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Since then Cousteau has grown into the dual roles of behind-the-scenes trip facilitator and on-camera presenter. Ocean Futures produced six hours of documentaries for PBS in 2007, and the Society has already completed two new segments for this year. Its next project will document how NASA studies crustaceans for many of its spaceship designs.
Predictably, however, Cousteau has also begun drifting toward her own personal interests. She’s been traveling to Mexico and Florida for one-on-one instruction in freediving, which she describes as “the truest way to see the ocean, without all the equipment and bubbles.” And last year, after wrapping production in Brazil for a documentary that returned to the Amazon some 25 years after her grandfather’s first visit there, Cousteau devoted herself to creating a community health project for the indigenous villagers in the Vale do Javari reserve, who had assisted with the filming. And she just inked a deal to copresent a two-hour segment on sharks that will anchor Discovery Channel’s new, science-heavy segment of its wildly popular Shark Week. “Ocean Futures is my priority,” she says. “But I also see so many other ways that I can put my skills to use for good. I feel like it’s my responsibility.”
A few weeks after the café lunch in Santa Fe, Cousteau settled into another stem of red wine in a little brasserie called Le Fétiche, one of dozens of seafood joints in the tangle of alleys that spiderweb out from the Vieux Port, in Marseille. Noting the veritable ocean of sea life on the menu, she pulled a Seafood Watch card from her shimmering silver purse and set to work determining what was safe to eat. The sea bass was out because it’s overfished, and the swordfish was likely high in mercury. Cousteau looked right past the poulpe à la marinière, saying simply, “I had an unforgettable encounter with an octopus in the waters off of Hawaii last summer.” Eventually she settled on the duck. After ordering and handing back the menu, she returned to the thought: “The more experiences I have in the ocean, the more I learn. Suddenly you realize that everything you do makes a difference.”
Spoken like a true Cousteau.
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