I’m a National Geographic explorer in residence helping save the world’s seas
For Enric Sala, an average day at work might consist of swimming with 200 grey reef sharks in the sea off an atoll somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
He has, perhaps, the ultimate job: as explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.
This means he is free to roam the seas to find and study the few remaining pristine places that mankind has not harmed.
It is hard to imagine him complaining that he must get up for work in the morning. When I ask him about some of his favourite underwater adventures, he shows me a photograph of him swimming in shark-infested waters in Bokak Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a dot somewhere in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
Normally, grey reef sharks are harmless but can turn aggressive if cornered.
The sharks, which had probably never seen humans before, were bewildered by this strange team of three “one-eyed” creatures, with diving masks and with two sets of flippers, gazing at them.
Sala, 56, is not simply a marine adventurer; his mission, through the National Geographic project conservation organisation Pristine Seas, is to provide governments with the scientific data they need to preserve the few untouched corners of the seas for future generations.

He left his job in academia at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California nearly two decades ago to try to save the oceans from decline.
Armed with a power point presentation, Sala arrived at National Geographic in 2008 to make his case for saving the oceans.
“I told them let’s go to the last wild places in the ocean. I will organise expeditions to show how [to save these] healthy places and let’s combine it with your storytelling and reach and inspire the countries in these places to convert them into large marine parks and save them before it’s too late. Let’s call it Pristine Seas. And they said yes!” says Sala, as if he cannot believe his luck.
He became one of the Society’s explorers-in-residence — pre-eminent members of its explorer community who can draw on institutional support and funding to advance their projects.
Pristine Seas works with local communities, governments and partners to protect the oceans from being degraded by human activities.

“The bad news is most of the ocean is over-exploited. We go to some of these places and see manta rays and sharks hooked on long lines in the Pacific, big nets on the bottom with fish in them,” says Sala.
“But the good news is that there are still pristine places left and almost all of the places we have been to are protected. We are working with countries to save all the pristine places which are left.”
He wants to convince countries that conservation can provide economic benefits.
“There is this myth that we cannot protect more of the ocean because we need to feed more fish to people. But the global fish catch has been declining since 1995. The worst enemy of fishing is overfishing. If you protect an area from fishing, the spillover of fish can increase catches around it.”
When he was 18, Sala wrote to Jacques Cousteau, a French oceanographer and the father of underwater exploration who popularised the wonders of the sea with his television programmes in the 1970s.
“I said I just got my diving licence. I want to work with you. I don’t want to be paid; I will wash dishes in the Calypso [Cousteau’s boat]. I got a very polite letter back saying we have more of a demand than places,” he laughs.

“Now, I have my own boat, my own team and we are going around the world to amazing places. We hope to help save these places.”
Now Sala and his team have been to many places that Cousteau never visited.
“The most amazing places are the remote, uninhabited places because the places without people are the ones where the natural world flourishes. These remote coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean are the time machines,” he says.
“It’s like going back 1,000 years, where you have large schools of sharks, giant groupers, so many fish, sometimes giant clams. In some places, 20, 30 giant clams per square metre, tens of thousands of birds nesting on those islands,” he says.
“At the bar I like to show this photograph of the sharks. These sharks have probably never seen a human before. They came and checked us out and after a while, they got bored and did their own,” Sala remembers.
“All of a sudden, there comes a thing, with one big eye, with this metal thing, and all our cameras. In these places, we are totally alien. It is like somebody came from outer space.”

When he is on expeditions, he works as the underwater photographer, with crew of 18 scientists and filmmakers and a deep-sea submersible.
He recounts trips to Dominica in the Caribbean where he swam with sperm whales, which sleep for only 15 minutes, the shortest sleep time for any mammal.
“On this occasion, they wanted to take a nap. There were these five massive animals, big as a school bus, hanging vertical in the water for at least 15 minutes. One opened an eye to look at us. Talk about alien creatures. It was a life-changing, otherworldly experience,” Sala says.
An experienced diver, he says that the only time he has felt scared in the water was when he became separated from the boat off Colombia while observing plankton.
Hammerhead sharks are among some of his favourite underwater creatures.
“Being attached to a rock so as not to be swept away by the current in the Galapagos Islands and watching a school of 200 hammerheads swimming was amazing,” he remembers.
Looking to the future, Sala finds it hard to be optimistic with the rise in CO2 emissions and banks withdrawing from climate change pledges.
“I believe in possibilities. Only 8 per cent of the ocean is protected and 3 per cent is fully protected. I want all the countries of the world to fulfil their commitment to protect 30 per cent of the oceans,” he says.