Underwater Facts

There was once an undersea post office in the Bahamas.

Crocodiles swallow stones to help them stay underwater longer.

Beavers can swim half a mile underwater on one gulp of air.

A hippo sleeping underwater automatically rises to the surface every ~4 minutes and breathes without waking.

A scorpion can hold its breath for up to 6 hours, allowing it to survive flash floods and even being submerged underwater.

An underwater forest off the coast of Alabama that is 50,000 years old was uncovered by Hurricane Katrina.

Harrison Okene was the ship's cook on the Jascon-4 when it capsized in 30 meters of water off Nigeria's coast in May 2013. All 11 of his crewmates died. He survived 60 hours alone in a 4-foot air pocket - in total darkness, in freezing water - before rescue divers arrived to collect bodies. When a diver swam through the flooded cabin with a headlamp, a hand reached out and grabbed him. Okene was alive.

Shackleton's ship Endurance was found in 2022, 3,000 meters down on the Antarctic seafloor - lost since 1915. The name still stood out across the stern. The freezing water had kept the wooden hull almost perfectly preserved for 107 years. Shackleton lost the ship in the ice - but all 28 men survived a 22-month ordeal and made it home.