This is the outside podcast.

On a Sunday morning in 2017, Matthew Bryce went surfing in Scotland where he lived.

There was a brisk offshore wind, which is kind of what you want.

And there wasn't anyone else in the water, which is also what you want.

Kind of.

I read about Matthew a few months later and got on the phone with him a few weeks after that. He had been

blown out to sea on his surfboard and rescued after 32 hours closer to Ireland than Scotland.

And as soon as we talked, I knew the episode was going to be good, which is why we're replaying it

today while we gear up for the new episodes we have coming later this year. But telling his story was also going to be tricky.

We were making our second batch of Science of Survival episodes at the time. And one of the

hallmarks of those stories was that they were told in the second person by this omniscient narrator.

The problem was Matthew told his story beautifully. So beautifully, we had to figure out a way to use

his interview. It took a long time to figure out. But eventually, we found a transition point

where the story goes from mostly external,

the physical challenges of spending a day and a half on a surfboard to mostly internal,

the mental and emotional challenges of being lost at sea.

From that point on, as much as possible, we try to let Matthew tell the story in his own words.

And the piece turned out to be, I think, one of the most emotional, visceral, and unique stories we've gotten to tell on this show.

A survival tale directly from someone who lived through something extraordinary.

And a piece that simply is not the same to read about as it is to listen to.

There are a dozen little anecdotes I could tell about making this episode,

but none of them are as interesting as just listening to Matthew.

...