Auliʻi Cravalho, the voice of Moana, is narrating Expedition: Saving Our Seas, a new National Geographic special that premieres Friday, November 13, at 9 p.m. Eastern on National Geographic and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. National Geographic released the trailer and date on October 13.
The one-hour documentary follows teams of National Geographic Explorers working across all five ocean basins, from the seafloor to the poles, as they look for answers to the problems facing ocean life. It is built from the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions, a multiyear research project documenting the impact of rapid environmental change on the ocean. Cravalho, an ocean conservationist herself, guides viewers through it.
What The Explorers Found
The headline finds come from the Southern Ocean, where oceanographer Dr. Andrew Thurber, biological oceanographer Dr. Kim Bernard and microbial oceanographer Dr. Allison Fong surveyed both the depths and the icy surface. Working with the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian from the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research ship Falkor (too), the team observed depths of nearly 13,000 feet and came back with three firsts: the most southerly deep-sea hydrothermal vent known on the planet, swarms of egg-carrying Antarctic krill 3,000 feet down, and the first-known live sighting of a giant Antarctic gonate squid.
In the Pacific, Bernard returns with marine ecologist Dr. Leigh Torres to track blue whales and the krill they feed on in New Zealand’s South Taranaki Bight alongside the local Māori community, while another team tests how well coral in the Cook Islands holds up to heat. “If we lose them, we’re going to care a lot,” National Geographic Explorer Dr. Anya Brown says. “So, we need to care now.”
The special also follows Sheena Talma, the first deep-sea scientist from the Seychelles, as her Seychellois team trains off the coast of South Africa on deep-ocean camera lander systems that reach more than 10,000 feet below the Indian Ocean’s surface, and it visits a stretch of the Gambian coastline where nearly half a million people live with rising Atlantic seas.
How To Watch
Expedition: Saving Our Seas airs on the National Geographic channel on November 13 and lands on Disney+ and Hulu on November 14. It comes from the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex, and Offspring Films produced it. National Geographic magazine is devoting its November issue to the same expeditions.
Cravalho had also been announced as a narrator for this year’s Candlelight Processional at EPCOT on November 27 and 28, but Disney’s October 6 update to the lineup no longer names her, and those two nights are now listed as to be announced.
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