Desert Seas

there is a world that's been out of reach until now two seas lie on either side of Saudi Arabia 1c is beautiful flamboyant and sophisticated the other is across the desert a younger see see budget tougher different little in these two sister sees is as it appears [Music] this is a story of miracles where you at least expect them [Music] the two seas reach around the desert Peninsula of Arabia like two arms millions of years ago this was underwater on the seafloor a deep compost built up it's still here hidden under the sand as oil the wealth of a long-gone see now fuels our world the natural riches of the past as well as the present are part of this story ten thousand years ago the Gulf was a swampy floodplain when the sea level rose it disappeared underwater the Red Sea was formed much earlier as Africa and Arabia's tectonic plates pulled apart leaving a chasm a mile deep now filled with seawater the edges fringed with coral disappear into the depths [Music] the reef is a jeweled city perched on the cliff top [Music] it's a community with amazing relationships between animals five-centimeter wrasse groomed sweet lips even combing the tender gills they eat any parasites and dead skin a reward for their trouble a moray eel the two and a half metre dragon of the reef is attended by shrimps they enter the jaws of death to keep razor-sharp teeth clean in exchange for any morsels they find no opportunity is wasted however desperate it may seem damselfish hide in an anemone protected by tentacles that would paralyze other fish an anemone can close and the local clownfish is finding his home a tight squeeze every relationship can have difficult moments [Music] this underwater community lies along the shores of ancient human settlements the Middle East is the birthplace of our civilization over 4,000 years ago the first cities rose here the cradle of mathematics astronomy and medicine [Music] if the Garden of Eden its rivers flowed anywhere it was into the Gulf ancient Mesopotamia was on the northern shoreline with Persia to the east the dust of history has settled in the Gulf as sand and mud the sea is like a hot tub it gets hotter and saltier than any other open sea in the world it's surprising that corals can survive they have miraculously found ways to cope much to the excitement of scientists there are other clues to hidden riches a turtle on its way to find food it's different from the Red Sea reef this is more like a bombed out city devastated by heat and salt [Music] small squid beginner dance courting in a psychedelic language of hues and colors life in all its wonderful forms will emerge in the Gulf though it's never obvious reefs here are small and isolated submerged sandy plains are an extension of the Arabian desert but here underwater rocks turn into cuttlefish on closer inspection fan worms cast their nets and unseen animals clean out their burrows making miniature volcanoes an eye and a Gill belongs to Amway thousands of square kilometers of sand have been colonized by seekers the underwater meadows may not look like much but this is one of the most productive habitats on earth its riches are hard to see shrimp fish mimic seekers blennies hide in holes a 2-meter annual ated sea snake is one of the most venomous creatures in the world with several times a Rattlers killing power he hunts fish like little blennies got one across the gulf green turtles return each winter to the seagrass beds they often have passengers remoras or sucker fish that feed in the stirred up mud many turtles graze only on the grass but get extra protein from the microscopic animals encrusting each leaf the strong sunlight filters through warm shallow water it's perfect for grass and algae most life stays hidden in the mud until disturbed the blue-crab demands some privacy and the chant vegetarian obliges the two sister C's are very different the Gulf shiny hides its wealth the aging Red Sea fronds extravagance [Music] [Music] but the diamond Clearwater of the Red Sea reveals the truth unlike the muddy Gulf the reef has few nutrients in the water the Oasis seems to grow out of nothing [Music] a reef is built by tiny animals coral polyps construct limestone tower blocks protection against fish and crabs microscopic plants algae live in the polyps and convert sunlight to sugar which feeds the coral this city is solar powered [Music] for millennia the entrepreneurs here have slowly evolved an intricate society the edge falls away and any nutrients from the reef fall away - like food tumbling off the edge of a table tiny mouths try and grab a meal as it sinks into the dark unexplored depths a mile below [Music] along these city limits gangsters prowl bluefin trevally are predatory hunters cruising the hood the Wolves of the Red Sea Reef trevallies are hunting through a nursery school of juvenile Fusiliers the trevally continue along the war searching for anything that strays too far for falling scraps to meter wire corals reach further than most and an enterprising little shrimp has made his home out on the limb he survives by collecting passing morsels his Frontier Post puts him into a shoal of sleek unicorn fish [Music] the drop-off attracts large schools but there is an even greater wildlife gathering on the other side of Saudi Arabia [Music] [Applause] the Gulf is a hot shallow sea hardly an enticing destination yet here are a quarter of a million Socotra cormorants three-quarters of the world population they search for schools of bait fish and rest in rafts Socotra cormorants read here in winter on isolated islands featherless chicks shiver each morning no it's a cold here life in the colony is dangerous loud and smelly chicks are of various ages of the older ones hang out in gangs the younger chicks still need babysitters everyone is hungry [Music] dolls attack undefended cheese [Music] even cannibalism is common temperature swing from too cold to too hot in a few hours birds can't sweat and pant desperately to keep cool there's no shade and no food [Music] salvation appears first as a thin black line [Music] [Applause] [Music] after a morning's fishing tens of thousands of parents returned to the colony with food the first problem for families is to find each other the lucky ones are fed quickly after all that the last thing you want is to be mugged for the only meal of the day hungry cormorants and Reef herons wait until chicks are being fed then swoop in just when you thought it couldn't get any tougher the wind becomes a sandstorm [Music] [Music] sand and dirt are blown into the sea [Music] the Gulf waters become a foggy soup the silt reaches the seagrass Meadows and animals turn gray out of adversity a miracle the dust fertilizes the see grass prairies with nitrogen on and phosphorus productivity is phenomenal more than most intensive agriculture [Music] in February and March green turtles begin their journey to their breeding grounds across the Gulf sand storms called camels carry millions of tons of nutrients into the water plankton bloom and feed everything from cauliflower jellies to fish cormorants rely on the dust storms to bring life to the Gulf [Music] terms arrived from the Indian Ocean and striped mackerel just swim with their mouths open whale sharks arrive 15 meters long and as heavy as several elephants they're the biggest fish in the world yet they eat tiny plankton [Music] the shaman sandstorms are the making of this place [Music] dolphin's and comments follow the schools which follow the paintin which follow the dust [Music] [Music] it's extraordinary considering what happened here 20 years ago the Gulf War [Music] millions of litres of oil flowed from Kuwait into the sea in the biggest oil spill in history the Gulf's marine life was decimated [Music] miraculously survivors returned wildlife has suffered heat salt dust Wars and oil almost unnoticed animals adapt and battle on the other side of Arabia is another story [Music] for most of the red sea reefs sand storms deliver few nutrients the Oasis has to be self-sufficient storms and tides could stir up fertility but mostly they just sweep the reef clean nutrients disappear over the edge to the seafloor far below there are patches of sand but even this is not what it seems bumphead parrotfish are a metre long and weigh about 20 kilograms they bite off coral and grind it up to digest the polythene it comes out the other end as fine clean sand the coral sand settles little bits of desert in the Oasis goatfish and sea cucumbers search hungrily through the sand speed it up we can see how busy they are [Music] see cucumbers are part of an army of garbage collectors and street cleaners starfish search for food too but it's a risky business titan triggerfish are hunters and one of the few able to take apart the starfishes spiny body the neighbors soon spot a meal they couldn't normally enjoy starfish are able to regenerate from a single arm a dismembered limb is overlooked and slowly crawls away [Music] nervous garden eels emerge from their burrows they eat plankton it could take them all day to collect enough they vanish if anything bigger passes by the blue spotted ray hunts for shellfish under the sand like a minesweeper it can detect the shrimp's minut electrical signal and digs it out smaller fish hope to catch anything stirred up by the Ray its most reliable follower is a sand perch life in the Red Sea requires patience like a garden eel or specialist equipment like a ray or a helpful companion the relationship can often be complex the sand perch may be keeping guard understanding these animals has only just begun a 2-meter white tip reef shark is recognized and feared so our barracuda casting a shadow over the reef [Music] Barracuda gather in hundreds by the drop-off they're waiting for evening the nocturnal pack hunters form the wheel of death [Music] schools of Fusiliers become nervous towards dusk as the day ends a new drama will begin [Music] Twilight in the Red Sea and the Moray Eel emerges to hunt everything changes at night many corals come to life soft corals swell polyps open basket stars cousins of the starfish time onto a peak and unfurl their arms into a net lionfish with poisonous spines are ambush predators they conceal their fish shape under waving flags so small reef fish hide in the coral a parrotfish makes a bubble of mucus disguising scent and protecting it from danger here it hides until dawn breaks over the red sea [Music] a thousand kilometers east and it's late spring in the Gulf in May the green turtle males are first to reach the sandy shallows they are waiting for mates to arrive spring happens underwater as well as on land fantail rays are leading the way the first female turtle arrives and courtship begins [Music] [Music] the male holds on with hooks on his flippers unsuccessful suitors try to dislodge him [Music] the couple may remain together all day surfacing every ten minutes or so for the breath [Music] the sandstorms have eased and the islands welcomed turns they wash off the dust before heading for the party rested turns are courting they reach up to appear taller more attractive compared to the comments these are dressy dancers [Music] [Music] a small gift between white-cheeked turns seals their union [Music] the air is full of the coming and going of these most graceful birds [Music] [Music] [Music] as the sand heats to 60 degrees the turns need to do more than just shave the egg and they're overheating themselves luckily they have a trick when the turn colony overheats one of the parents goes skimming over the water drinking and wetting their breast feathers [Music] the damp feathers hold just enough moisture for evaporation to cool the egg very few other birds have learned this trick each of the Gulf's characters face domestic life in their own way a little goby lives in a burrow he has a battle with the sand every day his home needs spring cleaning [Music] another goby and another strategy a shrimp dug his burrow and still lives here cleaning out the sound the shrimp has poor eyesight and relies on the goby as a guard there's a tenderness between this Odd Couple the shrimp always has a tentacle touching the goby and the Gobi warns the shrimp with flicks of his fins a so howl surgeonfish passes the goby pushes the shrimp down the Burrow the hard-working housekeeper rarely goes out instead it removes dirt and small visitors and parasites by eating them the Gulf's characters may be less colorful than the red seas but are no less wonderful around the Gulf the seawater gets hotter through the summer korells generally bleach and die if see temperatures rise even a little the gulf is about the hottest sea in the world and corals here like Acropora are specially adapted and work with different algae with sea temperatures expected to rise everywhere some scientists think that the magical gulf corals could be the salvation of the world's reefs by august in the gulf the tern chicks are adult size in mottled adolescent plumage their parents are trying to feed them for their journey home [Music] as the Sun falls tracks in the sand lead to one of our green turtles she'll dig a nest about a metre deep and they about a hundred eggs over her lifetime she lays several thousand the charges are very few will survive the riches of the Gulf are hidden under sand and water and dust the natural wealth buried here that has most changed us is oil [Music] the stakes here for wildlife and for us are very high [Music] oil tankers go around Arabia to the Red Sea heading for the Suez Canal and Europe the Red Sea reefs it vulnerable beside one of the busiest shipping channels in the world below casualties a century-old wreck sits harmlessly at 20 fathoms this was a cargo steamer on route through the Suez Canal now it's part of the reef the Red Sea and the Mediterranean were linked by the Suez Canal almost a century and a half ago the wreck has been colonized by eggs and larvae from the reef leather corals reach out from below decks coral grouper and glass fish are in adjacent cabins a red mouth grouper acts as a protector to the gas fish guarding them from other groupers or jacks but the babysitter snatches a few glass fish for himself the price of his protection in order to colonize a wreck or regenerate the reef eggs and young must survive staying alive yourself is hard enough starting a family here securing a future is an extraordinary story love has reached the red sea reef banner fish take turns on the dance floor [Music] couples are preparing for a family fish time their spawning is carefully but the chances are that almost all their precious young will be eaten [Music] to avoid this tragedy some fish have become better parents a Titan triggerfish is behaving strangely she may be lying on top of her eggs to protect them triggerfish lay a jelly-like blob of eggs in depressions in the coral rubble the dedicated parent defends the eggs from the multicolored thieves the trigger fish's mate comes to the rescue a few eggs might survive but the longer-term future for coral reefs seems less hopeful half the reefs worldwide are dying or have died scientists blame us pollution and a changing climate with warmer seas Twilight offers a glimpse into a darker future gorgonian fan corals seem like decaying lace a ghost town a reminder of what is at stake on the other side of Saudi Arabia is another vision of the future in a see beyond platforms and refineries there is salvation and new life in August on one magical night in the Gulf the sand storms and the summer of growth have had an extraordinary effect slowly at first eggs and larvae are released in millions this wasn't known to happen here on this scale let alone filmed before parola worms release wiggling egg cases that fragmented the capsules of eggs packages explode with new life [Music] the specially adapted Gulf scholars the hardest survivors of a superheated sea will release eggs - and egg eaters can't possibly eat them or eggs and na'vi began a journey to regenerate the ocean tena falls are joined by bigger jellies [Music] this jellyfish is like a mobile reef a lifeboat full of shrimps and fish and eggs a Noah's Ark [Music] on the islands where comments and turns nested and dust storms blew nutrients into the sea now baby green turtles start on their journey they joined in eggs and larva the gift of the Gulf one lucky hatchling might survive to return here in about 20 years time by then tougher corals from the Gulf may be helping the Red Sea reef to cope with warmer times the Gulf at first seemed like the ugly duckling of the two seals now it seems the cows may perform a final miracle and restock the reef the two seas are an extraordinary reflection of each other the parade of riches in the Red Sea relies on almost nothing the harshness of the Gulf has become it's true wealth [Music] [Music]

Channel: Aramco

Views: 3,893,693

Rating: 4.7690969 out of 5

Keywords: Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia, Aramco, Desert, Arabian Gulf, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Saudi Environment

Id: z7667jwwX00

Length: 46min 7sec (2767 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/tb200]

amazing documentary. i spent several years living near saudi arabia's gulf coast and used to go to the beach often. now i feel like going back to visit.