Summary:

This program is devoted to the shallow seas that fringe the world's continents. Although they constitute 8% of the oceans, they contain most marine life. As humpback whales return to breeding grounds in the tropics, a mother and her calf are followed. While the latter takes in up to 500 liters of milk a day, its parent will starve until it travels back to the poles to feed—and it must do this while it still has sufficient energy left for the journey. The coral reefs of Indonesia are home to the biggest variety of ocean dwellers, including the Pygmy seahorses, and file clam. Other ocean dwellers such as banded sea kraits, which ally themselves with goatfish and trevally in order to hunt. Beyond the coral stretches the world of shifting sands, ocean dwellers, such as Gurnard, Jawfish, Green sea turtle, and Wonderpus octopus, are forced to cope with their environment through crucial camouflage and foraging where they have nowhere else hide. In Shark Bay of Western Australia, Dugongs forage across the largest aquatic grassland eating tons of seagrasses a day while bottlenose dolphins perform their "hydroplane" in the shallowest waters to catch a meal. Meanwhile in the desert shores of Bahrain, 100,000 Socotra cormorants rely on shamals that blow sand grains into the nearby Persian Gulf, transforming it into a rich fishing ground. The appearance of algae in the spring starts a food chain that leads to an abundant harvest of Salps, Krills, and comb jellies. As shoals of migratory fish feasts on the krills, sea lions and dusky dolphins are among those taking advantage of it. Within the coastline of California, Giant kelps fertilizes algaes making them the tallest kelps ever recorded which causes group of Sea urchins to infest them creating urchin barrens. Within the urchin barrens, group of starfishes, sand dollars, and brittle stars scavenge across the barrens while facing against their fierce predator, Sunflower sea star. In Southern Africa, as chokka squid are preyed on by short-tail stingray and sand tiger shark, the Cape fur seals that share the waters are hunted by the world's largest predatory fish—the great white shark. On Marion Island in the Indian Ocean, a group of king penguins must cross a beach occupied by neighboring southern elephant seals that are harmless to them and predatory Antarctic fur seals that do not hesitate to attack them. In spring, The humpback whales ended their winter migration as they travel to the polar seas of the Bering Sea along with five million shearwaters, migrated from Australia, as they flourish across the shallow waters for krills. The program ends with the mother and calf, who is now old enough to separate with its mother and continues its epic journey across the ocean.

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