meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Overheard at National Geographic

The Gateway to Secret Underwater Worlds

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.510.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Jacques Cousteau was young, an accident sent him on a path that led him to invent scuba, opening up the underwater world to humans. Today, explorers David Doubilet and Laurent Ballesta follow in his footsteps, making discoveries on their own amazing and sometimes terrifying adventures. For more information on this episode, visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard. Want more? Learn more about Jacques Cousteau. From National Geographic Documentary Films, Becoming Cousteau is now streaming on Disney+. See more of Laurent Ballesta’s photographs, including an image he took of a grouper mating frenzy that recently won him the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award from the London Natural History Museum. Also explore: David Doubilet has been taking photos for Nat Geo for decades. If you want a list of his greatest hits, check out our article “32 Astonishing Photos of A Career Spent Underwater.” And check out his new book out this month with some spectacular underwater images. It’s called “Two Worlds: Above and Below the Sea.” For subscribers: For Nat Geo subscribers, you can also read about the time Laurent and a small crew of explorers spent 28 days living underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please rate and review us in your podcast app and consider a National Geographic subscription. That’s the best way to support Overheard. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and

0:05.9

tools together in one place. It's your digital HQ where you can increase productivity,

0:11.1

enable flexibility and automate workflows. Plus, Slack is full of game-changing features,

0:16.9

like huddles for quick check-ins, or Slack Connect, which helps you connect with partners

0:20.9

inside and outside of your company. Slack, where the future works. Get started at

0:26.9

Slack.com slash THQ.

0:34.9

We're in the middle of winter, so the water is very cold and the sky was gray. The sea

0:41.9

was gray as well. There's no limit, you know, and you see the sky and the sea. The sea

0:47.1

was very flat and there is no limit between the sea and the sky.

0:52.0

That's the little romp, Ballesta, a French photographer. He's remembering one day he's

0:56.5

met out on the Mediterranean when he was a teenager living in Montpellier. It was a day

1:01.5

that would change his life. A fisherman had told him and a friend about a nearby shipwreck,

1:06.3

and they were searching for it along the shore.

1:09.1

And suddenly I start to see some fins, big shark fins.

1:15.5

The fins came a foot or two out of the water. It was incredibly strange because the sea

1:20.3

near his town wasn't supposed to have sharks.

1:23.5

And some micro and what's that? One big fin like that, another one, another one, and

1:29.3

the sea was full of this fin. There were about a dozen sharks and each was about 18 feet

1:35.5

long, the size of small boats. So that was huge. But even though he hadn't seen sharks

1:41.6

here before, they looked familiar.

1:44.5

Naran's hero was the iconic French underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau. As a kid, Laran used

1:50.0

to swim around pretending to be Cousteau. But now that he was looking at real sharks,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from National Geographic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of National Geographic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.