Open Ocean The Blue Planet


Open Ocean

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These seas, thousands of miles from nearest land, are the most sterile on our planet.

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These are marine deserts.

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But here live the swiftest and most powerful of all ocean hunters.

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Simply finding them is an immense challenge.

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But we are about to follow them

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as they search for their food in this little-known part of the seas...

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..the open ocean.

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Striped marlin - voracious predators that can grow to three metres long.

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They hunt mainly in daylight,

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searching the tropical oceans from close to the surface

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down to depths of 100m or so.

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Normally the fish they feed on are widely dispersed.

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But sometimes their prey gathers in dense shoals, like these sardines.

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This feast may last for over an hour.

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Time enough for other hunters to reach the scene.

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Juvenile tuna join in the feeding frenzy.

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The noise attracts a giant - a sei whale.

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It's 14m long and 20 tonnes in weight

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and has an appetite to match.

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Soon the only sign that the sardines ever existed are scales sinking down into the abyss.

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Such feasts don't last long.

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In a few days, waters that swarmed with food will have been cleaned out.

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The hunters must move elsewhere

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and once again start their search of the seemingly featureless open ocean.

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A manta ray - immense -

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five metres across from the tip of one wing-like fin to the other.

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It's travelling economy, wasting as little energy as possible

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as it glides through the waters of the tropics.

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The remora fish that accompany it travel more economically still...

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by hitching a lift.

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Their host is searching for food - plankton,

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the minute fish and invertebrates that float near the surface.

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It needs lots of them

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and may cruise for days before it finds a good feeding ground.

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Dusk on a pacific island, 3,000 miles from the nearest continent.

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Here, surgeon fish have assembled to spawn.

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As they perform their nuptial dances

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they discharge clouds of eggs and sperm into the water.

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The manta must have known this would happen,

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for it arrived at exactly this moment

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and it's not the only one to do so.

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Others are here too.

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Now all they need to do is to sweep the water into their mouths

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and sieve out the eggs.

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Within an hour, the whole event will be over.

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Any eggs left will be so dispersed that they're not worth collecting.

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But other perils await them as they join the eggs, larvae and tiny fish

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that drift through the surface waters of the open ocean.

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These are the eggs of yellowfin tuna.

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If the hatchlings survive, it will take them two years to become adults.

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In three years, they could be nearly two metres long

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and weigh 200 kilograms.

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Perhaps only one in a million will live as long as that.

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They and the other animals and microscopic plants of the plankton

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constitute the basis of all life out on the open ocean.

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A storm petrel dancing on the water, but this is no amiable waltz -

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it's a hunt.

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They hover, facing into the wind, picking out morsels near the surface,

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including eggs.

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Only a tiny percentage of the eggs will survive long enough to hatch.

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These newly emerged tuna are only three millimetres long.

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Although they can swim, they're still very vulnerable.

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It will be many weeks before they swim strongly enough to make any headway in the ocean.

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After the sun goes down,

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other predators rise from the depths to attack the floating multitudes.

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Darkness shrouds the arrival

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of battalions of dangerous, drifting predators.

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These shimmering comb jellies - sea gooseberries -

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trap their prey with sticky net-like webs.

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One ill-timed fin-stroke could bring certain death to a hatchling fish.

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There are many kinds of these comb jellies -

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all of them very effective hunters.

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By dawn, most nocturnal feeders will have returned to the depths.

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The surviving hatchlings, however,

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have already started on their travels.

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Vast current systems, like immense rivers,

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carry them around the ocean basins.

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The boundaries between these masses of moving water

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form invisible barriers

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that can trap both plankton and nutrients carried up from the depths.

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So, parts of the ocean become rich with food

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for days or even weeks at a time.

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This attracts vast schools of plankton-feeding fish,

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like these sardine.

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They take in water through the mouth and expel it through their gills,

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sieving out the plankton which is then funnelled down their throats.

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The immense schools travel along the boundaries of the currents,

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seeking where plankton is thickest.

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As the position of the current boundaries changes constantly,

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so does both the supply of plankton and the numbers of fish.

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A small pod of Pacific spotted dolphin -

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20 miles from the coast of Panama.

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Like all predators, they seek parts of the ocean where their food is thickest.

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They cover up to 100 miles in a day.

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And while they travel,

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they play.

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They have detected schooling fish from hundreds of metres away,

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and start to track down the shoals using sonar,

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leaving their toys behind them.

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For the hunted, there are few places to hide.

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Schooling mackerel.

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They have already sensed the sonar beams of approaching dolphin.

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Their only defence is to gather into a ball.

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Individuals that stayed out of the shoal would be quickly picked off.

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Within it, there is at least some chance of survival.

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The noise alerts another predator -

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a sailfish, one of the fastest fish in the ocean.

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It has detected rapid vibrations in the water

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and is searching for the cause.

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Sailfish rely on eyesight for their final approach,

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so they hunt mainly in daylight.

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When sailfish become excited they change colour, lighting up with bright blue stripes.

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Since mackerel eyes are especially sensitive to blue and ultraviolet,

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these colours confuse them, making them easier to catch.

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Far below, a blue shark returns from a squid-hunting trip

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in the cold darkness 300 metres down.

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It's heading for the surface to reheat in the warmer water.

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As it ascends, it detects the smell of oils and proteins shed into the water by the panicked mackerel.

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The trail leads the shark and the pilot fish towards an easy meal.

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Scraps and casualties float in the wake of the passing mackerel school.

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Throughout the ocean,

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predators and prey are locked in a deadly contest of hide and seek,

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played out over immense distances.

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To survive they must travel.

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The huge four metre long blue-fin tuna has special blood vessels

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that enable it to keep its body temperature significantly warmer than the surrounding water.

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They can survive in much colder conditions than any other tuna,

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and they travel thousands of miles

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away from their spawning grounds in the tropics

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to hunt in cold seas where the food supply is richest.

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Ocean travellers come in many guises, and few are stranger than this...

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..A crab that spends much of its life afloat.

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It is a worrying passer-by for booby birds with delicate toes.

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Many floaters are little more than jelly, enclosed in membranes,

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but they may drift for vast distances.

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And turtles, like these olive ridleys,

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migrate thousands of miles every year.

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The ocean is full of such wanderers, riding the currents,

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and doing their best to avoid enemies

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while they search for food and a safe place to breed,

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which is what these rays are doing, forming a two-mile-high club,

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gathering together for courtship on the wing,

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far above the ocean floor.

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More nomads - flying fish.

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They seem to be on every large predator's menu,

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so their whole life is spent on the run in the open ocean.

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They don't scatter their eggs but lay them on pieces of flotsam like this palm frond.

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If the quality of water is right,

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they will attach their eggs to the frond,

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which will then serve as a kind of life-raft for their offspring.

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But it's not only flying fish that seek nurseries.

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Any piece of floating debris can serve as a shelter under which baby fish can hide.

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The only drawback is that predators like this wahoo always check up on who's hanging about in the shadows.

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The wahoo may trail the flotsam for weeks.

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Few bits of flotsam are without their quota of lodgers -

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even man-made junk attracts them.

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And some, like this oceanic trigger fish, defend their squatters' rights with vigour.

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The triggers, in fact, tend to claim all the prime residences.

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Out here, even discarded netting can provide valuable shelter,

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so, in a bizarre twist,

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a wrecked trawl net like this can end up as a sanctuary for fish

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until such time as it finally sinks.

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Indeed, a single large piece of flotsam can be the reason why several square miles of open ocean,

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instead of being empty, will support a fish population of hundreds of tonnes.

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This huge clump of seaweed is doing exactly that.

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It is a giant kelp plant, ripped from the rocks off the coast of California.

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Now, it's floating above thousands of metres of water,

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held up by its gas-filled floats.

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Clouds of young rockfish are growing up in the safety of its shadow.

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Giants also seek out this algal flotsam.

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This is a sunfish.

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It can measure as much as four metres from fin-tip to fin-tip.

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Surprisingly, it has the record as the heaviest bony fish in the sea.

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Sunfish spend much of their time at depth where they feed on jellyfish,

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but it is cold and dark down there,

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so from time to time they seek a little rest and recuperation, and warm up near the surface.

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They too are looking for floating kelp plants.

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Not for shelter, but because here they can find a particular kind of fish that only lives in such places.

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Half-moon fish.

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The sunfish form up in an orderly queue.

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They have a problem. Their skin is covered in parasites.

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The hungry half-moons will help.

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The sunfish turn their heads towards the surface as a clear invitation to their personal hygienists.

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The half-moons nip off - and eat - every parasite they can find.

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If the half-moons don't do the job,

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there is another rather drastic treatment available here.

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Gulls rest on the floating kelp.

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And if the sunfish send the right signals,

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the gulls will investigate.

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Their beaks can dig out the most stubborn parasites.

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Even the very best of health clinics can only trade on a temporary basis.

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The seaweed rafts rot

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and eventually lose their buoyancy.

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Then their lodgers will have to find a new home.

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If they can't, they will be eaten and die and sink down into the abyss.

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But the open ocean is not entirely devoid of permanent shelter.

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A volcano is erupting from the seafloor and it's still growing.

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It has formed an island some 70 miles from the coast of New Zealand.

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Some juvenile reef fish have already arrived, carried by a lucky current.

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Now they're growing up in the reeds growing around the island's fringes.

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More plankton and juvenile fish are being swept towards the island.

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But now, there's a welcoming committee.

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Schools of trevally fish and blue maomao patrol the surface water.

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All are in search of a meal.

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These one-kilo fish

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snap up every morsel of plankton they find.

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At times, the currents sweeping in from the open ocean bring with them

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all kinds of small creatures, like these mysid shrimps.

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Very little that is edible is left after such feasts.

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Islands are far from being safe havens for plankton.

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The Pacific Ocean, however, is peppered with over 23,000 islands,

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as well as countless other submerged mountains -

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sea mounts whose summits do not break the surface.

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Juvenile fish, for their first few months,

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would do well to avoid such places.

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These yellowfin tuna are six months old.

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They are 40cm long - big enough to eat fry.

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So sea mounts for them, are promising feeding grounds

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where they may hunt for several months.

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The base of a sea mount.

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As currents sweep towards it, they are deflected up its towering walls.

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The water from the depths

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carries plankton and nutrients to the surface.

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Reef fish take up residence, feeding where the plankton's most dense.

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Where the cold water mixes with warmer water at the surface,

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there is a strange shimmering effect, a sign the currents are strong.

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These currents attract more than just coastal fish.

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Giants come here from the open ocean.

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Hammerhead sharks - and in great numbers.

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During the day, they circle the sea mount,

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looking for small fish,

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but not in order to eat them.

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They, like the sunfish, are looking for cleaners

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to rid them of their parasites.

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White-tipped reef sharks gather here, too. They DO eat reef fish.

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They hunt at night when the reef fish are sleepy and easier to catch.

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Far better to rest by day and allow the cleaners to do their work.

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Even swarms of breeding trigger aren't a serious temptation.

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They spend much of their time

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in open water, but they've come to the sea mount to spawn.

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Trigger eggs are good food.

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The plankton feeders gather what they can before they're swept away.

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This community is only here due to the nutrients

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the sea mount deflected into the water.

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But ocean-going hunters

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are never far away.

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Silky sharks pick off injured fish

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and check over the residents around the sea mount.

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At some times of the year,

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seasonal changes make the currents especially rich in nutrients,

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and the ocean becomes a soup of plankton.

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At such times, hunters gather in astonishing numbers.

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Bonito, smaller relatives of the tuna,

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are searching for smaller plankton feeders attracted by the bloom.

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So are these jacks. Their prey is nearby.

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A school of anchoveta has strayed to the surface

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even though it's broad daylight and hunters are on the prowl.

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They can already feel the vibrations of the approaching predators.

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Swimming at speed, they form a ball and wait for whatever comes.

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They've been rumbled.

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At first, the scale of the bait ball seems to daunt the predator.

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But now, the bonito arrive and launch the first attack.

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Still the bait ball holds together.

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The young yellowfin tuna move in.

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The speed of the attack is so great

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that groups of anchoveta are splintered from the main fish ball.

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Before long the currents will shift and the ocean will become once more

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a blue tropical desert - plankton-free -

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and the hunters will have to move on.

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Spinner dolphins - still searching for food.

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Their twisting leaps are social displays.

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Since the hunting has been good,

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many hundred have gathered together in this exuberant super-pod.

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But now the spinners are starting to hunt once more.

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Their skill in tracking food is not a secret.

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Yellowfin tuna must be aware of it for they regularly follow them.

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But only adult tuna in their third year of life have sufficient stamina

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to keep up with the fast-moving spinners.

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This is another kind, common dolphin.

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They too are on the move.

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As they travel, ever inquisitive, they pay a call

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on one of their larger relations - a pilot whale.

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The whale is not hunting.

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It's on its way to its breeding grounds in the Mediterranean.

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Pilot whales hunt in small family groups, but in midsummer they head for traditional socialising grounds,

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where they will assemble in super-herds, several hundred strong.

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Already, two families have joined together.

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Males are starting to compete for females.

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As the weeks pass by, these group rubbing sessions will become more overtly sexual.

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But now, it's just flirting in the sun.

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Timing in the ocean can be crucial.

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In summer, the northern Atlantic waters are beginning to warm.

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The hunting is good here and by June,

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predators from southern waters are heading towards the Azores.

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These are more common dolphin.

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Like most oceanic dolphins,

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they too often travel in huge herds containing many different families.

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There is seldom enough prey in any one place to feed such numbers.

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So, small groups leave the super-pod

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and set off on hunting expeditions.

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This group will be away from the main herd for several hours.

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By midday, they're nearing the Islands of the Azores -

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900 miles west of the Portuguese coast.

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Other hunters are already here - corys shearwaters.

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500,000 of these birds breed on the Azores every year and scour the ocean for food.

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Right now there is insufficient wind to support gliding flight and since flapping is a waste of energy,

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they sit out the calm, clustered in rafts and riding the swells.

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By mid-afternoon the dolphin are starting to hunt in earnest.

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As the sea breeze picks up,

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the shearwaters take to the air once more.

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Out to sea,

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the dolphin have found prey.

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They are driving a shoal of small mackerel up towards the surface.

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The shearwaters crowd the skies, following the dolphins' every turn.

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The mackerel are still some metres down.

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When the baitfish come sufficiently close,

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the airborne division makes its move.

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Far from being mere bystanders, the shearwaters can now become predators themselves.

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Incredibly, they can dive down to depths of several metres.

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The hunting dolphin prevent the mackerel from escaping downwards

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and both predators gorge themselves.

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Soon the diving birds

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outnumber the dolphin and even drive them away from their meal.

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But another squadron of predators arrives to replace the dolphin -

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adult yellowfin tuna.

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These are giants - two metres long.

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They are heading directly for the bait ball.

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Despite the arrival of the giant fish,

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the shearwater continue to press home their attack, unfazed.

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Eventually, the tuna move on. The shearwaters battle among themselves.

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As long as predatory fish or dolphin remain at the scene,

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the mackerel can't escape.

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But when the skipjack tuna start to move away,

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the bait ball begins to sink into the depths towards safety.

0:46:140:46:19

The shearwaters follow it down

0:46:280:46:31

to the limit of their breath-holding ability, maybe as deep as 15 metres.

0:46:310:46:36

At last, even they are forced to leave their quarry.

0:46:430:46:48

However good or bad this summer's feeding may be,

0:46:560:47:00

in three months winter will be on its way and the temperature of these waters will drop by a few degrees.

0:47:000:47:08

Then, the ocean hunters will abandon the Azores once more.

0:47:080:47:12

As ever, they will move on, seeking another feeding opportunity -

0:47:120:47:17

the next pulse of life in the distant reaches of the open ocean.

0:47:170:47:23

The open ocean is so vast

0:47:260:47:29

that finding anything in this big blue arena is difficult.

0:47:290:47:34

The Blue Planet team invested over 400 days

0:47:340:47:37

on often unsuccessful trips far out to sea,

0:47:370:47:41

and many days were spent looking and waiting.

0:47:410:47:45

Somewhere in this marine desert

0:47:450:47:47

there were amazing animal dramas played out every day.

0:47:470:47:52

Their reward for finding them was to gain a unique insight

0:47:520:47:56

into some of the least-known animals on our planet.

0:47:560:48:00

The day is young - a little after four in the afternoon.

0:48:110:48:17

Historically this is the time that the predator hour starts up.

0:48:170:48:21

'The open ocean, which I call liquid space,

0:48:210:48:25

'is the most difficult area to work in the ocean.

0:48:250:48:28

'People wonder how we film out there. Do you throw the camera in?

0:48:280:48:34

'There's hours of boredom. Nothing goes on.

0:48:340:48:39

'A little voice says, "Stay focused."'

0:48:390:48:44

Patience, patience. Looking, looking.

0:48:440:48:47

After weeks of searching,

0:48:550:48:59

the crew finally caught up with a pod of spinner dolphins.

0:48:590:49:03

I keep my eye on areas of the herd where there's an open spot,

0:49:030:49:08

an area that allows spinning. It happens in a minute or two.

0:49:080:49:12

An adrenaline rush and it's over.

0:49:120:49:15

The action is over almost as quickly as it started.

0:49:150:49:20

Then there is nothing to do but keep scouring mile after mile of empty ocean.

0:49:200:49:25

Our crew spent six weeks off Panama searching for tuna and the smaller fish they attack.

0:49:270:49:33

They look for signs of feeding activity at the surface, and when it finally happens,

0:49:330:49:39

the crew must work hard to make the best of the action.

0:49:390:49:43

The prey fish crowd together in a bait ball - there is some protection for an individual in numbers.

0:49:450:49:51

Diving into this frenzy requires a great deal of care.

0:49:530:49:58

One thing when filming bait balls, particularly sardines, that you must be careful of is that

0:49:580:50:04

when you're in the water, sardines will often swarm you to try to seek shelter, to hide from predators.

0:50:040:50:12

And through the camera viewfinder, I could see a piece of bait ball break off and come directly at me.

0:50:120:50:19

Fish were on me; the tuna knew it and were rocketing out of the deep.

0:50:190:50:25

Just for a second, I felt like I'd become part of this feeding frenzy,

0:50:250:50:30

like a big sardine in the middle of a bait ball.

0:50:300:50:33

Finally, when it was all over, all that remained

0:50:330:50:37

was just a shower of fish scales slowly sinking into the deep...

0:50:370:50:42

and me.

0:50:420:50:44

Clues to what's happening underwater are circling birds or moving dolphins

0:50:440:50:49

and Taco the sea-dog had spotted some action.

0:50:490:50:52

I should probably try to get in the water here, huh?

0:50:520:50:56

Why don't you just go on by 'em here and we'll slow up, mellow out...

0:50:560:51:02

Get my grey!

0:51:020:51:04

Hundred yards!

0:51:080:51:11

'You're pumped up, you're hunting, and you're hunting with a camera.

0:51:110:51:15

'You have to filter out an awful lot of what's going on around you.

0:51:150:51:21

'Get specific, get in there where the action is.'

0:51:210:51:25

'A lot of our success is based on intuition, so it's called sixth sense - that we follow down trails

0:51:280:51:36

'and sometimes they lead us nowhere, and other times you just have that feeling something's going to happen.

0:51:360:51:43

'I can't put a handle on when you get that feeling, but you know it's special and you better be ready.'

0:51:430:51:50

Good stuff, lots of marlin.

0:51:520:51:54

OK, Gary, let's do it again please.

0:51:540:51:57

Getting these shots of marlin was the culmination of over four years of persistence and many failed trips.

0:51:590:52:06

It was a thrilling but somewhat dangerous moment - these underwater javelins can swim at 70mph.

0:52:060:52:13

All the marlin activity attracted other predators...

0:52:180:52:22

tuna...

0:52:220:52:23

..and then an extraordinary bonus - a sei whale.

0:52:250:52:29

'Doug and Dave went into the water. I stayed on deck to try to link the shot

0:52:340:52:41

'between the underwater world and the surface world.

0:52:410:52:45

'Here we were at the right time, we followed groups of whales feeding

0:52:490:52:54

'and we put cameramen in the water

0:52:540:52:57

'at the same time we were filming from the surface, so we could get proper coverage.'

0:52:570:53:03

Subtitles by BBC Subtitling, 2001

0:53:360:53:39

E-mail us at [email protected]

0:53:390:53:41

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