The stories of the sea are hidden from us.
Below the shifting surface,
a blue world exists.
Secret journeys are underway
on invisible blue highways.
And an odyssey is beginning...
... million years ago
turtles lived on land.
When the dinosaurs came
they ran away to the sea...
...and became creatures of
the tides and the currents.
But the land did not want to let them go
and demanded payment.
So it is that every sea turtle
must return to the land to lay its eggs.
And every baby turtle must
start its life buried alive.
She has been digging for three
days to reach the surface.
Her shell is still soft and she is no
bigger than the palm of a child's hand.
With no teeth; No defenses;
She has only her will.
The sea is just metres away.
But for her, so small, the
beach is a great divide.
She is not alone.
Every year from the start of
spring nearly two million...
...loggerhead turtles are born
on the beaches of Florida.
Sbe has only one thought...
To escape.
The land is not her place.
She has just minutes to reach the sea.
Minutes to live or die.
From the land and the air,
hundreds of hatchlings are taken.
With all her might she confronts the waves.
But many are thrown back by the surf.
As many as half can perish
in the first hours of their life.
She keeps going.
With flippers the size of butterfly wings
she pulls herself free of land's hold...
...and into the unknown abyss of the sea.
Now she is a pilgrim in
a vast Atlantic Ocean...
...and has begun one of the
greatest journeys on the planet.
But she will never forget
where she was born.
All around her the new world of
the sea changes and flows...
Liquid and elemental.
She keeps swimming for
two days and two nights.
Then the water suddenly
turns a clear crystal blue.
She's reached the winding
edge of the Gulf Stream,
a powerful current flowing
up from the Caribbean...
...all the way to the North Atlantic.
A great warm river moving with a flow
times that of the Amazon.
This will be her pathway through the ocean
just as it has been for generations...
...of loggerheads before her.
She pushes on, deep into
the flowing heart of the Gulf Stream.
And every few minutes she
must come to the surface.
Like all reptiles the little
turtle must breathe air.
After more than seventy kilometres,
she finds what she is looking for.
A raft of seaweed...
A life raft.
And for the first time in her life,
she surrenders to sleep.
Now she belongs to the
arms of the great current.
For hundreds of kilometres
along the Gulf Stream,
the rafts of sargassum weed carry...
...thousands of little nurseries northward.
There is no turning back.
Other journeys are underway.
The Gulf Stream is the
ocean's great highway.
Each spring the sea's
restless nomads travel...
...fast and far on the current's flow,
Heading to the North
Atlantic's feeding grounds...
...in time for summer.
The humpback has come
from the Caribbean.
She has made this journey
a dozen times in her life.
And is heading even further
north than the others...
To the Arctic, kilometres away.
But the tiny turtle has the
most incredible journey of all.
She can only travel at
the speed of her raft...
Eight kilometres an hour...
The speed of the Gulf Stream current.
She must trust in her past...
In all the many millions of years...
...turtles just like her have swum...
...for the safety of the open sea
to be carried inevitably...
...across the mighty Atlantic.
For now, the raft is her whole world.
And she'd like to claim it all for herself.
But there are others who
were here before her.
Schools of fish that gather
for shelter and food.
And those who spend their entire
lives inside the tangled weed.
And who cannot exist without it.
Like travellers in a circus
caravan, each one is different.
A little odd...
A little awkward...
A little magic.
And they are all hungry.
The seahorse favours tiny shrimp.
Which reminds her... she's hungry too.
There is room for everyone.
However strange.
And if it starts to get crowded...
Vacancies do come up.
But they are her
travelling companions now.
And in the vast expanse of blue,
the raft is their only retreat.
But the long weed lines
attract others from the deep.
She is a blue shark, young and hungry.
For the first few years of her life,
she has been cruising in
and out of the Gulf Stream.
Raiding the rafts.
One day they will meet again.
For both share the same
journey through the ocean.
Below her the sea descends,
falling into the abyss.
A place that has forgotten sunlight.
A place that makes its own stars.
Darkness loving creatures rise towards her
to sift the Gulf Stream water...
...for microscopic food.
This nightly movement to the surface
is the largest migration on earth.
And from the Caribbean to
Florida, coral reefs...
...cast their spawn into the current just as...
...plants release their seeds upon the wind.
Such a flotsam of life is
loosened into the Gulf Stream.
Everything that can not move itself is lifted
and taken, channeled and directed north.
But there are eddies lurking
on the edge of the current...
Exit ramps into the unforgiving Atlantic.
And those not strong to choose their own...
...direction might find
themselves suddenly abandoned.
As dawn approaches, the night
drifters sink downwards,
shunning all light but their own...
Going with the flow.
The little turtle sleeps
on, trusting in the sea...
For it has brought her safely this far.
She cannot know that an
eddy has caught her raft,
stolen it out of the Gulf Stream.
And while so many others will
continue their journeys north,
she awakens to the sudden
stillness of the Sargasso Sea...
... kilometres wide, it is a stagnant
sea in the middle of the North Atlantic.
Without wind or current,
the sailing ships of old...
...were often marooned here for months.
But today's ships don't need
the wind and the current.
The creatures of the raft
were not magic after all,
but small and fragile.
Only the little turtle can
survive without the raft.
Alone now, she swims deeper and
deeper into the stillness...
Further and further from the Gulf Stream.
What drifts into the
Sargasso Sea seldom leaves.
The oil left by ships willl be here for years.
There is no tide to wash and
cleanse the trails of blackness.
Oil chokes young turtles.
And what the land discards,
also collects here.
How shiny it is...
How tempting to a hungry turtle...
And if she swallows it, she could die.
Her hunger possesses her...
She forgets everything
but her need for food...
Even her fear...
Delicate veils sway gently in
the water and lure her in.
The tentacles of the Portugese
man of w*r are venemous.
They stun their victims,
envelop and absorb them.
But after sharing the ocean with them
for so many millions of years...
...the turtles have developed
an immunity to their stings.
And a taste for their rubbery tentacles.
At last, she is not just prey but predator.
And now that she knows the
rules, there's plenty to eat.
Years pass in this forgotten sea...
...but what does a turtle
care for a few lost chapters.
Time for her is centuries, millennia.
Her ancestors saw the continents form
more than million years ago.
They survived the great cataclysms
of asteroids and glaciers.
They outlived their old foes the dinosaurs.
Time is for her to grow strong.
For her shell to harden
and her skin to thicken.
And so she becomes an ocean traveller.
Close to her fifth birthday,
when she is nearly half a metre long,
she suddenly charts a course
away from the Sargasso sea.
As if her ancestors have reminded her.
Her flippers like wings
were made for travelling,
not for staying.
And she swims, sure and strong now.
After several months she
rejoins the Gulf Stream...
...in time for the spring migration north.
At last she can continue her
journey on the great current.
She takes her place among the other
travellers of the blue highway.
The blue shark is here too.
But the turtle is no longer afraid of her.
She is bigger now and
her shell much harder.
And the shark, now pregnant,
is riding the Gulf Stream...
...to the other side of the
atlantic where she will give birth.
It's a journey she will make
every two or three years...
...for the rest of her life.
How fast and sure the blue shark swims...
And how a young turtle
might envy such confidence.
Nearly , kilometres from her beach,
she approaches the wild
waters of the North Atlantic.
Far out at sea, a spring storm brews.
It sweeps toward the coast of Nova Scotia.
Waves, bigger than
whales, bigger than ships.
In just a few days they carry her...
...several hundred kilometres
northeast along her path.
But the storm follows a different course
to that of the Gulf Stream...
...and takes her like a
c*ptive toward the shore.
Exhausted, she can not
catch her breath enough...
...to dive below the battering waves.
She is thrown towards the rocks.
Land reaches out to reclaim her... As if
it has never forgiven her for leaving.
The jagged shores of Nova Scotia
will smash her shell open.
They have claimed many turtles before.
Sailors and fishermen too have d*ed here.
Only the lucky survive to
continue their journeys.
The storm has blown her off
course but she is not lost.
A turtle is never lost.
Using the magnetic lines
of the earth that run...
...from north to south like invisible wires,
she can determine her
location anywhere in the sea.
She has within her not just a compass
but a map of the ocean world.
And a resolve to follow the
path chosen by her ancestors.
The safest passage they could find
through a perilous ocean...
...to a distant and unknown destination.
After only a few days,
she is back in the flow of the Gulf Stream.
She rides it even further
north in time for summer.
Almost kilometres north of Florida,
she reaches the Grand Banks.
Halfway between Canada and Europe
a cold current from the Arctic...
...collides with the warmth
of the Gulf Stream...
...and stirs up a dense brew of nutrients
from the sea floor.
Creatures of the cold north glide
through the fog towards her.
Basking sharks sweep
up reams of plankton.
Solitary molar tour for jellyfish.
Maybe the blue shark is here too...
Slipping through the jade coloured water...
...like a secret friend.
Now she fears another silent predator...
Winter.
The water is getting colder and colder.
Icy eddies reach into the Gulf Stream.
Her reptile heart begins to slow.
Here the humpbacks leave the Gulf Stream
and turn north towards the Arctic.
Protected by their thick blubber,
they can cope with the freezing water.
As their songs fade, the
cold whispers to her...
And promises her sleep.
But then the sky lights
up as if to remind her...
...she must listen to only herself...
To the knowledge she was born with.
This play of fire and light is charged
by the earth's magnetic field...
...and it is this invisible chord of energy
that guides her safely through the winter...
...and across the North Atlantic.
By the beginning of her sixth
year, she has travelled...
...more than seven thousand kilometres...
...from her beach towards
the coast of Europe.
Even though she has
never been here before,
she knows the way.
Unwavering in her sense of direction,
she leaves the Gulf
Stream and bears south...
...on the Canaries current, towards Africa.
Towards warm seas.
Towards the summer of the Azores islands.
From the ocean floor to
the top of their peaks,
the Azores are some of the
tallest mountains in the world...
... kilometres west of Africa,
it is the great crossroads of the Atlantic.
And every summer the sea's wanderers
big, small, fast and slow converge...
...for a celebration of life and plenty.
Shoals of fish swim together
tighter and tighter...
...into a whirling bait haul.
A feast.
She is not quick enough to
join in the main event...
...but she can catch the stragglers.
The blue shark has made it too...
...though perhaps a little
faster than the turtle.
She has chosen to give
birth in these waters...
...for she was born her seven years ago.
And now she can rest before
beginning her journey...
...back across the Atlantic.
Pods of female sperm whales
stay here for most of the year,
raising their young in the deep water.
And in the summer the
males come all the way...
...from the Arctic to mate.
They are the ocean's deepest divers...
...and can descend more
than three kilometres...
...in search of giant squid.
But even they can't reach the bottom here.
Along the shallower shore of the Azores
she finds a retreat from her years...
...in the open sea.
A confident adolescent
sixty centimetres long,
she can now hold her breath
for up to half an hour.
And with a sharp beak
and powerful jaw she's...
...now capable of eating more than jellyfish.
It's been a long time since those
first terrifying minutes of her life.
Finally she has her revenge.
It's crunchy and very sweet.
She's not the only one to have
savoured the taste of crab.
Other young loggerheads have made it too.
Some managed to ride the Gulf
Stream current directly...
...all the way from Florida.
They have been here for years.
And maybe others have explored the ocean
as far as the Mediterranean and Spain.
And there may even be one from her beach.
The days shorten.
September slips across the sky.
And the turtle chooses once
again her solitary way.
With summer's end a great exodus begins.
The male sperm whales leave for the Arctic.
Others follow different pathways,
their own ancestral routes,
invisible but indelible.
The secret blue highways of the sea
lead every creature to its destiny.
And that takes the turtle
south towards the equator.
Once there was the fearsome mosasaur...
...and the terrasaurs with
their claws and teeth.
They have long gone.
Now the long lines uncoil.
And the man made hooks glitter.
Each year more than a
billion hooks are cast...
...to reap the sea.
The hook pierces her mouth.
The lines pull her to the surface.
Every year, tens of thousands
of turtles die from long lines.
Were it not for a single act
of kindness, so would she.
For the shark, for her,
only her fins are taken.
Her silver body will never again...
...flash and stream through
the depths and shallows.
Ghosts haunt the empty seas.
Ghosts of whales, of dolphins and sharks.
Ghosts of all we have taken.
Now there are not enough
left to eat the jellyfish.
We have asked too much of the sea.
The turtle only knows to keep swimming,
to stay her course.
She crosses back over the Atlantic
on the Equatorial Current.
And within only four months
she reaches her destination...
The islands of the Caribbean.
Coral fans welcome her in.
Meadows of coral.
And reefs of fish.
So much flourishes in the
Caribbean's steady seasons.
And she becomes a part of this. A citizen
of the turquoise and sapphire sea.
Her ancestors traced their
long route through the sea.
So that she would arrive her only when
she was big enough to look after herself.
With her powerful jaws,
she can now cr*ck open
the hardest of shells.
And she won't hesitate to give...
...a three metre long
lemon shark a nasty bite.
If she had come here before now,
she would never have survived.
In her blue submarine
world she could not know...
...what was happening above the surface.
She could not know of the
great warming of the earth...
...and the rising of the sea.
But her ancestors have seen
far greater changes...
...and survived them all.
They have seen so many of our
planet's creatures come and go.
Whatever whisper from the distant past
brought her here asks her to wait.
For fifteen years.
And when she reaches her st year...
A new and insistent yearning stirs.
Now a magnificent adult more than
a metre long and a metre wide,
she leaves the Caribbean.
She passes the humpbacks that give birth
in the shallow waters around the reefs.
For it is spring.
And it is her time now.
The invisible lines are
still there for her to read.
She swims out to a familiar highway...
To the Gulf Stream.
The life stream.
She passes the rafts that
gave her sanctuary...
...all those years ago.
And the great spring migration.
She leaves the Gulf Stream and turns west
into the shallow outlying waters.
The road that took her away
all those years ago,
now brings her back.
Other loggerhead turtles have survived.
He too has swum the great arc
through the sea...
...and returned here.
Without each other,
their journeys, their lives,
would be in vain.
They are the precious survivors.
Just one in ten thousand make it this far.
But their lives are not for sharing.
And this last part of the journey
is most especially hers to complete alone.
Now she uses not so much
her ancestral memory...
...to guide her but her own.
For she has been here before...
More than twenty years
and , kilometres ago.
She finds a very different land
to the one she left behind.
Defences built to protect
the land from the rising sea.
Must seem to her a maze
of strange, dead reefs...
...blocking her way.
Having fought so hard to escape the land,
she now fights to return.
This time the surf carries her in.
Tall new shadows and their
false stars now crowd the land.
But her beach is still here.
It has been protected.
All her life has been
preparation for this moment.
Six thousand times her hatchling size,
she has returned to the
beach where she was born.
And for this night she trades her sea grace
for land's gravity.
She digs a hole half a metre deep.
And pays her debt to the land.
This ancient offering is the
purpose of her journey...
...of her whole life.
She is a mother.
She has triumphed.
For more than half a century,
she will continue to live in the Caribbean.
Returning here every two or
three years to lay her eggs.
She will not be the one to break
this ancient chain of life.
Turtle: The Incredible Journey (2009)
Moderator: Maskath3