01x03 - Search in the Deep

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Encased in steel capsules,

man ventures forth from the friendly
environment of Earth to space beyond,

to the waters below,
in search of the unknown.

So the new submarines of Calypso
enter a landscape long forbidden,

a dark and silent world.

Past old boundaries,
they descend to new frontiers.

What had seemed alien
and full of menace

will grow familiar and
reveal itself in beauty.

Only when he can range wider,
stay longer, go deeper,

can man learn to utilize the
incredible wealth of the sea.

November 10th.

Word has come from Marseille.

The final adjustments have been
made on our new submarines.

Today they will be shipped
to us in Madagascar.

The historic dockyards of Marseille

are witness to the
transfer of two vessels

whose exploits may one day
make a major contribution

to the science of oceanography.

Their pressure hulls are high grade
steel, almost a half inch thick.

There are four wide-angled
observation ports,

three inches of solid plexiglass.

They are submarines,
but they are no ordinary submarines,

nor is their mission ordinary.

They are destined for the oceanographic
research vessel, Calypso.

Each weighing 4,000 pounds,

the mini-subs are jet propelled
by powerful streams of water

from their two rotating
nozzles at the bow.

Three feet in width,
six and a half in length.

The pilot lies prone
while cameras film him.

Outside, two more cameras are mounted
in a bank of thousand-watt floodlights,

for these submarines are
designed as much to film

as to search and investigate.

Our one-man mini-subs
were spawned from Denise,

the two-man diving saucer
we constructed in 1959.

Denise was small and maneuverable,

but we wanted even
more maneuverability.

Denise was slow and
limited to 1,000 feet.

We wanted more speed
and twice that depth.

So we created a new submarine

with a smaller and stronger hull

and sophisticated, miniaturized
machinery, the mini-sub.

By using two mini-subs at the same
time, safety will be increased,

and they will carry cameras and
lights to film each other in action.

After six years of design,
construction, and testing,

we're ready now.

January 14th.

Calypso steams toward Europa
in the southern Indian Ocean,

a tiny island 200 miles
west of Madagascar.

Two projects take them to Europa.

One is to study the mating grounds
of the great green sea turtle.

Secondly, the island is a good
location for testing the mini-subs.

No matter how often we see them,

when a large school of dolphins
comes to race Calypso,

we crowd the rail.

Deloire enters the hatch to
Calypso's observation chamber.

It is in the bow,


Down here, we can clearly hear the
squeaks and clicks of the dolphins.

Two hundred pounds of fine-tuned
muscle, massive spine, and flukes.

In motion, he is one of the most
perfect examples of streamlining.

Now, we are just watching
the dolphins play with us.

One day, we will live among them
to film their complex social life

in the natural environment of the sea.

January 19th. Europa, 300 miles
off the southeast coast of Africa.

Six miles in diameter with
a shallow brackish lagoon

and miles of brilliant beaches.

The charts are incomplete,

but apparently there is a favorable
test site for the mini-subs.

Captain Maritano chooses his anchorage.

Now with the ship firmly secured
after a bouncing week at sea,

the turtle-like subs must be stripped

and every element
inspected and retested.

Designed by the Cousteau
team of scientists and engineers,

each carries a cluster of sophisticated
devices for propulsion,

navigation, and life support.

The motor that generates
the jet streams

is carried in the fiberglass
framework outside the hull.

So are the lead-acid batteries.

In the event of leaking
gases or engine fires,

the pilot is safe from harm.

Seven days have been scheduled
to check out hull, motors,

valves, batteries, and controls.

There is ample time to
start another search.

Somewhere in the
waters beneath Calypso

is the mating ground
of the green sea turtle.

In the waters around Europa,

life flourishes unmarred
by human intervention.

No one comes here to fish,
no tankers dump their filth.

The water is clear and unpolluted,
the coral intact.

Here nature has struck a
balance and here it remains.

Man's fatal need to strip and spoil and
scar has not yet reached this island.

Somewhere in this liquid paradise,

there lies the love
ground of the turtles.

At twilight, Bonassi encounters
two exceptionally large stingrays

that have settled down to rest.

Roused from their sandy
blanket by his approach,

they circle warily and move off.

As Bonassi swims round a coral
outcropping to head off the rays,

he is suddenly confronted by an
incredible gathering of turtles

preparing for their
march from the sea.

It is January 20th.

Throughout the African summer,
from November to April,

the primitive, eternal,
stirring in their blood

brings them back to Europa.

They come from Mozambique
and Madagascar,

from Obia, Mombasa and
the shores of the Comoros.

North along the trenches,

south from their pastures
on sunken reefs,

all the way from far Cape Guardafui.

Some will swim a thousand miles or
more before their journey is done.

Shy, lumbering, perhaps
a hundred years old

and four times that many
pounds in flesh and carapace.

Yet, somehow, in the sea,
they have uncommon grace.

By the thousands, they gather as
they have gathered for centuries,

to wait the moment of partnership.

The gentle ladies and
the fat-tailed bulls.

January 22nd.

Verifications on the mini-subs are
still keeping the technicians busy.

Today, the divers will establish
a base camp on the island

to study the turtles
when they come ashore.

The cool, seductive beauty of Europa

does not persist much further
inland than her beaches.

She is not hospitable to human life.

Over all the flatland of her interior,
there hangs a fetid, marshy odor.

Her waters are undrinkable.

Only the most hardy could hold
on to life, and many have failed.

The few pathetic attempts to settle
on Europa have ended in tragedy.

Thirst took them, or perhaps
disease, or even loneliness.

They left no records but their graves.

Little endures but stone,

the ancient coral that
had built the land itself.

Along the shore, the silent,
angular frigate birds keep watch.

On Europa, the bird and the turtle are
strange partners in nature's scheme.

For most of the day, Falco,
cameraman Mackay,

divers Sumian, and Bonassi

have trekked the island seeking
the most popular nesting sites

for the great sea turtles.

Like every member of Calypso's team,
Falco plays many roles.

Diver and operations chief,
technician and navigator.

He is also a skilled naturalist.

Living as he has so intimately and
long among creatures of the sea,

Falco has come to know their
secret lives and private ways,

as few will ever know them.

As the tide comes in,
the great shells form a line,

waiting their turn to come ashore,

looking for an easy slope to climb.

Some are returning to the
same 200-yard stretch of beach,

where they last laid their eggs,
perhaps two years ago.

How do they know?

How can they tell,
without exploring it,

which stretch of beach will offer
them safe nesting for their eggs?

What marvelous instinctive memory
survives in the cells, from age to age,

to bring them here with such precision?

They are the oldest
type of living reptiles,

more ancient in lineage
than the dinosaur.

Once, they were land creatures.

Gradually, one branch of the
family has chosen the sea.

Their shells lengthened.

Their feet became flippers.

They became well
adapted to marine life,

but they still must come
ashore to lay their eggs,

as the incubation of eggs
requires warmth from the sun.

Besides, although the adult turtles
can stay submerged for hours,

the newly hatched must
breathe frequently.

The nest must be on land.

Awkward and gentle, armed
with neither tooth nor claw.

The female is defenseless now.

Any hunter can take her with ease.

But here, no one has ever hunted her.

She is protected by law, and
by 200 miles of isolating sea.

Here, the nights are safe,
and the sands abundant.

With her wide front flippers first,

she digs a basin large enough
to accommodate her.

The sand she can't help flinging
on the lenses of her eyes

is washed away by a
steady flow of tears.

The task demands an Olympian effort

from creatures who have shed
the muscle structure needed

to carry their weight on land.

Once the basin is prepared,

the hind flippers begin
to drill a cylindrical well.

The eggs will be deposited there,

well beyond the reach
of coconut crabs.

And then, it is time.

Each nest contains
almost exactly 100 eggs.

Soft and tough, they will stay
in the sand for nearly 60 days

before the young emerge.

She has carried the promise of
life many thousands of miles.

This is why she has come,

and this is why the frigate birds wait.

This has been a pilgrimage,

a return to the land from whence
they came millions of years ago.

Here, at this essential juncture
of their present and their past,

not just individual animals,

but all the race is
temporarily in jeopardy.

Often the labors last all night.

She must return before
the sun gets high.

Caught away from the water,
she will bake and die.

Even if the sun is hidden by cloud,

the immense effort of lifting
her carapace to breathe

will exhaust her.

Even after she reaches the sea,

she will not be home
until the tide comes in.

She will wander among the coral heads,
seeking a passage channel to the deep.

Confused with exhaustion perhaps,

this turtle has climbed
inland as the day returns,

away from the saving sea.

Her navigation powers,
precise enough to take her

over 1,400 miles of empty
sea to a tiny island landfall,

have fatally let her down.

Another one has
blundered into a root.

She cannot walk backwards and is
too weakened to just bulldoze ahead.

Along the beach, there is
grim witness to her future.

Soon, like many of her sisters,
she will be through.

The sun will have done its work.

The hermit crabs will start on theirs.

While Falco and Bonassi mount
a rescue of the trapped turtle,

far up on the dune, Gupil and
Bernard have found the lost one

and turned her around to the sea.

This species developed an original,
deferred child-bearing scheme.

Directly after having
deposited her eggs,

the female is ready to mate and
conceive young for the next egg-laying,

two or three years hence.

So, courtship dances follow egg-laying,
and the lady leads the reel.

It is she who remains
on watch for danger.

It is she who decides when
the pair will surface to breathe.

The male just closes his eyes
and clings firmly onto his mate.

Then, the partners go
their separate ways.

January 27th.

The week is up.

Mollard reports the
mini-subs are ready.

Today, Falco will make a preliminary
dive in number one.

The complex routine of checklist and
countdown must be precise and complete.

The directional gyro on the mini-sub

is aligned with Calypso's
own gyro compass,

with headings called down
from the bridge by intercom.

Oxygen supply, hydraulic
pump and pressures,

emergency escape gear,

controls free and functioning.

Communications good.

Whenever we test something
new in the field for the first time,

the atmosphere aboard
becomes silent and tense.

Falco and I have been together
now for more than 15 years.

I often feel I have delegated
my eyes to him.

I identify with his reports
as if I had lived them.

This is a moment when the
full resources of Calypso

concentrate upon
a single focal point.

Each man has his station,
each his responsibilities.

There are few orders,
little talk of any kind.

A final check on the line telephone
before it is detached.

At surface pressure, all is well.

The hull is tight.
Power is good.

Sumian unshackles the last line.

Now Falco is on his own.

Taking a camera, Deloire
will follow the sub down

in the first phase of the dive.

The mood on the sonar
telephone is one of banter.

So far he is among old friends
and it is familiar territory.

Falco guides the mini-sub
with a single joystick.

On it are mounted separate
controls for power,

sonar transmitter, tape recorder,
camera start, and cine lights.

The sub has reached 300 feet.

To arrest his descent at this level,

he has released two of
his 21 small lead weights.

Each weighs two pounds.

Moving the control stick forward
will send 120 pounds of mercury

into the nose and tilt it down.

Now he descends more
slowly, listening, checking.

At 20 atmospheres, the total pressure
on his capsule exceeds 1,200 tons.

It is still cooling, shrinking,
slowly dropping into the blackness.

There's little plant life now.

These leaf-like structures are colonies
of animals, gorgonians, fan coral.

At 660 feet, Falco reports to LeBan.
All is well.

Cruising forward under the steady
thrust of his two maneuvering jets,

his lights make galaxies
out of the plankton here.

Now there are chains of salps.

Normally single jelly-like hollow spools
that move slowly by pulsations,

the salps have joined together
in an undulating snake-like team

to swim among the
brine shrimp they devour.




He will cruise a few
minutes at this level.

He has been down an hour,
one-third of his planned time.

In mid-response, he is cut off.
LeBan listens and waits.

If the sonar telephone has failed,
perhaps the power has failed.

Now they can only wait and trust
in the cool head of the man below.

In utter blackness, he must release his
ascent ballast and float without power

back to the surface.

The sonar launch cruises
over the steady beeps

of the automatic transmitter
mounted outside the shell.

Eight minutes pass.

Last item on the checklist,

the inflatable safety skirt for
abandoning ship in heavy seas.

Despite the tension of a
power failure at the bottom,

Falco pursues the routine
to the end of the test.

For the next few minutes, of course,

we will be overwhelmed
with technical reports.

But a vivid, direct account from Falco
is what I am really waiting for.

Falco reports to Captain
Cousteau and to Jean Mollard,

the mini-sub's chief engineer.

The fault appears to
have been in the motor,

which had faltered,
groaned and then stopped,

apparently shorting out and draining
the power from the batteries.

So something went wrong.

When it is not the wind or
the currents or the swell,

it has to be a mechanical bug.

The offending motor is pulled.

And through the night, the engineers
track down and correct the failure.

Distinctions between
diver and engineer,

ship's crew and submarine specialist,

dissolve at times like this.

By dawn, both subs are ready.

January 25th.

Captain Cousteau and Falco
will dive as partners now,

the way it is meant to be.

Cousteau enters mini-sub number
two at 7.04 that morning.

He runs through the pre-dive checks.

At 7.23, he is lowered into the sea.

The divers run smoothly
through their drill,

release the sling, clean the windows,

visual check with the pilot,

and then release the telephone
cord and the nylon safety line.

At 7.29, Falco,
his checklist already run,

enters number one.

And one minute later,
follows his captain into the water.

Again, the divers run their
scrupulous exterior check,

and then the two are free.

Now, as we descend together,

all the troubles of our six
years' work are well repaid.

We still have much to learn about
the piloting of these little hot rods.

But this is part of our excitement.

From the start, they proved just as
unpredictable as they are seductive.

Like the gentle meeting
of champagne goblets,

the mini-subs touch in quiet salute.

The testing is completed.

Now their career can begin.

February 4th.

To verify reports that some
female turtles remain on the reef

after they have filled one
nest with their eggs,

Falco has returned
with his shore party

to mark and trace movements of
a pair of late returning mothers.

Hydrogen-filled balloons
will help the tracking.

The shell, like fingernails,
contains no nerves.

The turtles seem unperturbed
at being drilled,

though anxious to be off.

One of the balloons goes
straight to the open sea

and starts a deliberate
northbound journey.

This turtle, it seems, is through
with her egg-laying task.

Two days later, Leban sights
the second marking balloon,

less than a mile from the ship.

She has proved our point.

She has stayed at Europa.

Now we must join her,
film her for our records,

and release her.

Deloire goes down with
Sumian to photograph.

Tracking the turtle helps
demonstrate that females

remain around the island until
they have laid all their eggs.

They may make as many as five trips
to the beach in one single season

and leave behind as many as 500 eggs.

Our turtle has done
her part of the study,

and can be released with thanks.

February 8th.

Above the empty beach,

the frigate birds still keep
their diligent patrols.

Silent, watchful.

The babies have hatched
some hours before,

and climbed to just below
the surface of the sand,

their shells still soft as leather.

At some unknown
confluence of signals,

heat and humidity perhaps,
they break out.

Immediately, they sense
the right direction,

and begin their short,
critical march to the sea.

Even the sea cannot save them.

When they surface to
breathe, they are taken.

Unless they hatch at night,
when the frigates cannot see them,

or in storms when the wind
has driven the birds inland,

they stand no chance.

Of the more than a hundred
hatchlings in this nest,

apart from those in
Falco's canvas sack,

the number of survivors is zero.

Death is an instrument
of nature's equilibrium.

Only man is capable
of k*lling without need.

But man also feels
compelled to reach out

and try to save life
whenever it is threatened.

My men begin to gather up hatchlings
and to devise a scheme.

No one knows exactly how they
sense the direction of the ocean,

even when it is out of sight.

Their seaward drive
seems inexhaustible.

Few obstacles deter them.

They can survive a week of
this struggle without food,

although in nature it is seldom more
than minutes till they reach their goal.

Half a mile out to sea,

Falco releases a few turtles
beneath an empty sky.

Photographed from below,

the hatchlings plunge,

surface to breathe,

and plunge again.

It seems safe.

The sky stays clear.

The hatchlings strike out
surely toward the open sea.

Less than two minutes later,
shadows swoop above them.

From out of nowhere,
the frigates have arrived.

For the few tired
survivors of this nest,

Falco prepares another pool,
closer to the water.

He will protect it from the
frigate birds till nightfall,

and then release them.

The men place the makeshift
cover on the pool, and then retire,

a scheme that sets the
frigate's nose out of joint.

Night.
The frigates have gone.

The hatchlings still prowl
the confines of their station,

seeking a route to the sea.

Released even in utter darkness,
or dazzled by the camera lights,

they head unerringly down the beach,

except one.

He seems to prefer the
safety of Falco's pool,

so they call him Corrigan,

of 'Wrong Way' fame.

Finally, Corrigan pauses,
and seems to sniff the air.

Sensing some clue,

he answers a summons
that has compelled his race

since long before there were men.

The rest are nearly there already.

They still risk the jaws of hungry fish,

but most will survive the night.

Corrigan, still headstrong,

encounters a lady old
enough to be his mother.

Maybe she is his mother.

She doesn't know or care.

Once their eggs are laid,

turtles have no interest in
the product of their nest.

Corrigan hitches a
ride on her flipper,

and together, they
go down to the sea.

These little fellows are
now exactly six weeks old.

Moments after they hatched,
a member of Calypso Expedition

put them in a plastic bag
with a little seawater.

And took off from Europa's small and
rough landing strip on a Piper Aztec.

Forty-eight hours later,

they arrive safely here
in the Monaco Museum.

Their carapace is still soft, but
they have already started to grow.

On the island of Europa alone,

almost four million turtles
are hatched each year.

Most are doomed,
harvested by the birds.

We have upset the balance
of nature by capturing a few.

Turtles could be farmed.

They are a possible protein source
for an under-nourished world.

In most areas, man has hunted the
green turtle almost to extinction,

sometimes very cruelly.

The species is, almost
everywhere, in real danger.

Whether a fisherman
uses net and harpoon,

or a modern panoply of radar,
sonar, and battery thermographs

to guide his electric nets,

he ruthlessly depletes
the resources of the ocean.

On Europa, we witnessed
the drama of the sea turtles

and, moved by a moral
impulse that may be artificial,

rescued two adult females,

as well as some babies that grew up
in the public aquarium of Monaco.

In doing so, we interfered
with natural mechanisms.

This journey has given us an
immense respect for nature.