Summary

The South Sea, or southern Pacific Ocean, from Galapagos to Antarctic, comprises a quart of the world's water. Yet is's barely known, being so vast and scarcely populated with humans, yet immensely with wildlife, largely in seasonal migrations, as with breeding birds etc. and their predators. In reality, the weather and currents are varied, not just tropical heat, and crucial, as even storms were for propagating species, which may then mutate, often bizarrely, resulting in extraordinary variety on over 20,000, often quite isolated islands. Man too evolved uniquely, most within a mere two milennia, resulting in the strangest cultural traditions. Easter Island testifies to their ecological fragility.