‘God save the, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends that plague thee thus! –
Why look’st thou so?' – With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross. ibid.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea. ibid.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean. ibid.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink. ibid.
The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out;
At one stride comes the dark. ibid.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony. ibid.
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I. ibid.
We were a ghastly crew. ibid.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
My soul is full of longing
for the secret of the sea,
and the heart of the great ocean
sends a thrilling pulse through me. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of all the creatures in the ocean at least seven out of ten species go extinct. Peter Ward, University of Washington
We call the current Franklin charts the Gulf Stream. Franklin’s work kind of kicks off modern oceanography. James Burke, Connections s3e10: In Touch, BBC 1997
May 2009: Two leading scientists and a team of engineers are preparing a bold new underwater vehicle for its maiden voyage ... The Challenger Deep – the lowest point in the Mariana Trench and the deepest known place on Earth. Dive to the Bottom of the World, Science 2015
Almost eleven kilometres straight down. ibid.
One [Giant Octopus] came ashore on this Florida beach in 1896. It was a local doctor, Dewitt Webb, who took charge of the carcass ... He and his helpers had to use four horses plus three sets of blocks and tackle to move the body, six tons or more, up the beach. The mere stump of the one remaining tentacle was truly awesome – thirty-two feet long. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, ITV 1980
Just over a hundred years ago according to the London Times, which is not prone to sensationalist reporting, a schooner The Pearl of a hundred and fifty tons sailed from Galle Harbour which is the next bay to here ... past here into the bay of Bengal and there she was attacked and sunk by a giant squid. This was observed from a P & O Liner which rescued some of the survivors from the schooner. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, Sri Lanka
On the evening of January 29th 1982 a small yacht sailed out ... into the Atlantic. Steve Callahan, a 29 year old American, was making a solo run to Antigua in the Caribbean ... The wind began to pick up. Soon Callaghan was struggling through high seas ... Detached his inflatable life-raft and threw it overboard. It was a further five weeks before he was reported missing. Vanishings: Adrift in the Atlantic
After two weeks he managed to spear his first fish. ibid.
Seven vessels would fail to see him. ibid.
He had lost forty-four pounds. A third of his body-weight. ibid.
When Callaghan was rescued by the fishermen he had spent a total of seventy-six days drifting in his life-raft across one thousand eight hundred miles of ocean. ibid.
Nine years earlier an English couple also vanished at sea. They struggled to stay alive for one hundred and nineteen days after their boat sank under them in the Pacific Ocean ... It had been struck by a whale. ibid.
The strait between the Indonesian islands of Lembe and Sulawesi is in fact the strangest and most mysterious square mile of the planet’s oceans. Freaks of the Deep, National Geographic 2015
Some of the most extreme sea creatures ... ibid.
The ocean has always been the cradle of rebirth. Poseidon 2006 starring Kurt Russell & Josh Lucas & Richard Dreyfuss & Jacinda Barrett & Emmy Rossum & Mia Maestro & Mike Vogel & Kevil Dillon & Freddy Rodriguez & Jimmy Bennett & Stacy Ferguson et al, director Wolfgang Petersen, MC on stage
Think of it: On the surface, there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight and tear one another to pieces. A mere few feet beneath the waves, their reign ceases, their evil drowns. Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here, I am free. Imagine what would happen if they controlled machines such as this submarine boat. Far better that they think there’s a monster and hunt me with harpoons. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1954 starring Kirk Douglas & James Mason & Paul Lukas & Peter Lorre & Robert J Wilke & Ted de Corsia & Carleton Young & J M Kerrigan & Percy Helton & Ted Cooper & Fred Graham et al, director Richard Fleischer
The ocean is the engine of our planet. A force that shapes the nature of life on Earth. But below the waves mysterious worlds of creatures and landscapes are hidden from the human eye. Light the Ocean, National Geographic 2016
A world of immense scale. A world normally hidden in pitch darkness. ibid.
A three-kilometre-long waterfall underwater. ibid.
The global conveyor carries us south through the deep Atlantic ... a very different landscape appears: a vast mountain range rises from the ocean floor – the mid-Atlantic ridge. ibid.
Deep-water corals and sponges cover the rocky slopes, and sea lilies face into the slow deep current which sweeps food particles to their outstretched arms. ibid.
There is an ocean where giants gather to feast. Where people battle the planet’s roughest seas. It stretches nearly 10,000 miles from the Arctic to Antarctic. From tropical shallows to mysterious depths. It’s an ocean of extremes. Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth I: Life Stream, BBC 2015
The Gulf Stream: an underwater current of warm water 50 miles wide that cuts through the ocean for thousands of miles. The Gulf Streams shapes all life in the north Atlantic. ibid.
Every summer these fertile seas turn into a rich green soup across hundreds of miles. ibid.
Leatherbacks have a crucial advantage over other smaller sea turtles. Unusually for reptiles they can generate body heat which their huge bulk helps them to retain. ibid.
The Cliffs of Moher are pummelled by a thousand tons of water in every wave. ibid.
Travel away from land into the centre of the Atlantic and you enter a vast bleak desert. Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth II: Mountains of the Deep
Here at the bottom of the ocean, gardens have sprung to life. ibid.
One of the fastest growing forests on earth: Macrocystis kelp farms can grow up to sixty centimetres a day. ibid.
The Caribbean: the Atlantic’s sun-drenched paradise. Its warm shallow waters offer shelter and plenty of food. The perfect place for this two-year-old Atlantic spotted dolphin to grow up. The seas around him are bursting with life. It’s the richest corner of the Atlantic. Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth III: From Heaven to Hell
Over the coming months she’ll spend seven hours a day grazing these marine meadows – it’s manatee heaven, for now. ibid.
A whale-shark – the length and weight of a double-decker bus. But he’s not after the snappers. He hoovers up their eggs. ibid.
There could be an undiscovered species lurking on the surface of the Earth. But this creature is unlike any life-form we’ve ever imagined. Its body could span thousands of miles. It has a heart that beats once every thousand years. And an immune system that could wipe out nearly all life on Earth. It may even have a brain. Could the vast ocean itself be a living thinking creature? If so, what does it think of us? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s5e4: Does the Ocean Think? Science 2014