On tonight’s episode of Gold Rush: White Water we see how easy it is to mix signals and screw up simple communications when the backdrop is a noisy raging creek, and everyone is on high alert for safety.
In Monsters and Critics’ exclusive clip, the mood goes from outright anger to levity in a split second as the two divers, Carlos and Rich, are suited up and descend into the roiling McKinley Creek, except they both think the other is in their spot under water and Fred is trying to manage it all above, as the two divers are telling him what’s happening.
Rich will dive alongside Carlos with Fred in charge of “comms”, which stands for communications.
With two divers in the water, the crew can get back to chasing millions of dollars of gold on the bed just seven feet from the bottom of Dustin’s hole.
In his head-gear and suited up to manage the chatter, Fred says: “Do you need a basket?”
Underwater, Carlos says: “I actually do — you read my mind.”
Fred tells the camera: “Both the divers are working about six to eight feet apart. I am looking over their material, they have good material coming out of there.”
Then Rich radios up and complains that the silt is too thick and that Carlos is in his workspace. “I just wish I could see something” he says. “I’ve got Carlos here.”
“I see you too man!” Carlos replies, but he thinks Rich has strayed on to his side of the creek and he’s irate about this.
Profanity ensues between the two men underwater. “Carlos…you are right in the middle!” says Rich.
Dustin is laughing above the water as he can see the guys are smack in the middle of the creek and are all over each other.
He says: “Everybody is working together and we are digging in the same hole, this is our ticket to get to the gold.”
The Alaskan wilderness is full of riches — and certain death for the unlucky or unprepared.
The Dakota crew survive and manage the cold with the help of heated wetsuits to dive beneath the freezing plunge pools.
Last season, the Dakota Boys dealt with a landslide and flash flood that decimated their mine site. Now they are upping the ante, adding men and bigger suction dredges to get that gold they know lies on bedrock beneath the creek bed.
“Dakota Fred” Hurt brings a lifetime of experience to the gig, as a former commercial diver in the 1960s and 1970s on oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico.
Joining him this season are son Dustin, Marine Sgt. Carlos Minor, Texan brothers Wes and Paul Richardson, greenhorn Rich Webster and Arizona miner Casey Morgan.
Make sure to tune in to see what Carlos and Rich pull out of the deep.
Gold Rush: White Water airs on Fridays at 10/9c on Discovery.