All language subtitles for Desert.Seas.2011.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

(ambient music)

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- [Narrator] There is a world
that's been out of reach,

until now.

(dramatic music)

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

Two seas lie on either
side of Saudi Arabia.

(lively music)

One sea is beautiful,
flamboyant and sophisticated.

(charming music)

The other is across the
desert, a younger sea.

Secretive,

tougher,

different.

(lively music)

Little in these two sister
seas is as it appears.

(lively music)

This is a story of miracles

where you would least expect them.

(ambient music)

(charming music)

The two seas reach around

the desert Peninsula of
Arabia like two arms.

(ambient music)

Millions of years ago,
this was under water.

On the sea floor, a deep compost built up.

It's still here, hidden
under the sand as oil.

(charming music)

The wealth of a long gone
sea now fuels our world.

The natural riches of the past,

as well as the present
are part of this story.

(ambient music)

10,000 years ago, the Gulf
was a swampy floodplain.

When the sea level rose,
it disappeared under water.

The Red Sea was formed much earlier

as Africa and Arabia's
tectonic plates pulled apart,

leaving a chasm a mile deep,
now filled the seawater.

(ambient music)

The edges fringed with coral,

disappear into the depths.

(ambient music)

The reef is a jeweled city,
perched on the clifftop.

(ambient music)

It's a community with amazing
relationships between animals.

Two inch wrasse groom sweetlips,

even combing the tender gills.

They eat any parasites and dead skin,

a reward for their trouble.

A moray eel, the eight
foot monster of the reef

is attended by shrimps.

(water swooshing)

They enter the jaws of death
to keep razor sharp teeth clean

in exchange for any morsels they find.

No opportunity is wasted,
however desperate it may seem.

Damselfish hide in an anemone,

protected by tentacles that
would paralyzed other fish.

An anemone can close
and the local clownfish

is finding his home a tight squeeze.

Every relationship can
have difficult moments.

(calming guitar music)

This underwater community
lies along the shores

of ancient human settlements.

(charming music)

The Middle East is the birth
place of our civilization.

Over 4,000 years ago, the
first cities rose here,

the cradle of mathematics,
astronomy and medicine.

(traditional instrumental music)

If the Garden of Eden's
rivers flowed anywhere,

it was into the Gulf.

Ancient Mesopotamia was
on the northern shoreline

with Persia to the east.

(traditional instrumental music)

The dust of history has settled
in the Gulf as sand and mud.

(traditional instrumental music)

The sea is like a hot tub.

It gets hotter and saltier
than any other open sea

in the world.

(traditional instrumental music)

It's surprising that corals can survive.

They have miraculously found ways to cope

much to the excitement of scientists.

There are other clues to hidden riches,

a turtle on its way to find food

(ambient music)

It's different from the Red Sea reef.

This is more like a bombed out city,

devastated by heat and salt.

(ambient music)

Small squid begin a dance,

courting in a psychedelic
language of hues and colors.

(charming music)

Life in all its wonderful forms

will emerge in the Gulf,

though it's never obvious.

(charming music)

Reefs here are small and isolated.

(ambient music)

Submerged sandy plains are an extension

of the Arabian Desert,

but here underwater rocks
turn into cuttlefish

on closer inspection.

(ambient music)

Fanworms cast their nets.

(ambient music)

And unseen animals
clean out their burrows,

making miniature volcanoes.

An eye and a gill belong to a ray.

(soft ambient music)

Thousands of square miles of sand

have been colonized by seagrass.

The underwater meadows
may not look like much,

but this is one of the most
productive habitats on Earth.

(ambient music)

Its riches are hard to see.

(ambient music)

Shrimpfish mimic seagrass.

Blennies hide in holes.

(ambient music)

A six foot annulated sea snake

is one of the most venomous
creatures in the world,

with several times a
rattler's killing power.

He hunts fish like little blennies.

Got one.

Across the Gulf, green
turtles return each winter

to these seagrass beds.

They often have passengers,
remoras or suckerfish,

that feed in the stirred up mud.

Many turtles graze only on the grass,

but get extra protein from
the microscopic animals

encrusting each leaf.

The strong sunlight filters
through warm shallow water.

It's perfect for grass and algae.

Most life stays hidden in
the mud until disturbed.

(mysterious music)

The blue crab demands some privacy

and the giant vegetarian obliges.

(ambient music)

The two sister seas are very different.

The Gulf shyly hides it's wealth.

(charming lively music)

The aging Red Sea flaunts extravagance.

(charming lively music)

But the diamond clear water of the Red Sea

reveals the truth.

Unlike the muddy Gulf,

the reef has few nutrients in the water.

The oasis seems to grow out of nothing.

(calming music)

A reef is built by tiny animals.

Coral polyps construct
limestone tower blocks,

protection against fish and crabs.

(ambient music)

Microscopic plants,
algae, live in the polyps

and convert sunlight to
sugar, which feeds the coral.

This city is solar powered.

(calming music)

For millennia, the entrepreneurs here

have slowly evolved an intricate society.

(ambient music)

The edge falls away

and any nutrients from
the reef fall away too,

like food tumbling off
the edge of a table.

Tiny mouths try and grab a meal

as it sinks into the dark
unexplored depths a mile below.

(calming music)

Along these city limits, gangsters prowl.

(calming music)

Bluefinned trevally are predatory hunters

cruising the hood.

The wolves of the Red
Sea reef, trevallies,

are hunting through a nursery school

of juvenile fusiliers.

(water whooshing)

The trevally continue along the wall,

searching for anything that strays too far

for falling scraps.

(mysterious music)

Six foot wire corals
reach further than most

and an enterprising little
shrimp has made his home

out on a limb.

(charming music)

He survives by collecting passing morsels.

(charming music)

His frontier post puts him into a shoal

of sleek unicorn fish.

(charming instrumental music)

The drop-off attracts large schools,

but there is an even
greater wildlife gathering

on the other side of Saudi Arabia.

(charming lively music)

The Gulf is a hot shallow sea,

hardly an enticing destination.

Yet, here out a quarter of a
million Socotra cormorants,

three quarters of the world population.

They search for schools of
bait fish and rest in rafts.

Socotra cormorants breed here in winter

on isolated islands.

Featherless chicks shiver each morning.

Nights are cold here.

Life in the colony is
dangerous, loud and smelly.

Chicks are of various ages

and the older ones hangout in gangs.

The younger chicks still need babysitters.

Everyone is hungry.

(ambient music)

Gulls attack undefended chicks.

(birds chirping)

(somber music)

Even cannibalism is common.

(somber music)

Temperatures swing from too
cold to too hot in a few hours.

Birds can't sweat

and pant desperately to keep cool.

(suspenseful music)

There's no shade and no food.

(suspenseful music)

Salvation appears first
as a thin black line.

(ambient music)

(lively instrumental music)

After a morning's fishing,
tens of thousands of parents

return to the colony with food.

The first problem for families
is to find each other.

(calming music)

(lively music)

The lucky ones are fed quickly.

(lively music)

After all that, the last thing you want

is to be mugged for the
only meal of the day.

Hungry cormorants and reef herons wait

until chicks are being fed, then swoop in.

Just when you thought it
couldn't get any tougher,

the wind becomes a sandstorm.

(intense music)

Sand and dirt are blown into the sea.

(mysterious music)

The Gulf waters become a foggy soup.

(mysterious music)

The silt reaches the sea grass meadows

and animals turn gray.

(ambient music)

Out of adversity, a miracle.

The dust fertilizes the seagrass prairies

with nitrogen, iron and phosphorus.

Productivity is phenomenal.

More than most intensive agriculture.

(calming music)

In February and March, green
turtles begin their journey

to their breeding grounds.

(calming music)

Across the Gulf,
sandstorms called shamals,

carrying millions of tons
of nutrients into the water.

(charming music)

Plankton bloom and feed everything

from cauliflower jellies to fish.

Cormorants rely on the dust storms

to bring life to the Gulf.

(lively instrumental music)

Terns arrive from the Indian Ocean.

(lively instrumental music)

And striped mackerel just
swim with their mouths open.

(lively instrumental music)

Whale sharks arrive,

40 feet long and as heavy
as several elephants.

(ambient music)

They're the biggest fish in the world,

yet they eat tiny plankton.

(ambient music)

The shamal sandstorms are
the making of this place.

(lively instrumental music)

Dolphins and cormorants
follow the schools,

which follow the plankton,

which follow the dust.

(lively instrumental music)

It's extraordinary,

considering what happened
here 20 years ago.

(suspenseful music)

The Gulf war.

(dramatic music)

Millions of gallons of oil
flowed from Kuwait into the sea

in the biggest oil spill in history.

(somber music)

The Gulf's marine life was decimated.

(somber music)

Miraculously, survivors returned.

Wildlife has suffered heat,

salt,

dust,

wars,

and oil.

Almost unnoticed, animals
adapt and battle on.

(slow triumphant music)

The other side of Arabia is another story.

(lively music)

For most of the Red Sea reefs,

sandstorms deliver few nutrients.

The oasis has to be self-sufficient.

(water rushing)

Storms and tides could stir up fertility,

but mostly, they just
sweep the reef clean.

(charming music)

Nutrients disappear over the edge

to the sea floor far below.

(lively music)

There are patches of sand,

but even this is not what it seems.

(water rushing)

Bumphead parrotfish are three
feet long and weigh 40 pounds.

They bite off coral and grind
it up to digest the polyps.

It comes out the other
end as fine, clean sand.

(ambient music)

The coral sand settles.

Little bits of desert in the oasis.

(cheerful music)

Goatfish and sea cucumbers
search hungrily through the sand.

Speed it up, we can see how busy they are.

(lively cheery music)

Sea cucumbers are part of an
army of garbage collectors

and street cleaners.

(lively cheery music)

Starfish search for food too,
but it's a risky business.

Titan triggerfish are hunters

and one of the few able to take apart

the starfish's spiny body.

(ominous music)

The neighbors soon spot a meal
they couldn't normally enjoy.

Starfish are able to
regenerate from a single arm.

A dismembered limb is overlooked
and slowly crawls away.

(mysterious music)

Nervous garden eels
emerge from their burrows.

They eat plankton.

It'll take them all day
to connect to enough.

They vanish if anything bigger passes by.

A blue spotted ray hunts for
shellfish under the sand,

like a minesweeper.

It can detect a shrimp's
minute electrical signal

and digs it out.

Smaller fish hope to catch
anything stirred up by the ray.

It's most reliable
follower is a sandperch.

Life in the Red Sea requires patience,

like a garden eel

or specialist equipment, like a ray

or a helpful companion.

The relationship can often be complex.

The sandperch may be keeping guard.

Understanding these animals
has only just begun.

A six foot white tipped reef
shark is recognized and feared.

(suspenseful music)

So are barracuda,

casting a shadow over the reef.

(suspenseful music)

Barracuda gather in
hundreds by the drop-off.

(suspenseful music)

They're waiting for evening.

(suspenseful music)

The nocturnal pack hunters
form a wheel of death.

(suspenseful music)

(dramatic music)

Schools of fusiliers become
nervous towards dusk.

(dramatic music)

(charming music)

As the day ends, a new drama will begin.

Twilight in the Red Sea

and the moray eel emerges to hunt.

Everything changes at night.

Many coral was come to life.

Soft corals swell.

Polyps open.

Basket stars, cousins of the starfish,

climb onto a peak and unfurl
their arms into a net.

(soft ominous music)

Lionfish with poisonous
spines are ambush predators.

They conceal their fish
shape under waving flags.

(soft ominous music)

So small reef fish hide in the coral.

(ominous music)

A parrotfish makes a bubble of mucus,

disguising scent and
protecting it from danger.

(suspenseful music)

Here it hides until dawn
breaks over the Red Sea.

(slow bright music)

800 miles east and it is
late spring in the Gulf.

(ambient music)

In May, the green turtle males are first

to reach the sandy shallows.

They're waiting for mates to arrive.

Spring happens under
water as well as on land.

Fantail rays are leading the way.

The first female turtle
arrives and courtship begins.

(calming music)

The male holds on with
hooks on his flippers.

(calming music)

Unsuccessful suitors try to dislodge him.

(calming music)

The couple may remain together all day,

surfacing every 10 minutes
or so for the breath.

(calming music)

The sandstorms have eased and
the islands welcome terns.

(percussive music)

They wash off the dust
before heading for the party.

(percussive music)

Crested terns are courting.

(percussive music)

They reach up to appear
taller, more attractive.

Compared to the cormorants,
these are dressy dancers.

(lively music)

A small gift between white
cheeked terns seals their union.

(charming music)

The air is full of the coming and going

of these most graceful birds.

(charming music)

As the sand heats to 140 degrees,

the terns need to do more
than just shade the egg.

Luckily, they have a trick.

(birds chirping)

When the tern colony overheats,

one of the parents goes
skimming over the water,

drinking and wetting
their breast feathers.

(charming music)

The damp feathers hold
just enough moisture

for evaporation to cool the egg.

Very few other birds
have learned this trick.

(calming music)

Each of the Gulf's
characters face domestic life

in their own way.

A little goby lives in a burrow.

He has a battle with the sand.

Every day his home needs spring cleaning.

(cheery music)

Another goby and another strategy.

A shrimp dug his burrow
and still lives here,

cleaning out the sand.

(cheery music)

The shrimp has poor eyesight

and relies on the goby as a guard.

(cheery music)

There's a tenderness
between this odd couple.

The shrimp always has a
tentacle touching the goby

and the goby warns the shrimp
with flicks of his fins.

So sohal surgeonfish passes.

The goby pushes the
shrimp down the burrow.

The hardworking housekeeper
rarely goes out.

Instead, it removes
dirt and small visitors

and parasites by eating them.

The Gulf's characters may be less colorful

than the Red Sea's, but
are no less wonderful.

(calming music)

Around the Gulf, the seawater gets hotter

through the summer, often
reaching over 90 degrees.

(calming music)

Corals generally bleach and die

if sea temperatures rise even a little.

The Gulf is about the
hottest sea in the world

and corals here, like acropora,

are specially adapted and
work with different algae.

(ambient music)

With sea temperatures
expected to rise everywhere,

some scientists think that
the magical Gulf corals

could be the salvation
of the world's reefs.

(calming music)

(birds chirping)

By August in the Gulf, the
tern chicks are adult size

in muddled adolescent plumage.

Their parents are trying to feed them

for their journey home.

(calming music)

As the sun falls, tracks in the sand

lead to one of our green turtles.

She digs a nest about three foot deep

and lays about 100 eggs.

Over her lifetime, she'll
lay several thousand.

The chances are that
very few will survive.

(calming music)

The riches of the Gulf
are hidden under sand

and water and dust.

The natural wealth bedded here

that has most changed us, is oil.

(calming music)

The stakes here for wildlife and for us,

are very high.

(calming music)

Oil tankers go around
Arabia to the Red Sea,

heading for the Suez Canal and Europe.

The Red Sea reef sit vulnerable

beside one of the busiest
shipping channels in the world.

Below, casualties.

A century old wreck sits
harmlessly at 20 fathoms.

(ambient music)

This was a cargo steamer en
route through the Suez Canal.

Now, it's part of the reef.

The Red Sea and the Mediterranean

were linked by the Suez Canal

almost a century and a half ago.

The wreck has been colonized by eggs

and larvae from the reef.

Leather corals reach out from below decks.

Coral grouper and glass
fish are in adjacent cabins.

A red mouth grouper acts as a
protector to the glass fish,

guarding them from
other groupers or jacks,

but the babysitter snatches
a few glass fish for himself.

The price of his protection.

In order to colonize a wreck
or regenerate the reef,

eggs and young must survive.

(calming music)

Staying alive yourself is hard enough,

starting a family here,

securing a future is
an extraordinary story.

(charming piano music)

Love has reached the Red Sea reef.

Bannerfish take turns on the dance floor.

(cheerful music)

Couples are preparing for a family.

Fish time their spawnings carefully,

but the chances are

that almost all their
precious young will be eaten.

(cheerful music)

To avoid this tragedy, some
fish have become better parents.

A titan triggerfish is behaving strangely.

She may be lying on top of
her eggs to protect them.

Triggerfish lay a jelly-like blob of eggs

in depressions in the coral rubble.

The dedicated parent defends the eggs

from the multi-colored thieves.

The triggerfish's mate
comes to the rescue.

(charming music)

A few eggs might survive,

but the longer term future for coral reefs

seems less hopeful.

(suspenseful music)

Half the reefs worldwide
are dying or have died.

(ominous music)

Scientists blame us.

Pollution and a changing
climate with warmer seas.

(calming music)

Twilight offers a glimpse
into a darker future.

Gorgonian fan coral
seem like decaying lace.

A ghost town.

A reminder of what is at stake.

(ominous music)

On the other side of Saudi Arabia

is another vision of the future.

In a sea beyond platforms and refineries,

there is salvation and new life.

(ambient music)

In August, on one magical
night in the Gulf,

the sandstorms and the summer of growth

have had an extraordinary effect.

Slowly at first, eggs and
larvae are released in millions.

(ambient music)

This wasn't known to
happen here on this scale,

let alone filmed before.

Palolo worms release wriggling egg cases

that fragmented to capsules of eggs,

packages explode with new life.

(charming music)

The specially adapted Gulf corals,

the hardest survivors
of a super-heated sea

will release eggs too

and egg eaters can't
possibly eat them all.

(charming music)

Eggs and larvae begin a journey
to regenerate the ocean.

Ctenophores are joined by bigger jellies.

(charming music)

This jellyfish is like a mobile reef,

a lifeboat full of
shrimps and fish and eggs,

a Noah's Ark.

(charming music)

On the islands where
cormorants and terns nested

and dust storms blew
nutrients into the sea,

now baby green turtles
start on their journey.

(calming music)

They join the eggs and larvae,

the gift of the Gulf.

(charming music)

One lucky hatchling might
survive to return here

in about 20 years time.

By then, tougher corals from the Gulf

may be helping the Red Sea
reef to cope with warmer times.

(calming music)

The Gulf, at first seemed
like the ugly duckling

of the two seas.

(charming music)

Now it seems the Gulf may
perform a final miracle

and restock the reef.

(slow triumphant music)

The two seas are an extraordinary
reflection of each other.

(slow triumphant music)

The parade of riches in the Red Sea

relies on almost nothing.

(triumphant music)

The harshness of the Gulf
has become its true wealth.

(triumphant music)

(lively cheerful music)