Original subtitles

[whale blowing]

The only way you can change the world is with stories.

And the bigger your legend becomes,

the easier it is to share the story.

People want to hear it.

They want to listen.

[Radio] Winds to 35 knots or higher possible.

And thunderstorms.

Showers and thunderstorms.

We are in an environmental emergency.

And having this vessel out there telling these stories is

actually a really hopeful and inspiring.

[gusting winds]

It looks like somebody just dropped a fricking

chandelier right on the ocean.

Yeah.

You don't realize the size and the scale of this oil rig.

It's a floating city.

Now we're on this mission to chase big oil

out of the Bahamas.

Just using our cameras.

[beeps]

All right, this is it.

[camera clicking]

[♪ theme music plays]

[buzzing]

Starboard bow.

This one is big and blue. You can't miss it.

-It's huge. -It's huge, yeah.

35 feet deep, 34 feet deep, 50, 48.

What's down there?

306, 48 to 306.

So I think we should explore right here.

It looks really great.

I don't worry about him. He worries about me.

Got to worry about something.

Might as well be the love of my life.

I think we are going to spend

the rest of our lives trying to save the ocean.

If anybody's uncomfortable, they call the dive.

-We go up together. -Okay.

It's so difficult to photograph and film in the ocean.

Not many people can do it.

And until we cannot physically do it,

we're going to continue doing it.

[reporter] National Geographic Magazine

is revealing its adventurers of the year.

They are chosen for embodying the spirit of

adventure in groundbreaking ways.

Two of them did so as a couple,

Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier are photographers.

They met in the cafeteria of National Geographic's headquarters.

Their dramatic images of the natural world have

won millions of social media followers,

turning them into conservation superstars.

[reporter 2] While Paul specializes in wildlife

at the frozen ends of the earth, Cristina captures the lives of

indigenous people all over the world.

[reporter 3] In 2015, the two marine biologists

cofounded SeaLegacy.

A non-profit organization working to save our seas.

[Cristina Mittermeier] In the beginning all we had was our Instagram account.

People really want to know what it feels like to be a photographer.

What it feels like to be sitting there in the stream

when a bear comes walking in.

I was cold. I was hungry.

I was scared. I was excited.

And so, we started posting those stories.

And it was like a scene out of Forest Gump.

One day you look behind you

and there's thousands of people following you.

Millions of people following you.

[Paul Nicklen] I really see the journey we're going on is to be

a Jacques Cousteau 2.0 using modern technology.

Beating that drum constantly.

You can elicit an emotional response from your followers.

You can make them care. You can make them angry.

I just want them to feel it and then from there,

decide what they want to do.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I think a lot of people have

already given up, you know?

Why care if everything is already doomed?

We still live in a beautiful planet.

There are still so many amazing animals out there.

I want to be an ambassador for nature.

For all of us.

For my children for yours.

And so, making that connection

from here's a photograph to

here's how we begin a movement of people who care.

A couple of nights of traveling, sailing,

living with Paul Nicklen.

Don't do it.

All right, this is where the makeup lives.

And all we need to do to be presentable for Instagram

is use this mirror.

Oh God...

[laughs]

It's a disaster.

We're off to a place in the Bahamas that has pristine waters,

rich abundance of wildlife,

great populations of sharks.

We're getting probably anywhere from 10 to 20 emails

and texts a day saying,

"Help! We have a major issue."

Everywhere you look, you hear screams of help for the environment.

[gasps]

[Cristina Mittermeier] This is nice. This is better.

[Paul Nicklen] These are all these little simmering issues

that are going on in the world.

And SeaLegacy has become so big that we can just now go into

and just throw gasoline on these little simmering fires.

Our hope is to take this boat around the world

and help tell the stories that need to be told everywhere.

This is like the adventure of a lifetime.

And when we bought this boat we basically didn't know

where to start.

And we could have thrown a dart at a globe and landed anywhere,

but it is very difficult not to fall in love with a place

like the Bahamas.

It's like candy.

It's gorgeous.

There's beautiful wildlife,

there's dolphins, there's sharks.

It's a stronghold for many endangered species.

But now they have an opportunity to drill for oil.

There's a shallow shoal and there's a company called

the Stena IceMAX that has applied for permit.

And we know what can happen

when big companies drill for oil.

And so, our story in the Bahamas is this moment,

this crossroads.

You know, SeaLegacy is for the fish,

and we are for the whales and for the dolphins.

So, our job in the Bahamas is to remind people that this

is all still there.

But you have to protect it.

And if we can make that happen here in the Bahamas,

then we can make it happen elsewhere on the planet.

So, we have to succeed.

[Paul Nicklen] So, we know where the IceMAX is based on

marine traffic,

'cause they've been at it for almost two months.

My understanding is that they only have 12 days left.

At some point, a dolphin is going to wash up on a beach.

A whale is going to die from this.

Something is going to happen.

So, here's our plan.

First, we're going to photograph

the giant seagrass beds that were just discovered.

Then we're going to sail looking for big marine animals,

the whales, the sharks,

and finally, we're going to make our way around

the northern tip of Andros

and sail through the night

to get to the oil rig under the cover of darkness.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Great!

[Paul Nicklen] So A, we're going to have the biggest body of work

ever created for the Bahamas underwater and above

that showcase the beauty of this place and to contrast that

we're going to have Goliath.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Yeah.

[Paul Nicklen] But first, let's get some epic,

beautiful footage.

[splashes]

[Cristina Mittermeier] When I'm shooting, I like to think

about myself like a membrane.

[camera clicking]

And on one side you have the thing that I'm photographing,

and let it pass through that membrane,

people that will never put their head underwater.

I want to be where that conversation goes

back and forth.

I love it, I just can't get enough of it.

I remember my dad coming home from work.

We were still living in Mexico City,

so my brother must have been eight or nine

and I was probably six or seven

and I was already fascinated by the ocean.

You know, I just loved it.

And he brought home a book and he had like

wrapped in newspaper.

He opened it up and it was

Jacques Cousteau, The Underwater World

and he gave it to Freddy.

And I was like, "Why to Freddy?"

You know, "I'm the one who cares about this stuff."

To this day, I cannot fathom that my dad never even saw it.

You know, that, that the gift was lost on Freddy.

I would just sneak into my brother's bedroom

after he got bored with it.

And you know, I would look, I still have the book.

I think we do this to girls.

You know, we raised them to believe that somehow

opportunities are better given to boys,

that some things are not for girls.

I grew up like that.

So many of my girlfriends, equally interesting,

equally curious, they did nothing

but stay home and become housewives.

That was the expectation.

I remember my dad saying, you know,

"Who's going to want to marry you if you go work on a fishing boat?"

Who's going to want to marry you?

Really?

I was able to redeem myself years later,

you know, I went to University in Northern Mexico.

I wanted to be a marine biologist,

but the only thing they had was fisheries biology.

That sounded close enough to me.

So, I graduated with my dad in my ear saying,

"You know, biology, how are you going to make a living?

It's not for girls."

And a friend of mine had an uncle who owned

a hotel in Akumal.

And so I moved to the Yucatan and I spent probably a year.

I mean, I had all the diving I wanted

because the hotel had a little dive shop.

So every day I would go diving and then I would just

go in the jungle and chase the monkeys.

And towards the end of the year,

there was a hurricane.

Scientists came through the hotel and they stayed there

and they offered me a job.

Conservation International.

And so I moved back to Mexico City and I started working in conservation.

Can you imagine?

[Paul Nicklen] You know, I think our goal is to do a wildlife

and nature biodiversity cross-section of the entire Bahamas.

And one of the great announcements that,

I mean, this is secret, um, hasn't been announced yet,

but the biggest seagrass beds in the world,

underwater seagrass beds.

They are discovered here in the Bahamas and they are by far

the largest in the world.

[Cristina Mittermeier] It's the biggest scientific discovery

in the oceans in the last 10 years.

[Richard] And it's on the banks here?

[Cristina Mittermeier] Right, right south of Nassau.

[Paul Nicklen] Yeah.

If you go to the Bahamas you think of the beautiful ripples

of white on the sand, on the ocean floor,

the crystal blue clear water.

So, if I said to somebody.

"Wow, you should care about seagrass,"

they'd be like, "Yeah okay, whatever,

I'm tuned out already," right?

But if you can go down underwater and connect

this whole ecosystem

from eagle rays and stingrays.

To following a shark through the seagrass

and she does this spiral move to get rid of the remoras

that are attached to her, you see all these species

that are connected to this environment.

And you realize how important it is.

[camera clicks]

And you use this beautiful engaging mega-fauna to get

people to ultimately fall in love with grass.

[Cristina Mittermeier] It's big and lush

and it really feels like an underwater garden.

[Paul Nicklen] Seagrass is actually

the oldest living organism

on our planet.

CO2 carbon goes in.

Oxygen gets spit out.

Those are the lungs of the Bahamas.

So whenever someone says,

"Every second breath you take comes from the sea."

That's what we're talking about.

I just don't think we appreciate

the importance of little things like the roots of the seagrass.

Doesn't look like much, but they might just be the solution.

[Paul Nicklen] You want the secret,

well, nature has been doing it for four billion years.

You're going to put that at risk so four or five guys

can get rich on oil.

From where we're trying to head is where the Stena IceMAX

is down right here.

People are like, "Well drilling's in the deep water."

Well so are the whales, you know.

People don't realize the power of the most sophisticated

oil drilling at the biggest scale,

right in the middle of a whale migratory corridor,

if there was an oil spill in that area.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Oh it would all go and wash up in Florida.

[Paul Nicklen] That oil would go right instantly into

the Gulf Stream it would be along the entire

eastern seaboard of the United States.

Okay, pull on that sucker.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

[Paul Nicklen] A little more.

[Louise Roy] How are you?

I'm great! How are you?

[Louise Roy] I'm fine, I'm looking out at the snow.

It's about 6 inches.

So, I'm looking at what boots I'm gonna wear, and you?

[Paul Nicklen] Uh, yeah, we're doing great.

Just wanted to check in and just tell you we love you

and we think about you guys often and, uh,

find ourselves homesick, but...

[Louise Roy] Well, the same here.

Yeah, well, thank you for everything.

[Louise Roy] I love you very much.

And you look after yourselves, OK?

Call me. I like that every once in a while.

It's so nice.

[Paul Nicklen] Yes, we will for sure and give my love

to Aaron and Mark and, uh, the puppies, of course.

And, and we'll talk to you soon, Mom.

-[Louise Roy] Will do. -[Paul Nicklen] Okay.

[Louise Roy] OK, I love you. Take care.

[Paul Nicklen] Okay. Love you too, okay bye-bye.

In 1972, when I was four years old,

my family moved to Baffin Island

because my dad got a job there.

It's a three-and-a-half-hour flight

on the big jet straight north.

We had moved into a community of 190 Inuit people.

There are all these outpost camps,

your groceries came once a year by ship.

We didn't have a television.

We didn't have a radio.

We didn't even have a telephone.

Nobody had a telephone.

It was a strange place, but I just got off on it.

And it was a very simple,

but very raw, but very beautiful existence.

In our little town of Lake Harbour,

my mom had a little dark room.

She would take pictures, she would process her negatives

in this bath.

And you would see these beautiful moments of these

Inuit hunters just, you know, people out on the land

and black and whites and us kids.

It's my only really sort of sad moment in all of this is

that my mom had such a hardship living in the North.

She saw so much troubling stuff that when she came out of the Arctic,

she took her life's work.

All of her photography, all of her slides...

[cries]

She took this whole journey we were on and just burned it.

She took gasoline and just burned it all.

And she wanted to

remove that chapter from her life whereas I,

you know, I found myself dreaming about the Arctic

and pursuing going back to the Arctic.

And being back with my Inuit friends.

I deeply fell in love with this place.

[moaning]

Let's do 10:00.

[moaning]

Definitely hear something down there.

Go to two.

[moaning]

Go nine.

[moaning]

[John Kelsey] I thought it was just the microphone,

but it disappears it like...

[Paul Nicklen] Exactly, I think that static is

I think whales deep.

So it's working, which is the good news.

If those are whales, they'd be then six, seven,

eight miles away.

I think we'll just go another one-mile north.

Can I listen?

[Paul Nicklen] Mm-hmm.

[rumbling]

[Cristina Mittermeier] Oh, wow. Amazing.

[Paul Nicklen] That noise we're hearing is that way.

-...or something. -Okay.

-The danger distance. -Yeah.

[Cristina Mittermeier] He likes the cold,

but he also likes the blue water.

Paul Nicklen is happiest when he has a big animal that

he can just spend time with.

Okay, I'm launching the drone.

[buzzing]

[beeping]

[buzzing]

Shelton, I'm going to do a big arch to

port and come around.

Okay, yeah, I'm scoping the whole area.

I can't see them.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Shelton is on top and he's got the drone

in the air.

Mishe is in the bow, she's looking for fins.

And somehow I got stuck in the wheel,

but somebody has to drive, so.

[Shelton Dupreez] Yeah, you can see that really well.

[Mishe] Yeah, oh they're surfaced, they're on the top.

[Shelton Dupreez] They're about 300 feet off the bow.

[Paul Nicklen] As best I can tell it's just a pod of pilot whales.

180 honey, let's do it.

Last light of the day.

Turn off the engine, just press the big black stop button.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Okay. We're stopped.

-Okay going in. -Good luck!

[whooshing]

[♪ whimsical music playing]

[Paul Nicklen] I've always been so in love with being

immersed in the ocean.

I'm with a wild animal.

I think it was second-year university,

one night I'm waiting for a friend to go study

and I click on the TV for a second.

[Narrator] But here the water is clear

and the orcas linger near us.

[Paul Nicklen] It's these two divers in the water.

And these orcas come up to them and then swim around them.

And the orcas disappear into the depths.

[Narrator] Disappear into the haze below us,

as if departing.

[Paul Nicklen] Then they come back up each with a shark in their mouths.

[Narrator] She parades before us like

a cat proudly displaying a mouse.

[Paul Nicklen] And they circle around Jacques Cousteau and his team,

and then disappear.

And I was just like,

"That's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

I know exactly what I'm going to do. That's it."

From that minute on, I was obsessed.

I was all in.

I was failing almost every class.

And I, I just basically lived underwater.

I just took down my camera and I shot and I shot and I shot

three to four times a day, every day

and my bedroom was full with wet dive gear.

And it was just foul.

But I didn't care.

Because I was just dove, dove every second I could.

I remember I went home.

My neighbor was a photographer and he's like,

"Let's do a slideshow at my house."

I was so proud, you know,

and I put these pictures up on the wall and, and my dad said,

"I think this is an absolute waste of time and money.

Why would you waste your time doing this?" You know?

And I was just like, "Ugh."

The hardest part was emotionally.

I think everybody telling me,

including my parents, my friends, my coworkers,

"You are going to fail."

And so I was mad at the world for telling me that

I couldn't do this.

So I packed up my gear and I went to a pilot and I said,

"I need you to drop me off as far away from civilization as you can."

And I said, "If I'm alive in four months,

I will be at the Arctic Ocean.

I'm just going to live out here alone with animals."

[camera clicking]

Took 300 rolls of film.

And I remember standing on the Barren Lands after

probably a week of being there.

I was lonely. I kind of wanted to go home.

Like, "What the hell am I doing?"

And, "Everybody's right, I am a failure."

And I remember just screaming one day

until my lungs were just raw.

And it was after that, that I sort of just settled in.

And I went from that, to being almost panicked that

this trip wasn't long enough.

I only had three months left, and I had to make

every second count.

And, you know, I lost 50 pounds.

I kind of became like a wild animal.

You know, I could see forever,

like your senses become so in tune that

it became like this drug to be out there in, in nature.

And when the trip was wrapping up,

I was just horrified, sad that it had to end, you know?

My now ex-wife came in for the last two weeks of the trip and,

you know, it was, uh, I remember being very frustrated

with her that she couldn't see, like, I'm like,

"The muskoxen are right there in front of you."

And they were like probably seven miles away.

She kept saying, "I can't see them."

That was kind of my,

my transition into the next chapter of life.

Just to use all that I had learned from the Inuit

and my survival skills and to just think about life, what was next.

[Cristina Mittermeier] He's a very good outdoorsman.

He's a very good survivalist.

And that allows him to do something that

a lot of photographers can't do.

And that is showing us intimate nature.

So for him, it's not enough to have a telephoto lens

and be 200 feet away.

He has to be this close.

[Paul Nicklen] I've never been naive enough to think

that I have special relationship with animals.

But I do believe there's a wildness to me from spending so much time with them

that I give off an energy

and a vibe around them.

[camera clicking]

That they can work with it.

[Cristina Mittermeier] And so when you look at his photographs

you feel like you are in the photograph with the animal.

I've had thousand-pound bears sleep against my tripod,

which is also touching my leg.

Wild leopard seals come up within two feet of me.

[Cristina Mittermeier] So that's what makes Paul Nicklen

one of the greatest photographers of our generation.

He's shown us nature in a different way.

That is intimate and really present.

[Paul Nicklen] Mama and a little baby.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Amazing.

Oh my God, look at it!

[Paul Nicklen] And then the next dive is even closer and sharper.

So, it was a good pass.

-Those look great. -Yeah?

[Paul Nicklen] Mom and a baby. It's dreamy, right?

[Cristina Mittermeier] Very beautiful.

Dreamy backlight feel to it.

Nice! That's the reflection on top--

-Yeah. -It's gorgeous.

[Cristina Mittermeier] There's an Inuit expression

that Paul taught me.

They say, "Tusu," which means I am happy for what you have

but I want it for myself too.

So I have Tusu.

I think I had a lot of practice finding my space next to someone

like Paul, because I was married for 20 years

to Russ Mittermeier, larger than life, adventurer,

explorer and scientist.

And the President of Conservation International.

I had my first child when I was 23.

I was a very young mom.

You know, my grandmother wanted me to have a baby.

I felt like this pressure, you know, that it was time to have children.

Russ and I lived in Great Falls, Virginia,

which is an affluent community near Washington DC.

So I, I started a little business.

Cristina Mittermeier Photography.

And so they wanted me to take their picture for the holidays.

So I had them like on a rotation.

You know, I had this little spot in front of the waterfalls.

And I had like three bookings every afternoon.

So I had this little business going making portraits.

At the same time, I was going on these amazing trips

to the Amazon and to Papua New Guinea with Russ and taking pictures.

He would go off at 5:00 in the morning to chase monkeys.

And I had to stay in these villages with the kids.

And having kids in remote communities,

it's like a magic door opener.

You know, people will come out of their homes

and they just wanted to touch these kid, you know,

and they would grab her and before you know it,

you're in the middle of the family.

And I was like, "Holy!"

I had access to people's very intimate spaces in life

and I could take pictures.

It was awesome.

[laughs]

And I was like, "Okay, game on."

You know?

We're sitting here on the northern Amazon,

waiting for some Indians coming to, uh,

do a welcoming dance for us.

So the funny thing is they came,

they went right by and they said,

"Oh, we'll come back. We'll come back."

So we're sitting here waiting for them.

[chanting]

[camera clicks]

[Paul Nicklen] She always surprises me.

[camera clicks]

There's always something there that is just different

and beautiful and fresh.

Like what I can do with animals, where I'm relaxed with them

and things happen for me with wildlife,

she's like that with people.

[camera clicking]

[Cristina Mittermeier] I've spoken to women photographers

who think that being a woman is a disadvantage.

For me, it was like a superpower, you know?

You are just non-threatening, you know,

people don't care that you have a camera.

You're a woman.

And I realized, you know, if I focus on

this aspect of humans and nature,

maybe there's something that not many people are doing.

[camera clicks]

And I think that's a very big difference

between male and female photographers, uh.

For me, it's about the relationships, you know,

the photographs I want to make are about

the mother and the baby or the, you know,

the connection.

For a lot of the men, it's about the action.

The bear, the shark!

[Paul Nicklen] Directly off the stern.

Right here off the stern, he just came up.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Wild tiger.

I didn't think we're going to see one.

Amazing.

[Shelton Dupreez] Hey you guys hang on, he's circling a stingray.

-Is he? -Yeah.

-Are you kidding me? -No, no.

-Whereabouts? -Right under the drone.

[Cristina Mittermeier] That's pretty awesome.

[John Kelsey] Straight ahead.

Yep, right out in front of you.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Right towards those people.

Right here!

Swim this way! Circling back to you!

[Paul Nicklen] Where's the shark?

[John Kelsey] Right behind you guys.

On the far side of us.

10 feet, 15 feet.

[Paul Nicklen] That ray's tail's been cut off.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Oh!

[Paul Nicklen] But he's about five feet long.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Do you think that stingray is dying?

[Paul Nicklen] Yeah, I saw his eyes,

but they're just fully covered over it, like fungus.

-Yeah. -So that's why he can't see him.

[Paul Nicklen] And he, he just moved 180, but very,

very slow and sluggish and I just think it's a small shark.

I think it's terrified.

-Yeah. -I mean, he's scared of me.

[Paul Nicklen] He's scared of this ray.

I mean, he's just cautious, right?

And we see tiger sharks as these vicious beasts.

And yet they're patiently waiting for a stingray that has

no barb to die rather than risk getting hurt, you know.

Can you imagine that stingray?

Coming to this crossroads in time.

It's just, it's just very powerful.

It's, it's very fortunate.

It's sad. It's beautiful. It's all of it, you know?

It's kind of how I want to go.

I've been always sort of fascinated how I'm going to die.

I just don't want to die in a car and I want my death to be cool.

I remember I was very close to getting killed

by an 8,000-pound breeding elephant seal.

I didn't realize he'd been breeding all day

and he was hot and he was in the water,

cooling off the water was four feet deep.

And I swam up to him to take his picture and he turned on me

and here's an animal that's when he rears up,

he's 11 feet tall in the air, you know,

and he's rearing up and trying to crush me.

I'm the only defense I have.

Every time he tried to bite me and his teeth are,

you know, four inches long.

I would just shove my housing in his mouth and just push off

and I'm alone, you know.

And it was kind of calming.

I'm like, "So, this is how I'm going to die."

I remember having that thought like, "Oh, so this is it."

And, but finally, I took my, my snorkel out of my mouth,

and I went, "Sean!" I yell, put it back in my mouth.

Boom! And he just kept coming after me, coming after me.

And finally, I crawled out in the beach,

but I, you know, my arms were just swollen from the impact.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I think he has a very different

threshold for fear than I do,

so he is able to tolerate a lot more risk than I can.

[Paul Nicklen] I just like those raw moments where animals

are in control, I just feel very alive

when I'm vulnerable and uncomfortable and a bit scared.

It was the first weekend in the Bahamas,

I was having quite a bit of regret,

I'm like, "I've just walked away from the Arctic where

I do get to feel vulnerable from the rawness of walrus

and ice diving and leopard seals."

And I was starting to question myself,

"I'm doing coral, in crystal blue water.

Like this is too easy.

I don't feel scared."

And then just as I was having those thoughts,

we found the bottlenose dolphins.

And I jumped in the water with one dolphin.

And then to witness seven dolphins all diving deep

into the sand and it looks like you're flying over the moon

with all the craters, it's called crater feeding.

And it became one of the most beautiful,

poetic moments of, of my career.

[squeaking]

And the tagline came up to me

that this is the only drilling that should be taking place in the Bahamas.

[squeaking]

[Cristina Mittermeier] So what's our plan when we get

to the oil drilling?

I was saying that when we get to the Stena IceMAX,

they're not going to let us hang out.

[Paul Nicklen] I don't think they're going to invite us

on board for coffee, but I think that...

[Cristina Mittermeier] Oh, I think they will unleash,

unleash their security boats on us.

So I think we have one chance and that is

pretending to be a sailing cruising vessel,

film from the deck.

And as we pass, as we leave, fly the drone before they come

and put the run on us.

[Paul Nicklen] They can't legally put the run on us though.

Oh, they can

and they are protected by the Bahamian government and--

[Paul Nicklen] No like we're not going to be 50 feet from them.

We'll be half a mile from them.

Okay, just know that we risk getting

kicked out of the country for harassing boat.

[Paul Nicklen] We're not harassing. Just cruising by.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I'll leave it with you,

but I wouldn't hang out because those ships,

you know, they are under threat of piracy

and terrorism and stuff.

You know, we very seldom fight.

I wish we had a more healthy fighting life.

[laughs]

We don't fight, but we disagree.

So, then...

[Chai] Going back to that moment when you met Paul.

You were in the room for the first time.

What had brought you into that room?

[Cristina Mittermeier] So I was going to these

nature photography conferences.

Russ would keep the kids and I would travel

to meet other photographers. It was so intimidating.

'Cause they all had their portfolios and these big binders.

And I had nothing.

I had 10 pictures of indigenous people

that nobody wanted to see.

So I was nobody, but I would raise my hand

and I would say, you know,

"Could we, you know, perhaps think about contributing

more of our work to environmental organizations?"

And I was basically told to shut up and sit down, like,

"Yeah, we don't do environment here little lady."

[laughs]

A lot of photographers had a really hard time connecting

the dots between their work and the conservation outcome.

I was trying to tell that story for them.

[Paul Nicklen] I was living in White Horse, Yukon.

A friend of mine came over and he goes,

"There's this big organization being launched, the ILCP,

the International League of Conservation Photographers.

And, and this woman named Christina Mittermeier is

launching it in Alaska.

And I'm going, I've been invited."

And I'm like, "Wow."

And I became sort of instantly jealous and...

So I hadn't me her yet.

And then it was probably six, seven months later, I was back

at National Geographic for meetings.

And, um, there was Cristina Mittermeier.

[Cristina Mittermeier] We were in one of those meetings that

National Geographic does for their photographers

and it was my first meeting.

She looked beautiful.

She's in this sort of Mexican, the bracelets and the long skirt

and that very Mexican flair.

And there she is, looks just like, to me,

Catherine Zeta-Jones.

And there was an empty chair next to me.

And Paul walked in,

all Canadian.

He was wearing plaid and corduroys

and he was really cute.

And I was so nervous.

And she goes, "Hello I'm Cristina Mittermeier.

I want you to sit next to me and flirt with me."

Those are the first words out of her mouth.

I've learned that she says crazy things when she's nervous,

so she was nervous to meet me. I was nervous to meet her.

[Cristina Mittermeier] By that time I knew that Russ and

I were not going to make it.

You know, it's one of those where after you've been married

for about 15 years, you start making a plan.

I was like, "You know what, I'm still young.

I, I don't want to be here 10 years from now,

still feeling this way."

And Paul was on assignment in Mexico.

And I remember I was driving my kids and I'm on my cell phone.

And, "Paul, Paul!" You know, I said,

"I need some of your pictures for this press release."

And he said, "Talk to my agent."

And she's like, "Yeah, Paul's going to need to be

paid for these."

Oh my God.

I was like, how can you call yourself

a conservation photographer

and you cannot even, you know, allow the use of your images

for press release?

I was pissed. I was furious.

So I think in order to make it up to me,

he said that he would come on an expedition,

we were documenting the Yucatan Peninsula

and just how quickly it's changed.

And so I put together a team of 20 photographers.

I said, "I'll be Paul's assistant.

I'll pick him up from the airport."

And of all the photographers, he was the most difficult

to work with because I knew he didn't want to be there.

We ended up shooting together for a week

and diving in these beautiful cenotes in Mexico.

There is something really interesting that happens

when you dive with the same person.

And it is like a choreography,

it is like a dance.

When I was married to Russ Mittermeier,

he was so afraid of letting me dive

that I didn't dive almost in 20 years.

And so when I met Paul and I started diving with him,

it was just like the most romantic, amazing thing.

To have this dive partner who loves to be underwater

as much as you do.

And we were staying in a little house that we had rented

and I was like, "Oh my God, this is like,

we're in a honeymoon."

[Paul Nicklen] Hello, hello, check, check one, two, three,

Cristina cooking Mexican tonight.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Happy birthday, to me.

[Paul Nicklen] Happy Birthday.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪♪

[Cristina Mittermeier] Cha, cha, cha.

♪ Happy birthday to Christina ♪♪

-I love you. -Aww.

[Paul Nicklen] And many more.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I love you too.

And after we fell in love and, you know,

started working together, I was his assistant in the field

and I was his fixer.

-Okay, one more. -I'm very uncomfortable.

No, don't be uncomfortable, get used to it.

[Cristina Mittermeier] He was the photographer on assignment,

but I was traveling with him and helping him with everything.

I'm gonna take your picture.

So we did probably 10 assignments for

NatGeo that way.

[Paul Nicklen] Just a dream person to be out there with,

always happy and...

Just you know, I went from loving working with her

to needing her in my life all the time.

And we went off on this journey together.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Paul was the first person to really

look at me and say, "Okay you want to be a photographer."

Like until then I was fighting for it.

And he's like, "No, no, you are photographer

and you're really good to."

It's amazing when somebody says that to you.

[camera clicking]

[Paul Nicklen] So I brought her with me out on

a National Geographic assignment and as I was standing there on

the shores, these two photographers took me aside,

and they said, "We see you're close to Cristina

like your friends," I'm like, "Yeah,"

and they said, "We need you to go tell her that

she is not a photographer.

She is here in service to us."

That pissed me off.

I mean, there's like this

contract between a photographer and an assistant.

You're not there to shoot.

You're there to facilitate his story.

No, I triggered some people, you know,

I trigger a certain kind of man,

a man who then has to scold me or school me,

or tell me what's what.

They're all trying to bring her down

because photographers are like a bunch of hungry wolves,

and I think being a Mexican woman living

in the United States, she got a lot of that, you know?

[Bystander] Oh, yes.

[Jeremiah] Cristina, you're the best president-elect I know.

[Jeremiah] Uh, uh...

I, I, I don't expect a recount.

[Paul Nicklen] I was just so in awe of her determination

and power and perseverance and her leadership,

and photographers were following her.

And my marriage had sort of been over for many years.

It became just more of a decision,

I'm going to go do conservation, you know,

with this other woman who's on fire, you know.

And we're going to go fight for this planet.

That's all we're going to do for the next 30 years.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I think the biggest gift that Paul has

given me, he's been that confidence that,

that I do know what I'm doing and I, maybe I am good at it.

[Paul Nicklen] Yesterday you were an amazing Captain.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I captained it.

[Paul Nicklen] You did; you're captain.

[beeping]

[Cristina Mittermeier] Antarctica was a transformative

experience because for 10 years

I had been Paul's assistant and fixer.

And for Antarctica specifically,

Paul insisted that I be a photographer on the expedition.

And I never wanted to be

a National Geographic photographer.

My ambition is to do conservation,

but it was like, "Wow, you know,

what a, an amazing privilege and honor to be asked."

I was the only woman on the expedition and I was kind of

half expecting for the men to mansplain things to me

and tell me how to do things.

But they didn't, they were amazing.

They were like, "Okay Christina,

you're on splits, you're going to be in the water all day.

See you at dinner."

You know? And I was like, "Okay, I'm on my own."

[Paul Nicklen] It's fantastic. You've got all these chicks.

These Chinstraps, Gentoos, Adélies.

They're all going to sea right now, and, uh,

the leopard seals are here to pick them off.

And they feed all morning and then they rest all day.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I don't feel threatened

or scared in the company of animals.

So I have a very calm demeanor.

And I think that really helps.

And I spent about an hour and a half first with one and then

with two, and at some point there were

five leopard seals around me, wonderfully curious, photogenic,

super interesting animals.

And I was trying to make a split photograph of

a leopard seal and an iceberg.

[Paul Nicklen] Guys, Peter. Good.

[Paul Nicklen] We need to think about getting people out.

They're getting a little aggro.

[Andy] Keith, time.

[Cristina Mittermeier] They come out of nowhere.

[Driver] That's why I'm yelling, "Incoming, incoming!"

[Cristina Mittermeier] Oh! It's like a ghost.

So beautiful.

Whoo!

-Yeah baby. -Yeah baby!

-Well done guys. -Well done guys.

[Paul Nicklen] Thanks, buddy.

[Driver] Thank you.

That was awesome. That was unbelievable.

Life-changing really.

Hey you big girl.

You're beautiful.

So yesterday I was trying to photograph this little

lonely penguin on the iceberg, and as I was shooting there,

you know, all of a sudden I saw one leopard seal come by

and then two leopard seals come by.

And pretty soon there were four or five.

So I want to try to do that again because

they were catching penguins right there.

[Paul Nicklen] You know, I got a little concerned yesterday or

when I heard you were in the water alone with

five leopard seals.

'Cause they are amazing animals. They're like big dogs.

They're super cool. There are a lot of fun.

They're the probably the most beautiful animal you'll ever

watch underwater, but five of them together.

I mean, they are, they're nature's coolest killing machines.

I mean, they, one wants to mess with you.

Just, you know, be just be careful.

[Cristina Mittermeier] They, they seem to be pretty happy

eating penguins like popcorn.

[Paul Nicklen] Yeah. There's a lot of food for them,

but still, it's not a given that it's all going to go 100%.

I have almost lost Christina on a dive once and it was a very,

it was just an awful feeling like sickening.

And, um, you know,

so I, I think that my safety barometer of that

gray line there, you push your limits of,

of what's right and wrong, what's safe and not safe.

That line has come way down for me.

'Cause I look it through,

like, if I'm dead, I'm dead.

If I lose Christina, then you have to live with that.

I'm always keeping an eye on her,

I never wanted to be sort of patronizing or too protective of her,

but I'm very protective of her.

But, you know, who am I to say, "I do this and you can't,"

you know, we're equal out there.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I'm very happy that I was able to do that story.

Forevermore, I will be able to say that

I'm a contributing photographer to National Geographic,

and that is a huge deal to me.

I now know that I am at the top of my game and that I have what

it takes to produce the kinds of stories that move people.

[camera clicks]

And I am happy that I get to create this content now

for SeaLegacy and for this conservation work that

I'm going to do until I die.

[Paul Nicklen] Now we're going to get into some of

the nitty-gritty conservation work.

My understanding is we're 115 miles away

from the IceMAX, right where they're drilling.

So are we going to come in direct at the ship sort of hard

and fast, or are we going to come in timid and shy from

the distance and get some drones in the air?

We could be there

by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

We can come in just under the cover of darkness

tomorrow morning, even though they legally can't ram us

or chase us out of there, they're going to do everything they can

to get us out of there.

And then from there, our excuse,

"Oh, we're a Canadian boat, eh?

No like we're out here fishing.

And, um, we saw you have a really cool boat and, um,

what are your distance restrictions?"

And they're going to be like, "One mile," you know,

and you're like, "Okay, thank you.

We'll make sure we, we follow those rules."

And we'll sit at a mile.

When you're starting out your career you measure success

and it's nice to win a BBC Award or a World Press Photo Award.

But after a while, you're like, "Okay, I know how to tell a story."

And now we measure success in having our own wins.

Whether it's taking on big oil in Norway,

I was in Moscow last year and just like being glared down

by the entire oil industry from Norway.

If you've ever been to a place called Lofoten,

it is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world

where every year 1200 orcas show up to feed on the herring.

You get humpback whales and fin whales.

We need to protect a lot of these critical key habitats

on our earth if we want to continue having life the way it is. Thank you.

They're staring at me while I'm on stage.

And Putin had just given an address

and just hating me because we had won.

We chased them out of these grounds in the Lofoten region,

just using our cameras.

We had helped a group shut down the entire drift net fishery

off the coast of California, that has a nine-to-one bycatch

because we went diving and showed how gross it is.

[cameras clicking]

Tragically, last night, we found a humpback whale wrapped

up in this big, heavy crab pot line.

We were able to get a lot of it free,

but it still has a lot on it.

It's still out there fighting for its life.

[Cristina Mittermeier] We partner with these organizations

like this tiny nonprofit in Canada,

they literally are three people.

But they figured out a great idea.

They said, "If we don't want people to hunt wolves,

all we have to do is buy the hunting tenure."

You know, we just rallied our followers we said,

"This is what we want to do and this is how much we need,"

and sure enough, within days we had the money.

[howling]

And not ever again a single wolf will be killed there.

[Paul Nicklen] My dream is that anybody sees SeaLegacy coming,

not just the boat, but the organization.

And they're just going to roll over.

'Cause they just can't handle 300 million eyes, you know,

something three times bigger than eyes on the Super Bowl,

all of a sudden focused on them and what they're doing,

that, that excites me.

[Cristina Mittermeier] We have been sailing through the night.

And we are now 7.7 nautical miles

away from the Stena Ice.

We can see them in our radar and they probably can

see us in their radar.

And they are probably wondering what we are doing here.

And so we need to come up with an answer fairly, fairly pronto.

[Shelton Dupreez] Okay, coming down.

[Paul Nicklen] Are you guys ready for me to go into the wind?

[Shelton Dupreez] Yeah, standby,

all right all sails down.

[Paul Nicklen] Okay.

It looks like somebody just dropped a frickin' chandelier right on the ocean.

-It's a city. -It's a city, yeah.

[Paul Nicklen] It's a floating city.

[Cristina Mittermeier] And the one thing that I don't want is

to get kicked out of the Bahamas.

To get reported to the Bahamian authorities.

[Paul Nicklen] I don't think we admit to journalists.

We're just in transit, um.

Looks like our C-O-G is, you know,

two miles, that, is that an acceptable distance?

Are we close to, uh, I want to change our course

here pretty quick.

So we are trying to already debate,

we obviously don't already have our plan completely together

'cause Cristina now thinks we should issue that we are journalists.

And telling here to photograph the ship.

I think that that's not smart.

Um...

Then they're going to get really obviously suspicious.

I'm going to alter course as if we're going to miss them.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I mean, imagine the radio call going

right now to the Bahamian Coast Guard.

I, I think lying is not the best policy.

I think it's just better to tell the truth and see what they say.

[Paul Nicklen] Do you really think you can get

a great shot with a drone?

You think two miles is, can get you there?

[Shelton Dupreez] What's, what's two miles in meters?

-Three kilometers. -Like three kilometers?

[Paul Nicklen] 3.2 kilometers.

[Shelton Dupreez] So it's like two is the, is as far,

especially in like with a bit of wind like this,

you get there and have like 10 minutes to shoot that, man.

[Paul Nicklen] My goal is that we have this,

this angle 2.4 miles, and by then we're going to be

in radio contact.

[beeps]

[Cristina Mittermeier] Too dark.

[Stena IceMAX] SeaLegacy One.

SeaLegacy One.

-Paul you want to take that? -Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...

[Stena IceMAX] This is Stena Icemax.

[Paul Nicklen] IceMAX, IceMAX, yes, this is

the SeaLegacy One, go ahead.

[Stena IceMAX] So, for information,

we are a drilling rig.

Our operations are the only operations in this area.

And we request a wide berth of at least two nautical miles.

[Paul Nicklen] Yeah, okay, Roger, copy that.

We are, uh, just dealing with some sails,

and then we are going to head to Cay Sal Bank, um.

And then, um, but we will,

we will maintain two nautical miles,

we will give you a wide berth, um.

And if there's, uh,

come back to us 1, we'll stay on 1-6.

[Stena IceMAX] Yeah, okay Captain, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[Stena IceMAX] Yeah.

[Paul Nicklen] Yeah, okay, copy. Thank you.

-Two miles. -We got our number.

-[Shelton Dupreez] Okay. -[Paul Nicklen] So that means 1.8.

That's the number we wanted.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Perfect.

[Paul Nicklen] All right, this is it.

[camera clicking]

[camera clicking]

[camera clicking]

[Cristina Mittermeier] You can barely see it behind me.

Right above my head.

There is this Stena IceMAX.

It's a, an oil drilling ship here in the southern waters

of the Bahama.

My hope is that there's no oil and that they just

give up and go home.

But if they do find oil, then we have to create a case

for a better alternative.

Building a blue economy, a future that's more sustainable

for Bahamians and for the world.

I love the irony that they have a polar bear

with ice written on their ship.

And this is the one thing that's ultimately destroying

the habitat of polar bears.

You know, there's not much else we can do.

We've already been issued a two-mile alert by these guys.

If we want to fly back and we want to keep working in the Bahamas,

I think we're going to have to be respectful of that, unfortunately.

[Cristina Mittermeier] So good.

Wow, that is nice Shelton.

-Well done. -[Paul Nicklen] Gotta do like a...

-It's kind of nice. -Yeah.

[camera clicking]

[Paul Nicklen] That shot right there to me it says it all.

It's actually in many ways, it's the scariest.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Yeah.

This beautiful blue ocean, you know,

look at the slick coming off the boat.

Is that oil or is that sand or sediment?

What is it?

It's pretty shocking that something that big

is here, drilling.

It's good.

[Cristina Mittermeier] Very good, very proud.

Everybody is going to love this.

So good.

Something that I always find so impressive is just

Paul's ability to execute on expeditions, you know,

to kind of visualize what we need to do, plan for it.

And then just put us in the place where we need to be.

I think 99% of our success is just Paul's experience with expeditions.

[Paul Nicklen] I think of like as tight as incriminating

as possible without being illegal, you know.

That's powerful right there.

[Shelton Dupreez] Pull that, pull that, pull that.

[Paul Nicklen] That's nice.

It's something like that, where you look at the eyes.

Okay.

[Cristina Mittermeier] So I just received an email

from the president of BREEF, which is one of the leading non-profits

here in the Bahamas.

They have been spearheading the effort

to get, uh, oil drilling out of here.

Whilst they will encounter oil, commercial volumes of oils have

not been proven at this well location.

Drilling has now ceased and the well will now

be permanently plugged and abandoned.

And we need to push now for permanent protections

from oil drilling in the future.

This will send a message to the world that we take

the protection of our environment seriously,

that we care about the current and future

well-being of our people.

And that we are serious about building a climate-resilient future

and I think the country is celebrating.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

[Paul Nicklen] You never know how these campaigns are going to go.

You know, maybe we all get to be heroes in this case,

but we're going to keep gathering the assets that

allow us to keep that narrative on, uh,

going in case they do rear their heads again.

300,000 views in two hours.

We're going to hit a million views and probably 10,000 comments,

which will be one of our more successful engagement posts

in a long time on something that's really important.

So people can sign petitions and put their name and voice to it.

And I think on a, on a bigger thing,

you know, it keeps feeding people with hope.

Change is possible.

Change is happening.

Incredible, this is what I need when I do splits.

[Paul Nicklen] When you what?

[Cristina Mittermeier] When I do splits, this the kind of sky.

It's all about the empty spaces I learned once in a Sony video,

that's where the magic lives it's in the empty spaces.

Are you making fun of me?

But photographing four million years of evolutionary perfection.

That's...

[laughter]

-It is very pretty. -It is quite lovely.

I've always been in awe of her and definitely in love with her

since the first time I met her, you know,

when she said, "Come and sit next to me."

Now she is one of the great female photographers in the world.

And I'm excited to see what happens with her next.

This is a great scene!

I, I want to make stuff that really transcends.

Something bigger than itself.

You know, compelling and poignant.

It's the work that I am going to do

because I have to,

'cause how can I not?

[camera clicking]

[Paul Nicklen] On my deathbed, I just want to know that

we saved a lot of habitat and a lot of species.

The more I go on this journey with Cristina,

and the more we have the work with SeaLegacy,

the more responsibility I feel to tell stories.

When you have the cameras,

you get to control how the story ends.

[Cristina Mittermeier] I think being out in the water

and being a beacon of hope, of inspiration

I think is really important.

[Paul Nicklen] I don't want to move to Mars.

I have no desire to go live in a frickin' glass bubble.

We are living in heaven, to think that there's been

four billion years of evolution to arrive at this

moment of perfection where

you know, this place is just beautiful.

Where we can swim in crystal-clean water

and you're surrounded by grizzly bears and black bears

and there's whales that come up to you.

And it's here and now.

[squawking]

[howling]

We're just lucky we get to do this.

We really are.

This is, you don't retire from this.

You know, you're with this until, until you sign off.

Until, you win or die, yeah.

[♪ upbeat music plays]

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.