14 DAY TRIAL // Just like outer space, the ocean floor is a place few of us can hope to marvel at from a front row seat. The good news is that, every once in a while, we get to feast our eyes on videos showing what it would be like if we could explore these environments.
The video below, shot in the waters of French Polynesia's Tiputa Pass, which is a strait joining the Rangiroa lagoon to the open ocean, shows diver Guillaume Néry effortlessly and swiftly floating over a barren, rocky part of the South Pacific's floor.
As one can easily notice, Guillaume Néry is not wearing any diving equipment. No oxygen tank, no mask, no flippers, no nothing. Mind you, he isn't moving his hands and legs around as some might expect him to. After all, isn't diving kind of, sort of like swimming?
The reason this diver isn't moving but is nonetheless sailing across the South Pacific floor is that he is caught in a strong powerful current. That's right, it is the water itself that is guiding him on his journey over this strange landscape.
In case anyone was wondering, this video is the work of French film director Julie Gautier, who also happens to be Guillaume Néry's wife. Apparently, Julie Gautier made this short film hoping to show that the deep, dark ocean is much like outer space.
As Julie Gautier herself put it, “Just like in space, there is no more up or down, no more right side up or upside down. The ocean becomes the cosmos, man becomes a satellite, and the bottom of the sea turns into an unknown planet.”