For someone known for reaching Earth’s most geographically inaccessible places, Ross Turner seems remarkably at home in the still, slightly trapped air of the Royal Geographical Society in London. The place is deserted but full of ghosts: Shackleton’s Burberry helmet lurks in the collection and maps of a 17th-century world hang in the hallway. Alongside his identical twin, Hugo, who joins us on speakerphone from the Lake District, Turner is drawing on this legacy: The pair are professional adventurers, diving deep and roaming wide, rowing across the Atlantic and climbing Mt. Elbrus, Europe’s tallest mountain. The 34-year-old brothers—who have the old-fashioned manners expected, somehow, of explorers—have spent the past decade on death-defying missions with modern preoccupations: to do a survey of plastic quantities in the ocean, for instance. Their endeavors were motivated after Hugo broke his neck while diving at the age of 17. Having regained the ability to walk, he decided to live life to the fullest—alongside Ross, whose fledgling rugby career was ended by a broken leg—in some of the most treacherous environments on the planet. When it comes to water, the Turner twins understand its depths more than most, confronting it as ice, snow and ocean, while always ensuring they have enough of it to survive.