Origin Story

My name is Sruthi Gurudev. I’m a National Geographic Young Explorer, ocean conservationist, and aspiring eco journalist.

I’m sure most of us can immediately recall the imagery of the ocean: rush and the roar of the water, the briny air, or the glorious sound of a beachside salesman blowing into a queen conch. 

There is something powerful about an element like water: the fickle nature of the ocean surface, the sinuous forms of its waves, and how water enables us to traverse the world.

However, the perception that the ocean is “almighty” and impervious to human disruption needs to change. The evidence is clear: human activity has changed the ocean indelibly.  

I discovered this for myself when I visited the Great Barrier Reef in 2015. The experience I had there was one of the most sobering of my life. The coral reefs I’d come to see were not vibrant- they were bleached white. At that moment, it felt like I was confronting climate change for the first time. I looked at it, and as most things are under the ocean, saw that it was devastatingly silent. 

I quote from one of my personal essays, 

“The return from the dive was a disorienting experience. Once past the threshold of one element to the other, I couldn’t forget what I’d seen below, even as oxygen rushed to my lungs. As I stripped my wetsuit off on the boat and returned to the shore, I felt unsettled, consumed by a sensation of reverence and sadness for the ocean.”

Had I not witnessed coral bleaching directly, the effect of climate change on the ocean would not be as real, or as compelling, as it is for me today.

I created an e-magazine called “An Hour in the Deep,” to try and communicate the complexities, richness of life, the science and the storytelling about the ocean with young people. I try to engage readers by including features from ocean scientists, explorers, and changemakers to bring the reality of our seas in full force. Our oceans are filled with precious life; even inside a tide pool we can see that it is microcosmic. Imagine the entirety.