Original subtitles

– The Sound –

An olive-ridley turtle,

she's resting in the shallows of Costa Rica.

Having swum a thousand miles to be here.

All because the eggs she carries must be laid on dry land.

Now she's returned to the very same beach where she hatched ten years ago.

She must leave the safety of her marine world and

brave the alien world beyond.

She's heavily laden, but the future of the next generation of her kind is at stake.

All along the beach, in a spectacle that has remained

unchanged for millions of years, mother sea turtles emerge

from the ocean.

In their hundreds of thousands.

Only those animals that overcome the great challenges of

both land and sea can make the most of life here on the

coasts.

Our shores are places of sudden changes and rich rewards.

The Galapagos Islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Their barren coastline looks inhospitable, but one group

of animals has learned to use it to their advantage.

Sea lions.

Bachelors. They need to pile on the pounds as only the

biggest males will attract a female and manage to breed.

If these young bulls fail to grow big enough, they

will remain exiled on this isolated shoreline.

So one hungry young bull heads out alone.

He's on the hunt for big game.

Yellowfin tuna.

Each weighing 60 kilos.

With a top speed of 40 miles an hour.

He can't possibly catch one in the open sea. But he has a plan.

Ahead lies the entrance to the cove.

He herds them towards it.

Into his trap.

Driving them into a dead end.

But they give him the slip.

He's failed.

But there might be another way.

Now they head off as a team. To round up more tuna.

Driving them back into the cove.

The sea lions fan out, channeling the tuna towards the bottleneck.

Once again, the tuna hit the dead end. But this time the

young bull doubles back to act as a blocker, sealing off the

exit.

This time, when the shoal tries to escape, he blocks

them and drives them back into the next blind alley.

The gang can now pick them off, one by one.

The young bulls are back to act as a blocker, and the young

bulls are back to act as a blocker. This clever fishing

technique, demanding foresight, planning and cooperation,

has only ever been seen here in the Galapagos.

Each massive fish provides them with five

times more protein than a normal day's hunting.

Finally, the young bull leaves his post, to claim his reward.

On a diet of protein-rich tuna, he's well on

the way to becoming a full-sized breeding bull.

By using this cove, these Galapagos sea lions have made the

most of the opportunities that occur where the coast's two

worlds meet.

Coasts are the most swiftly changing of all ocean habitats, because of the tides.

Tides are created as the moon's gravity pulls at the sea.

As the moon circles our planet, the seas rise and fall,

typically twice a day, creating the most constantly dynamic

landscapes on Earth.

Nowhere else do sea-living creatures face such changeable

conditions, with the daily risk of drying out and being

scorched by the sun.

Where the tide retreats across a rocky

shore, it can leave behind a temporary oasis.

A rock pool.

Seemingly, it's a haven of calm. But not for long.

Turning minutes into seconds reveals unexpected dramas.

In rock pools, grazers, scavengers and filter feeders must

all make the most of the few short hours before the tide

returns.

Anemones gulp down anything they can reach, though

some meals are harder to digest than others.

These magical worlds soon become battlegrounds.

A deadly predator with five arms and, on the underside, a mouth.

The ochre starfish.

And it's in search of limpets.

For some, there is no escape. It engulfs them.

But other limpets have a secret defense. They deploy a

slippery shield, which allows them to slide to safety.

And this limpet has its own personal bodyguard.

A scale worm with a nasty nip.

The starfish prefers food that doesn't bite back. The limpet

carries on, its bodyguard tucked safe under its shell. But

there is one creature that limpets have no defense against.

A clingfish. It has teeth that can lever under the shell and

twist the limpet off like a bottle top.

The clingfish then swallows it, shell and all.

Rockpool dramas like these last just a few short hours before the tide returns.

Every day, the sea becomes land and the land becomes sea.

Bringing new opportunities.

A Sally Lightfoot crab.

One of thousands of shore crabs just waiting for their moment.

Every day, they gather on the tropical shores of Brazil.

Waiting for the tide to go out.

Which exposes their feeding grounds. Seaweed

covered rocks a hundred meters from the shore.

Getting there is a race against the tide.

They leap from rock to rock.

These crabs seem to be afraid of the water.

And for good reason.

The Moray Eel.

The Chained Moray is a specialist crab hunter.

Its blunt teeth can easily grip and crush. A crab shell.

It's the crab's deadliest enemy.

But the crab's feeding grounds are still a long way off.

They must press on.

Halfway.

But their enemy has other ideas.

Crossing the land.

To reset the ambush.

To feed, the crabs must keep going.

But nowhere is safe.

An octopus, also a crab killer.

The crabs make a dash for it. The Moray

Eel. Made it. The Moray Eel.

Risking life and limb to graze on these seaweed pastures.

But in two hours' time, when the tide starts to turn,

they will have to run the gauntlet all over again.

Tides are not the only force to have an impact on the coasts.

The greatest waves originate far out to sea and

roll in towards the coast, growing as they come.

As the shallowing seafloor turns, the sea floor drags at

their underside. Their crests rise up to 100 feet high,

topple over and break.

Many of the biggest surfed waves in the world are formed off Nazaré in Portugal.

Every day along this coast, the impact of the waves

is equivalent to one and a half million tons of TNT.

Wave power gradually molds and reshapes our coasts.

In some parts of Europe, waves wear away as

much as three meters of coastline each year.

The rate at which the waves reshape the rock depends on its

hardness. Where soft rock lies below hard, dramatic arches

are carved.

It's an endless assault that gradually sculpts

vaulted cathedrals of stone as here in northern Spain.

And wave power creates towering fortresses like these

cliffs in the Arctic, home to tens of thousands of breeding

seabirds.

The faces of the cliffs are accessible only from the air, as

the water flows through them. And have plenty of nooks and

crannies for those that can get there.

But to feed, seabirds must still master the ocean world beyond.

A puffin.

He's a fisherman and a father.

He has a mate for life.

Both share the burden of raising their weak old chick, their

puffling, who needs five square meals a day. The parents

alternate fishing trips.

It's dad's turn.

When fish stocks are low, puffins must fly as much as

30 miles out to sea to reach the good fishing grounds.

Once there, they plunge into another world.

Good fishing spots are hard to come by and they have company.

Like the puffin, their wings are short and good for diving.

Puffins can hold their breath for over a minute and dive as deep as 40 meters.

A catch.

But it's a long way home.

After an exhausting round trip of almost 60 miles, this

puffin's nearly made it. But there are pirates on this

coast.

Arctic skewers.

All around, returning parents are being robbed.

The skewers' long range-backed wings make them faster and more maneuverable.

Puffins must choose their moment wisely.

A near miss.

The last desperate burst of speed. And it's made it.

Safely home after a three-hour round trip.

Where his patient partner is waiting.

Today, their puffling will eat.

But where fish numbers are in decline, many puffins now find

it hard to get enough food for their chicks. In the changing

seas of today, it can be even harder to be a successful puffin parent.

Overcoming the challenges of two worlds is seldom easy. One

marine creature has virtually abandoned the sea altogether.

On a few remote Pacific islands lives the most terrestrial fish on the planet.

At the top of this meter-high limestone cliff,

an eight-centimeter-long blenny has chosen a nest hole.

Up here, he can graze on the abundant algae without any

competition from sea-going fish. The females are feeding

beneath him.

He's keen to attract their attention. But they are busy

moisturizing. Staying damp is essential as they breathe

through their skins.

To make himself conspicuous, he turns black

and flashes his orange fin. He catches her eye. But

these Pacific leaping blennies seem afraid of the waves.

They're poor swimmers and would be easy prey in the sea.

Time to try again.

She's tempted.

But once again, distracted by a wave.

The male just won't give up.

Finally, she's hooked.

He makes way so she can enter his cave.

And he encourages her to lay her eggs with

his seductive fin. It's time for a live dance.

He then fertilizes them in the safety of his nest.

The blenny has given up the sea for a life on land. Others

have made an even more successful move but in a different

direction.

Penguins have abandoned flying and instead spend most of

their lives swimming. Their sleek survival suits of tightly

packed feathers are perfect for these freezing

waters. Yet they must still come ashore once a year.

South Georgia an island wilderness close to Antarctica.

Each spring, its beaches become the busiest on Earth

as hundreds of thousands of king penguins return here.

They're heading for the colony.

But in their way lies the biggest wall of blubber on the planet.

Elephant seals.

It's the breeding season and the four-toned

bulls are fighting for control of their harems.

Best to wait for them to calm down.

He can't fly over this barrier so he will have to walk as unobtrusively as possible.

And hope that sleeping giants will continue to lie.

Careful.

This could be tricky.

A rival bull mounts his own harem. It's a challenge.

The penguins could be caught in the cross.

Eight tons of blubber collide.

The towering beach master is victorious.

In the confusion, this penguin slips through.

Ahead are 40,000 chicks.

Hungry and over-excited.

But not every penguin has a chick to feed. That's not why they're here.

There is another reason. There is a trial of endurance that

every penguin must face. And it starts with a persistent

itch.

His survival suit has been worn thin by months

after swimming in the rough southern ocean.

His solution is drastic.

Shed all four layers of feathers as quickly as possible.

The process is known as a catastrophic molt.

Until their feathers regrow, penguins will remain rooted to the spot.

Having starved for a month, they're now fully

waterproofed and insulated once more. The penguins are now

clean, hungry, and eager to return to a life at sea.

Thanks to their waterproof plumage, penguins are able to

make the most of both worlds even in some of the harshest

conditions on Earth.

The coasts of South Georgia are currently protected by their remoteness.

Other coastlines are much more vulnerable.

And they are now changing faster than ever before.

Two thirds of our major cities are on our coasts.

It's estimated that in the next decade, we can expect 10

percent of the world's remaining wild shores to be taken

over by human development.

Yet every year, just off Florida's Palm Beach, an

extraordinary spectacle appears almost unnoticed.

The biggest gathering of coastal sharks on the planet.

Spinners and blacktips.

Ten thousand of them.

Every January, they seek out these warm shallows

as a stopover on their migration northwards.

Sharks have been gathering here since long before people arrived.

But today, they face levels of pollution and habitat

degradation as well as fishing pressures that their

ancestors would never have experienced.

It's no longer enough for coastal creatures to master their own worlds.

Now they must face the many challenges that come from our world too.

To film the most surprising coastal wildlife, the Blue

Planet 2 team traveled to some of the remotest shores on the

planet.

One destination was the Galapagos Islands. Here, they were

in search of an almost unbelievable story brought to them by

a local cameraman, Richard Wollecombe. Well, I was talking

to a friend of mine who's a fisherman over here and he said

that one day he turned up here in this bay and suddenly he

saw a group of sea lions chasing these massive tuna up onto

the beach. And I was just like, yeah, funny one, I don't

believe a word of that, that sounds too unreal. Still, the

lure of the fisherman's tail was too great to ignore. I'm

a little nervous that if it doesn't happen, there goes my

credibility.

The Blue Planet 2 team launch a full-scale expedition. But

one of them is still skeptical. It's going to be pretty

spectacular if a sea lion could actually chase down and kill

a tuna. I'm still yet to be convinced. They set up camp in

this barren cove home for the next month. The local

wildlife, famed for its tameness, is curious to meet its new

neighbors.

With no sign of the sea lions, the crew stake

out the cove with remote underwater cameras.

Field assistant Robbie Peppalas takes first watch. This is

the point of view where we try to see the sea lions coming,

jumping over the water. If they are definitely coming

very close, they say, action, action, or rock and roll.

Three hours later...

The aerial team are first up.

It's the sea lion chasing tuna into the bay.

Oh, he's got it, he's got it. Unbelievable. Look at that,

he's still struggling. Holy moly. He's lost him. The tuna

gives the sea lion the slip.

Over the coming day, as more sea lions arrive

in the cove, chasing in yellowfin tuna.

There's more tuna in another sea lion. There's like six tuna in the bay here.

One sea lion has caught Richard's attention, and he's

affectionately called him Tag Boy. He's really different.

He's like a prolific hunter. He's really agile. It's just

fascinating to watch and see the picture emerge about who he

is. From above, the drone is revealing how the group of sea

lions are hunting together. From the air we really see the

stretch of the sea lions and see them with their individual

roles as well. Tag Boy stays off in the middle of the

channel to make sure none of them escape. Everyone's got a

role and they're really a team in bringing them together.

Although the sea lions have been hunting in the shallows,

the crew are yet to see them drive a tuna onto the beach.

And to make matters worse, the sea lions aren't alone in this cove.

Galapagos sharks, each two meters long.

The shark almost beach itself and stole the tuna from the

big sea lion, who's now really angry. Despite the sharks, to

reveal the full story, Richard needs to get in the water.

Classic shark attack scenario. Blood in the water, shallow,

and easy mistaken identity.

Watch your hands, Robbie. The crew gain some protection from chainmail suits.

A lot of sharks. One, two, three, four, five, six sharks

now. With so much blood in the water, the sharks go into a

feeding frenzy.

Make mincemeat of these tuna in seconds. To be so close to

something so unbelievably ferocious and dangerous, quite

frankly, is amazing. It's best to be able to hide behind all

this now. But then, after a week of increasing activity, the

sea lions suddenly stop fishing.

It's the first day that we haven't seen action during the

holiday. Since we started, we are kind of worried. The tuna

have disappeared.

Richard is worried. The science is starting to show across

the globe that the seas are warming, they're becoming less

productive. Galapagos marine life relies on cold, deep

currents, welling up intermittently to fertilize the surface

waters. If those upwellings become less conspicuous, more

consistent, their lives could well be in jeopardy. In the

past, when these cold water upwellings have temporarily

stopped, many sea lions have starved to death. And a warming

ocean could further weaken these upwellings.

Then, after two weeks of nervous waiting, a hopeful sign, a

thick fog descends over the cove. We've got very cold water

that's come up, upwelled, and spread across the ocean, and

mixed with the warm air, creating the fog, and hoping that

this cold water will just kick things off a bit, you know,

and get the action going. As the fog clears, a welcome

sight. The tuna are back, with sea lions hot on their heels. The crew

leap into action.

Being in the water, Richard can at last follow the sea lions' teamwork.

And finally film Tag Boy beaching a tuna. They know the

bottlenecks in this labyrinth, they know how to push them

into those bottlenecks, and they're just Tag Boy, almost

his entire body was blocking the entrance, and he was just

gently back and forth, towering the fish out, absolutely

extraordinary, really, really impressive. Director Rachel

has a newfound respect for the sea lions. I had no idea

they were capable of this level of planning and strategy and

teamwork. I had no idea they were this intelligent. Richard

has succeeded in filming this unique hunting strategy, and

in doing so has proved the fisherman's tale to be true. The

sea lions' intelligence is unbelievably sophisticated. So to

say that my expectations have been exceeded is a slight

understatement. This has been one of the most remarkable

times I've ever had here in the Galapagos.

Next time, we travel the world to uncover the biggest issues facing the ocean.

Meet the passionate people who've devoted their lives to

protecting it, and discover what the future holds for our

blue sea lions. Blue Planet.