Original subtitles

Oh man, that was the scariest dive I've ever done.

[narrator] It's been the most relentless summer season yet...

[grunts]

I'm [bleep] tired.

I don't open up a huge cut,

it'll make a guy go bankrupt real quick.

...rattling the toughest souls on the Bering Sea.

But now...

It's go time.

...to go the final stretch, each captain must find

what drives them...

[Kris] People always underestimate me. They expect me to fail,

and I'm proving them wrong.

...and use it as fuel...

[Joe] I've been around gold mining my whole life.

It's in my blood.

I'm out here to preserve this way of life.

...to score a life changing haul before time runs out.

[Shawn] If I lose everything, all the people that work for me

will lose everything, too. They're all counting on me,

and I don't plan on letting them down.

Ready to pile up some gold.

Holy [bleep], Andy!

We're hanging on by a string.

Everything's falling apart.

[laughs]

[Rich speaking]

-[Kris] Damn! -[Zeke] [bleep], that's nice.

Whoo!

This is gonna get very [bleep] nasty.

Generator's fired up. Thrustmaster's fired up.

Excavator's fired up.

We're gonna push up and we're gonna get to work.

Far behind his goal in summer's final weeks,

Kris Kelly is in danger of failing to keep

Reaper Nation afloat.

[Kris] My plan this season was to have the Mistress on Tomcod

and the crawler on Claim X.

There were some problems with the Mistress.

[explosion blasts]

[Kris] Time to go mining.

But we got it patched up and back on the water.

So far, so good.

And we found some great ground with the crawler.

We're on the black [bleep], baby.

[Kris] Oh, I'm lucky.

[Kris] But we haven't been able to spend a full day on it.

So today, we're finally gonna get a full day

with the Mistress and the crawler.

[Kevin] Throttle up!

[Kris] Let's do this.

[Kris] At this point, we've fallen so far behind, I'm just looking

to break even.

That's why I lowered our goal to 150 ounces.

If we can get 150 ounces, I can pay my bills

and still stay in business.

He's on his way.

We're ready to go.

[bleep], I hope we're gonna have a good day.

We will.

There's nothing gonna go wrong.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Kris] Holy [bleep], Andy!

Get on the tire.

The tire. The tire.

-Help me out! -I am!

[Kris] Help me out!

[Kris] The ladder, the ladder.

-Are you OK? -That's [bleep] cold!

[Kris] I love you, buddy. Are you OK?

-Go get -- -That was cold!

[bleep] man!

[bleep] you scared the [bleep] out of me.

[Andy speaking]

So [bleep] big, I can't pick him out of the water anymore.

[Andy] [bleep] yeah.

[Kris] And he couldn't get out. What a [bleep] start.

[suspenseful music playing]

I'm back. I'm ready.

Let's get this [bleep] going.

I'm dried off, changed my clothes.

Here I am. That's work, buddy, you know?

I mean, you fall off, change, come right back.

A little bit of water is not gonna stop me.

[Kris] Well, I'm glad you're OK.

You just scared the [bleep] out of me.

-I'm good, buddy. -I didn't know what to do.

I'm trying to grab the railing to get

my fat ass out of the water.

I just see your top half of your [bleep] body.

You looked so scared.

Anchors have been deployed.

We're getting into position right now.

OK, dropping down. Hoping for the best, baby.

This is it.

We're going down 70 feet on this spot with amazing gold.

No one in the fleet has done what I've done.

People have always underestimated me

because in their minds, I don't belong being a miner.

Before I got to know,

I didn't even know anything about mining.

Everybody wants to see me fail...

but I'm proving the haters and the doubters wrong.

[machine whirring]

On the bottom right now.

Overgrowth on it.

[Kris] Idle up!

[suspenseful tones playing]

[machine whirring]

[Kris] Is material going up or no?

[Andy speaking]

[Kris speaking]

Do you think we have a rock jam?

[Andy speaking]

[Kris] I guess let's [bleep] turn off the power pack

and idle down and go through

this whole [bleep] thing again, and...

We got the crawler down, but there's no material going

through the sluice box. There's no suction at all.

We have a problem.

We're gonna have to pull the jet log back out.

[bleep] man, it must have broke apart.

Everything's falling apart. OK, pull it up.

Yeah.

[Kris] To get down 70 feet, you need 80 feet of hose.

The problem is, I took a 100-foot hose and I broke it up

into too many parts,

which makes the system extremely weak.

So the hose clamps came off underneath the water.

We should have bought one solid 80-foot hose.

We shouldn't have cut this bitch.

-We didn't know. -But now we do.

[Kris] Every second we're not mining, we're closer to going under.

So, you know, that was a pretty big [bleep] up.

I know it looks [bleep], but we're gonna see if we get reset,

we might go right back down. I don't know yet.

One [bleep] thing or another.

Across the water...

[Zeke] I want to go mining so bad.

...Zeke Tenhoff is in dire straits.

It's the end of the season, so we're gonna do

whatever we can to get some more time in here.

We have a lot more to slurp up.

I kind of started to bank this season on this boulder patch

that we found.

It's loaded with gold under those rocks.

But when you go down to that depth,

exerting all of your muscles really hard,

I start to feel like my brain is gonna explode.

I've got my brother Gabe on board to tag team with me.

But my body is really starting to feel it big time,

and the deeper we go, the harder it's getting.

I'm wondering if we should try to point directly to the east.

We've never tried to do that before.

-[Gabe] And just go straight into it? -Straight in like this.

At this point, we're way behind my season goals

for this summer.

So I just need to hope my body holds out and hope that this is

still the right plan.

I figured out pretty early on that I wasn't gonna be

cut out for a normal job.

I grew up living in Nome, and it's still really

the center of my world, just having the nature

right out your doorstep.

I'm always gonna fight to do things on my own terms,

and I like to think that I can invent new ways to get gold.

I'm not really afraid of, like, risking everything,

but now that I have a family, I need to make a baseline

amount of money to take care of them.

So right now, I want to make that I'm still having fun doing

what I'm doing, and then try to adapt to what

the future brings.

[suspenseful tones playing]

[heavy breathing]

Are you ready for the pump?

[Zeke speaking]

[machine revving]

[water swooshing]

There you go.

[grunts]

[grunts]

Hey, how is it down there?

[Zeke speaking]

Yeah, I mean, and then there's this [bleep] trying to get into,

under boulders with silt is just too much of a bitch.

[Zeke speaking]

OK.

[groaning]

What happened is that we weren't able to find gold

in any of the places that we like to mine in, in this boat.

At some point, Zeke found hot gold under a big rock pile,

with silt under it.

So since then, we've been in this area, trying to do that.

And it's...

such a bitch.

So yeah, we keep trying to do something that's inherently

really [bleep] hard to do.

[grunts loudly]

[Zeke speaking]

[Gabe speaking]

[Zeke speaking]

Oh, [bleep]. It's all I can do.

[Zeke grunts loudly]

[Vernon] OK, all aboard.

Time to get after it.

In Nome Harbor...

Hurry, hurry up.

...Vernon Adkison's patience is as short as the time left

in the season.

Let's get this [bleep] aboard and get out of here.

[bleep] noon already.

Winter's coming fast, and we need to make the most

of the time we have left.

I need to keep this crew dialed in so we don't slow down

and end up falling short.

OK, guys.

Let's get this stuff aboard and go.

All right, [bleep] damn it.

Let's get that boat aboard and get out of here!

-Can I get a spot to put it? -[Vernon] Now!

Hey --

Look, I'm tired of [bleep] waiting.

[indistinct]

Put the [bleep] boat on board the boat.

[bleep] damn it.

I'm not seeing what I need to see right now.

This is not up to standards.

[Rich] Come on!

-Flip it over! -I'm trying.

Just flip it the [bleep] over.

Perfect.

Cut loose that long bow line. Bring the long bow line in.

It just takes forever to get out of port.

But we're finally on our way.

I spent a lot of my life on the water.

You got to be a certain breed to last this long.

The sea has no mercy.

It can be dangerous if you don't know

what you're doing.

It will kill you in a heartbeat with no remorse.

But it can also bring you treasure.

That's why I always push my crew.

And that's why I'm here.

I'm at home on the water.

I've spent more time on the water than I have on the land.

All right, stand by. Here we go.

Get that starboard anchor ready.

[crew member] I got it.

We tapped out this spot we're working, so we need to find

a new one fast.

[Rich] Get this show on the road.

[Vernon] I'm sending Richie down, and I'll see what

he's learned this season.

It better be a lot, because we don't have time

to mess around.

[heavy breathing]

[Rich speaking]

[crew member] Copy that. Lowering nozzle line.

Yeah, Richard's on the bottom.

How's the ground? What are you seeing?

[Rich speaking]

[Vernon] Are you seeing any gold?

[Rich speaking]

[Vernon] Roger that. Stay on it.

[Rich] Roger that.

All right, Richie.

Get after it.

[Rich speaking]

You know, fingers crossed, season's coming to an end

very quickly. So can't be fussing around.

We got to get in the water and hit it hard

at every opportunity.

We got to get it while it's getting good.

Back on land...

[Shawn speaking]

So that means the end is near.

As winter creeps toward Nome, no one is feeling the heat more

than Shawn Pomrenke.

[Shawn] There's ice forming.

We ran out of thawed pay this morning.

Plant's not running right now.

It's that time of year. It's go time.

Freezing grounds have slowed digging to a crawl,

forcing the wash plant to shut down and bringing

gold production to a halt.

[Shawn] You can see how the cut opened up,

but it took us over a month to get to this point.

Hopefully, it's not too little too late.

This ground's getting tougher and tougher to dig

because of the cold.

So it's a lot slower piling up material for the wash plant.

And we ran out of pay last night, so we had to shut

the plant down.

We're gonna try to do our best to hit our goal.

It's a race to get enough pay piled up so when we restart,

we won't have to shut it down again.

Because it's gonna get so cold, we won't be able to

start it back up.

If I don't hit at least another thousand ounces

in the next couple weeks,

I'm gonna be [bleep].

I need 4,000 ounces by the end of the summer.

So I have everyone out here working.

The best crew in the world. These guys don't quit.

Copy that.

Yeah, this all looks really good, Jody.

Thanks for the help, man.

[Jody speaking]

Right now, I'm just focusing on trying to uncover and thaw out

as much pay as possible.

But, I mean, it just gets tough.

If I don't hit 4,000 ounces, I could lose my deal with Dave.

And I'll be stuck with the equipment payments,

and no way to pay them.

It'll bankrupt me, put the whole crew out of work.

Nome's a small town.

I've always prided myself in being a provider

and providing jobs.

All these guys are like family to me, and they have families

of their own to support.

That's what drives me. Nome's counting on me.

I want to get everything situated...

because when it starts freezing, you can't shut off

stuff for very long.

Otherwise, it freezes, and it just screws you over.

We're trying to get pay up to the plant.

If I don't get this stuff out of here,

then we'll never make it.

We have a fighting chance if I get enough pay dirt uncovered.

God, I hope so,

because right now we need it.

[Rich laughs]

[Rich speaking]

[Vernon] Bring it on up.

-Look at that! -Whoo!

Look at that, it's trapped in a whole rock.

[bleep].

[Rich] We'll get some more.

[Chris] So I did all my checklists this morning.

It's cold this morning. Brutal, man,

Summer mining enters the final days.

But for Chris McCully, there's still time for another

golden payday.

There's always that light at the end of the tunnel.

You can see it right there. Gold's right there.

Gold's in front of me. Just got to chase it down.

That's it.

The crawler that I designed is ready to ship to Nome.

It'll move more material than any crawler in town.

This will be a lot more efficient

than having divers down there.

The crawler can go down up to 150 feet.

This is gonna be a game-changer.

Which is good because I'm falling behind my pace

to get the gold.

We're gonna be back in business here.

Ready?

Nice.

Now it's time for me to get suited up

and get some more gold today.

Once the crawler gets here, I'll be working on that,

and I won't be working on the Tata.

So I got to set up these guys on the good spot for the rest

of the season.

That's my main mission, is get the crawler up here.

This is the end of the old chapter, and the new one is

about to open.

Having a crawler will give me the ability not to rely

on divers.

And I'm gonna have a lot more gold coming in.

My dad is one of the most successful miners I know.

There's people out there think that

everything got handed to me. That's bull[bleep].

Growing up, I was never spoiled.

When I need something, I've always been told, I got

to go find a job, work for it. Nothing is free for me.

I work my ass off for everything I have.

Over the years, I put my head down and focused

on getting the gold.

Every successful person out there has haters.

I just brush it off.

They're not the one that's getting the gold.

I am.

And when the crawler gets here, I am gonna be

on another level.

[heavy breathing]

[Robert] Comms check.

[Chris speaking]

OK, I just got to the bottom.

[Chris speaking]

Hot water still feel good, or do you need me to turn it up?

[Chris speaking]

[Robert] All right, idling up.

[machine rumbling]

[Chris speaking]

He says he's already seeing gold, which is awesome.

[Chris speaking]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris speaking]

Back in the harbor...

[Joe] And we're off.

Time to make today count. We need some gold.

...Joe Fullwood's operating is firing on all cylinders

as he's about to face his biggest challenge yet.

[Joe] It's looking like Mike might have to jet out of here

a little bit early this season.

He's got family matters to attend to.

I'm not excited for that at all.

We're on a killer run, and it sucks to lose Michael

before the season's over.

I don't know if I'll be able to find another diver.

Certainly not someone as good.

We're gonna get on a stretch of this pay streak where Michael

can pull an eight hour marathon before he leaves.

We're gonna see what the current's doing, see what

the wind's doing, get out here and see how conditions are,

figure out which direction we want to end.

The forecast calls for some nasty currents.

Michael might be cutting his dive short.

Since this is Michael's last day, it's gonna put a lot

of pressure on me for the rest of the season.

[Michael] Growing up mining over here on the whole east side, I haven't

seen anything this rich before.

I've been diving since they first put wheels

on a dredge.

You know, that's how we used to get out.

Nothing bigger than an eight-inch.

We're talking like early '90s.

My dad would have loved to see all this.

You know, he's the OG...

of [bleep] gold dredging out here.

First summer mining, big learning curve.

Had no clue what he was doing out here in the ocean.

Sold his Mustang and came up here to Nome.

[Joe] My dad was a gold miner.

I'm born and raised on the beaches of Nome.

I've got mining in my veins.

Growing up, it was just all gold.

First job was gold.

Paid off my first vehicle with gold from the beach.

Just spent my entire life gold mining.

You learn to enjoy the simplest,

most honest things.

Hard work and food on the table.

I hope for future generations to be able to find

the consistency that I've found,

that the ocean's given me.

Ooh, it's cold out.

All right!

Whew!

All right, everything's running.

[Joe] Tear it up, man.

And he's off.

Ready to pile up some gold.

[Joe] Mic check.

[Michael speaking]

[Joe] Michael, check. Loud and clear.

Michael, check. Good to go.

[heavy breathing]

[Joe and Michael speaking]

[Joe] All right. Here goes.

[bleep] loaded.

We're on it.

[Joe] That dirt going through the box looks real good.

[Michael speaking]

[Joe speaking]

Pretty bad situation.

That's where this is at right now.

Damn.

[upbeat music playing]

We're just gonna clip it back on, tie it,

and we're going back to work. -OK.

I need this to work today.

Captain Kris reassembles their 80-foot hose...

determined to make sure they don't get hosed again.

The plan is to put the hose back together and put it

right back down.

We can't quit.

You know, I built this all in my head.

Some of the pieces could be better.

[banging]

I put these two hoses together, latched them together,

for a permanent fix.

Yeah.

Good job, buddy.

And this won't cause me another problem for the rest

of the season.

OK, let's get the crawler down.

[yelling] OK, down, Andy.

Keep going down.

We're OK.

We're back up and running.

We're back on it.

Everything's lining up kind of nice.

Are we OK, Andy?

[Kris] OK.

We're definitely moving material.

We're waiting to see a test pan.

That's great [bleep] news.

[Andy] Nice thick [bleep] --

[Kris] When you see that black [bleep],

that's where the gold is.

That's the ancient, smelly, untouched stuff.

You know what?

You just know you're making money.

I know I'm making money. I [bleep] smile

when it smells like [bleep].

I would like to look at the sluice box and just see

what's going on.

OK, we're gonna look at the sluice box real quick.

I'm seeing some gold in the ripples.

Damn!

-This is some chunky [bleep]. -[bleep] yeah.

-Whoo! -About [bleep] time.

This is what I need to see.

[Andy speaking]

[Kris speaking]

We're down 70 feet working ground that other miners

can only dream of.

No one else in Nome can do this.

Success. We're getting gold.

We're moving a lot of material.

Yeah, baby, we're killing it.

Across the sea...

[groans]

[Zeke speaking]

On this claim?

[Zeke speaking]

After hours enduring hard labor, Zeke Tenhoff

is getting rocked.

All right, buddy, that's your time.

[Zeke speaking]

[Gabe] Yeah.

[Zeke] This boulder field is vast, and I'm certain there's

probably hundreds of ounces of gold left under it.

But it's too difficult for us. I'm already worn out.

We're not gonna be able to do it the rest of the season.

So you want to keep -- we'll either keep mining here

or go try something else. -[Zeke] Chasing this hot stuff is...

kind of coming up dry.

Where I'm at with it is that we're fighting these conditions

like, every single dive. -[Zeke] Yeah.

-Everyone's just fighting it. -Yeah.

-And it's just, like, not... -Paying the bills.

I just -- I'm kind of...

I'm at the end of my rope with it.

It's a big risk to change the plan this late

in the season, but I need to make whatever decision I need to

to get us the most gold for what is left of the summer.

So we know that there's a bunch of ground right here that was

producing, and it's compared to what we've been doing,

it's easy and straightforward.

We don't have to deal with a bunch of big rocks.

There was a sand field we found

that looked promising earlier this season.

And the synergy is perfect for working through a lot of sand

really fast.

So we're gonna get Gabe down there on it.

[suspenseful music playing]

[machine whirring]

[suspenseful music continues]

[Gabe speaking]

How's it going for you?

[Gabe] There's a lot of heavies and black stuff.

If we can keep the hose full, I think we'll do fine.

Does this feel a lot easier?

[Gabe] I mean, yeah, this is so much easier, for sure.

Yeah, this boat is designed to do exactly this.

[Zeke speaking]

It does this very, very well.

[Gabe speaking]

The boat's designed to, like, go into the sand

and dredge, like, four or five feet of sand.

And, like, we've been trying to make this boat do something

different than that, and, like, we're just,

like, losing our ass doing that.

I'm sorry we just have been.

[Gabe] Pretty smooth sailing.

Back on land...

[Shawn] Yeah!

Oh, yeah, that looks good.

That's why I got this crew. They're [bleep] tough.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

And after piling up the pay dirt, the wash plant is back

up and running, and the inland mine is back to making gold.

We're rolling, but we're hanging on

by a string.

The whole team came together.

We got a bunch of pay piled up, and the wash plant

back up and running.

I don't want to be forced to shut it down, because if we do,

we may not get it started back up.

Cody, you take a look at that box.

Now you can see gold in the box.

The box should be looking real good by tonight.

Just trying to keep the wash plant fed, because we're down

to crunch time.

[Shawn] Loving it.

We're seeing some good color in the box,

I didn't get to look.

I was too busy down here trying to get more.

Now, I got to see some big numbers in the cleanup.

We haven't hit triple digits in a while.

So I want to see over 100 ounces on the scale.

We got to, because time's running out.

I like seeing the big timbers.

I like seeing the big lumber. They were following

something good and didn't want to lose it.

Working this pay streak the old timers work,

makes you think.

These guys traveled thousands of miles to get here, in search

of a better life for them and their families.

And that's what we're doing.

Not back in the triple digits yet.

Yet.

This next cleanup will be.

I'm just hoping it all adds up.

How's everything doing down there?

[Chris speaking]

With his new crawler just days away, Chris McCully is setting

the table with a golden meal that'll keep his divers fed.

[Chris] All right.

I open up this new cut for the divers, so all they got

to do is go down and get it.

[Robert] OK.

[Chris] When I get the crawler up here, Robert's gonna be one

of the divers on the Tata.

So I got to make sure he knows what he's doing.

[heavy breathing]

[Robert speaking]

All right, copy.

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] Oh, yeah, you're seeing the goal right now, huh?

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] Yeah, that's the material that you want to work on.

[Robert speaking]

I try my best to leave the new guy on a fresh cut so that

he can learn right away.

[Robert speaking]

[nervous vocalization]

Uh...

[Chris] Got a copy?

[Robert speaking]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert speaking]

[Chris speaking]

[Robert speaking]

They don't know the proximity between the suction and how

close can you get to the suction

without getting sucked up.

[Robert] Oh.

At the business end of the hose, suction must be

strong enough to cut through the ocean floor,

and suck up heavy minerals, like gold.

[Robert] There's definitely G everywhere.

And depending on the size of the pump, that could be strong

enough to pull off a glove.

Or even break bones.

My rule of thumb is, never put yourself in front

of the nozzle.

Doesn't matter what you're doing down there, never,

ever go in front of the nozzle.

Robert made a rookie mistake, and that's not good.

If your hand gets sucked up in there, you can break your arm.

And worst case scenario, another rock will get sucked up

and you get pinched.

That'll be the end of your career.

And Robert needs to learn quick because I won't be out here

watching him to keep him safe.

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] Hell yeah, buddy.

That's brought to you by Chris BG.

Enjoy while you can.

That's the good thing about working with me.

I teach people.

I put you on the gold, and you learn how

to get the gold.

Across the water...

-Yeah, hey, Richie. -[Rich] Yes, sir.

[Vernon speaking]

[Rich speaking]

Oh, that's excellent, Richie. That's excellent.

After landing the Adkison team back on gold,

diver Richie Huffman clears the six-hour mark.

OK, Richard. You can come on up.

[Rich speaking]

[Vernon speaking]

Richie's been listening and growing.

It's nice to see, and it's putting more gold

in the box.

Scott, you gonna dive?

[Scott speaking]

All right.

[bleep]

We got an operation going here.

Scott's been a diver for a long time,

but even he can start dragging ass

at the end of the season.

And that's what I saw last time out.

[Scott] Oh, I do not feel well.

[groans]

About two hours in, I hit a wall.

It can happen. So I got to stay on him, too.

Scott needs to kick it into high gear.

That gold ain't gonna jump in the box by itself.

I hate nagging, but we got to make it more efficient.

We got to rock and roll.

We're on good gold. I know he's tired.

I know he's worn out.

But we can't afford to slow down.

We can't afford to stop now.

[Vernon and Scott speaking]

He's seeing gold down there.

[Rich] We're back in business.

So Scott's saying there's some very good material down there.

[Scott laughs] Whoo!

[Vernon] Bring it on up.

[Scott speaking]

[Rich speaking]

It's a specimen!

[bleep] Look at that!

-Whoo! -Go get some more!

Go get some more! Holy!

Look at that.

That's an honor. That is a specimen.

Scott has uncovered a nugget of quartz and gold --

formed when dissolved gold is deposited onto quartz veins

in the earth's crust.

These nuggets are prized for their unique look.

And one this size can fetch hundreds

or even thousands of dollars.

[Rich speaking]

[Vernon speaking]

Scott found a nice souvenir.

Make a good piece of jewelry, a nice pendant.

He also put us on good gold, and that's what's important.

That's nice.

[Scott speaking]

[Vernon] I think we might have to send that home with you.

[Scott speaking]

[Scott laughs]

Hey, Robert, you're still on the cut?

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] Right on. Cool.

He sees all these cracks on the bottom, and he's seeing

the gold in it. And that's good.

That's good for me. At least he sees that.

With help from Captain Chris, diver Robert Wood is still

on the gold after nearly four hours.

[Chris] Yeah, follow that cut and then make sure

you're looking at the material.

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] Robert's doing OK. He's learning what I tell him.

But a lot of divers just phone it in when no one's

watching them. So I got to be on these guys.

Boom, that's it.

Hey, Robert. You got a copy?

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] You're pretty much at the end of your dive,

so whenever you're ready, just come up.

[Robert speaking]

[Chris] OK, copy that.

Awesome, dude. Four hours straight.

Not bad, not bad.

-Well, how did that go? -Pretty good.

-See what you did? -Yeah, I'm pretty excited.

It won't be the same as having me on the boat,

but hopefully Robert can be a good diver

while I'm on the crawler.

And then we'll kill it for the rest of the way.

That's it.

We're packed up and now we just gotta

head straight for the harbor.

The day went very well.

The boxes are really looking good already, so our work

definitely pays off.

It's a beautiful thing, It's a beautiful thing.

[Gabe speaking]

[Zeke speaking]

After their rock and roll days took their toll, sand is grand

for the Tenhoff team.

Hey, Gabe.

[Gabe speaking]

All right, I'll get you a tether.

[Gabe] It looks good.

[Zeke] Oh, [bleep]. Oh, my gosh.

There's gold here.

You're getting these good tells.

-Dog [bleep] simple. -Yo, that's tight.

-Yeah, that was good. -[bleep] tight, dude.

It's what we want to do.

[Zeke] Gold mining is a different way of life

in that there is no real rule book.

You kind of have to follow your intuition with some

of these decisions.

And so moving back over into this sand was definitely

the right decision.

We're just gonna have to put our foot on the gas for the rest

of the season.

[Gabe speaking]

Yeah, we got lots of room.

Lots of room here. It's gold in the box.

Coming in, easy program. Easy on everybody.

Should be a [bleep]load of that stuff.

[Zeke] I'm happy about it.

[Gabe] We're gonna make some money today.

[Scott and Vernon speaking]

[Rich] We got six-, eight-knot current going.

Look here.

This is gonna get very [bleep] nasty.

[Michael speaking]

On Claim 56, currents are currently an issue,

throwing Michael's eight-hour marathon and Joe's goal

for the season into jeopardy.

[Joe] Yeah, conditions are deteriorating fast.

We got a monster swell rolling through.

[Michael speaking]

[Joe] We got white caps on the horizon.

Swells are really kicking our ass out here today.

We'll stick around for a moment here.

Maybe the swell's gonna pass.

Michael's the best.

He's trying to put as much time as he can in before he leaves.

I don't want to fall behind pace, but I don't want him

to put himself in danger either.

Safety is what's most important

at the end of the day.

[Michael speaking]

[Joe] Michael's the ultimate pro.

If it's too tough for him, it's definitely time to call it.

You've got to survive to cleanup.

If you don't make it to the cleanup,

you ain't making any money.

[Michael speaking]

[Joe] Michael cut his dive short, but the sluice box is

looking amazing.

Might be the best gold we've been on all season.

Right down there, you can almost hear the gold.

Ooh-wa!

You hear that?

I see a lot of gold.

[Michael and Joe speaking]

OK, it's a good time to get this dirt out of here.

Let's head back to port.

Michael leaving puts me in a tough spot.

but I appreciate the sacrifices he made

to stay as long as he could.

These last few days, I've just been on bomb the whole time.

Yeah.

Super good ground.

While the Fullwood team heads in...

over on the Gold Ship...

[Scott grunting]

[Vernon speaking]

[Scott speaking]

The boat might have shifted. We've got conditions up here.

[groans]

[Rich] We've swung about 20 feet to the north.

Yeah, it looks like we've maybe pivoted

about 20 feet to the north.

[Scott speaking]

Does it still feel like to you that we're dragging?

[Scott speaking]

[Vernon speaking]

Given the present weather conditions, there's not much

we can do about it.

If it's not good, we'll bring him up.

[Scott groans]

[Vernon and Scott speaking]

I don't want to get into another situation like we had

a while back when the boat starts drifting very rapidly.

His umbilical and the anchor line are twisted.

[Scott and crewmate speaking]

[Rich and Vernon speaking]

[Scott speaking]

This is not working.

Not [bleep] working.

All right, we're gonna idle down.

Idle down, please.

We got a hell of a ripping current here right now.

[Scott speaking]

[Vernon] Yeah, OK.

[Scott speaking]

Look here, this is gonna get very [bleep] nasty

unless everybody pays attention and stays on task.

OK, hold on to it. We'll pull you up.

[Scott speaking]

[Scott grunts]

[Scott grunts]

Look at this. This is like a river.

-[Rich] I know. -Look at that.

[Rich] Yeah.

[Scott] The hose wasn't even touching the ground.

I had to just hold onto a rock down there and wait for them

to pull up the slack in my umbilical.

-That was not a good experience. -Breathtaking?

Yes, it was breathtaking. Well put.

[Vernon] Scott showed me something today.

Just like Richie, he pushed hard.

OK, that's enough. Enough.

Most divers would call it when those currents first kick up,

but Scott hung tough.

Everyone kept their heads and brought him up safely.

Top notch work.

These swells cut our day short, but we'll just have to see

how much we've got on the scales.

I think it was a good call to pull out.

There comes a point of diminishing return.

[Joe] This time of year, every cleanup can be your last.

As he faces an uncertain future...

[Joe] Turn this here dirt into some shiny yellow metal.

...the only certainty for Joe Fullwood is that this will

be his last clean out with Michael Kralik.

[Joe] It's a nice pile, dude.

Sucking that dirt up quicker than [bleep] ever.

This could be the last cleanup.

I don't know if I'm gonna find someone to

step in for Michael.

In the meantime, I need that scale to light up.

All right, here goes. Moment of truth.

What do we got?

One, five, ten, twenty...

31.1.

-Yeah, dude. -Good.

31.1 ounces banks the hometown team nearly 78 grand.

A strong goodbye gift from Joe's mining partner.

[Joe] Boo-yah.

Real good.

Beautiful work, dude.

[bleep] yeah, Michael.

Teaming up with another second generation miner and getting

the numbers we've been getting has been extra rewarding.

Take it straight to the [bleep] bank, huh?

Yeah.

[Joe] We're keeping the known mining lifestyle alive,

and now the heat is on.

I've got to find another diver and hope I can get over

the finish line in the time I have left.

That's beautiful.

Two miles away...

[Cody] Here we go.

[Shawn] It's getting colder, and it's gonna continue

to get colder.

Starting to come to the time of year we separate the men

from the boys.

After the big push, Shawn Pomrenke is looking

for an upward trend on the scale.

It looks good! Pack, pack, pack, pack, pack.

Every one of them is packed.

we need it to take a lot of pressure off.

This gold looks amazing. We're turning this around now.

Hard work pays off.

I've been working really hard to get to this point.

Better late than never.

That's a pretty pile of gold.

It's pretty thick through there.

[George] It's gonna be close.

It's been slow for weeks.

50, 60...

-That's not very good. -No.

-Just waiting on George. -Always.

But if we can break 100 ounces today, we still have a shot at

4,000 ounces.

[George] I think she's dry.

[Shawn] Man, that's pretty gold.

Oh, that's gonna be a good one.

We're gonna need a bigger jar for the next one.

That's a good pile of gold.

Oh, my god.

[Shawn] Yeah? Are we ready?

-20. -[George] 30.

50, 70...

-80. -90.

I just hit 100. Come on.

115.

115.2 ounces is worth $288,000.

Shawn's highest total in weeks.

And Mr. Gold may be on the verge

of finding his groove.

-We are back in triple digits. -[George] Thank god.

That's good.

[Shawn] We banded together.

We got the numbers back up, and we're on our way.

Next one's gonna be better.

This is big, not just for me, but for all of us.

We're on the home run stretch here.

We better keep pay dirt going to the plant.

We just got to push hard as hell to the end

and finish strong.

Next one we'll hit 200.

Back out on the water...

[suspenseful music playing]

I think this is the most material we've ever moved

with a suction operation.

[Kris] We're making craters underneath the ocean.

70 feet down, Kris Kelly's deep water crawler could be

helping Reaper Nation crawl out of debt.

[Kris] Everything's going great.

We had a great day with the crawler, lots of hours,

lots of material. Success!

Killing it.

It's getting kind of dark.

[Kris] Yeah.

This was a huge victory, and Kevin said they had

a killer day on the Mistress.

We'll clean that material when we get back.

Everything's coming together.

Reaper Nation firing on all cylinders,

don't underestimate me.

So we made it through the day.

We had a hard start and we finished strong.

This crawler definitely worked.

Claim X is paying off, and we're killing it.

Let's go, let's back up.

Pull it up.

[creaking]

OK, we made it. Let's get out of here.

This is real nice.

Everything's [bleep] going great.

[Andy speaking]

This is a dark harbor, but we're making this corner,

it's the dangerous corner of the whole thing, so...

To the right!

To the right!

To the right!

I gotta get a better captain.

[Kris] Wow!

One [bleep] thing or another.

What the [bleep]?

Hello and welcome to another edition

of Kris Kelly's Secret Guide to Successful Mining.

You know, some days it doesn't feel that successful.

Today we're gonna be talking about shopping in Nome.

Up in Nome, you have to be very resourceful.

You gotta get out there, you gotta go looking

for boat yards.

Remember, you're only trespassing if you get caught.

Right now, I'm gonna introduce Kevin, my shopping partner,

and my BFF for life.

What up, Kris?

Let's look around, because I know

we're gonna find something nice.

[Kevin] Let's go check it out.

Well, here's one of our treasures right here,

for example -- this is an electric motor.

This thing here is 480 volts. It'll save us 500 bucks a day.

I gotta get a deal on this. Throw that F-word out there.

Free.

-Free 99. -[Kris] Free.

You know what they say --

if it ain't for free, it ain't for me.

This is coming with us for sure.

Kevin wants to save this machine.

-Praise his name. -Save the machine, baby.

-Save the machine. -Big Blue's coming home.

Let's keep going.

I like to call the boat yards, land of broken dreams.

We hit the jackpot.

Somebody thought that boat was gonna make him a millionaire.

Turns out that dream became a nightmare.

The boat's still good.

They just couldn't find gold if they were laying on it.

[Kevin] Oh, yeah, this is a good motor right there.

This is sold.

Thank you very much for watching another episode

of Kris Kelly's Secret Guide to Successful Mining.

I hope these tips are helping you.

[Kevin] Yeah, baby, let's do it.

[Kris] I think we saved, like, 10 grand today.

[Kris] Wow!

One [bleep] thing or another.

[Kris] We had such a great day, and now this.

The steering's out on the all-in, so this 20-ton boat is

drifting in the darkness.

And if I hit a bunch of boats coming into the harbor,

I am [bleep], and it's all my hard work's

over in a blink of an eye.

OK, we're still fine.

Just twisting around. Everything's cool.

You know, we're not in any trouble yet.

Are you trying to turn the wheel?

[captain and Kris speaking]

[Kris] OK, we'll just tell him it's working.

He got it!

OK, crisis averted.

[bleep] piece of [bleep] boat.

Take a right.

What the [bleep] man?

We got some steering back, but it's not great.

It could be going better.

We're not totally out of control, just a little bit.

OK, straight!

OK, we're here.

Reverse!

OK, we're good.

[Kris] We got lucky.

OK, let's grab our bags and get the [bleep] out of here

before this boat blows up or catches on fire

or some [bleep] like that.

"All in the toilet," that's what we call this boat.

Good job, everybody. We made it!

Yeah!

We live to fight another day.

[Vernon speaking]

Vernon Adkison is hoping to light up the scale,

despite a day cut short.

We had to come in yesterday because of rough weather,

and now we got to do this clean up.

I'm tough on my crew sometimes,

but they're really starting to gel.

That's why I do it, and that's what will get us

a strong finish for the season.

All right.

Here it goes. Let's see how we got here.

One, two, three...

four, five...

eight...

10, 12, 15...

15.87.

15.87 ounces is worth nearly $40,000.

And Vernon's team proves they're sea-ready at the most

critical time of the season.

[Vernon] I'd say that's a pretty good day's work.

We got a chance of going home with some serious gold

in our pockets.

All I gotta say is, keep up the good work.

Back in Nome...

Hey.

-[Kevin] Hey. -How's it going?

-What's up, man? -[Kris] I'm [bleep] beat.

You ready to see how much we got?

[Kris] Yes, sir. Put me in a good mood.

I got the crawler on amazing ground.

Now, I'm gonna see how Kevin did on the Mistress.

All right, here it goes, man. You ready?

Yeah.

One...

-Five. -[Kris] Six, seven, eight.

There's 10.

-There's 15. -Good, good.

18.

-There's 20. -That'll pay some bills.

There's 25.

[Kris] 30.

OK.

[Kevin] 30.9 ounces.

[Kris] Great.

30.9 ounces is worth over 77 grand.

It's Reaper Nation's best clean out yet.

And Kris Kelly may have righted his ships

in the nick of time.

[Kevin] That's a pretty good amount, dude.

-I'm pretty excited over that. -[Kris] You did great.

-Good job. -[Kevin] I'm happy with this cleanup,

to be honest with you.

I'm happy with this cleanup, too.

Everything's great. We just need to grind away.

We need to keep going.

So, let's just go back out there and hit it hard.

[Kris] Yeah, OK.

[Kris] For the first time this season, everything is coming together.

And if I keep doing this, I'll pull off my summer.

We have just enough to keep pushing, so let's just keep

pushing, strong.

[Kevin] With a winning attitude like that, we'll never lose.

Across town...

We're already getting to the end of our season here.

We're gonna do a clean out today.

I'm actually quite excited to weigh the gold

that we get today.

We've been putting a lot of hours in the box,

and I try to teach Robert after I put him on the gold.

This cleanup would be a good test to see how these guys

perform without me.

It feels pretty hefty.

Here we go.

Four, six, eight...

10, 12...

25, 27, 28, come on.

36.

Ooh, 38.9.

Whoo!

Whoa.

38.9 ounces is worth nearly $100,000.

Wow, good job.

And the captain's faith in divers,

may have turned a corner.

Yeah, wow.

Once I get the crawler up here, I'm gonna have

two dredges burning gold.

And this is what I've been waiting for.

Job well done.

[Chris] Hey. How's it going?

So far, so good. Can't complain.

We're able to get our hours in and yeah.

What you got for me today?

[chief speaking]

[bleep]

[chief speaking]

[Chris] Thank you for letting me know.

And, yeah, now I can plan accordingly, so...

[chief speaking]

Bye.

I wanted the crawler to be up here this summer,

and it's not gonna happen this year.

That's gonna mess up my plans.

It really sucks because I might not hit my goal this summer.

What the [bleep], dude?

Joe Fullwood keeps up his ferocious pace,

while Vernon makes every hour count.

Next time on "Bering Sea Gold."

Time's getting short.

[Joe] She's getting close to the end out here.

Everything's on the line.

This is it. No time to mess around.

[Shawn] Snow on the mountains.

The dirt's starting to freeze.

Got to make hay while the sun shines.

[Kris] Come on, let's get that gold.

Oh, yeah!

[Scott yells]

[bleep].

I'm here to make money,

and I'm gonna do whatever it takes.

If we don't get that started, we're not gonna make any gold.

[Gabe] Whoo-hoo-hoo!

I [bleep] smell gold!

I see gold in this sluice box! I know I'm getting gold!

Nice job, George.

[Vernon] Yippee ki yay!

[Zeke] That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, my god.

[Chris] Can't stop, won't stop.

Yeah, get in there, boy! Whee!