our blue planet what a wonderful world
whether you’re sailing over its surface
dipping beneath its skin on a scuba dive
or snorkel playing in its weight
standing on the shoreline gazing asset
or plunging into its very heart the deep
ocean what a wonderful world
I am beyond lucky I’ve spent twenty
years exploring our blue planet in
multiple ways any which way I can be in
it on it under it but from all of that
time all of those years living at sea
thousands of hours scuba diving 500
hours and submersibles I’ve just chosen
three moments like to tell you many many
many stories but today I’m just gonna
tell you three and the first it’s like a
scene from an action movie it’s that
moment of grave danger where everything
is about to go hideously wrong and in
that moment it’s only when we turn out
the lights we can actually see what’s
truly going on and the second moment
it’s like a scene from a sci-fi movie in
this moment of exquisite exploration we
find ourselves in a world an entire
world no humans have ever seen before
but what makes this moment so much more
precious is we revisit it the very next
day it’s disappeared the third moment
I’m going to tell you about its from the
greatest love story
I’m gonna share with you the day I lost
my heart to the Magnificent ocean
creature I am NOT a natural-born ocean
naught I was born and raised here just
on the fringes of London
my parents are Irish so I spent my
entire childhood ping-ponging from here
to Ireland and that meant crossing the
Irish Sea it’s a really little sea but
my god can it feel like a really big sea
and there was one year it was summer and
wasn’t a Christmas crossing it was a
summer crossing so you know gentle ocean
no mum got experimental with our picnic
this is back in the 70s and these
newfangled things called corn cocktail
snacks have just appeared on the
supermarket shelves so mum bought them
for our picnic as a special treat the
sea picked up and we picked ourselves up
and we all ran to the ship’s railings
and it was like a scene from Goldilocks
says papa bear there’s mama bear and
there are three baby bears I’m one of
those and we are just coming on for dear
life the ferry is rolling so all the
contents of our stomachs I have not
eaten phone cocktail snacks and ever
since
so I spent the next 20 years happy and
comfortable and content on the solid
ground of the shoreline and just looking
out at that great big thing called the
ocean then I would just look at it and
think you’re beautiful I like it here
but you’re beautiful but I like it here
and that all changed in one moment when
I took myself underwater for the very
first time when I had this cylinder on
my back this heavy thing and I was in
this constricting neoprene wetsuit
squished into it my head this leaking
mask on my face and there was water
coming in and I had this giant black
thing in my mouth and this was the thing
that was gonna keep me alive and this
was gonna let me breathe underwater
before I could to get to grips with any
of this kit any of this technology that
was gonna hold me together I put my head
under that surface and I saw for the
very first time a coral reef and my
heart pretty much stopped because I was
coming from London this beautiful city
of skyscrapers and millions of people
millions of busy inhabitants all on a
mission to do something now now now now
now and here I was suddenly on this
underwater metropolis again full of busy
inhabitants needing to do things now now
now now now but these were kooky fish
and crazy
starfish and sea cucumbers a cucumber
that lives in the city a unicorn fish
there are unicorns on this planet
they’re in the ocean and parrotfish with
bug eyes and buck teeth I just looked at
all these animals in the eye and I
thought my god you’re extraordinary
I’d like to live with you so the next
twenty years have been an epic voyage so
the first moment to tell you about come
with me getting my submarine with me
we’re going diving we’re in Antarctica
we’re going to really where no humans
have ever been before we’re going to put
ourselves on the deep seabed a thousand
meters from the surface in this amazing
ocean at the bottom of our world no
one’s ever done that
so we’re on our very first dive we’re
going down and as you go down in a
submarine you leave the surface and that
means you leave the Sun behind you and
all its glorious lights that helps you
see where you’re going and what’s
happening so as you go deeper and deeper
and deeper you put your lights on in
Antarctica when you put your lights on
you draw in these little animals called
krill well are tiny and they are
fundamental life in Antarctica lives and
dies by krill so we’re going down and
the karela coming because they like
moths to a flame can they come into our
lights we start with a couple of grill
then we have its friends come in and
then more friends come in until actually
it gets to a point where we can no
longer see where we are going we’re now
450 meters from the surface and we know
when our sonar but we’re about to touch
down so there is we no longer in the
freefall of water we are about to make
contact with effectively underwater land
but we can’t see it because we have so
many krill in the way this isn’t good
it’s not good genius idea let’s put out
the lights let’s shake off those krill
they like to put the moon we put the
lights out they will go when you put
yourself in an extraordinary situation
sometimes the extraordinary things will
happen we know that well bioluminesce
that’s what they’re doing no humans have
ever seen that before in the deep water
Antarctica to my second extraordinary
situation we were filming in the Gulf of
Mexico again in the deep ocean again
gathering extraordinary footage to share
with you all and blue planets who we
were filming at the Brian Paul crazy
Lake at the
some of the sea heads spinning enough in
and of itself we’ve been filming there
for days it was all going really well I
was working with an incredible woman a
scientist called Mandy
Amanda whispered to me one night she
said all of this Brian Paul is all going
brilliantly do you know what I think
there’s another thing that you should
see I know about some little bubbles
coming out of the sea floor
I said well Mandy that all sounds
fantastic sounds amazing
can you show me a photo no I don’t have
any okay so can you tell me about the
bubbles well I don’t know much about
them but I think it could be really
really interesting so I got nothing to
look at I’ve got no real description to
go on and she’s telling me about little
bubbles I’ve been working with Mandy for
two years by this point Mandy says all I
think you blanket and so I say let’s go
so I tell the ship I tell the film crew
I say we’re going in this we’re going
away while we’re going whoa we’re
filming at the fireball is going
brilliantly why would we leave I say
we’re going because Mandy says there’s
something over there it’s a hundred
miles over there this is no small feat
okay
big mistake all that big mistake us no
we’re gonna do this we’re just gonna
trust the next day we move the ship that
night the next day we take the
submarines down
it’s an hour to get to the seafloor
we’re now at 750 meters and we land on a
desert and there’s nothing there and I
am slightly freaking out being mystery
caller ringing in my ears this is a big
those little bubbles
Mandy talked about the giant bubbles
this size rocketing out of that seafloor
when we got to the surface that evening
and I said that Matty wow it’s not
expecting that and I show her what we’d
filmed and she said nor was i that day
the deep ocean let us in on a little
secret when we got to film something
extraordinary something phenomenal well
we went back down to that very same site
the very next day we were back on the
desert only spent six hours on that
desert and not one bubble emerged my
third moment comes from the more
familiar ocean the coral we we spent
three months this is in my life as a
coral reef Explorer researcher we spent
three lives on the Great Barrier Reef a
really well-known reef and there’s a
really well-known creature that comes to
it every year and that is the minke
whales they come up from Antarctica to
the warmth and the safety of the Barrier
Reef and this is a place where there’s a
really really solid protocol about how
to interact with these extraordinary
animals because your temptation is to
just hurl yourself in the water and go
charging at them because they are so
hypnotically beautiful and attractive
but there are really strict ways that
you do this and so what you do is you
put out a long rope from your ship and
then everyone hangs on to this rope and
you stay still and if the whales choose
to come to you that’s their choice you
don’t make the move to them so these
whales would come day after day after
day we were moving up and down the reef
and really exploring it and taking data
for that one day this one whale came and
I just lost it for him
he was so beautiful he was so painful
he was so drawn to me and I was so drawn
to him he was my whale and by this point
I’d probably make fifty of his family
and friends but this was my guy and we
stayed with each other for as long as I
humanly could but I was getting cold I
was running out of air I had to get up
so I left him almost tearfully and I
left him and I got back on the ship and
the next day we had to move our ship 20
miles to the south because we had
another reef that we needed to go in a
store and take data from so we moved the
next day someone up on deck yells the
whales are here the whales are here out
goes the line you get in the water we
line up out of nowhere there is this
thing this giant thing and it is coming
at me at the speed of light and I’m kind
of in the middle and those five people
that way and there’s five people that
way and there is this thing and it’s
coming at me so fast I am actually
starting to get scared as it approaches
it turns this is kind of Canberra turn
in front of me it’s my guy and the
reason I know it’s my guy there’s a nick
in his pectoral thing the most
distinctive scar he’s been he’s had a
collision with something or he’s been
attacked by something at some point and
there’s the nick when he was turning my
willy is he was turning to show me hey
look it’s me hi good to see you why am I
telling you these three stories they’re
my stories from my small life on this
big ocean
I’m telling you them because they’re
just a microcosm of a much bigger story
that is the story of our beautiful blue
planet but the greater story we don’t
yet know we truly have better maps of
Mars than we do of our deep sea and yet
more than 90% of the living space on
this is ocean this thing we call land
these things we call humans we are so
insignificant unfortunately we’re not
but by ratio we should be there’s so
much more to explore and discover I’m
gonna do it to life aren’t have to stop
and I think you can explore in your own
imagination you can dream up your
craziest creatures your most
extraordinary encounters entire
undiscovered worlds because you just might find that one day we find them
whether you’re sailing over its surface
dipping beneath its skin on a scuba dive
or snorkel playing in its weight
standing on the shoreline gazing asset
or plunging into its very heart the deep
ocean what a wonderful world
I am beyond lucky I’ve spent twenty
years exploring our blue planet in
multiple ways any which way I can be in
it on it under it but from all of that
time all of those years living at sea
thousands of hours scuba diving 500
hours and submersibles I’ve just chosen
three moments like to tell you many many
many stories but today I’m just gonna
tell you three and the first it’s like a
scene from an action movie it’s that
moment of grave danger where everything
is about to go hideously wrong and in
that moment it’s only when we turn out
the lights we can actually see what’s
truly going on and the second moment
it’s like a scene from a sci-fi movie in
this moment of exquisite exploration we
find ourselves in a world an entire
world no humans have ever seen before
but what makes this moment so much more
precious is we revisit it the very next
day it’s disappeared the third moment
I’m going to tell you about its from the
greatest love story
I’m gonna share with you the day I lost
my heart to the Magnificent ocean
creature I am NOT a natural-born ocean
naught I was born and raised here just
on the fringes of London
my parents are Irish so I spent my
entire childhood ping-ponging from here
to Ireland and that meant crossing the
Irish Sea it’s a really little sea but
my god can it feel like a really big sea
and there was one year it was summer and
wasn’t a Christmas crossing it was a
summer crossing so you know gentle ocean
no mum got experimental with our picnic
this is back in the 70s and these
newfangled things called corn cocktail
snacks have just appeared on the
supermarket shelves so mum bought them
for our picnic as a special treat the
sea picked up and we picked ourselves up
and we all ran to the ship’s railings
and it was like a scene from Goldilocks
says papa bear there’s mama bear and
there are three baby bears I’m one of
those and we are just coming on for dear
life the ferry is rolling so all the
contents of our stomachs I have not
eaten phone cocktail snacks and ever
since
so I spent the next 20 years happy and
comfortable and content on the solid
ground of the shoreline and just looking
out at that great big thing called the
ocean then I would just look at it and
think you’re beautiful I like it here
but you’re beautiful but I like it here
and that all changed in one moment when
I took myself underwater for the very
first time when I had this cylinder on
my back this heavy thing and I was in
this constricting neoprene wetsuit
squished into it my head this leaking
mask on my face and there was water
coming in and I had this giant black
thing in my mouth and this was the thing
that was gonna keep me alive and this
was gonna let me breathe underwater
before I could to get to grips with any
of this kit any of this technology that
was gonna hold me together I put my head
under that surface and I saw for the
very first time a coral reef and my
heart pretty much stopped because I was
coming from London this beautiful city
of skyscrapers and millions of people
millions of busy inhabitants all on a
mission to do something now now now now
now and here I was suddenly on this
underwater metropolis again full of busy
inhabitants needing to do things now now
now now now but these were kooky fish
and crazy
starfish and sea cucumbers a cucumber
that lives in the city a unicorn fish
there are unicorns on this planet
they’re in the ocean and parrotfish with
bug eyes and buck teeth I just looked at
all these animals in the eye and I
thought my god you’re extraordinary
I’d like to live with you so the next
twenty years have been an epic voyage so
the first moment to tell you about come
with me getting my submarine with me
we’re going diving we’re in Antarctica
we’re going to really where no humans
have ever been before we’re going to put
ourselves on the deep seabed a thousand
meters from the surface in this amazing
ocean at the bottom of our world no
one’s ever done that
so we’re on our very first dive we’re
going down and as you go down in a
submarine you leave the surface and that
means you leave the Sun behind you and
all its glorious lights that helps you
see where you’re going and what’s
happening so as you go deeper and deeper
and deeper you put your lights on in
Antarctica when you put your lights on
you draw in these little animals called
krill well are tiny and they are
fundamental life in Antarctica lives and
dies by krill so we’re going down and
the karela coming because they like
moths to a flame can they come into our
lights we start with a couple of grill
then we have its friends come in and
then more friends come in until actually
it gets to a point where we can no
longer see where we are going we’re now
450 meters from the surface and we know
when our sonar but we’re about to touch
down so there is we no longer in the
freefall of water we are about to make
contact with effectively underwater land
but we can’t see it because we have so
many krill in the way this isn’t good
it’s not good genius idea let’s put out
the lights let’s shake off those krill
they like to put the moon we put the
lights out they will go when you put
yourself in an extraordinary situation
sometimes the extraordinary things will
happen we know that well bioluminesce
that’s what they’re doing no humans have
ever seen that before in the deep water
Antarctica to my second extraordinary
situation we were filming in the Gulf of
Mexico again in the deep ocean again
gathering extraordinary footage to share
with you all and blue planets who we
were filming at the Brian Paul crazy
Lake at the
some of the sea heads spinning enough in
and of itself we’ve been filming there
for days it was all going really well I
was working with an incredible woman a
scientist called Mandy
Amanda whispered to me one night she
said all of this Brian Paul is all going
brilliantly do you know what I think
there’s another thing that you should
see I know about some little bubbles
coming out of the sea floor
I said well Mandy that all sounds
fantastic sounds amazing
can you show me a photo no I don’t have
any okay so can you tell me about the
bubbles well I don’t know much about
them but I think it could be really
really interesting so I got nothing to
look at I’ve got no real description to
go on and she’s telling me about little
bubbles I’ve been working with Mandy for
two years by this point Mandy says all I
think you blanket and so I say let’s go
so I tell the ship I tell the film crew
I say we’re going in this we’re going
away while we’re going whoa we’re
filming at the fireball is going
brilliantly why would we leave I say
we’re going because Mandy says there’s
something over there it’s a hundred
miles over there this is no small feat
okay
big mistake all that big mistake us no
we’re gonna do this we’re just gonna
trust the next day we move the ship that
night the next day we take the
submarines down
it’s an hour to get to the seafloor
we’re now at 750 meters and we land on a
desert and there’s nothing there and I
am slightly freaking out being mystery
caller ringing in my ears this is a big
those little bubbles
Mandy talked about the giant bubbles
this size rocketing out of that seafloor
when we got to the surface that evening
and I said that Matty wow it’s not
expecting that and I show her what we’d
filmed and she said nor was i that day
the deep ocean let us in on a little
secret when we got to film something
extraordinary something phenomenal well
we went back down to that very same site
the very next day we were back on the
desert only spent six hours on that
desert and not one bubble emerged my
third moment comes from the more
familiar ocean the coral we we spent
three months this is in my life as a
coral reef Explorer researcher we spent
three lives on the Great Barrier Reef a
really well-known reef and there’s a
really well-known creature that comes to
it every year and that is the minke
whales they come up from Antarctica to
the warmth and the safety of the Barrier
Reef and this is a place where there’s a
really really solid protocol about how
to interact with these extraordinary
animals because your temptation is to
just hurl yourself in the water and go
charging at them because they are so
hypnotically beautiful and attractive
but there are really strict ways that
you do this and so what you do is you
put out a long rope from your ship and
then everyone hangs on to this rope and
you stay still and if the whales choose
to come to you that’s their choice you
don’t make the move to them so these
whales would come day after day after
day we were moving up and down the reef
and really exploring it and taking data
for that one day this one whale came and
I just lost it for him
he was so beautiful he was so painful
he was so drawn to me and I was so drawn
to him he was my whale and by this point
I’d probably make fifty of his family
and friends but this was my guy and we
stayed with each other for as long as I
humanly could but I was getting cold I
was running out of air I had to get up
so I left him almost tearfully and I
left him and I got back on the ship and
the next day we had to move our ship 20
miles to the south because we had
another reef that we needed to go in a
store and take data from so we moved the
next day someone up on deck yells the
whales are here the whales are here out
goes the line you get in the water we
line up out of nowhere there is this
thing this giant thing and it is coming
at me at the speed of light and I’m kind
of in the middle and those five people
that way and there’s five people that
way and there is this thing and it’s
coming at me so fast I am actually
starting to get scared as it approaches
it turns this is kind of Canberra turn
in front of me it’s my guy and the
reason I know it’s my guy there’s a nick
in his pectoral thing the most
distinctive scar he’s been he’s had a
collision with something or he’s been
attacked by something at some point and
there’s the nick when he was turning my
willy is he was turning to show me hey
look it’s me hi good to see you why am I
telling you these three stories they’re
my stories from my small life on this
big ocean
I’m telling you them because they’re
just a microcosm of a much bigger story
that is the story of our beautiful blue
planet but the greater story we don’t
yet know we truly have better maps of
Mars than we do of our deep sea and yet
more than 90% of the living space on
this is ocean this thing we call land
these things we call humans we are so
insignificant unfortunately we’re not
but by ratio we should be there’s so
much more to explore and discover I’m
gonna do it to life aren’t have to stop
and I think you can explore in your own
imagination you can dream up your
craziest creatures your most
extraordinary encounters entire
undiscovered worlds because you just might find that one day we find them
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