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The South Pacific is a vast ocean wilderness. |
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Its waters are teeming with life, |
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from tropical coral reefs that attract the great variety to the cooler, |
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temperate waters that attract the great numbers. |
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So why is it that in the midst of all this richness |
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the world's largest predators |
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can struggle to survive in this endless blue? |
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Nothing brings home the challenges of surviving |
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in the South Pacific better than the epic true story |
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that inspired Moby Dick. On 23rd February 1821, |
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a lifeboat was found drifting in the eastern Pacific. |
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In it lay two American whalemen, |
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barely alive. |
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Their whale ship had been sunk by an enormous sperm whale. |
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For a staggering three months, |
| [00:53.47] |
these shipwrecked mariners had sailed |
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across four and a half thousand miles |
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of what may be the loneliest region on Earth. |
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For these sailors, |
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the South Pacific had become a living hell. |
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So what is it about this ocean that makes survival here such a challenge? |
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