Mission Blue

Look at this.

It's an ocean full

of whale sharks.

I can't even count

the number of fins.

Are we awake or are we...

are we still dreaming?

They've been living here

for millions of years.

We're newcomers in

their backyard.

I love being a part

of their world.

They're completely innocent

of anything humans do.

Since the oil spill, this

group of whale sharks,

the largest ever witnessed

in the Northern Gulf...

has not been seen there again.

Guess we'll put this little...

beast inside.

There you go. Thank you.

In the last few years, I'm on the road...

probably 300 days out of the lot.

And I give a lot of talks... some

days just from dawn to dusk.

I can't think of anything I'd rather

be doing... other than diving.

Aren't you a radical about

protecting the oceans?

If I seem like a radical, it may be

because I see things that others do not.

I think if others had the opportunity to

witness what I have seen in my lifetime,

what I see when I go diving

and the perspective that I've gained

from thousands of hours underwater,

I would not seem like

a radical at all.

She has seen with her own eyes,

parts of this Earth few

others could even imagine.

Sylvia Earle, this country's

foremost oceanographer,

exploring depths thought

impossible to reach.

It's a pleasure to

introduce a scientist,

an engineer, a teacher

and an explorer,

Dr. Sylvia Alice Earle.

I can see in my mind's eye...

a different world,

a world that's changed

enormously just in my lifetime.

Sixty years ago, when I

began exploring the ocean,

no one imagined that we could

do anything to harm it.

It seemed at that time

to be a sea of Eden.

But now, we're facing

paradise lost.

And this is not, "Woe is me,"

this is just the reality

of what's happening.

But it's also the reality, we

have a chance to fix things.

Please welcome Dr. Sylvia Earle.

On any given night,

Sylvia Earle can be found

in Norwalk, Connecticut,

or Stockholm, Sweden, or

Cape Town, South Africa.

Her Deepness, Sylvia Earle.

In Beijing, Belfast, Davos

or the Galapagos Islands.

Think of the changes

that have occurred

in the world in the lifetime of

a 200-year-old orange roughy.

But they don't know why

their world has changed.

And that's where I met her,

at a sort of ocean summit.

I'm a big scuba diver.

I love the oceans.

I love them more now

that I've met Sylvia,

but, um, it's also people like...

like you in this room

that can save the ocean.

The world's largest fishery was,

and still the largest

fishery in the US,

is Alaskan pollock, and it's

moving into the Arctic.

Bluefin are pursued

wherever they go.

It's really wiping bluefin

ecologically off the planet.

If we fail to take care of the ocean...

nothing else matters.

I've been diving for

over half my life now...

but that is nothing

compared to her.

She's been exploring the ocean

since before I was born.

Sylvia, that turtle was a trip!

- And she came back here.

- Yeah!

She went up, got a breath of air,

came right back to that same place.

I spent one week with

Sylvia and I was hooked.

- Gular flutter.

- Gular flutter.

How could I have not known

who she was before?

After the Galapagos trip,

I really didn't wanna

leave Sylvia's world.

So I didn't.

Is that her? Yeah, yeah.

That's her.

That's her. There she is.

Thank you!

What a beautiful place.

What I didn't realize

at the time...

was that this would be the beginning

of a three-year odyssey...

a chance to see the ocean and the

world through Sylvia's eyes.

Sylvia, the minute I met you,

you became an example for me.

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