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Palau, a remote and tiny
island chain near the equator,

is home to one of the world's
richest reef ecosystems.

It is also home to giants.

Massive Second World War
wrecks harbor dark secrets on the

ocean floor. I turn around,
there's a huge monster wreck

behind me. My heart went
whoop. Undersea trenches, deep

enough to swallow mountains,
offer a glimpse into the abyss.

The old phrase that we know
more about the surface of the

moon and Mars than we know
about the bottom of the ocean

holds true. And large and
mysterious creatures soar through

its azure waters. You turn
around and all you see is these

big gaping mouths coming
out of the blue. It's basically

like a mouth with wings on
it coming at you. Here, in this

land of the giants.

At the southern end of the
Palau Islands, near a dive site

called German Channel, Manta
researcher Mandy Eppteson

prepares to descend into the blue.

During the German occupation
of Palau prior to the First

World War, miners blasted
and dredged a channel here to

create a shipping route
between the islands. Today, strong

currents carry plankton to the
mouth of the channel, making

it an ideal feeding site for one of the
ocean's most graceful and gentle giants.

The manta ray. One of the
largest creatures in the sea

survives by feeding almost
entirely on one of the smallest.

It's sort of like a bottleneck,
so the plankton gets

concentrated here, and that's
why it's famous for mantas. So

we're hoping to see mantas,
obviously, and if we're lucky,

maybe a new individual that
hasn't been recorded yet so we

can add it to our database.

Mandy began the Palau Manta
ID project in 2009, identifying

each animal by the spots on
its belly. The spot formation on

a manta is as unique as a
fingerprint. We started taking

pictures of the bellies to
identify the mantas, and trying

to show, especially Palau
government, that we don't need

to hurt the animals or tag
them to be able to find out more

about them. We've identified
over 280 right now. Five years

ago, nobody would have believed
we have that many mantas in

Palau. A simple ID project
can do a lot. By tracking the

numbers and movements of
mantas, Mandy and the UK-based

Manta Trust can identify any
population decline caused by

illegal fishing, and whether
or not tourism may be driving

mantas away from German Channel.

Tourism is on the rise in
Palau, a collection of more than

200 islands, nearly 1,000
miles east of the Philippines, in

the western Pacific Ocean.
The tourists that flock here to

explore its natural wonders
contribute about $125 million to

the economy, more than
half of Palau's gross domestic

product. Hundreds of miles
of sky-blue ocean surround the

archipelago.

Limestone islands, blanketed
in thick and pristine jungle,

rise like mushrooms from the
sea. They appear to be floating

gardens.

Scuba divers from across
the globe are drawn to Palau for

what lies beneath the emerald
lagoons. One of the world's

richest reef ecosystems.

These coral gardens overflow
with 1,500 species of fish,

500 species of coral, and
more than 100 species of sharks

and rays. Palau's seas may
contain more species of marine

life than anywhere else on
Earth, and provide researchers

an exceptional window into
a vanishing underwater world.

The explosion of marine life
here is due to marine geology.

Palau sits on the tip of an
underwater mountain that formed

70 million years ago. Far
below the island peaks, currents

crash against the drowned
mountain, then surge upward,

carrying the nutrients that
underpin the oceanic food chain.

There is another reason
for the sheer numbers of fish

that throng these waters.
Palau has a long history of

conservation.

For centuries, Palauans
have lived in harmony

with the sea, never taking
more than they needed.

In 2009, Palau created
the world's first shark

sanctuary. Making it illegal
to catch sharks in its seas.

Then in 2014, it expanded
its conservation efforts

and banned all foreign
fishing within its waters.

Palau is now home to the
world's largest marine sanctuary,

a swath of protected ocean
nearly the size of California.

Marine law officers
patrol the Palauan seas,

on the lookout for
illegal fishing vessels.

As a result, the big fish that
have been all but wiped out

in some areas of the Pacific
are still very much alive in

Palau.

Hefty gray reef sharks.

Five-foot-long Napoleon wrasses.

And of course, manta rays, the
marine giants that patrol these seas.

Though smaller than their
oceanic cousins, reef mantas

are still among the largest
fish in the sea. They have an

average wingspan of 11 feet
and reach weights of more than

3 ,000 pounds. Mantas have
exceptionally large brains,

specifically the region
responsible for hearing, touch and

vision. They are highly social
and curious about humans.

If you've been diving a
long time, you interact with

different animals. You can
see the difference, for instance,

between a guppy or a Napoleon
wrasse. In a Napoleon wrasse,

you can tell there's somebody
home, there's an intelligent

being in there. And it's the
same with mantas. When you

look at them and you start
realizing they're actually, in my

opinion, they can recognize
certain dive guides. They will

go over a dive group and go
straight for the dive guide. And

especially the newborn
mantas, they will play with divers

when it's not too crowded.
You can see it's an intelligent

animal, like a dog or a
cat, and they can learn.

At German Channel, mantas
swim against the current to feed

on large concentrations of
plankton swept into the channel

entrance.

Fins curving around its face direct
water into the manta's large open mouth.

You turn around and all you
see is these big gaping mouths

coming out of the blue. It's
basically like a mouth with

wings on it coming at you.
It's an amazing sight. Tissue

between the manta's gills sift
tiny crustaceans and plankton

from the water. A manta is
like a giant filtering machine

capable of vacuuming up more
than 400 pounds of plankton in

a single week.

At times, manta feeding can
be a dizzying display. Depending

on the current and the wind
direction, sometimes they'll

feed by themselves and
roll. They call it barrel rolling.

It's like an underwater
ballet. Really nice to watch.

The manta may look like
it's chasing its tail, but by

rolling, it pushes more
plankton into its waiting mouth.

When the current is strong,
usually right before a full

moon, mantas adopt an
entirely different but equally

captivating feeding strategy
known as train feeding.

So you can get anywhere
from 2 to 20 or 200, if there are

that many, feeding together
in a train, which is an amazing

sight. And they'll just
keep going back and forth

across the line where
the plankton gets trapped.

One of the largest creatures
in the sea, mantas are also

one of the most mysterious.
Research into their mating and

birthing behaviour has
barely begun. For hundreds of

years, mantas were simply
known as devil fish, due to their

imposing size and bat-like
appearance. But they're very,

very gentle. When the current
is strong, sometimes when

you're taking photos or
video, it's very hard to stay out

of their way, especially when
there's that many of them. So

when you're freediving and
you dive down to take a picture,

they'll come straight at you
and sometimes you get thrown in

their path, basically. And
they'll just very gently lift

their wing and try not to
touch you. They're very careful

with people, which is amazing. They
could just slap you if they wanted to.

Mandy believes that
physically tagging

mantas can cause harm
to these gentle giants.

A mantis' skin is like rubber,
and wounds can take years to

heal. Even though they might
be able to recover from it, it

leaves scars. And by
photographing the mantas at German

Channel, we've seen how
long it can take for those scars to

heal. By photographing them
every season, you can start

seeing those results. So we
prefer to not do actual tagging.

Previous tagging studies
enabled scientists to track the

movement of mantas. Photo
IDs can't do that, but Mandy has

developed an alternative
that is unveiling more secrets

of their behavior. She places
time-lapse cameras at the

cleaning stations, spots on
the reef where small fish rid

the mantas of dead skin
and parasites. It takes pictures

every 10 seconds or 30 seconds,
and normally we put four or

five around the cleaning
station. And then when you pick it

up, you've got thousands of
pictures to go through. In the

previous year, Mandy was able
to identify 44 new mantas from

thousands of time-lapse photos.

It's a lot of effort, but
worth it in the end. Because

instead of acoustic tagging
where you can just see a beep

how many times a manta
passed by, you can actually see the

manta and what they're doing,
and learn about their behavior

at the same time without
hurting them. Mantas are curious

creatures and will closely
inspect the cameras left behind

on the reef. When we put the
time-lapse cameras, we start

realizing that they're
immediately aware of something

changing in their cleaning
station. So they come up to the

cameras and they unfold their
cephalic flaps, which are sort

of like feelers for them also.
So they're doing like this to

the camera to see like, what
is this thing that's sitting on

my cleaning station?
So those are the kind of

things you would never
find out any other way.

Today at German Channel,
one of the busiest manta

sites in Palau, there are
no mantas to be seen.

Currents, which should be
incoming based on the moon cycle,

have switched to outgoing,
which means no plankton is

flowing into the channel,
and that means fewer mantas.

Mandy spots something on
the bottom, a feather-tailed

stingray, buried up
to its eyes in the sand.

Finally, she sites a large male manta.

It's one called Uncle
Fester, a regular at German

Channel that has fed
here for at least 10 years.

On this day, Mandy sites
just three other mantas. One

pregnant female already
logged in the database, and two

others that passed by without
stopping at the cleaning station.

Mantas may be large,
but they are dwarfed by

another giant living
in the waters of Palau.

It's Barrier Reef.

Coral reefs are the world's
largest living structures, made

up of millions of tiny plant-like
animals known as coral

polyps. Reefs begin when
a polyp attaches itself to a

surface on the ocean floor,
then divides into thousands of

clones, which secrete a
calcium carbonate skeleton.

Together, the polyps act as
a single, immense organism.

Coral reefs are always growing.
When coral dies, it leaves

behind the rock-like skeleton.
The next generation of coral

grows on the old skeleton. Coral
reefs are the rainforests of the sea.

They cover fewer than 2% of
the ocean floor, and yet they

provide food and shelter for
about one quarter of all ocean

species. One billion people
depend on coral reefs for food

and income from fishing and
tourism. Reefs also provide

protection from hurricanes
and typhoons. The Palau Reef,

believed to have formed about
two million years ago, may be

the most essential giant in these waters.

The bone-white beaches
of the low-lying rock islands

are built from sand
that originated as coral.

Reef animals like this
parrotfish feed on coral

and algae that grows
on the surface of the reef.

The parrotfish's hard,
beef-like teeth bite off

not just the coral, but
its hard skeleton as well.

The pulverized hard coral
material ingested by the fish

passes through its digestive
system and is deposited back

into the ocean in clouds
of fine white coral sand.

One parrotfish can produce 200
pounds of sand in a single year.

These rock islands, built by
coral sand and topped by lush

and untouched Pacific
jungle, are a major tourist draw.

Palau is a country of
just 20,000 people. In

2015, it received more
than 150,000 visitors.

This tiny island nation is
struggling to find a balance

between the profit tourism
generates and its impact on the

reef.

The research that we're
doing is to look at the sites that

are visited by tourists and
to try to look at their impact

on the reef communities,
including the corals and

the fish and the animals
that live around the reef.

Today we're trying to look to
see the impacts of snorkelers

on shallow coral reefs. So
with Palau's tourism boom, we've

seen an increase of tourists
on our snorkeling reefs and a

lot of them, as we've
noticed, have very little or little

confident swimming skills.
So we want to see if that has

any impact on the corals
and if they're breaking corals or

standing on them. And the effects of that.

To determine the health of
the coral at this site, Evelyn

uses a sampling square
called a quadrat. She throws it

randomly 50 to 60 times at a given site.

When the quadrat lands on the lagoon floor,
she photographs the area within the frame.

Researchers study the photos
for evidence of coral damage

and compare the sample photos
taken at busy snorkeling sites

with those taken at sites
untouched by tourists.

Initial research by Dr. Golbu's
team reveals that the reefs

at crowded snorkeling sites
are dominated by broken coral,

which seriously threatens
the health of the reef. But the

team is studying more than
just corals today. Gary is going

to be counting fish today.
He's one of our experts at the

Coral Reef Center. He knows
a lot of our fish species, their

common names, their Palau
names, as well as their Latin

names. So what he will do is
he will go and measure any fish

that comes within a five meter
radius of him, which is what

we call a stationary fish
count. So he'll stay in one spot

for three minutes and he'll
count any commercially important

fish that comes in that five
meter radius and then write

down their sizes in centimeters.

The fish count, like the
reef survey, is designed

to assess the impact
of tourism on the lagoon.

Although it's prohibited, tour
operators have been known

to feed fish to attract them
to tourist snorkeling sites.

Hand-feeding fish makes them
associate humans with food and

can interfere with their natural
feeding cycles. This study

will help determine the
effect fish feeding has had

on both the size and
numbers of fish in the lagoon.

On a global level,
coral reefs face a threat

far greater than tourism.
Ocean acidification.

Humans have produced
more and more carbon dioxide

emissions through the
burning of fossil fuels.

More than one quarter of
carbon dioxide pumped into the

atmosphere is dissolved into
the oceans, where it upsets the

chemical balance, making water more acidic.

The acidification threatens
the survival of the animals on

the reef. The skeletons of
most marine organisms, including

crustaceans and fish, are
made from calcium carbonate.

If the acidity of the water
increases, there are fewer

carbonate ions in the water,
and it becomes harder for these

animals to form a skeleton.
Acidity can be increased to the

point where even coral can no
longer make a skeleton. Even

before that stage, the struggle
to make a skeleton can leave

coral weak and vulnerable.
You might have a coral, but it's

not strong, and it's able to
clear a storm and it would

break. Or you would have
very high bioerosion. A lot of

other organisms would be
able to live inside and break a

skeleton of a coral. It's
yet another threat on the

Palau Barrier Reef that was
already stressed by reckless

overfishing. For decades,
foreign fishing vessels plundered

these seas, brutally raking
fish from the reef. The reef is

an ecosystem, and you need
corals and you need fish. And if

you take all the fish from
the system, then it would affect

the reefs. It would affect its
health and its recovery from

disturbance. And so that is
one of the main issues that we

need to ensure that we
still have enough fish in

the reef to allow the
reef function to continue.

Not all of Palau's reefs are
two million years old. Some are

relative youngsters that can
be traced back just 70 years,

to a time when battles raged
over Palau's tropical waters.

At the bottom of Malacal
Harbor, a massive,

broken skeleton appears
slowly from the blue.

It is the Iroh, a Japanese
Navy tanker that met its doom

during the Second World
War, when U.S. airplanes rained

explosives on the Japanese fleet.

Over the decades, the
Iroh has transformed into an

artificial reef, providing
shelter for prey, food for

predators, and a breeding
ground for the hard and soft

corals that have taken hold
of the ship. She's a spectacular

wreck to dive now. She is
teeming with life. And it's just

an amazing wreck dive because
you have all that history, you

have all that drama of the
sinking of the vessel, and now

70 years plus later, you
look at it and it's just the most

beautiful, spectacular reef
there is around there. The

Iroh sits upright in its watery
grave, 130 feet below the

surface.

It's a colossal wreck, nearly
500 feet long, weighing

upwards of 14,000 tons, and
remains largely intact, except

for the damage caused
when a massive explosion

in the engine room sent
the ship to the bottom.

On the bow sits a turret gun, its barrel
an armored shield draped in soft coral.

Wrecks like the Iroh provide
a stable setting for coral.

Corals spawn in the
water column. Eggs are

carried by the current
and can land anywhere.

The shallow depth, warm
water, and relative stillness of

this lagoon make an ideal
breeding ground for the algae that

cements coral reefs together.

The Iroh is alive with
stony staghorn coral,

ivory tube sponges, and

black coral trees.

Fish make their home on
or near the wreck as well.

Clouds of fry,

lionfish, and

pacific spadefish.

Three masts reach toward
a distant sky and provide

an ideal surface for
sun-seeking organisms,

including huge colonies
of bubble tip anemones.

A close relative of both
jellyfish and coral, the bubble

tip anemone is equipped with
sweeping venom-filled tentacles

that ensnare passing prey.

The slightest touch triggers
the tentacles, which inject a

paralyzing neurotoxin into
its victim. But not to the tomato

clownfish nestled inside its
tentacles. To defend itself and

ensure it has enough to eat,
the bubble tip anemone forms an

unlikely alliance. A layer
of mucus on the clownfish's

skin makes it immune to
the anemone's lethal sting.

It's a symbiotic relationship.
The anemone protects the

clownfish from predators and
snacks on its leftover meals.

In return, the clownfish
drives off intruders

and cleans the
anemone of parasites.

The coral-encrusted
Iroh is just one of more

than 60 Second World
War wrecks in Palau.

In March 1944, U.S. Navy
planes appeared high above the

islands, bombarding the
Japanese fleet with rockets and

torpedoes and sending most
of its vessels to the bottom.

The coordinated attack was
codenamed Operation Desecrate 1.

In September 1944, the island
of Peleliu was the scene of

one of the bloodiest battles
of the Second World War. U.S.

Marines made an amphibious
assault on these beaches to

liberate the island from
Japanese forces. Fighting lasted

for months and took the lives
of 10,000 Japanese and 1,800

American soldiers.

Today, the island is surreally
peaceful, although scattered

amid the lush vegetation are
the reminders of past horrors.

A crippled Japanese fighter
plane reclaimed by the jungle.

A gutted U.S. Marine landing
craft corroded by the elements.

And sobering memorials to
the thousands, Japanese and

American, that spent their final
moments on what was once an

island paradise.

Francis Torabiang is a
native Palauan who grew

up on the islands in the
years following the war.

He founded Palau's first
dive operation and, in the

1980s, helped discover more
than 30 Japanese wrecks.

Including the 285-foot-long Chuyo Maru.

Like the Iro, it sits upright and is
overgrown with corals, sponges and oysters.

The Chuyo Maru was a coastal
freighter sent to the bottom

during Operation Desecrate 1
and discovered by Torabiang in

1989.

I followed the anchor line
down and there's nothing there.

I turn around, there's a huge
monster wreck behind me. My

heart went whoop. I got
scared. Actually I got a little bit

scared because it's a huge
thing right behind me. I did not

see it because I was going
down this way. That was exciting.

I mean, that completely changed
my way of diving. Today when

I take people diving, I don't
try to explain everything. I

talk about safety, the depth,
time, and how you go around

this wreck. And I tell them,
that's good enough. I don't

want to go beyond that. Why?
I say I want you to have that

excitement like I do. I want
you to have that feeling. It's

hard to explain, but when
things are in the water for last

50-some years, 70 years, and then the first
time you go, it's a really exciting dive.

The Chuyo Maru shares its
watery grave with a mystery ship.

Its true name remains unknown.
No records of the ship can be

found in Japanese Navy
archives. Though like most wrecks in

Palau, it was sunk
along with most of the

Japanese fleet during
Operation Desecrate 1.

Today, it's known simply as
the Helmet Wreck, or Depth

Charge Wreck, for the dozens
of bombs found in its hold.

Divers are warned not to
touch any of the charges. Many

of Palau's wrecks are laden
with live ammunition that can

explode if disturbed. In
fact, it's illegal for divers to

take anything from Palau's
sunken historical treasures. The

Depth Charge Wreck is a trove
of Second World War artifacts.

The cylinder poking out of the
wreck is a clinometer used to

measure the height of clouds
to predict incoming storms.

These sake bottles and a corroded
Japanese gas mask are grim

reminders that men died here
in what is now a living museum

of the sea. When I take the
Japanese diving there, I can

see they have a goose bump.
They tell me a little bit eerie.

That's the way they do. I
respect that. So it's a part

of history and part of our
relationship with Japan and

something that people need
to understand that we need to

respect other people. These
once mighty wrecks won't last

forever. Saltwater corrodes
and eats away at the steel

skeletons. Eventually, the
lagoon will swallow these

remains.

Over the eons, saltwater
erosion has also carved stunning

caverns and tunnels into
Palau's limestone geography.

Hidden 12 feet below the
surface, Chandelier Cave is one of

the largest cave systems in
Palau. At one time, it was an

open-air cave on the
surface of the Rock Islands.

After the last ice age,
oceans rose, filling the

cave with seawater and
concealing the entrance.

Stalactites, formed from calcite
deposited by water dripping

from the cave ceiling, hang
like glittering light fixtures,

giving Chandelier Cave its name.

Inside the cave, there is no
sunlight to nourish plankton.

Free from these microscopic
organisms, the water is crystal clear.

At Siais Tunnel, divers
drop down to enter a

chamber that reaches
depths of more than 140 feet.

Even this far below the
surface, sunlight penetrates

the tunnel to illuminate
gorgeous orange sea fans and

lionfish nibbling on soft corals. Palau is

a jumping-off point for some
of the deepest diving in the

Pacific. It sits atop what is
essentially a sunken mountain

range. A steep drop-off, more
than 30,000 feet deep, fringes

the islands. This is the Palau
Trench. It just drops off and

it plummets into the abyss
and very, very close to shore as

well. So people always talk
about the Marianas Trench, the

deepest part of the planet,
Challenger Deep. That's nearly

300 kilometers offshore.
We've got massively deep water

within 15 or 20 kilometers
of our shoreline, so it's very,

very unique. The Palau Trench
is deep enough to completely

submerge Mount Everest.

Scuba divers typically
descend about 130 feet, less

than half of one percent
of the depth of the trench.

Divers have only just scratched
its surface. What is known

about what's down the Palau
Trench, honestly, very, very

little. The old phrase that
we've all heard that we know

more about the surface of the
Moon and Mars than we know

about the bottom of the
ocean, holds true. Collins has

compiled a 3D map of the
trench from satellite-derived

gravity data and sonar
measurements collected on dives. The

green shows the Palau
Islands, just the tip of a massive

underwater mountain. You
can see that some of these sheer

walls, they plummet miles,
literally miles, two or three

miles, before they might
have a slight shelf and another

feature. And again, before
they just plummet into the

abyssal plain at over 9,000
meters deep. Once we look over

the edge of that reef,
sometimes it's a little daunting

because you have the beautiful
colors, the shallow waters,

and you just look over and
it's literally looking down a

cliff. And especially
knowing how deep that is, so

sometimes it can be a little
bit daunting and a little bit

disorientating, but
it's also a bit thrilling.

A short boat ride from Siez
Tunnel lies a marine environment

so spectacular, it's considered
one of the seven underwater

wonders of the world.

Palau is home to more than
50 marine lakes. When glaciers

melted at the end of the
last ice age 10,000 years ago,

ocean levels rose, filling
low-lying areas with seawater.

Fishers and tunnels in the limestone
connect these saltwater lakes to the ocean.

Beneath the surface of a
100-foot deep marine lake, on the

uninhabited coral island of
El Malek, is an astonishing

sight.

Millions of rippling jellyfish
pack the fluorescent green

water, their shimmering bodies
casting a luminescent glow.

This is Jellyfish Lake.

These golden jellyfish have thrived
in the lake for more than 10,000 years.

In this closed system, there
are few predators, so the

jellyfish have lost their
need to sting. They possess

stinging cells, just not ones
powerful enough to cause

serious harm to humans.
Getting to swim through that many

jellyfish is a pretty weird but
wonderful experience. When

you find a very dense patch
of them, the whole lake is

essentially pulsating these
jellyfish, so it's very cool

to see. They're not harmful
unless you have very sensitive

skin. They're very soft. They're just
doing their own thing, cruising along.

There's another, even more
remarkable way in which these

jellyfish differ from their
cousins in Palau's nearby ocean

lagoons. Most species of
jellyfish, like this moon jelly,

drift serenely on ocean
currents, just as their ancestors

have since before the age of the dinosaurs.

The five million specimens
at Jellyfish Lake are far from

passive. They may look like
they're drifting aimlessly, but

in fact, they're on a journey.
Migrating almost a mile, they

follow the same path and same
schedule every day. As the sun

rises in the east, the jellyfish
swim toward its life-giving

rays. They have to make
the trek to survive. The body of

each jellyfish contains a
crop of algae, its main source

of food. The algae processes
sunlight to produce sugar that

feeds the jellyfish. For
hours, they swim east toward

the sun, pumping water
through their bells and rotating

counterclockwise to provide
even exposure to the sun for the

algae in their bodies. Trees
that surround and shelter the

lake also cast shadows on
the surface. The jellyfish must

avoid the shade. They need
to absorb as much sunlight as

possible to maximize the
energy created by the algae within

their bells. So what they do
is they follow the sun around

the lake, so at a given time
during the day, they'll be in

the brightest spot of the lake
finding the most food. As the

sun begins to set in the west,
the dense bloom of jellyfish

reverses course and heads
back to the western shore. All

this swimming churns up
nutrients in the water that form the

base of the lake's food chain.
When the sun disappears into

the horizon, the jellyfish sink
50 feet down, where nitrogen

-rich waters help sustain the
algae in their bodies, before

ascending to the surface before dawn,
to start their complex migration once more.

Of Palau's 52 marine
lakes, five are home to

persistent populations
of golden jellyfish.

Fragile creatures, they have
shown an outstanding ability

to adapt in these landlocked
lakes. Lakes that were once

connected to the ocean, that defines
and sustains this tiny island nation.

For thousands of years,
Palauans have depended on their

coral reef for survival. It's
such a diverse habitat, so if

we lose that, we really lost
a lot of our ocean, a lot of

biodiversity in our ocean.
Billions of people live near the

coast and they depend on
coral reefs. So all of those, and

especially us on these small
islands, we would be severely

affected and our way of
life is totally changed. It

would be a devastation
to us not to have the reef.

These Pacific Islanders hold
two traditions of deep respect

for the sea. Yesterday, one
of my customers asked me,

Francie, don't you get tired
of coming out here in the

ocean? And I said, it's amazing.
Not one day is the same as

another day, never the same.
The clouds, the sun, the rain,

the wind, the tide, the movement.
So it's never the same, so

that's why I don't get tired
of going to the ocean. In

these protected waters that
contain more species of marine

creatures than almost anyplace
else on earth, long lost war

wrecks, claimed by the power
of the ocean, burst with energy

and life. Yawning trenches
plunge into unseen depths, and

manta rays soar, here in
this exotic land of the giants.

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