Treasure islands in the Pacific - From Hawaii to the Cook Islands (1/2) | DW Documentary

It's the largest ocean on the planet. Larger than all of Earth's land surface combined. We were set to spend eight weeks traveling through a world that never ceased to amaze us. The scene of both emerging conflicts and world-changing disputes from the past. We would meet people researching the future of this world. Others living in it and with it. And yet others hunting for the treasures of this island paradise. In places that could hardly be more different. It's not what we expected. Much different than it seemed at first glance. It's a world in which past and future are not far from each other. Connected by solitude in this vast expanse of blue. From Hawaii we traveled to the Cook Islands. And on to the Chathams in the stormy South Pacific. 800 kilometers east of the coast of New Zealand. And then north again to Tuvalu. Back across the equator to the Marshall Islands. We covered more than 20,000 kilometers in all. An area larger than the U.S. and China combined. But with a population less than half of Berlin's. People living their lives far from the rest of the world. Surrounded by nothing but ocean. Our assignment was to do some basic broad reporting on the Pacific region. Not exactly around the corner. In fact a logistical nightmare given the distances involved. But what an adventure. Of course we said yes. The we here being Dirk Reuter. An American-German pilot who has landed just about everywhere on the planet. From the Arctic to the South Pole. He does the calculations in his head. And knows exactly when to turn to avoid landing in water. Toby Marshall. Cameraman and in his mid-70s fitter than many 30-year-olds. Brian Dentz. Also a cameraman. A drone pilot. And the picture of serenity. Always cheerful. There's a lead dancer too. Who at least tries to keep the rhythm when all else fails. That's me. And then there's Scott Filipsky. Our producer in New York holding all the strands together. And taking care of things when we're at a loss. Yet again out there on the never-ending ocean. Our journey begins in Hawaii. The youngest state in the U.S. An armada is cruising off the coast in the largest maneuver the Pacific has seen since World War II. 40 warships and submarines. More than 150 combat aircraft from 29 nations. Led by the American aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson. We have a special kind of date. In the skies above Hawaii. For a single-engine propeller plane like ours, a rendezvous with such a group would normally be unintentional. With our plane posing a real safety hazard. Dirk is a little tense. Visibility is not good. And what we've planned is not exactly routine. Even for a top pilot like Dirk. Our rendezvous requires full attention. Suddenly we're facing two huge vortexes. Dirk gives us a quick warning. Hold on tight. And then we're in it. Tossed around like a cork on stormy seas. Our automatic collision assistant is getting nervous. What happened there, Dirk? Just turbulence. Three German Air Force Eurofighters and a huge tanker aircraft appear in front of us. The cause of the turbulence that's still shaking us. Before we took off, we coordinated with the American Air Traffic Control and the German Air Force. Because such encounters in the air can be dangerous. I nearly ate my camera twice. Oh, I'm sorry. No, not your fault. We turn back. At Hickam Air Force Base in Oahu, we meet the head of the German Air Force, Ingo Gerhards. The general himself is taking part in these air manoeuvres. He says the unit has just accomplished something special. So far from home, in the middle of the Pacific. The biggest challenge is the complexity. The distance. The time zones alone. These are distances we're not familiar with in Europe. And that was a huge challenge. We flew a total of 1.3 million kilometres. And we set a world record for the longest Eurofighter flight ever. I believe it was 10 hours and 31 minutes. The flight from Japan to Hawaii. More than 6,000 kilometres non-stop from Japan to Hawaii. Strapped into the cockpit for almost 11 hours. With the pilots wearing diapers. The unit was participating in the largest European Air Force exercise ever held in the Pacific. 48 fighter jets and tanker helicopters from Germany, Spain and France were conducting joint exercises in the Pacific with a range of allies. The German Eurofighter's task was to protect the American aircraft carrier. But why all the fuss, so far from their usual deployment zone in Europe? We asked the general. When it's a question of our security, it's not possible anymore to separate the regions from each other. Europe and the Indo-Pacific are interdependent. Even just in terms of our economic interests. It's obvious that the Indo-Pacific, having a free and open Indo-Pacific, is of fundamental importance to Germany. At the US Marine Corps base on the other side of the island, US Coast Guard units were practising securing a port. A specialised unit of the German Navy is also involved. Mine diver Bubba is the head of the group. As specialised forces, they do not want to be named or identified by rank. The operating conditions here in the Pacific are completely different from those in the North and Baltic seas. And so are the dangers, Bubba tells us. And in the middle of this, two hammerhead sharks came towards us. It was really unsettling. The first time I'd ever seen sharks. And they came within three metres of us. It was while my heart stopped for a second. We are on our way to the mission arena. Yeah, here's German Navy EOD diving team. Let me put it this way. On the first dive, we saw two hammerhead sharks. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's something bigger in the water here. In the bay in front of the naval base, they're searching for mines in the murky water. If they find any, they're marked for later detonation. Just like at home in the Baltic Sea, apart from the pleasant water temperatures and the sharks. Mission accomplished. Objects marked. After the last dive, it's time to head back with a slight change of plan. The engines died. We're being towed. Fortunately, we're not too far out in the ocean, just off the coast of Hawaii. The world-famous beaches of Waikiki are a magnet for tourists from the American mainland and especially from Asia. A Pacific Mallorca, if you will. Right next to the naval base is a small island paradise, Coconut Island, which belongs to the University of Hawaii. We'd arranged to meet Lucy Knoll. We wanted to learn something about the ocean we'd be traveling for the next two months. Lucy comes from Bremen and was working on her doctoral thesis here. Lucy takes us to one of the research buoys, scientific work that most students in Germany can only dream of. It's still a dream for me. I'm here in the bay every two weeks to take our samples. And every time I'm here, I get excited all over again. It never gets old. It's common knowledge that sea levels are rising. But Lucy's focus is something different. She's studying chemical processes that are likely to permanently change life here in the ocean. About a third of the CO2 that was released into the atmosphere has already ended up in the sea and is changing the chemistry there. Lucy's taking water samples that she'll analyze later in the lab. So we're adding poison to the water samples. That's because any living microorganisms would distort the chemistry. So we have to prevent that. You mean the microorganisms would keep producing CO2? Exactly. Producing or even absorbing CO2. If there are small bits of algae in there, they could absorb it through photosynthesis. Then in the lab, the dry scientific work. Also in Hawaii, an integral part of the scientist's routine. And then she shows us the hard facts. Measurement results collected over many years that leave little room for doubt. Here you can see the CO2 in the atmosphere in red and the CO2 in the sea in blue. And we can see that since we started measuring in the 1980s, it's been rising almost in sync with the CO2 in the atmosphere. And that's here in the open sea near Hawaii. And at the very same time, you can see that the pH level, which is shown here in green, is sinking. That means it's becoming more acidic, which is due to the rise in CO2. The evidence is extremely clear here in the open ocean. What does it mean that the ocean's getting more acidic? It becomes extremely difficult for any organisms with a shell to survive. This is because acid dissolves calcium carbonate. Corals are particularly vulnerable to the rising heat and acid levels of the ocean. On Coconut Island, they're looking for solutions and are trying to breed corals that can survive under the changing environmental conditions. Much later in our journey, we'd see for ourselves how the coral reefs in the remote Pacific were faring. We say goodbye to Lucy and Coconut Island in Hawaii. Our journey would take us deeper into the Pacific. But first, we have to prepare for an emergency. We practice quickly getting into our survival suits, which are mandatory for long-distance flights over water in a single-engine propeller plane. Pacific routes that no one flies in this way, usually. Dirk shows us how to open the emergency exit, and we practice squeezing out of the plane in our not-exactly-tailor-made suits. The distances are just very long. If the engine fails or we run out of fuel, we'll land on the water. Landing on the water is relatively easy. The trick is getting out of the plane. The waterline will be below the exit here, so the plane will float. Theoretically, we could spend some time playing cards. But after that, we'd throw out our lifeboat. I think we all practiced and did well. And I'll make sure we don't end up in the water. I hope so. We pack our little plane because we're now heading out onto the world's largest ocean, to places that could hardly be more remote and would be difficult to reach by other means. Hours over water and clouds. Boredom on board. Dirk and Toby are playing around with the camera when suddenly there's land in sight. Oh yeah, there's a little nibble sticking out first. Let's just believe, Brian, that that's land. Yes, it's land. If we had the land there, I don't even see a single coconut tree. Based on its land area, Kiritimati is the largest atoll in the world, about half the size of Hamburg. The lagoon stuns us with its almost magical play of color, as if our eyes were playing tricks on us. Too slow. We have to refuel after four hours and more than 2,000 kilometers, and we're the only plane far and wide. But fuel is a tricky thing on the atoll. Apparently there's enough fuel, but not for us right now. Hours of negotiations. It's getting late and we still have a five-hour flight ahead of us. But they don't want to let us stay overnight either. In the end, the deal clincher is, shall we say, an exclusive fuel price and a kind of bank guarantee from the U.S. Dirk makes sure that the tanks and the wings are almost full to overflowing. We have more than 2,500 kilometers to go deep into the South Pacific with no option to land in between. We're on our way to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Well, we're approaching the equator. Here is a bunch of orange dots on the screen which show us where the equator is. So we're approaching the equator. The mood is exuberant. They're celebrating the 59th anniversary of their autonomy from New Zealand. A competition between the singing and dancing groups of the 15 islands and atolls of the Cook Islands. Several days filled with singing and dancing. The audience almost ecstatic. You can feel the fun and joy. It's contagious. The celebrations are a reminder of times past before Christian missionaries influenced the culture. So the change that the missionaries brought into the country, I think, was predominantly good. You know, they stopped the need for fighting. They stopped the practice of cannibalism. You know, there are better things to eat than somebody's backside. They stopped the warring between tribes purely for mundane reasons and created a lasting peace in our country. And hence, we've been able to develop. Emile Kairua heads the Ministry of Cultural Development on Cook Islands, an island nation almost six times larger than Germany, but with only about 17,000 inhabitants, living on a land area less than a third the size of Berlin. Until the mid-19th century, the inhabitants had a reputation for being brutal and bloodthirsty, engaging in cannibalism. Nowadays, they make their living from hospitality. However, the collapse of the island's tourism industry during COVID has shown how dangerous it is to put all your eggs in one basket. That's set to change. At a depth of 5,000 meters, on the seabed surrounding the Cook Islands, lies a treasure worth billions. They're going to commit one percent of our total ocean floor to exploration. We've got millions of square kilometers of ocean that we're not even going to touch. Almost two million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean and its seabed belong to the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Cook Islands. That is the zone that, under international law, is exclusively available to the island nation for economic use. Hans Smit is co-owner and CEO of Moana Minerals. He holds the license to explore the waters of the Cook Islands, an area roughly the size of El Salvador. We are searching for stones that are the size of golf balls, marbles, and they have all these chemicals and metals that we're looking for. So, you know, it's crazy to think that one ton of nodules has the same metals that you'd have to go to five mines on land to get. What? Because we have manganese, you have manganese mines on land. We have copper, you have copper mines on land. Nickel, rare earths, cobalt, all contained within this. Hans shows us the heart of his operation, a special deep-sea underwater robot, one of the few in the world that can operate 6,000 meters underwater. It takes us about an hour and a half, hour 40 minutes to get to the bottom, and then we fly the ROV out. So what you want is a very good video game player to be your pilot, because he knows what to do. It's a journey to a place where no human being will ever set foot. Through swaths of organic chaos and sheer endless loneliness. An hour and a half from light into endless darkness, only lasers and onboard lights provide orientation. Arriving at the seabed at a depth of over 5,000 meters, a sea of small black spheres awaits, crated over millions of years by pressure and chemical processes. As the swirling cloud of sand settles, the magic of life becomes apparent, in a place that's actually considered a dead zone. That's an argument people like to do, is where they say, we know nothing about the ocean. You know, we are going to go into a place where there are animals that are unique, and, you know, there are all these new species. The fact that there's these new animals, yes, that is true. And the only reason we know about them is because we're doing research. If you bring something to the table that is as dire and unequivocal as you claim it to be, and that is true, we will stop. But let's stop using misinformation, and let's make an objective decision, and let's park the emotion outside the room when we go and sit and talk. The cost of exploration at 5,000 meters below the surface is enormous, and many don't want to pay for it. Investors, both public and private, tend to shy away from the controversy in the emotionally heated debate around the exploitation of the ocean. Many countries and companies like BMW and Google support a moratorium, a suspension of deep sea mining and exploration. There's talk about moratoria not doing research, not doing any exploration, not doing mining, and how are we going to get more data if the people that spend the money are doing it because they're trying to achieve something on the back end? Give us the opportunity to do the science, to make our case, and if we are solid in the case we make, give us the opportunity to get our returns. If we can't make the case, we understand the risk, but at least give us a fair chance to give it a go. At his official residence, we meet Mark Brown, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands. His government has just switched completely to electric vehicles. You're the Prime Minister and you drive an electric car. Yes, I drive an electric car for official functions. This one as well, so this one is easier to drive and find parking and just pulling up to my ministerial colleagues and saying hello. It's this one. Yes, yes, it's much easier to drive around with this. In his office, the Prime Minister proudly shows us one of the deep sea nodules. He believes the Cook Islands alone could meet global demand for important metals for centuries. The World Bank tells us that the demand for cobalt alone will increase 400 to 500 percent by 2030, which is not that far away. As the world shifts to green energy, the technology and the materials needed are heavily dependent on critical metals, which are found in these seabed nodules. So it has been of great interest to a number of countries. There are about 500 million tons of nodules alone in a small area that the Cook Islands government has opened up for exploration. Market value, hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. A source of income that the small island nation could put to good use in shaping its future. All investors are welcome. Some are already there, the Prime Minister tells us as we say goodbye. The U.S. has been absent from many of our Pacific Island countries. The engagement with us for a couple of decades at least. And during that time, China's presence has increased as a good, substantial partner with many of our Pacific countries, particularly in infrastructure investment. China is already a close partner of the Cook Islands, which are on the verge of transforming from a small Pacific island nation into a major resource power. Emile Kairua, Secretary for the Ministry of Cultural Development, rejects outside interference and is preparing for the loud outcry that is expected when the Cook Islands approve deep sea mining against the warnings of the UN. Whoever the partner may be. The development and the celebration that we're celebrating this week is testament to our ability to govern our own destination. And I don't want us to go back to the colonial era where people are telling you how you need to live your life. As a sovereign country, we have the right to make a decision. And obviously we're not going to poop in our backyard and pollute it for ourselves. For the people here, the ocean in their backyard is a place where magical creatures live. There are places and communities in the Cook Islands that look traditionally to the whales as their deity. You know, they protect them, they revere them. Paikea from Mauke, who went to New Zealand, known story in New Zealand. He was a whale rider. So the whale was a very big part of his journey between here and New Zealand. We meet Nan Hauser, known reverently as the Whale Lady by the inhabitants of the Cook Islands. A trained nurse, crane operator and U.S. Coast Guard captain, she is now considered one of the world's most renowned whale researchers and is one of the very few south of the equator. On Rarotonga, the main island of the tropical Cook Islands, she's built herself a house in the jungle, where she retreats after her work on and under the water. Hardly anyone gets as close to these giants of the oceans as she does. Nan embarked on her mission a good 30 years ago. My whole thing is to sort of be a voice for whales and to let people fall in love with them, to let people respect them. We want to know if she's afraid when she gets so close to these giants. You have to keep reminding yourself that this isn't virtual reality. This isn't Disneyland. This is real. This is a wild animal. You're communicating and you're connecting with this animal in such a way that you can't even put into words. And your thought process at the time is not analytical. It's in the moment. It's happening in the moment. And again, it's that whole unconditional love, that feeling. There was no fear. It may sound like esoteric nonsense, but Nan tells us she is not a whale hugger. She wants to educate people and protect these fabulous creatures through factual scientific work. Together with volunteers like Mia from Boston, they collect GPS data from tagged whales, compare photos of fins and analyze genetic code using whale skin samples. The goal is to map migration routes as accurately as possible. When does which whale stay where? We can tell the fishermen during whale migration, don't set your nets here, because they can get caught in them very easily, especially the calves. And it's also very important to know where they are so that we know that certain countries that whale, like Japan, that they won't be going near that area when these whales are migrating through there. Nan wants to show us something. Something that's been heralding the arrival of whales for the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands since time immemorial. We are a little confused when she leads us not down to the ocean, but up into the jungle. It's called a noctile tree and it blossoms in these beautiful orange flowers. And through ancient tradition, the people knew that the whales were coming when it started to blossom. And then when it didn't blossom, the whales are here. What happened in the past years? Did the schedule change, to say so? Is it still working? When I first started here in 1998, the whales would come pretty much the third or fourth week of June. And over the years, progressively, they've been coming later and later. Now September is our peak season. My own theory is that with the water temperature rising so much, it's just this whole ecosystem is disturbed. It's evening and we decide to eat together. Brian is cooking. We're having pasta with garlic and fresh tomatoes from the garden. Tomorrow, Nan and Mia want to take us on their first research trip of the year. Hello, hello, hello. She asks Toby to check the hydrophones as they seem to be having problems. There are no spare parts here, so far away from the rest of the world. So Toby has to try to repair the underwater microphones the old-fashioned way. The next morning, we set off. There was a problem here with electronics because it's so humid that if you don't use things all the time, they just don't work. We head out a short distance from the island, much less than we thought. It's only a few hundred meters to the shore. Between us and the island, there's only the reef where the waves break. Nan stops the boat. Mia unpacks the hydrophones. So we're going to drop this and see if there are any whales in this area singing. If we don't hear any singing, it doesn't mean there aren't whales in the area. It just means that they're not singing right now. As Mia dips the underwater microphone into the ocean, the tension rises. Are there whales nearby? Will we hear them? Will we see them? As the microphone sinks into the depths, it quickly becomes clear that Toby's soldering attempts were not as successful as they had hoped. Only a humming sound arises from the depths. We can probably forget about the hydrophone. We scan the horizon, searching for whales with the naked eye. Suddenly, two dark backs appear in front of us, diving down as we approach them. Shortly afterwards, they reappear on the other side of the boat, waving as if inviting us over. Well, they just traveled, you know, 4,000 miles from Antarctica. So they're tired and they haven't eaten anything along the way. And so they have to rest. Mia and Toby get ready to enter the water. It's Mia's first time. She has to learn to approach the giants of the oceans carefully and without fear. Toby wants to film her doing it. Nan gives another tip that is essential to keep in mind when diving here. We're looking at you nonstop because of sharks and other dangers. If a shark starts circling you or something, when it puts its pectins down and it arches its body, that's attack mode. Go like this. Nan herself has had several encounters with large sharks, one of which has become famous among whale researchers. A whale put me on his head and then started pushing me and flipped me over and I was sitting on his throat. Next thing I know, he's trying to tuck me under his pectoral fin, as they do with seals and other animals they're trying to protect. And when I saw the shark and the pectins down and the arching, I got it. It's kind of like this whale is pushing me away from a tiger shark, a big tiger shark, biggest one I've ever seen. Yeah, about 18 feet. The story spread around the world as proof of the altruistic behavior of whales. We hope that Mia and Toby don't need this protection today, though admittedly it would make for good pictures. With a small underwater camera, we see the two whales some distance in front of our boat diving suddenly into the depths. Mia dies first. The whales come back into view. But Toby can't quite keep up. He somehow knocked his head on the boat when he jumped into the water and is bleeding. Not a great idea to stay in the water with sharks in the vicinity. After about 15 minutes, Mia returns. It was absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible. That was just everything I could have ever dreamed about and more. I'm like, I'm gonna cry. They're so beautiful and you feel so safe with them, which is probably the most beautiful thing. After the fun, it's time for work. Mia has to return to the water. She's diving for pieces of whale skin. This works best in the so-called footprints created in the rough sea when the whales dive downward. It's not long before Mia fishes a fairly large piece of whale skin out of the water. Later, the DNA will be analyzed to find out who we encountered, whether they're old acquaintances or new guests in the waters of the Cook Islands. Well, I came here to do that. So they knew me immediately as being the person who was coming to study their whales. And I always say their whales. And I wanted people to learn about their whales so that they would take ownership of their whales. Because culturally, whales are very important here, of course. Her years of dedication were vindicated. In the summer of 2024, the Pacific island nations of Tonga, New Zealand, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands signed a treaty granting whales and dolphins personal rights. Why not? Why do we not consider one of the largest mammals on Earth to be given their privacy? So give them that respect. You know, they've been around longer than us. Yeah. They were almost extinct. But today, the humpback whale population here in the South Pacific has grown to several thousand animals again, thanks in part to Nan and her young helpers. We want to continue. Dirk, our pilot, is annoyed. We had parked our plane in an orderly manner next to the runway. But now it's on the grass and no one can tell us how it got there. But Dirk needs to find out because we've a very long flight ahead of us. Thousands of kilometers over the open ocean. He calls airport control. Our interests need to check for damage. I don't know what they did. I've never seen anybody moving a TBM this far manually. And I don't know what pins they used or what the heck we did. So I'd like to know so we can check with certainty and we don't have a problem. The runway manager comes over. Dirk asks how our plane ended up on the grass. The runway manager simply drives away without answering. But we need answers. A lot can go wrong and it's not good to find out exactly what when you're in the air. The nose gears has stops on it. So, you know, they could have exceeded the stops in there. If they pushed on the flaps, they could have done damage to the flap mechanism and the, you know, the rods that move the flaps. After two hours of waiting, the mystery is suddenly solved. Aircraft reparking, Polynesian style. Finally, we can set off to a world that doesn't quite fit our ideas of a South Sea Pacific island. No palm trees, no coconuts. And even in summer, it rarely reaches temperatures over 14 to 15 degrees Celsius. Whipped by raging storms all year round, far out in the world's largest ocean. This is where the Pacific and the cool waters of the Antarctic Ocean meet. The water is some of the cleanest in the world. We are on the Chatham Islands, 800 kilometers off the coast of New Zealand. About 600 people live on the island, almost all of them making their living from sheep and cattle farming or from the sea. Most have Maori ancestors who immigrated here from the Cook Islands via New Zealand. When we arrive, the island is facing a problem. The cargo ship has been out of service for months. No, no, our storeroom's half empty. Like, it's terrible. Like, it's actually really bad. Like, just for our flour, we're out of milk. We're literally on our last box of milk. I think that's actually on the shelf already. All the major things, a lot of stuff we have to fly at the moment. Like milk, 17, like fresh milk on the plane, $17.50. We meet up with a young guy in the north of the island who is digging up treasure that provides him with a very good income. Jay Dixon is an abalone diver. He collects sea snails at a depth of about 10 to 15 meters. But there is a danger lurking in the water. You know, great white sharks, there's a lot of sharks around on the Chathams. I think the population for sharks is like one of the biggest for such a small area. The population is quite dense. So yeah, that's another risk. But I will get used to those fellas. We will accompany Jay Dixon on his dangerous work in the cold, rough South Pacific. Before we continue on to Tuvalu, the island that just won't sink. And Eniwetek, two probably the most bizarre and dangerous structure in the Pacific.