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Kind: captions
Language: en

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Most of us don't think much
about the ocean's tides.

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Tide goes in, tide goes out.

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It's just some water moving

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because the moon and sun are pulling on it.

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But those words: "just some water" hide an
incredible amount of matter,

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and "pulling on it" hides an
unimaginable amount of force.

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And nowhere is that more obvious
than right here.

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I'm just north of the Arctic Circle in Norway,

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half an hour's drive from a town called Bodø.

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The land here is mostly what Douglas Adams
called 'lovely crinkly edges':

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and this particular lovely crinkly edge
holds the Saltstraumen Maelstrom:

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the most powerful tidal current on the planet.

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And the reason it's so powerful:

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that way is the sea.

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That way is a fjord, a tidal inlet.

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Twice a day here, the sea rises and falls
by about two metres,

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so the water level in the fjord tries to equalise.

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The catch is that pretty much all the water
it needs to do that,

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400 million cubic metres give or take,

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has to go through this channel.

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There are other routes that it could take,

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but the land masses make those slow and shallow.

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They're winding country roads

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whereas this is like a twelve-lane freeway.

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It's... well, it's a perfect storm.

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There's a huge mass of water on both sides
providing pressure,

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and the channel starts wide and
steadily narrows to the centre both ways.

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It's the right width, and the right shape,

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to create this maelstrom of whirlpools and
currents and vortices.

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What surprised me the most, coming here and
standing next to it,

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is how much it changes, moment to moment,
second to second,

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every little twist in the tide and the water

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creates a new vortex and a new boil.

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I had to get close enough to
stick my camera in on a long pole,

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and honestly?

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It terrified me.

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Tour groups can take an inflatable boat
out into the channel,

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and you'll see occasional fishing vessels
taking advantage

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of all the marine life
that gets shunted through here.

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But unlike the whirpools of myth and legend,
this maelstrom

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isn't going to pull a modern, bouyant,
powered boat down to the depths,

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although a swimmer on their own would be in
a lot of trouble,

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and a large ship might lose control and be
dashed against the rocks.

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But all this force, all this water,

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this is just a fraction of
what's being pulled around

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out on the ocean.

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It's just here it's visible,
it's on a human scale, it's threatening,

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so here we pay attention to it.