All Stories | Caro Santamaria Ocean

Conservation

How to Be a Good Tourist in the Ocean

Tourism pays for the marine park. Tourism also breaks the coral inside it. The difference is the tourist you choose to be.

Below the Surface

Muck Diving, the Sport of Looking Closer

No reef, no walls, no big blue. Just a patch of sand and some of the strangest and other-worldly animals in the ocean.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Komodo Indonesia 🇮🇩

Everything you need to know about diving in Komodo: Current-swept waters, manta rays, and reefs that pull you back.

Conservation

World Manta Day 2026: The First One With a Trade Ban

Three manta species now, and one global trade ban finally in force. The first World Manta Day where the law caught up with the animal.

Conservation

World Dolphin Day 2026: The Massacre That Made the Date

12 September 2021. 1,428 dolphins killed in a single afternoon. That is why the day exists, and why it is not a celebration.

Below the Surface

The 8 Best Places to Dive With Manta Rays

Eight manta destinations with the real seasons and conditions. Reef or oceanic, dive or snorkel, and the month you should actually go.

Below the Surface

Diving With Manta Rays: Giant, Curious, Harmless

Giant, curious and utterly harmless. What to know before you meet one underwater, and why restraint is what gets a manta close to you.

Conservation

Coral Bleaching Awareness Month 2026: The Recovery Gap

September is Coral Bleaching Awareness Month. Reefs now get four years to recover, not ten. What that means underwater.

Conservation

The Sachet Economy: The Plastic Crisis the West Doesn't See

The sachet economy puts 855 billion single-use packets a year into the world's poorest waste systems. How it started and why none of it can be recycled.

Conservation

International Whale Shark Day 2026: The World's Largest Fish

Described in 1828, and still the most mysterious animal in the ocean. One pregnant female studied in two centuries, no birthing ground ever found.

Below the Surface

Best Ocean Documentaries on Disney+ / Nat Geo

Attenborough's Ocean, Cameron's OceanXplorers, and the films that made real marine reserves. Sixteen of them, ranked, on Disney+ and Nat Geo.

Below the Surface

How Much Does It Cost to Learn to Scuba Dive?

Open Water runs $280 in Koh Tao and $850 in California. What the price covers, what it leaves out, and how to avoid paying twice.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Ao Nang Thailand 🇹🇭

Macro in the murk, blacktips at Phi Phi, a ferry wreck at 30 metres. Krabi diving from the mainland, with the costs and the seasons.

Conservation

World Krill Day 2026: The Animal Everything Depends On

86 species, in every ocean on earth. The animal that feeds whale sharks, whales and the biggest fishery on the planet, and almost nobody thinks about it.

Conservation

World Oyster Day 2026: The Most Damaged Reef on Earth

Oyster reefs filter the water, raise the fish and slow the waves. We lost 85 percent of them before we thought to measure it, and they can come back.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Cozumel Mexico 🇲🇽

Cozumel is drift diving over walls with 30m viz. Here's everything you need to know about this amazing diving destination

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Amed, Bali Indonesia 🇮🇩

Shore diving over black sand, no fight for a place on the boat. Nudibranchs, frogfish and ghost pipefish in 15 to 30 metres of viz.

Conservation

International Mangrove Day 2026: Blue Carbon Turns Ten

Ten years of Blue Carbon: How mangroves store more carbon than rainforest, raise the reef's next generation, and where restoration works.

Dive Gear

Scuba Diving Fins: What to Know Before You Buy

A professional diver's breakdown of what actually matters when buying scuba diving fins: foot pocket, blade, straps and stiffness.

Conservation

Coral Reef Awareness Week 2026: The El Niño Year

El Niño is back, 84% of reefs have bleached, and I know what that looks like on the descent. The honest version, without the sugar.

Dive Gear

Best Scuba Diving Wetsuits for Women

With women's scuba wetsuits, fit matters more than the logo. How to pick one, brand by brand, and where the thickness numbers mislead you.

Conservation

Hammerheads Just Won the Highest Protection There Is

Ecuador wrote the proposal. Panama backed it. Hammerheads just got Appendix I, the strongest protection this treaty offers.

Conservation

World Orca Day 2026: The Pods Where Every Whale Has a Name

World Orca Day is a reminder that even the ocean's top predator is not safe from us, and why protecting orcas means protecting us all.

Dive Gear

Best BCD for Recreational Diving: How to Choose

Jacket, wing, or travel BCD? Skip the mistake most divers make on their first one and pick the right design from the start.

Conservation

World Shark Day 2026: 9 People Killed, 100 Million Sharks

World Shark Day: celebrating and protecting the apex predators that hold the whole ocean in balance, and challenging the myths that put them at risk.

Below the Surface

Scuba Diving Verde Island: The Philippines' Best Reef

More marine life per square metre than the Caribbean or the Great Barrier Reef, dived with the operator working to protect it.

Conservation

Are Sea Turtles Still Endangered in 2026?

The green turtle just came off the threatened list, the first comeback of its kind in four decades. Two species are still waiting.

Conservation

What Is the Coral Triangle? The Reef That Feeds 120 Million

Coral Triangle Day is 9 June. The Amazon of the Seas spans six nations and holds more marine life than anywhere on earth.

Conservation

Ocean Conservation in 2026: What Is Actually Working

The first World Oceans Day under the High Seas Treaty. Ten days to Mombasa. The state of the ocean and what divers can do about it.

Conservation

World Reef Day 2026: The Year 84% of Reefs Bleached

Year four of the fourth global bleaching event, 84% of reefs hit. What conscious people and divers can actually do about it.

Conservation

The First Biodiversity Day Under the High Seas Treaty

Sixty-six percent of the ocean has been significantly altered. Today is the first biodiversity day under the new High Seas Treaty.

Below the Surface

How to Find Nudibranchs, Underwater Photography

Sea slugs that look like alien spacecraft. Most divers swim past hundreds of them on every reef dive. How to find and photograph them.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Playa del Carmen Mexico 🇲🇽

The cenotes are why serious divers come, underground rivers with infinite visibility. Bull sharks hold right through the winter.

Conservation

The Ocean Cleanup in 2026: 50 Million Kilos Pulled

About 1,000 rivers carry 80% of ocean plastic. The Ocean Cleanup has now intercepted 29 million kilograms before any of it reached the sea.

Conservation

The 'Protected' EU Waters Still Being Bottom-Trawled

Sixty percent of EU Marine Protected Areas are still being bottom-trawled. A 250,000-signature petition just landed in Brussels.

Conservation

Papua New Guinea: A Marine Highway the Size of the UK

Papua New Guinea's new Western Manus MPA covers 214,000 km² of the Bismarck Sea, the largest no-take reserve in Melanesia's history.

Conservation

Iceland Whaling 2026: 318 Whales, and the Faroes Still Hunting

Forty years after the moratorium, two North Atlantic nations are still killing whales. What 2026 looks like, and why it still matters.

Conservation

Verde Island Passage: The 2026 Fight to Protect It

A 2026 Filipino coalition is pushing Congress to give the world's most biodiverse marine corridor full ENIPAS protection.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Puerto Galera Philippines 🇵🇭

The healthiest reefs I have ever dived, inside the Verde Island Passage. Mimic octopus, blue-ringed octopus, nudibranchs everywhere.

Below the Surface

8 Ocean Documentaries Not on Netflix

Ocean with David Attenborough, Blue Planet II, Becoming Cousteau and Fathom: eight ocean films worth chasing off Netflix.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Marsa Alam Egypt 🇪🇬

A dugong grazing at Marsa Mubarak, snorkellers above and divers below, carrying on regardless. Daedalus lies 80km offshore.

Conservation

Five Weeks to Mombasa: Why Our Ocean 2026 Matters

The 11th Our Ocean Conference lands in Mombasa on 16 June, the first time the summit has been held on African soil. What divers should watch.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Malpelo Colombia 🇨🇴

The first orcas ever recorded here surfaced beside the boat. Hammerheads school in their hundreds, 36 hours out from Buenaventura.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Hurghada Egypt 🇪🇬

Eighty percent of the coral off the hotel coast is gone. What survives still delivers dolphins on more dives than any reef I know.

Below the Surface

Scuba Diving in Colombia Is Massively Underrated

Two coasts, two oceans, and every level of diver. From Santa Marta's reefs to Malpelo's hammerhead schools, the world's most underrated dive country.

Dive Gear

Underwater Macro Photography with the Olympus TG-6

The TG-6 is the macro setup most divers underestimate. Why buoyancy, and not the camera, is the thing that actually makes the shot.

Below the Surface

The 7 Best Ocean Documentaries on Netflix, Ranked (2026)

Netflix's ocean documentary catalogue, ranked: Mission Blue, My Octopus Teacher, Our Oceans, and four more. What each one gets right.

Dive Gear

Buying Your Own Scuba Gear: The Ultimate Guide

The six pieces of dive gear worth owning, what to look for in each, and the mistakes that cost divers money, from a dive professional.

Conservation

David Attenborough at 100: What He Did for the Ocean

Seven decades of filmmaking changed how the world sees the sea. On his hundredth birthday, what David Attenborough actually did for the ocean.

Conservation

The People Who Guard Malpelo's Shark Sanctuary Year-Round

A tiny crew lives year-round on a catamaran off Colombia, keeping illegal boats away from the world's most important shark sanctuary.

Conservation

Mission Blue Unites the Ocean Champions of Southern Africa

From Mozambique's manta rays to South Africa's whale routes, Mission Blue brought the ocean champions of a whole continent together.

Below the Surface

The Experience of Diving Malpelo with DivingLife

Eight days at sea on the Sea Wolf: the dives, the orcas that made Colombian national news, and why DivingLife for Malpelo.

Dive Gear

Scuba Diving Earplugs: Do They Actually Work?

Chronic ear infections were costing me weeks of work at a time. Vented ear plugs stopped them, and I have not lost a day in the water since.

Conservation

Egypt's Great Fringing Reef Is Now Officially Protected

Egypt just protected 2,000 kilometres of Red Sea reef, the coral system scientists call the most climate-resilient left on earth.

Conservation

Why Ghana's First Marine Reserve Matters for the Ocean

Ghana declared its first marine protected area, guarding spawning grounds and turtle nesting on the West African coast.

Conservation

Rapa Nui's Sacred Sea Becomes a Mission Blue Hope Spot

The sacred waters of Easter Island are now a Hope Spot, protected by Indigenous governance that has already held for generations.

Conservation

The High Seas Treaty Just Entered Force. What Now?

The High Seas Treaty is in force. The door to protecting international waters is finally open, and the hard part of it starts now.

Dive Gear

How to Choose a Dive Computer: 5 Key Factors

A $250 and a $1600 dive computer do the same core job. Here's how to spend knowingly on the one that fits your diving.

Conservation

Deep-Sea Mining Is Much Closer Than Most People Realise

The world is close to mining the deep ocean floor, before anyone can say what lives down there or what exactly we would be destroying.

Conservation

Cabo Pulmo: Where Fish Biomass Climbed 460% in a Decade

A fishing village closed its own bay and fish biomass climbed 460%. It is the strongest case anyone has made for no-take marine reserves.

Conservation

The Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event

The longest and most severe bleaching event ever recorded, and why the windows reefs need to recover are closing faster than they can use them.

Conservation

The Shark Fin Trade Has Not Stopped

Around 11,000 sharks are killed every hour for their fins, and new reef surveys show the ecological toll is still climbing every year.

Conservation

What Sunscreen Does to Coral

Common sunscreen ingredients damage coral DNA at parts per trillion, and most places in the world still have no rules limiting them.

Conservation

Seagrass Is Disappearing Faster Than Coral

It stores carbon faster than rainforest and raises most of the fish on the reef, and we have lost nearly half of it in under a century.

Dive Gear

How to Choose a Dive Torch

A good torch shows you the colour and the marine life that daylight hides. What to look for, what to skip, and when to buy one.

Conservation

Ghost Gear: The Nets That Keep on Killing

Lost fishing nets keep killing sharks, turtles and rays for decades after the boat has gone. They are a tenth of all ocean plastic.

Conservation

How Coral Gardening Is Bringing Reefs Back from the Brink

Growing coral from the colonies that survived and replanting it on reefs that are dying. Survival rates are high and the field is moving fast.

Conservation

Ocean Plastic: The Scale and the Solutions

Eight million tonnes a year, most of it from ten rivers. An honest look at which projects are actually working against ocean plastic.

Conservation

Marine Protected Areas: Why Protection Actually Works

Fully protected reefs hold 600% more fish, but most marine protected areas are paper parks. What separates the ones that actually work.

Below the Surface

Diving with Whale Sharks in Koh Tao, Thailand

Meeting whale sharks on the dive sites of Koh Tao, one of the best places on earth to get in the water with the ocean's gentle giants.

Dive Gear

Building Your First Underwater Camera Setup

A camera makes you slow down and see what was always there. How to build your first underwater setup without wasting money on it.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Koh Tao Thailand 🇹🇭

Whale sharks have cruised past more times than I can pretend is normal. Granite pinnacles, schooling barracuda, 27 to 30 degrees.

Below the Surface

Diving with Bull Sharks in Playa del Carmen

Every winter, big female bull sharks gather off Playa del Carmen in one of the most accessible big-animal dives anywhere in diving.

Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Santa Marta Colombia 🇨🇴

Octopus in the open, parrotfish asleep in mucous cocoons, and coral good by Caribbean standards, inside a park protected since 1969.

Below the Surface

Getting Into Freediving: A Beginner's Guide

What freediving is, the gear you need, which certification to choose, and how to find your calm on a single breath. Everything to start.

Dive Gear

How to Choose the Best Scuba Diving Regulator

Your regulator is your lifeline. DIN or yoke, the brands worth the money, the costs nobody mentions, and what a professional looks for.

Below the Surface

Diving the Salem Express

A passenger ferry that sank off Safaga in 1991, lying intact on the reef floor. One of the most haunting wreck dives anywhere in the world.

Below the Surface

How to Become a Certified Scuba Diver

From your first Discover Scuba session to Open Water certification, the complete step-by-step path, and what each stage of it costs.