.

This time,

it's not about discovering the world.

It's about discovering myself.

It's cold.

(grunts)

That's my first glacier.

That's my first glacier for sure.

(snow crunches)

WILL: Never walked

on this much ice before.

- This is loose.

- Yeah, yeah.

(ice scraping)

WILL: So, here I am

in the middle of nowhere.

And Dwayne is telling me,

we have to navigate off the ice

and find the ocean.

Without maps, without phones,

in one of the most extreme places

on the entire planet.

So, why have you chosen this direction?

DWAYNE: Because we've got

a nice little stream there.

WILL: Uh-huh.

DWAYNE: So, the ice

is melting ever so slightly.

Sort of draining

into these little channels.

And it's making its way downstream.

Got it. The water is gonna take

a clear route off the glacier. Cool.

(water rushing)

WILL: Dwayne's job is to push me,

and my job is to let him.

This is wild.

Ooh!

Hold it. Hold it there.

I feel like we might just wanna go

and have a look.

- WILL: All right. I mean, listen.

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

- Once you go down

- Yeah. Yeah.

and you successfully make it back up,

I'm more than happy to go.

- If I go down

- (chuckles)

and you're left up here by yourself,

- you're gonna be ruined. So, you come

- Yeah. I probably Yeah.

- You stay with me, you stay with me.

- Okay. (laughs)

DWAYNE: Ice holes like these

are wildly unpredictable.

They can go down 50 feet or over 1,000.

But the only way

to know for sure is to go in.

- (water rushing)

- (metal clinking)

DWAYNE: Let's go.

How's that feeling?

- You know exactly how it's feeling.

- (Dwayne laughs)

It's scary as hell.

DWAYNE: Nice and slow.

Good.

Good work.

- It gets so much louder as you get lower.

- WILL: Yeah.

DWAYNE: You're starting

to trust the rope now, I can see it.

- I really don't have much choice, do I?

- DWAYNE: (laughs) I'll just be

- It better work. (laughs)

- DWAYNE: Yeah. (laughs)

Uh, lock off for me.

And just relax.

(ice scraping)

WILL: Hey, hey.

DWAYNE: It's perfectly safe.

- He said confidently. (laughs)

- He says confidently. (laughs)

- Did you hear that crack?

- WILL: Yeah.

DWAYNE: It's just constantly moving.

This is the kind of thing

that half of people would say

nightmares are made of.

You're climbing down into an environment

- that's constantly changing and shifting.

- WILL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's water filling in there.

"Are you mad?"

- Yeah.

- DWAYNE: That's the question.

Ha half of us think that.

(both laugh)

- DWAYNE: Will, you happy to go lower?

- WILL: You've gotta be kidding me.

- Whoa.

- DWAYNE: Now, look down.

Isn't that something?

WILL: That hole just drops away

- into infinity. (laughs)

- DWAYNE: Oblivion. (laughs)

I don't think we've got enough rope

to go all the way down there.

WILL: That's crazy.

Now, dangling over a bottomless pit

isn't exactly my bag,

but man, scary as it is,

it's liberating.

Hello! My name is Will!

And Will wants to know,

how the hell to get out

of this wilderness.

Well, they say the secret

is to look for clues.

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

WILL: Imagine what it takes

to be a fisherman

in a desert!

You'd need a little help right?

♫ Upbeat Music playing ♫

WILL: An armored catfish

is, well, no ordinary fish.

It can survive on land.

Then, when it needs to find water

bam!

It's a fish on a mission.

The fishermen can't find water that way.

But they can follow the fish.

(water rippling)

MAN: That's beautiful!

WILL: Turns out,

there are always clues to navigating

even in the most barren terrain.

(wind howling)

WILL: But knowing what is a clue

that's the tricky part.

- (bird squawking)

- Look at that.

WILL: It's it's a bird, Dwayne.

- (Dwayne laughing)

- (Will laughing)

DWAYNE: These birds, they're a clue

to getting off this glacier.

There's slim pickings on the ice.

Birds here have to find water

to get food.

And it will be something bigger

than we've seen so far.

(water rushing)

WILL: All this water

is coming from the glacier?

DWAYNE: Yep.

And the good thing about this is

if we follow it long enough,

eventually, it's gonna take us to the sea.

- WILL: Getting to the sea means what?

- DWAYNE: If it's a survival situation,

getting to the sea means

you're more likely to find people.

- Got it.

- It means there's food.

WILL: What now?

DWAYNE: So, what I'm doing,

I'm just looking for somewhere

to get onto the water

and get the kayak in.

We're looking for a spot

to put the kayak in.

- Yeah.

- And this is clearly not it.

(water rushing)

♫ Intense Music playing ♫

That's dangerous.

That's that's not too good.

But down there,

it's probably gonna calm down quite a lot.

I know kayaking a river like this

looks scary.

But it's an important step.

Because having the confidence to navigate

the dangerous and unfamiliar

is at the heart of what it is

to be an explorer.

♫ Tense Music playing ♫

DWAYNE: First, we need to find

a gentle launch point for the boat.

So "gentle" that I have to put on

a waterproof suit.

(music continues)

(grunts)

DWAYNE: Nice, nice.

Keep on coming, keep on coming.

WILL: Yeah, man.

So, I'm gonna get the raft out.

(seagulls cawing)

When you talked about it earlier,

I kind of saw something different

in my mind.

DWAYNE: What did you see?

- (air whooshing)

- WILL: Well a kayak.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

This is like a rubber uh, floaty.

- (chuckles) Yeah. (grunts)

- (laughs)

DWAYNE: All right.

So, what we're gonna do now,

- we're gonna lower it down.

- Yup.

- DWAYNE: And by we

- You mean me?

- You're gonna lower it down.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- DWAYNE: Get ready.

- Yeah.

DWAYNE: All right, take the weight.

- Got it.

- Go on.

Go on.

That's good. Perfect.

We'll hold it there for now.

- WILL: You good?

- Yeah.

- You're gonna go down next.

- WILL: Yeah.

- DWAYNE: Nice and low to the ground.

- WILL: Nice and low to the ground.

Come on, Will.

(water splashing)

WILL: I should mention again

that I am not the world's

strongest swimmer.

I do not wanna go under that water.

(water ripples)

DWAYNE: You can already

feel how cold it is.

This water's straight off the glacier.

- Have you kayaked before?

- WILL: No.

- DWAYNE: No? Never?

- WILL: No, this will be the first time.

Never.

DWAYNE: What I'm gonna get you to do

- is stay left.

- Stay left.

Because as you go to change,

it's gonna change your center of balance.

Got it.

♫ Intense Music playing ♫

DWAYNE: That swirling brown water means

we're about to enter a strong current.

It's stirred up all the sediment.

And we're gonna go for it.

- Paddle, paddle.

- Paddle, paddle, paddle.

Good. And keep paddling.

- Keep paddling, keep paddling.

- (grunts)

Good. You did it. Let the flow take us.

DWAYNE: Good.

- WILL: Oh, wow. That's a whirlpool.

- DWAYNE: Exactly.

When it's that little, it tells us

there's a rock near the surface.

Give me a paddle.

See that V?

It means the water's funneling

through two rocks.

We're gonna try

and go straight through it.

Keep your balance. Good.

(grunts) And nice and slow. Nice and slow.

- WILL: Oh! What's going on?

- DWAYNE: We're in a boil.

You can see it from the surface

where it's bubbling up.

(water rushing)

We're not going over.

We are not going over.

Up and over, a second one.

Don't paddle when we've got a wave,

'cause it'll take you in.

Good.

Paddle, paddle. We're going into the rock.

- Oh, jeez.

- DWAYNE: We're good. We're good.

Stop there.

Well, that one was a little hairy.

- Yeah, yeah, it was, it was.

- (laughs)

That one was a little hairy.

DWAYNE: A little bit shaky there,

but we've done it.

(kayak scrapes)

That water is freezing through my glove.

DWAYNE: When your hands get really cold,

you stand there and you do this

to try and get the blood

back into your hands.

Wow.

(chuckles) It definitely works.

- You do feel a surge into your fingertips.

- DWAYNE: Yeah, yeah.

This is a good tip.

That trick I've learned

when I was in the Arctic.

- (laughs) So, when you were in the Arctic?

- Yes.

All right, I just never heard

a Black person say that. You're gonna

- (laughs)

- (chuckles)

- ♫ Gentle Music Playing ♫

- It's true.

I've trekked to the North Pole.

I've crossed deserts.

I've even kayaked across seas.

But everywhere you go,

you learn something new.

WILL: Your accomplishments

are so important to me.

DWAYNE: Thanks, Will. That means a lot.

WILL: 'Cause, you know,

I admire explorers.

I wanna be in the explorer’s club.

I don't have to pretend like these bugs

- are in my face out here.

- (laughs)

- I don't have to pretend?

- You're not pretending very well.

'Cause I'm trying to give you

the action hero.

- DWAYNE: I know.

- I'm trying to give you (spits)

DWAYNE: Uh, didn't you see me spit one out

- a minute ago?

- I know, yeah. I'm going (spits)

- (laughs)

- (Will laughing)

- There's nothing

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

I enjoy more than doing this.

There's something about having

the sky above you, isn't it?

This is like the perfect way

to spend my life.

- Everything is new.

- Yeah.

And there's a little bit of fear

all the way through.

- That's good. That's good.

- There's a little bit of fear for me

- all the way through.

- You you get past the fear.

Yes, there's rushing water.

Yes, there's cliff.

Yes, you're in a place that you, you know,

you have to use some of your skills.

- I'm using some of your skills.

- Yeah.

- Using some of my skills to navigate.

- (laughs)

And you'll pick them up,

and then you'll feel

more confident

next time you come out here.

- WILL: Yeah.

- Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

(flies buzzing)

- So, when did you know

- Yeah.

like full-on,

you wanted to be an explorer?

It took a big incident in my life, Will.

I I nearly lost my life,

- um, to g*n violence. And

- WILL: Whoa.

yeah, the guy, his aim was to k*ll me.

He pointed the g*n, he pulled the trigger.

He c*ck it back,

he pulled the trigger again.

Incredibly, the g*n jammed both times.

I survived that incident.

But it got me thinking.

I decided at that moment

that I wanted my life

to be more meaningful.

And that led me down a path

of exploration.

WILL: For explorers like Dwayne,

fear can be the spark that spurs them on.

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

WILL: Or simply a hurdle

they need to get over.

(birds squawking)

SIDEY: We're gonna go to the bay.

- DIVA: Yeah.

- SIDEY: See if we can find some mantas.

DIVA: A few times a year,

when everything aligns

hundreds of mantas gather in this bay.

In massive feeding swarms.

It's an event I've always wanted to see.

So, when I'm in the water,

can it be a bit overwhelming?

Yeah, it will be.

If there's too many,

sometimes they could hit you.

- And does that hurt?

- Yeah, it hurts a lot.

- DIVA: Great.

- (Sidey chuckles)

Always keep two meters away,

then you'll be fine.

DIVA: They've been waiting

for this moment for so long.

♫ Intense Music playing ♫

DIVA: Swimming from the boat out

is definitely

one of the most stressful moments.

That feeling of not knowing

what you're about to face.

It feels dangerous.

'Cause there are just so many animals

in such a small space.

That's really when it can feel

the most scary.

These mantas are over 1,000 pounds.

It feels like getting hit by a truck.

There are all these emotions.

There's fear.

And then there's wonder

at the sheer power and beauty

of these magnificent animals.

♫ Gentle Music Playing ♫

(inhales)

Oh, my God. Whoo!

(groans softly)

That was amazing.

(laughs, breathes deeply)

WILL: It seems that fear is at the heart

of so much of what an explorer does.

(grunts)

What I'm learning is that you need

to work with that fear,

not against it.

DWAYNE: (grunting)

I think we'll just leave it there.

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

Have you climbed before?

- In Philly. (laughs)

- (chuckles) Yeah?

Big climbing culture in Philly.

(both chuckle)

All right. Probably the best spot here,

actually. That's just got

- This looks like the best spot to you?

- DWAYNE: This is the best we've come to.

- WILL: Whoa. I'm gonna let you go first.

- Well, we'll just head

- I'll help you from the bottom. Go.

- (laughs) Oh, jeez.

All right, so, you got

loads of handholds here,

loads of places to put your foot.

And I'll hold it.

- WILL: Oh, you're holding it there.

- DWAYNE: Yeah, yeah. Go on. Get up there.

- (grunts)

- DWAYNE: Good.

(Will grunting)

DWAYNE: There's a ledge.

- Can you see it?

- WILL: Yeah.

DWAYNE: Uh, hold fire. I'm coming up.

Yeah, I didn't understand

the me going up first, but I get it.

How's it looking?

- WILL: Not too bad.

- Yeah?

Not too bad.

(Dwayne grunts)

So the key thing here is to know

what's coming, if you can.

The bugs in your eyes

definitely don't help.

No. No, they don't.

- (indistinct chatter)

- (birds squawking)

♫ Intense Music playing ♫

DWAYNE: This stretch of river

is known as Stuðlagil Canyon.

It was only discovered a few years ago.

And as far as I know,

no one has kayaked through it.

So, what comes next is new territory.

What can you tell

by looking at that river?

WILL: Um

it looks like it's going faster

- Yeah.

- to the left.

- And then kinda sweeping back around

- Yeah.

going slower up to the right.

Since it's going faster,

I guess, it seems like it's speeding up.

- DWAYNE: Absolutely.

- WILL: Yeah.

Looking at the fact

that it goes to the right,

I don't think we wanna go to the right.

- It could be shallower.

- WILL: Yeah.

- DWAYNE: It could have more rocks in it.

- WILL: Oh, got it.

- We're more likely to get jammed.

- DWAYNE: Yes.

- But if the water's going faster

- Yeah, yeah.

isn't there a possibility

that there's another waterfall?

There is.

There is always that possibility.

WILL: Does that mean

that we wanna go up to the right?

DWAYNE: No, to the left.

Do you have another boat?

Like, what if I disagreed

- and, like, if I wanted to go (laughs)

- (laughs)

A river like this is predictable.

But I suspect the only way

he'll learn this for himself

is if he takes the helm.

I hope he'll be ready for that.

(water rushing)

WILL: Things are about to get real.

♫ Intense Music playing ♫

Dwayne is putting me in charge

of navigating the next stretch of river.

I hope he's got insurance.

- We're good to go? Let's go.

- DWAYNE: All right, let's go.

WILL: And we're just running

- all the way down, right?

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

WILL: We're just gonna go

all the way down. Yeah.

A little bit scary, yeah.

(grunts)

DWAYNE: Just shout out what you're seeing.

- WILL: To the left right there.

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

That's a whirlpool.

DWAYNE: Come on.

- Okay.

- DWAYNE: Yes!

So, we're gonna stay

we're gonna try to stay in the center.

We got a little V happening up there.

Yeah. I guess, we're gonna

take our nose right into that V.

DWAYNE: Okay, cool.

So, it's starting to get rough.

It looks like there's, uh, churning

coming from the right into the center.

All right. Give me a little paddle,

'cause we're slowing down a little bit.

We wanna get up to the speed of the water.

Big wave!

A little bit shaky there.

We're fine now.

Just relax back there. Calm down.

- Okay.

- Calm down.

- Right. (chuckles) Right, right, right.

- Okay?

More waves ahead.

DWAYNE: Uh, where do we want it to hit us?

We probably wanna be in it

that way at the at our one o'clock.

DWAYNE: To our one o'clock.

WILL: Don't paddle. Absorb it.

We're not going over.

We're not going over.

Good work. Keep going. Keep going.

Good work!

- Whoo! (laughs)

- (Dwayne laughs)

WILL: You know, that was beautiful, man.

- We came, we saw

- Conquered.

we conquered.

- DWAYNE: We've got skills.

- WILL: Yeah.

This is a bucket list moment.

DWAYNE: That was bloody good job, Will.

For someone's first time on white water.

And we came down without going for a swim.

WILL: Yeah,

that was that was fantastic.

♫ Gentle Music Playing ♫

Let me bring us around. Good.

This moment deserves a toast.

Keep it in, keep it in, keep it pushing.

Push it in. Push it in.

- DWAYNE: I'm getting it in.

- Keep going. Keep going.

- WILL: (laughs) Yeah. That'll do it.

- DWAYNE: Perfect.

When I first got out here,

everything seemed unknowable.

Dangerous even.

Now, I understand

there's a logic to everything.

I never imagined myself

being capable of this. But I did it.

Me, the kid from West Philly

who hates water.

And we made it all the way to the ocean.

We've arrived.

I know it doesn't sound like a big thing,

to be able to find an ocean.

But for me, that was big.

You didn't k*ll me.

- You didn't k*ll me! (laughs)

- (laughs)

- Almost. (grunts)

- (grunts)

Now, I can see

what it means to go with the flow.

DWAYNE: Do you know what,

that's such a nice way to put it.

Wow. Look at this place.

(groans)

DWAYNE: I'm telling you,

that was something, wasn't it?

- Dude.

- (Dwayne grunts)

I'm just happy to, like, be here,

and have survived.

Yeah. There were moments

where I thought, "Ooh! We're going in."

- (laughs)

- DWAYNE: But we didn't. We didn't!

For me, it's just coming out here

and being at one with nature,

- and testing myself, and proving myself.

- WILL: Mm-hmm.

And it's not about, "Look at me.

Look how strong, and great, and powerful."

It's about, "Can I apply

what I've experienced here

"to another challenge in my life?"

- Yeah, yeah.

- For me, it's just about that experience.

You know, when you start

these kinds of things,

you never quite know

if you're gonna get to the end.

I don't know, maybe you know

you can get to the end.

- I believe I'll always get to the end.

- Really?

Um, and for me,

it's not even about the end.

It's about it's

I know it sounds so cliché, innit,

- it's the journey that counts.

- WILL: Hmm.

But honestly, for me, it's the doing it,

it's the experiencing it.

It's about being out there.

You can't tell me that this right now

is the best part of the journey

we've just done.

That now, that's very true.

You know what?

Even now that you mention that

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

- arriving even has a little bittersweet

- kind of thing.

- DWAYNE: Yeah, it's like an anticlimax.

- Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

- DWAYNE: Yeah.

- That is true. That's true.

- Hold on. What's that?

(helicopter engine rumbling)

- You can hear it coming in. Good timing.

- Hey, okay.

This has been a long,

tough journey for me.

But in a way, it's taken me 52 years.

My mission at the start

of this journey was simple.

Get out of my comfort zone

connect with the planet

and hopefully, inspire others

to do the same.

♫ Dramatic Music playing ♫

WILL: The explorers took me

to the ends of the earth and beyond.

- Wow.

- DIVA: Wow. (laughs)

WILL: Showed me

that our world is full of wonders

(lava splashes)

hidden forces we can't see,

and barely understand.

It can be terrifying

to step out into those unknowns.

But sometimes, the only thing to do

is to give yourself over to the flow.

Let go of your fears.

Because when you allow yourself

to truly connect with our planet

you realize its wonders have no end.

Yes, I like this part!

(all cheer)

WILL: So, this is just the beginning.

Welcome to Earth, Will Smith.

Time to explore.

♫ Theme Music playing ♫

♫ Theme Music ends ♫